MI-5

pat and i watched the season finale for season 3 of MI-5 last night. MI-5 (or spooks at the brits call it) loves explosive season finales, but this was the biggest ride so far. boy, it took me a while to settle down after watching it.

might i say one of the best things about MI-5 is that it first starred mr. darcy from the keira knightley pride and prejudice, then when he left the show, they replaced him with frederick from materpiece theatre's persuasion. really, does life get better than that?

post edit: ok, and when i went to look up the website for MI-5, it appears that now mr. thornton from north and south is also a regular. i sooo want to meet the casting director for this series!

p.s. you can watch "north and south" and "MI-5" instantly on netflix.

february break

in all my catching up on five months worth of blogging, i forget to mention my girls trip in february. my parents took the girls with them on their annual skiing trip to utah. they stayed with pat's mom and were able to build great memories with the hinckley side of the family (and mine too).

my parents took the girls skiing for a few days. this was gracie's third year, and lily's first. lily was fearless (as usual) and ate it all up (as shown by pic on the collage below - i just love that smile.)

from what i hear, grace is doing quite well on skies; although, she is a more cautious child than lily - or should i say more reasonable child?

waiting to get on the lift with papa.

skiing down the mountain with nanna.

all geared up; ready to go.

my brother and his wife came down from idaho and the girls had a wonderful time goofing off with them. this might be a good time to mention that gracie's nickname "gigi" comes from abbreviating the phrase "gracie goofball."

one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip was to go babysit cousin mallory twice a week. seriously, the girls loved doing this and was always one of the top two things out of their mouths when asked what their favorite part of the trip was. looking at the picture below explains it. mallory has the sweetest disposition to match that face.

other highlights include decorating pottery with aunt carolyn, then being joined by cousin kait for a movie. of course, playing with nanna jean's (hinckley) amazing collection of dress-ups.

the girls took an overnight flight home. so we just went and got them at my parents' house the next morning. i was so giddy to see them that i felt like a kid on christmas morning. we even ended up waking them up because we couldn't wait any longer.

i always send the girls with money that i never see again. i don't think they ever need to use it with so many grandparents around to spoil them, but they do always come home with a sweet little token for us.

fritzy enjoyed the attention of being home with just mom and jake more than i thought he would. he was glad to see his sisters though when they returned.

april fool's

we had a fun april fool's day. i made this mock sushi to celebrate, but opted for no pranks. (much to my dad's dismay, i'm sure. my father attended a college known for its grand scale pranks, and was seriously proud when i almost inadvertently incurred a $200 fine for one of my college pranks at byu. his parents actually paid $200 worth of damages for one of his pranks while he was in college, but that's a story for another day.)

the sushi was actually rice krispies treats with gummy worms in side and a fruit roll-up wrapped around it.

something only the kids would enjoy. (i ate just the rice krispy part.)

when grace came home from school, she declared how happy she was that i hadn't said what i always say on april fool's day yet. i went totally blank on what she could be talking about and after pestering her for a while she finally told me. yes, she was so right. i almost always walk around on april fool's day saying "it is my day to fool everyone else. no one can try to fool me." it's a good thing that i didn't say that this year as amanda totally fooled me. i'm actually embarassingly gullible as was evident when i tried to make this thai soup recipe last night. i couldn't find the thai seasoning that the recipe called for. after doing some research, i found that fish sauce was a common ingredient in thai food; so i bought it and tried to make my own variety of the soup. i was extremely gullible to think that i would tolerate fish sauce in a meal when i dislike fish. i used half the amount the recipe called for and still felt like i needed to drink a whole bottle of pepto bismal 2 hours later. luckily, i hadn't put the chicken and veggies in yet, so i just dumped the soup down the drain and started over with a tried and true mexican recipe i like. so anyone (who lives near me) want some fish sauce?

oh, and to conclude, i thought i would put a pic of my april's fool. (zucchini courtesy of my sister's garden).

