Cheetahlicious!

Well as you may (or may not) know....Madison got tickets to see The Cheetah Girls for her birthday. Well the concert FINALLY got here. I must say we had a GREAT time. It was a mom/daughter date....oops I mean night, madison has told me not to call it a date LOL.

Before I go on to tell you about it....I have to say something. I was in a bind. This concert was the ONLY thing Madison wanted for her birthday. But I couldn't swing the tickets AND the trip to Chicago to see it. A wonderful angel who prefers to remain anonymous stepped in and insisted she help me out. I can't express my thanks enough to her. Without her this would not have been possible. She says it's just what she does. But she made one little girl VERY VERY happy!!

Now back to the concert. We had awesome seats. We could see the stage really well. Now of course just being in The United Center was awesome to me. I tried to take a pic of the flag hanging with Jordan's name/number on it, but it was hidden. But I saw it and thats what matters. LOL.

Ok Ok...Back to the concert. The opening act was The Clique Girls. I thought they were really good. Madison could have cared less. Of course later when we got back to the hotel and she looked them up online and found out one of them was 12....THAT made them cool. LOL.

After them, they had a 20 minute intermission. During which Madison insisted on a photo shoot. My little superstar in training. Well then the Cheetah Girls came on and they put on a GREAT show. It was even better than the Party's Just Begun tour. But the coolest part came about halfway through. The song came to the end and they disappeared down into the stage. We assumed they went to change. Well the Cheetah Boys (the male dancers) did an act and then they came dancing down the aisles. That in itself was exciting. Then all of the sudden we are surrounded by bodyguards. The Cheetah Girls popped up out of a second stage RIGHT BEHIND US. Oh.My.Word. Madison was sooooo excited. Well the guards started making sure people were behind the invisible lines so I knew what was coming. I pulled Madison over to me (I was on the aisle seat) and sure enough the Cheetah Girls came singing down the aisle. RIGHT BESIDE US. It was truly exciting. I think I was as excited as she was. LOL I know. I am weird. Well Madison actually touched one of them.

Anyways the concert was awesome. We had a lot of fun. The bad part was having to walk 4 blocks in the freezing Chicago weather to get to the car. And we had a few brief moments with my brother before we took him home. All in all I rate the trip an A+

Now....as weird as I am....I took over 150 pictures. I was so excited to get good shots I couldn't stop. So indulge me as I share a ton of pictures. Not nearly the 150+ that I took...but a lot none the less.

My unofficial official movie review....

Of Twilight of course ....what else would I pay that much money to go see?? LOL

The movie was good. It wasn't the book. It wasn't near as good as the book (but did I really expect it to be??). But it was good. I will definately see it again. And I will probably buy the DVD. But I would be lying if I didn't say I was slightly disappointed. I felt they rushed through too much of the storyline. Everything went much too fast for me. Plus I don't think they really built up the Bella/Edward storyline the way the book does. It was hard for me to wrap my head around them being so desperately in love in the movie. The book did a much better job of building it up.

And I have said from the get go that I was disappointed with their choice for Edward. He just doesn't fit my mental picture.

And then there were things that just totally didn't make sense compared to the book.

But don't get me wrong. The movie was good. And I probably would have loved it had I not read the book first (a mere 3 times lol). I just don't think there is a way to possibly capture the feeling of the book. So with that in mind, they did a good job. And I expect New Moon will have a much bigger budget and will probably be a much better movie.

So there ya have it. My unofficial official review. Take it for what its worth.

Imagine MY Surprise!

Every year the Britches do a Secret Sister exchange at Christmas time. I wasn't able to participate last year but was sooooo excited to take part this year.

So the other day I check my mail and my gift is there. Terri had my name. And she is soooo awesome. She even included some special treats for Madison.

Madison got some Camp Rock lip gloss/nail polish etc. She also got a High School Musical 3 Calendar.

And me? Well mine was the BEST gift I could have asked for. I got a Twilight Calendar and a Twilight Edward T-shirt. Which I wore to the movie last night! :)

Terri is such a sweetheart. She really sent the BEST gifts. I just had to share. Here is a picture of all of our loot.

And here is Madison with her stuff:

THANK YOU TERRI!!! I hope the person I had is as happy with her surprises as I was!!

I've been redecorating!

My blog that is. How do you like it? Visit The Cutest Blog On the Block to find more great blog designs. But I must thank Junie aka Brandi. She is the one who pointed this particular one out to me. And she helped me to install it. She's just awesome!

So as you can see I am *all about the Edward* LOL.

I know I need to continue my ABC's. I've just been going through a lot. First I was down with my back for a week. Then I got the cold from hell. So now I am backed up in 'To Do' stuff for Ebay. So hopefully I will get around to it sometime this week. But no promises.

I will share a bit of my life lately. Aside from being sick and injured. My friend Kris and I took Madison and her BFF to see High School Musical 3. It was really really good. I think it was their best yet. But thats just me. Madison just said "That Rocked". So I guess she liked it LOL.

