Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Tonight boy #3 and I were home alone together and so I rented Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium for us to watch together. It is a magical sweet story about a magic toy shop and learning to believe in yourself and your potential. Dustin Hoffman did a wonderful job at playing Mr. Magorium and Natalie Portman did well as Mahoney, his apprentice. I give this one a big thumbs up for the whole family.

Fireproof - Movie preview

Awhile ago I reviewed the movie Facing the Giants on my blog. It is a christian based movie about football. Well one of the members of the PR team for that movie commented on my blog tonight that they are coming out with a new movie called Fireproof in the fall. I just watched the trailer for it and it looks interesting. You can check it out at www.fireproofthemovie.com . I like to support movies that are clean and teach a good lesson as this one seems to do.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Yesterday, my husband, our two oldest boys and I went to see the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It was well put together and exposed the censorship that goes on in the scientific community, specifically against those who are coming to the conclusion that there must have been an intelligent design in the creation of life. For a field that is supposed to encourage questioning, it is certainly being discouraged, especially if that questioning seems to go against the conclusions of darwinists. The oppression seems to be so bad that some scientists will not go public with their findings for fear of losing their research grants and even their jobs. This is a must see, no matter what your beliefs are concerning the origins of life. I would say that those in their teen years and up could learn a great deal from this documentary.

Life around Here

It has been quite awhile since I have written anything here, it may be that the few readers I had have given up on me. It seems that time just flies by and I am not sure where it all went. Lets see, we have done pretty well with keeping up with school. I am very pleased with how the boys writing is coming along. We have been using video courses from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I am not confident in my writing abilities and was not sure how to help the boys develop their skills, this course has lifted a heavy burden from my shoulders. We are plugging away at all of our subjects and learning much. All of my boys are reluctant learners and reluctant writers and reluctant readers. This can be trying at times, especially because they are more than able - but just don't have the desire. It has helped that we use the Ambleside Online booklists for literature suggestions - the boys, though reluctant, enjoy the books.

Along, with plugging away at school our oldest son is working his first job at a local fast food restaurant. This has brought more changes into our family life. The job has been a good experience for him as he is learning time management skills and responsibility.

With the coming of fall, came Thanksgiving. We were supposed to go out to my sister's house, but our son ended up having to work and so we had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner at home and played games as a family. My mom joined us for Thanksgiving and spent the night with us. The day after Thanksgiving, our daughter, oldest son and I went shopping a little after 5 am. We went to two stores and purchased some clothing, a couple of games and a few items for Christmas and treated ourselves to our first Peppermint Mocha of the season at Starbucks. It was the first year in several that we weren't able to join my sister for our shopping expedition and she was missed. After our shopping trip, we took the boys and my mom to see The Bee Movie. Although it was cute, I would say wait until it comes out on DVD. Fall is speeding by and now we are almost at Christmas.

We are now in the midst of the Holiday whirlwind and I feel like I am being swept along with it. We are making some changes in how we celebrate the holidays this year and I am feeling good about them. We are trying to scale back on some of the activities and the gifts. My side of the family is having our Christmas Dinner on the 9th and this year we are bringing gifts to donate to Toys for Tots instead of giving gifts to each other and I am excited about that. Well thats some of what we have been up to over the past couple of months.

Zoom! and Bridge to Terabithia

I know, I know, it must seem like all we do is watch movies - truly we don't, but over the weekend we did get to watch two that we really enjoyed.

The first is Zoom! starring Tim Allen. It was a great movie for those families who get into super heros. It is funny and also has its serious moments. Tim Allen plays a super hero who has lost his powers and whose team was killed by his own brother who turned evil after being zapped with radiation by a crazed general in the army. The story picks up with Tim Allen being brought back to the base, against his will, to train new recruits to form a new super hero team. It is a story of forming relationships and learning to care about others. The review on IMDB wasn't very positive but we really enjoyed this one. This movie is rated PG.

Our big boys were away for the weekend and so we treated boy#3 out to a movie and we chose Bridge to Terabithia. This was a moving story of special friendship and imagination. We enjoyed the movie very much. One warning: there is a very sad spot toward the end of the movie and parents of sensitive children may not want to take them to this one. We all got teary eyed, husband included. This movie is rated PG.

Updated to Add: Reviews of Terabithia by some young people can be found at Pink Flamingo (Hope of Shadybrook Acres) and at Christian Life in the 21st Century. Check them out and get their own unique view.

Movies

Our family doesn't tend to go to the movies very often. It sometimes proves to be cost prohibitive, but over the past couple of months we have been able to go to a couple of movies and rent another that I consider very good.

We went to see Night in the Museum which was a delightful movie for the whole family. It was funny and also pretty clean. There was a reference to us evolving from monkeys and a couple of parts that might scare sensitive children, but on the whole I feel like I could recommend it to most families. This movie is rated PG.

We also went to see We Are Marshall. This was a football movie based on a true incident that happened to a college in West Virginia. In this story the whole football team, with the exception of a couple of players, and most of the coaching staff were killed in an airplane crash. It is the story of how this college and community overcame the loss of so many lives and rebuilt their football tradition. It is an inspiring story and I highly recommend it. This movie is rated PG.

During this time we also rented Invincible. Yet another football story. This movie is based on the true story of Vince Papale, who overcame great odds to become a professional football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. The only thing that I can think of that might offend some people is that Vince was a bartender and some scenes take place in the bar. This movie is rated PG and we enjoyed it. It is one of the many football movies out there and another that shows a triumph over tremendous challanges.

Movie Review: Facing the Giants

Our family finally got to see the movie Facing the Giants. We had heard good things about it, but it did not play in our local theater so we waited for it to come out on DVD. Because of middle boy's love of football, most football movies are on our wish to view list. This movie follows one football season of a Christian highschool football team. It had some good lessons in trusting God and the peace that it can bring, also in focusing on what our purpose here on earth is. The movie was of good quality and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The one negative that I saw in Facing the Giants was that it could give the appearance that if we trust God, everything will go the way we want. All of the problems in the story ended up working out the way the people hoped and that isn't a true reflection of being a Christian. I wouldn't say that it was the BEST movie we have ever seen but it was good and I would recommend it to other families.

Pirates!

Last Sunday afternoon, we went to see Pirate's of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. We are big fans of the first movie and we really enjoyed this one as well. There were a couple of creepy parts that I didn't like, especially the opening scene, but for the most part it was a very entertaining story. Johnny Depp was as creative as ever in his character of Captain Jack and the costuming for Davy Jones and his crew were favorites of our whole family. Sensitive individuals may be upset by a few of the scenes that contain violence.