New Background, by Yours Truly

We just installed Corel Paintshop Pro Photo X2 on the kids computer! Dad had had it on his work one and transferred it. The new header and background you see are created entirely by me! I hope you like it!
I "simply" created a 2"x6" picture for the header. For the background, I used the instructions found at The Cutest Blog on the Block Many of you use their free backgrounds, but I took it to the next step and made my own. :)
Now I had a TON of fun with it (even though it took nearly 3 hours in all). So if any of you want to "hire" me to make a specialized blog for you, please tell me!

EDIT: Something else is up with it... if you view it on different size browsers its all messed up. I am going to work on that now.

SECOND EDIT: I've fixed the glitch. I'd forgotten the all important part of the HTML code: background-attachment: fixed; So everytime you look at it, the background would move around like jello in a car on a bumpy road. :)

Pride and Prejudice

It goes without saying that Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, is one of my favorite books. (Most girls will agree with me on this, but those strange males never seem to realise the genius of it). Fine Linen Drama is going to be preforming a play of Pride and Prejudice this spring. Poor, poor, poor me, I shall be moved, and I shall miss the oppertunity to act in a non-musical preformance of my favorite book.

We recently watched the latest version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightly. It was very enjoyable, but I think they could have done better. First off- its impossible to do a good interpretation of this book in a two hour movie. Just like Lord of the Rings, it demands good time to tell the story properly.

The characters and their development in the movie were very good and fairly true to the book. However, the casting left much to be desired. The actors did a wonderful job, but some of them just weren't right for their part. Lizzy and Wickham were cast fairly well, but Bingley... Not how I imagined him. At all. Mr. Darcy, at first, does not seem like a Mr. Darcy at all, but as the movie goes along, you can really see him as Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bennett just wasn't right- they messed up his character.

Most movies are very vague interpretations of their story, but this version of Pride and Predjudice followed the storline nicely. One of the best things about it was the dialogue. Jane Austen chose the perfect words, and the makers of this movie kept the original wording (except at the end). However, alot of the words are little-known, so I suggest using subtitles.

Its a good version to watch if you just want to get through the story quickly, or you love dazzling cinematography (the lighting, effects, and costumes were amazing). But if you want to see justice done to the book, watch the 5 hour BBC mini series.

 

Its been awhile since I've seen it, but it is worth the 5 hours. It is not as dazzling but does a much better job with the storyline. Plus you can follow it even if you've never read the book or a synopsis. (My brother watched the Keira Knightly version with us and was totally and utterly lost. Well, I guess he also hated it because its a love story)

Chandelier

Remeber that picture of the chandelier I took at the Fox? Papa fixed it up on Paint Shop and guess what? Well, I'll just show you. :) Click here

Half a Week in St. Louie

Ben and I stayed an extra 4 days in St. Louis with Grandma and Papa! Here is a picture I took of the arch. I didn't edit it yet...

We toured the brewery! That was really neat.

Grandma and Papa eat out for lunch and don't eat dinner. So we got to go out to eat every day! And we also got deserts each time. :) Even the time we went to Arbys. I got a Jamocha shake! YUM!

On Monday we ate at the Four Seasons Hotel restraunt. It was so fancy. They had fresh ham and sushi at the buffet bar! I ate so much I could hardly move, and I wasn't hungry for dinner or even much breakfast the next morning. We looked around the hotel, at least the places you are allowed if you aren't staying there. Everything was so neat and fancy. The workers there opened doors for you (even car doors). Everytime they did that it made me feel like giggling, or pretending I was a princess. :) I think regular people need to hold doors more often. Then everyone can feel like a princess (or prince or king or whatever). Just like Rose said in The Shadow of the Bear: "Have you ever felt that there's a story going on that everyone is a part of, but not everyone knows about? As if the people you meet aren't just their plain, prosaic selves but are actually princes and princesses, or fantasical creatures who have hidden their real shape, who don't remember who they are?" (I'm paraphasing here, I couldn't find the quote in the book so I just went from memory)

There I go, rambling agin. *supercilious sigh* lol, look at me, being supercilious to myself! Okay, back on topic. Trip to St. Louis.