a must see

let me preface what i am about to write by stating that i never cry in movies. (it usually takes "shirley maclaine in terms of endearment type of acting" to get me to shed tears unless of course, i'm pregnant- but i digress.) this past weekend, pat and i thoroughly enjoyed lars and the real girl. i had wanted to see this movie when it came out, but abstained because i was worried of the nature of the jokes based on the premise; it's about a shut-in man who orders a "special" doll over the internet. i decided to put the movie on my netflix queue after i read a great review from a blog i love to read. first off, this movie is totally clean!!! except for the real nature of the doll, it is a PG movie. (the real nature is hardly referenced and certainly not how the doll is treated in the movie.) but that is not why i loved this movie. it is ultimately a movie about the goodness of people. you get the feeling that lars lives in a frozen tundra, but yet you want to move to this place immediately because of the sense of community and goodness in the people's hearts. it is all done so beautifully - the movie truly is surreal at times. after first laughing hysterically when he introduces his "friend" to his brother and sister-in-law, i found myself with silent tears running down my face through the remainder of the movie. you can find mr. ebert's review here. let me know if you've seen it or watch it and what you think!!!

beginning of mr. ebert's review: How do you make a film about a life-sized love doll, ordered through the Internet, into a life-affirming statement of hope? In "Lars and the Real Girl," you do it with faith in human nature, and with a performance by Ryan Gosling that says things that cannot be said. And you surround him with actors who express the instinctive kindness we show to those we love.

post edit: and to state the obvious in case you don't know me, i'm not pregnant; those tears were genuine.

spring break

grace has been off of school this past week. we've had a relaxing week of not getting up too early (still had to get jake to school, but his bus is later), watching movies together, reading, playgroup, playing outside when it was warm enough and a special lunch date with dad on friday. on thursday night, i took lily and her to the ballet. the russian national ballet performed "cinderella" at nearby UConn. it has been a long time since i saw a professional ballet (usually see local productions). i had forgotten how a ballet company has such fluidity and at times the whole motion on stage flows with the music. it had also been a while since i've seen a ballet that seem to have male dancers to spare - and everyone of those male dancers could have been greek statues their muscles were that pronounced (except for the one played the stepmother -that is- we never saw his legs!)


here is a picture from the website. i have to say the prince holding cinderella's hand in this is NOT the prince she falls in love with.

spring hike

yesterday was so beautiful, we went on a little family hike. shoes were muddied before pat and i could get the jogging strollers together. the kids also spotted this snake by the creek and called us to look. we came across a much more aggressive snake later on a walk that gave us some good arches before slithering away.



who knew my kids were such posers? we had quite the photo shoot on the way up.

reaching the summit (if you can call it that; i do live in the northeast, people!)

i experimented with the light while i took pics of grace. gracie would have definitely been one of those pioneer children "who sang as they walked and walked and walked" - which is what she did. (i would've been too for that matter, as would my mother. i have fun memories of singing "the band played on" with my mother while we walked places when i was a kid.)

Quote of the hike:

lily after just slipping on a log: "mommy, you know why i fell?"

grace: "lily, you fell because there was not enough friction."

ok, then.

february road trip

at the end of february, we went down to maryland to visit with my aunt, and see pat's sister-in-law's art booth at the american crafts fair. we had a fabulous time with our family. the fair was huge and it was amazing to go around and see all the booths. i especially enjoyed seeing my sister-in-law's (susan) work up close. the kids loved the kinetic marble art pieces and we would spend a good 20 minutes per visit at that booth. the girls also found another artist that gave the lifetime pass to touch her handmade beaded vases after giving them instructions on how. the girls could spend 20 minutes or so there as well.

here's all the hinckleys at susan's booth.



the girls with the artiste.

gracie with pat's brother, russ. russ and pat sound alike on the phone. i think i almost thought russ was pat once.

hanging out in the lobby.

feeding the birds (and ducks) at the baltimore pier.

the kids and i with my aunt pam at the pier.