Christmas Movies

Here is a list of Christmas movies we have watched so far:

• Polar Express--wonderful animation, I highly recommend it for everyone with children to watch together with their kids! It was way better than I had thought, we all loved it, and it sparked my kids' hope that maybe Santa is real if we just believe.
• Santa Claus 2--We saw 1 a few years ago, and totally enjoyed this follow up, esp. the tooth fairy! And I decided to put the cloak that Mrs. Santa Claus wears to her wedding on my wish list.
• Christmas Carol (G.C.Scott)--We didn't make it through this one, wonderful story, dated filming, it didn't hold the kids' interest, they were all asleep within 10 minutes. We will give the Muppets version a try.
• Grinch the Movie and Grinch the animation--We watched the animation first, and the movie right after. I prefer the animation myself, but the kids love the movie. Unfortunately we made a mistake and rented the Japanese language version, and the kids were very disappointed, they like foreign movies in their proper language. But they still enjoyed the movie!

And here is our list of movies to watch--

• Elf--We saw this last year, totally fun and kid safe!
• Jingle all the way--Don't know if we'll get to it this year, but we want to!
• Surviving Christmas--Have no clue how this will go over, but we have it on our to-watch list.
• Jack Frost--We saw this last year too, a lot of fun!

And these movies I would like to see, but I know the kids will not enjoy them at all--

• White Christmas--What is Christmas without watching this classic!?
• Bishop's Wife (B/W version)-- I watched this every year as a child, and have only seen it once in the past 20 years. I'd love to see it again, Gregory Peck is one of my favorite B/W actors.

Merry Christmas all!

A few more pictures from USJ--Art and the kids in front of the USJ globe, Art and I in line for Terminator, Jason and Julia posing with some character I don't know, Me and Janni in a rare mother/daughter shot, and the kids talking with Lucy at Snoopy's pavillion.

Trinity

Here's a couple pictures of my first little niece, Trinity! We love you Trini! You're absolutely adorable!!

Phantom of the Opera

It's been a long time since I saw a movie that so moved me emotionally. Perhaps I'm just in an emotionally sensitive state, I don't know, but this movie got me. I saw it twice in 24 hours, and I could see it again. I need to get the book, I need to understand what is going on. Why is the phantom so taken by Christine, and does Christine actually have some feeling for him? Does he destroy it when he tries to force her love? But then he lets her go, what happens to him, and to Christine and Raul. We know they married, she lived to a good age, but does the book go into the emotions and the happenings deeper than the movie, or is the movie a romaticized version of the book? Like Man in the Iron Mask and Three Musketeers?

Favicon

For those of you who know what it is, I added a favicon in the address bar for my blog here. You'll see a small snowflake picture next to my URL, and I know if you use Mozilla Firefox, you can drag that icon down to the bar right under the address, and drop it there, then you can always fast-click to my blog--yeah!!

Me and the kids

Here I am with my little gang at USJ in front of a Christmas tree. We had a really wonderful time and plan to have many more throughout the year!

USJ

We decided to do something different for Christmas this year and give the kids a one-year pass to Universal Studios Japan. Here's the entrance to the park, all made-up for Christmas.

The Accident

Unfortunately, Jason and Julia's beanie babies had an accident and had to be wrapped up for safe-keeping, until Jacq got ahold of them and ripped off the bandages--savage beast!

Recent Finished Cross-stitch

This adorable Santa took me about 6 weeks to finish, I think. I haven't decided yet what to do with it, a cusion, or a bag, or framed on the wall. Any ideas would be wonderful.

Janni the Dancer

It was hard to get Janni in a pose, what is it with growing older and pictures, they don't really like to smile anymore.

The whole dance troupe

Here is the whole troupe, minus two. They put on a pretty fun show!

Some more of the dancer

A few more of Julia the dancer before her big show.

The Dancer

The girls had their first-ever dance show, here's Julia in costume before the performance.

A day at the park with our friends, Ken and Jo.

Jacq and Janni

Janina and the ever-growing Jacq, out for a day at the park.

Birthday Time

Here are Janni and Julia with their friend Emma for Emma's birthday party! Happy 11th Emma!

Smiley Boy

Just a joke. It's very hard to get Jason to smile for pictures, we usually end up with a scowl of some sort.

Posing Pretty

Here's Julia posing just for us, out at the local rice patties near our house.

Jason's thank you note

Here is Jason's thank you note to everyone who sent him a present for his birthday. He got himself a Pokemon card set, and an electronic kanji dictionary, which he is very happy with.