Ebay is going well. I have a pile of toys to list, as well as two boxes from clients. Hope to be all caught up in a couple days here.

And Madison had decided to quit cheerleading. Which wasn't a shock even after I spent all that money. But then her coach sent a really kind email and she decided to go back.

Other than that, its been pretty uneventful around here. Can you believe its 35 days until Christmas?? Oh. My. Word. I am soooo not ready.

Well I must head to bed. Thanks for keeping up with me, even when I can't keep up with you.

Counting down the days....

As you SHOULD know....Twilight the movie is released on Friday. Oh how I wish I could go. But since I am dragging my mom with me...I have to wait until I have someone to watch Madison. Sooooo I am going on Monday. I am soooo excited. FINALLY Edward!! Maybe not "MY" Edward....but Edward nonetheless.

So I am now counting down the days until Monday.

Only 6 more days.

Oh and April....Hands off...hes MINE :)

P is for.....

PARTY!

Today was Madison's very belated 10th Birthday Party. She never likes to have it in September because school is just starting and noone can ever come. So normally we do October. But October was way busy so November 2nd it was! Since it was Halloween weekend....we did the Halloween theme. What else?

We ended up with a total of 9 girls in our basement. Though it sounded more like the 25 she invited LOL. It was rather late notice for a party so I was pleased with the turnout. I hope you will indulge me in a LOT of pictures from the day! Please ignore the two different colors on the walls in the basement. It is a work in progress (Yes Claudia I am STILL painting and its now November lol). Now on to the pictures....

First lets show the decor I worked so hard at that the girls tore down in less than an hour lol

And of course her BFF Tori came early to hang out and have fun while they waited on guests. They used this time to play with the new Karaoke machine her dad got her for her birthday. I swear if I heard Alvin and the Chipmunks sing Witch Doctor one more time I might scream.

Now of course the next best thing to decorations is food! I went all out. It took many hours and killed my back. But alas the girls could have cared less. Except they did like the gummy rat on the cake. Go figure.

Here is her cake:

And I made Cheese Fingers. They look MUCH better in person. The picture doesn't do them justice. These little fellows took an eternity.

If we have fingers, we have to have toes. So we had Bloody Monster Toes. These weren't too hard to make and the kids seemed to enjoy them more than anything else. Well except the cake.

And apparently I am just seeking punishment. I decided to make popcorn hands. Another time consuming item. And would you believe I made 20? And after the party ended I still had 20.

This picture is a little hard to decipher. My mom made her famous New Years Eve Punch. Yes its non-alcoholic LOL. Well I made frozen hands to stick in the punch. You can sort of make it out here. The second hand, I am sorry to say, was amputated. He ended up looking like he was giving me the finger. I did stick the spare fingers in the punch though.

What's a party without games? The girls really enjoyed their games. The first game they played was keeping the balloon in the air. This was an impromptu game they started before my "official" games began. They had a blast with it. Maybe I should add it to future party games.

Well once my games started, we began with What Am I? I placed Halloween words on sticky notes on their backs and they had to walk around asking questions to try and guess what their word was. It took a nose dive after about 10 minutes. I realized they were getting bored when someone told someone else "Your name starts with an S, you are dead and you have no skin" Yea, that wasn't in the rules LOL

Now this game they had fun. We had a Candy Corn Relay race. They were in teams and had to carry candy corn in a spoon from one bag to another. The team with the most in their bag at the end of time won. They really got into this. You should have heard the screams and cheers going on.

By far the MOST popular game was Mummy Wrap. We had to play it several times. They divided into teams. One person was the mummy and the others had to wrap them from head to toe in toilet paper. The catch is they had to use ALL of the roll. The other catch that was unintentional was it was cheap toilet paper and kept tearing up LOL

Madison's personal game of choice was Freeze Dance. They had a really good time with this. I think they played it 4 times. I got quite a few pictures but in the interest of saving us both time, I am just sharing the one of Madison getting her groove on :)

Here are just some random shots from the party:

And of course singing Happy Birthday.

And a few of her opening presents:

Well folks that is it. And I swear after tonight I am changing next year. I'm gonna get a big empty room with some balloons, music and paper to tear down. I am going to sit out a cake, some chips and candy. And I am going to say go at it. LOL. It's funny how much we plan when really the kids have an idea all their own.

But the most important thing: They had FUN. At least judging from the laughing and screaming they had fun.

Thanks for sharing in my day :)

O is for.....

Opportunity.

It always seems like once an opportunity presents itself and then I get hopeful, something falls through and crushes it. They say when one door closes another one opens. Well I've been waiting on that dang open door for a very long time. Where is it?? I get so close and then, BAM, the door closes before I get through.

Don't worry I am not feeling sorry for myself. I know things will fall into place how they should. I've learned that much in my life. It just seems it never is the way I think it should be. Know what I mean?

So I am back in that long hallway of life. Full of closed doors. Just waiting on one to open. To stay open long enough for me to slip through it.

Wow I sound pathetic. Good news though. Tomorrow you can expect a long post all about Madison's very belated Birthday party. So it will be a more cheerful post.