We also took a tour of the Fox theater. We took a ton of pictures, but it was dark so they didn't turn out great. :P They had this whole hallway where the cast would sign their names on the wall. I took pictures of a bunch- they had nearly every musical imaginable there. :)

This was the chandelier at the Fox. It looked tiny, even from the very top balcony, but it is actually 12 feet in diameter! It reminds me of the chandelier in The Phantom of the Opera. *shivers delightedly*

We didn't get to go onstage :( because they are working on the stage. Did you know that every show brings in its own stage floor? So that you can do all those disappearing things with trapdoors and whatnot.

We also went to the art museum (yay!) but half the stuff looked like it belonged in a history museum, and a ton of it was abstract (aka, utterly pointless blobs of paint in my humble opinion. One was these four celieng-high sheets of plain gray, shiny metal. And that is art...?) They had a couple Monet paintings, and several awesome realistic ones. I got a few ideas for artwork.

We did tons of other stuff, and had a Blast.

City Park

On Monday we went to the City Park in St. Louis.

Marcus and William's Birthday Party

After we went to Grants Farm we came back for Will and Mark's birthday party at Grandma's!

William spent the rest of the time at Grandma's playing his new Wii game. :)

And Marcus fell in love with his Nerf gun

The whole gang

(minus Grandma and Papa) At Grants Farm (above) and Cici's Pizza (below)

Grants Farm

We went up to St Louis the day after Mark's birthday. While we were there we went to Grants Farm! I think Marcus loved it.

We saw the "Elephant show"

During the "Animal Show", they needed volenteers for a "Rat Race". William got picked! The rat was supposed to race across his arm to the arm of the boy next to him. First, the man doing the show put the rat on Will's head. Then... he put the rat in Will's hat and put his hat on his head!

This was my favorite part- the rat crawled into Will's shirt!

Marcus loved the sprinklers over the sidewalk. I played with him in there, and I got SOAKING!

*drumroll* A TURTLE!!!

Papa and Addie

Little Marcus is 2!

Baby Marcus is no longer a baby- he is even starting to potty train! (and just barely 2...) He is fasinated with balls, cars, and trains. When Mom bought the shirt he is wearing in the picture, he stook stock still and stared. "Do you like it, Markie?" Mom asked. Immediantly he ran forward, grabbed it, and cried, "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba!!!" (Ball ball ball ball ball!!)
He loves to ask what things are, and repeat what you say. (in other words, he is finally talking) As I was pulling up pictures to choose what should go on the blog, he climbed into my lap and said, "Me-me! Me-me!" (Me) and "Ba! Ba!" (ball!). Then he needed to see pictures of everyone else: "Daddyyyyyy! Daddy!" "Ad-uh-enn" (Adelynn), etc. He is so cute!

He LOVED the basketball net. In the past he would make you lift him up to the real basketball net outside. The downside of that is that, once to started, he would never let you stop. Now he can play basketball all day long without straining people's arms. :)

CAKE!!! When he saw this picture, Mark started rubbing his stomach and then energetically jabbing his finger at the computer monitor. I think he likes cake. :)

Blowing out the candles... we had to do it twice, because he blew it out as Dad was in the middle of lighting it.

William's 11th Birthday!!!

I can't believe how old William is! Well, actually, I can, because he is acts older than 11, but still! He wasn't home on his birthday (Boy Scout Camp) so we celebrated it a few days late.

That hat is tradition- he got it at Trish's wedding a year ago and will not stop wearing it!!!

Lets see.... William is big into Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (as always). His favorite colors right now are red, black, and orange, and he loves being goofy. :) I think that runs in the family...

Chocolate cake with chocolate chips, chocolate icing, double chocolate ice cream, and chocolate milk. Guess who loves chocolate?

Playing his new game- Wii Sport Resort! It's amazing!

Will in his Gryffindor scarf I crocheted for him.