my birthday, waddle-eee-acha a la smiths & photos from the 70s

greetings, earthlings! i do hope this post finds everyone well. us mowrers are well, doing our thang. tonight is daddy & daughter dance night at ballet so right now it's very possible that matt has a pink tutu on...now that's a good visual. ANYWHO, here is a little post for you of january happenings.

for my birthday we met a few friends out for dinner and movie, we ate at the brewery and then hit up the multiplex for true grit (thumbs up, and i am not a western movie person). side note: matt and i also saw black swan a few weeks ago, but the more i think about it the less i like it. that's my two cents.

john, myself and shawn post din-din

mr. marty and mr. matt

i thought i had a few more photos of megan, amanda and jeffery and moni. oops. we had a nice time, though. good food and a good movie!

then the next night we got together with the smittys and the masons. shawn made these AWESOME corn fritters, they were so GOOD. they did not last very long.

the cute masons and their yummy fritters

you KNOW we love to play board games and after corn fritters, the games began! for some reason i was hot earlier in the day and had the air on. marty got cold. i turned the heat back on.

hoodies 4-ever

megan confident on her answer

shawn hiding her answers

and i have to say that tabby palmer created a MONSTER when she introduced me to the wii game just dance. i LOVE it so much. matt, being the thoughtful man he is, gave it to me for my birthday and i always try to get people to play it. so that night after board game time we went video game time.

tommy and i have a go

and i am not being a bragger...BUT i am pretty good. i was beating everyone until marty went against me. he killed me and was reigning champ the rest of the night. it bruised my dancing ego.

here we have megan and marty having a go at it.

then megan and tommy did a dance to an old-timey song. i had some free time so i made a video of them for your entertainment. it's no scorcese but it is entertaining.

waddle-ee-acha!!!!

and now some random photos from the 70s! a friend of mine posted these on facebook (thank you, leann!!!). i really like them because my dad is in some of them wearing a cowboy hat - as becce said, "YEE HAW!"

 

that is my dad on the right in the bottom right photo

a halloween party becce and i attended (i am catwoman and she was wonder woman)

pretty good costumes, and i totally remember this party

becce putting a choke hold on some poor puppy

here i am with leann, doing what i loved best - the pool

here is becce being cute

the neighborhood gang

and now...a few nuggets for you:

• will ferrill is coming to the office for an episode arc, should be funny
• i love stuff like this: times online columnist has a new book out that offers readers a guided tour through some of the most eloquent and beautiful sentences in the english language...here's an example (there is also a contest if you think you can make pretty words go together):  

ford madox ford (from the good soldier, 1915): "and i shall go on talking in a low voice while the sea sounds in the distance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars."

• i mentioned the book the hunger games a few posts ago, i have now finished the trilogy and i REALLY enjoyed the books - looks like they will now be a movie and will be out next year
• here's an interview with bobcat goldthwait, i've always found him funny
• mary ann (dipsey's wife and megan's mom) has a blog out! if you like to garden then boy oh BOY this is the blog for you. the paper had a little write-up and you can click on the image below to take you there or you can click here

• i'm pretty sure i am doing this race (along with amy and lauren) - anyone else wanna join us?
• becce sent this to me, you KNOW how much i love fake mustaches
• i also mentioned exit through the gift shop, the documentary matt and i watched a few weeks ago...it was nominated for an oscar and this street art has been popping up
• a college course on james franco? yes, please... 
• have you checked out google body? it is a detailed 3D model of the human boday, you can peel back anatomical layers, zoom in and navigate to parts that interest you
• you can download arrested development paper dolls here - i also read somewhere this week that the movie is back ON (buster is my fave)

• another awesome awesome thing from google: their art projecteurope. why, this afternoon i looked at the art in the london museum and had a lovely time - you can even save items you like in your own folder. here is one painting i really enjoyed...

portrait of a man, hans baldung grien 1514

and last but not least...IF you loved the sopranos THEN I IMPLORE YOU TO READ THIS, watch the clip below and THEN we can discuss - matt and i LOVE it 

alrighty, i can't end this without saying a BIG CONGRATULATIONS TO CARRIE AND SCOTT!!! he popped the question and she said yes! yippee! i am so happy for you guys! hugs and kisses to you!!!

more bad photos of me & good photos of little rock

happy birthday to cera (yesterday)!!! we miss you and love you SO VERY MUCH!!!

so...although we take a GAzillion photos of our doings, we do not have a family photo. so over christmas we asked cera to take a few in hopes that one would turn out. well, NONE DID and we are going to have to rock the photoshop on one to get it juuuust right. but this one right here is my favorite.

that about sums it up

this is my second favorite one, rowdy is pulling a hannibal lector look.

