Prescreening Saints and Soldiers: The Void

I was able to get some free tickets to a prescreening of Saints and Soldiers: The Void on August 2nd. Mike was too tired to go so I took Noah with me, my mom and dad had tickets also so we all went together.

We watched the movie, which was really good and then we got to have a Q&A session with the writer and director and some of the actors.

We also got to meet them afterwords.

They gave everyone a poster that we could get autographed.

Noah was excited too because he won one of the prizes they had because he posted something on Instagram really fast. He got a copy of Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed.

It was pretty cool. I think we will try and support the movie and go see it when it comes out in theaters.

Dallin's Day

In order to make it as fair as possible, we put the kids names in a bag and drew one out each night at dinner for the next day.

Dallin's name was drawn first. 

Here are his choices for the day. 

IHOP for breakfast

See The Hobbit

Get popcorn and vanilla Sprite at the movie

Everyone wear mismatched socks

Kids draw names and do some Christmas shopping

Watch Minute to Win it

Uncle Jimmy

After my Grandma and my Mom and Dad all went home,
my Uncle Jimmy stayed to visit some friends who live out here. 

On Monday he drove to our place to visit with us.

This was great because my kids didn't really know him that well
...and they found out that he is a pretty cool guy :)

That night we all went to see The Odd Life of Timothy Green.

I thought it was a pretty good movie.

What made it even better was
 the fact that we had the whole theater to ourselves.

Thanks for hanging out with us for a bit Uncle Jim!

Hope to see you again soon!

Escaping the Dog Days of Summer

Last night we went to the free outdoor movie at the National Harbor.

We watched Hotel For Dogs, we were even allowed to bring Sasha.

She was a hit with many people there :)

Not a great picture, but you can see Isaac, then Grace, Anna is on Dallin's lap
and in the bottom right corner is Sasha and Noah.

It was a cute movie and a fun (free) family activity!

A week earlier on the 3rd, Mike and I went with some

friends to the Date Night Friday movie there.
(our view before the movie started)

We watched The American President.
...oh and before the movie we were entertained by a unicycle riding mime :)

It was a fun inexpensive date...it wasn't free because we went for dessert after :)

Noah Turns 14!

On May 5th Noah turned 14 years old.

We did some celebrating on the 5th, but we did his cake and gifts on the 6th.

On the 5th he got to take some friends to see The Avengers. They loved it...and I didn't mind seeing it again :)

I think he had a good birthday.

He put a lot of thought into his wishes and had fun with them.

Due to special circumstances he was allowed to use his wishes

on the 5th and the 6th.

Here are some of the things he wished for...

no chores

game day

to get the text free app

to get to eat a whole roll before dinner (i made homemade rolls)

for me to give him a little box of m&m's that I had

to use my iPhone for the day

(the first thing he did with it was to call Mike who was in the dining room, hehe)

light all his candles

an extra scoop of ice cream

extra Fablehaven

backscratches and songs

stay up late

sleep on the couch

This year he asked for monkey bread for his cake

 ...but he was lucky and had two "cakes." My good friend Monique watched Isaac, Grace and Anna, while I took Noah and his friends to the movie (Mike had Army duty all day.) Anyway, while she was watching them, she and the girls made another cake for Noah. Yeah, she is pretty awesome and the cake was delicious!

 He had fun opening his cards and gifts

He opened his gift from my Mom and Dad while we had them on Skype
(this picture made me straighten my kitchen computer area, yikes!)

Anna gave him a couple dollars

Isaac game him a few of his toys

Dallin had a pair of slippers that Noah really liked,

so Dallin gave them to him for his birthday...nice!

Grace gave him a card and some homemade coupons.

I don't know how I didn't get a picture of that...

Mike's mom gave him The One Ring
He was very happy about that
I'll just have to make sure he uses it's powers wisely, ha ha

His candy choice

 His book choice

 His main gift

Hard to believe how grown up his is getting.

14

A couple milestones come along with this birthday

He was ordained the the office of a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood

and he can now attend church dances, wow!

He's a good kid and bears the heavy burden of oldest child pretty well.

We sure love him.

Happy Birthday Noah!