 

rowdyman loves him some fava beans and a nice chianti

and one more bad photo to grow on - ME. senior picture, casual style.

what am i looking at?

omg, i just realized i have a mini snooki bump thing going on with my hair there. nice. and in regards to old senior photos, i've seen better - i've seen worse. at least i am not wearing a bolo tie (AHEM, MATT MOWRER).

let's get on to the fun, for thanksgiving matt and i packed the car up with kids and necessities and hit the road. destination: little rock, arkansas. matt's grandparents live there, along with his aunt jan, uncle jim and their kids jeff (with wife mandy with kiddos james allen and baby timothy) and julie (not present this holiday, she was indiana with her honey bunny this year). we had such a wonderful time, it went by too fast.

grandma and grandpa got to meet little rowdy for the first time and our kids really enjoyed them. lottie especially liked crawling on grandpa's lap and rowdy enjoyed banging on grandma's pie pan.

anywho, see for yourself...

here we have lottie sue crawling all over grandpa

and here we have rowdy banging on that pie pan

grandma and rowdyman

grandpa carving the turkey

here i am eating something

matt and grandpa hard at work

grandma and mom hard at work as well

mom sent this photo to me, not sure why i had that look on my face

if you are a robinson girl then you absolutely do two things at a gathering. one is make a craft of some type. the last time we got together we made super fancy hats and this year we made super fancy bracelets. out of SAFETY PINS. oh, you heard me.

here we are making them one evening

and her we are modeling a few

the second thing it that we play some farkle, but i don't have any photos of that. but TRUST ME, we played it lots. i love it. grandma loves it so much that jan bought her a t-shirt that says "i sparkle when i farkle" - she is adorable in it! jan, i can't find the photo so if you could email it to me i will put it up. i don't know what i did with it!

also, please check out our ballerinas. jan gets to wear a pink tutu because she kicked breast cancer's b-u-t-t the past year. she is also currently training for a half marathon with uncle jim. way to go, guys!!! and oh yeah, lottie sue is wearing a pink tutu because she is lottie sue. 

GO JAN!!!

baby timothy tells grandma a funny joke

baby timothy being super cute

the men working on a church project for aunt jan

we had such a great time in little rock, the kids had a ton of fun and matt and i enjoyed visiting. 

miss you guys!!! smooches!

the same day we drove back from little rock megan called to see if we could make it to her parent's house for dinner. earlier i said no because i thought we would be worn out, but i could not turn that cutie pie megan smith down, so we went as soon as we got home from arkansas. glad we did!

tommy is about to fry a turkey

matt keeps rowdy safe from the fire

megan showing off said-turkey

mary ann wearing a bib

it was, as always - a great time. we are looking forward to the beach trip, it will be here before we know it!

then some other week when matt was out of town i went over to jo's house for dinner. she oftentimes feeds me and the kiddos when matt is out of town. year, she's a saint.

jo presenting blake's spaghetti

the palmers were there

thanks for the grub, y'all!

here's a thing we mowrers like to do, build a big pillow pit and jump or be thrown into it. the kids love it so it happens quite regularly. here are some photos...

a lot of those are blurry but we are moving so fast it's hard to get a good photo. we'll try to get better ones next time. lottie sue and rowdy LOVE the pillow pit. i highly recommend it.

and then i have these photos of the night lottie sue made her gingerbread house. i forgot to take a photo of the finished product though - bad mommy. it was cute though, trust me.

lottie sue about to decorate her gingerbread house

sugar HIGH

and as always...a few items of interest:

1. here's a neat story on a woman that has the job of picking out typefaces for books - i would love that job, btw

2. matt and i just watched "exit through the giftshop" - we LOVED it - truly fascinating (in a related story shepard fairey is off the hook in regards to his obabma/hope poster)

3. the freakonomics group discusses whether or not expensive wins taste better

4. here's a story on jonathan ive (he is the guy that designs for apple, he makes everything so pretty)

5. matt and i loved the movie the station agent, vanity fair has an interview with peter dinklage

6. angry birds is coming to a tv near you

7. woody allen has a piece in the new yorker

alrighty, i am burning through the past few weeks here. it will be SO NICE to finally get caught UP. blog to ya later, taters.