Sing 2

For months, Alex has been obsessed with the movie Sing. He loves it. He is always singing along to the movie when it's playing, asking to watch "Johnny" (the gorilla) and laughing his little head off at all the jokes. We are talking head thrown back, mouth open laughing. he loves it.

For a while now, we've been debating whether or not he's old enough to take to a movie and whether or not he would sit through it or try and run about the place. Knowing how much he loved the first one, we thought Sing 2 would be an excellent test and oh was it a success... He loved it and we did too! 

What a wonderful movie. I couldn't even imagine how they were going to top the first one, but they did. It was amazing. It was bright and fun and kept everyone, toddler to us adults engaged from start to finish. Lots more fun songs and dancing. Highly recommend you watch it, I know we will be watching it time and time again!

 

go! have a little bit of fun

i am sure you can imagine from the past few posts that these school holidays haven't exactly been everything we dreamed of. school finished less than a week before christmas, steve was in hospital that whole time and we were back and forward, then he died just after new year and our lives have consisted of being back and forward from hospitals, funeral homes, cemeteries and the likes. i am not complaining, but the kids really haven't had any fun at all. in fact, it's been downright awful for them. their school holidays have been a bit of a downer.

so... when doug's uncle salevana who is still here from samoa decided he wanted to take us and the kids to the movies, we eagerly accepted and started looking for something fun to watch. we saw a few that seemed okay, but this one (go!) stood out to us. joseph is obsessed with any form of racing, this was full of high speed go-karting? win. it was filmed in australia? another win.

we really liked it. it was lots of fun, we giggled a lot... it had that great dry australian humour and lots of cute shots in busselton (a beach town about 3 hours drive from us) which helped make it even better. it was just what we needed to cheer us up. i don't think it would be everyone's cup of tea, but we enjoyed it. worth a look. 7/10

first time at the drive-in

can you believe i have made it to age 35 and had never once been to the drive in movies? it took running into a friend we hadn't seen for quite some time, (who had her grandsons staying with her for few days during the holidays - they are similar ages to joseph and madeline) to finally make it happen. they had planned to go and asked us to come along.

(sorry for the terrible shot - purely so i have a record of how it's set up)

i loved it! i baked a pile of stuff that afternoon to bring along so we would be well fed - (i mean i think i probably could have fed our friends and the car on the other side of us as well if i had wanted to) which the kids gleefully shared with us adults before settling down to watch the movie.

(side note, if you plan to really enjoy your night, ensure the movie isn't complete trash haha. the evening movie was angry birds 2. oh my goodness, give me strength.)

her royal highness madeline waiting for the movie to begin.

alex loved it too, but seemed a little confused as the night went on as to why no one had produced a bed for him to go to sleep in. he snuggled with both of us, but was not very comfortable at all - just wanted to go down for a proper sleep. also noted for next time.

it was such a cool night. i will 110% be coming for another movie at some stage. i excitedly told dougs dad all about it and he was so keen to come look. he told me all about the drive-in's he went to when he was younger (as did my dad when i told him! haha) and was loving it. i hope as time goes on he gets well enough for us to make it happen. there are so many things we still want to do with him. ❤

back to the future

when the kids were sick last week i decided to find them something to watch that we hadn't seen before (well, that they hadn't seen before) that would keep them entertained with lots of little easy jokes. to my delight, back to the future is now on netflix! all i had to tell joseph was that there was a cool car in it for him to agree... maddie was a little more hesitant, but loved it just as much.

i haven't seen it for years and years and i was surprised at just how funny it is and how well the three link together. other than a few choice words, it's very family friendly and is something i dn't mind them watching over and over, which as kids, is something i know they'll do.

joseph is now obsessed with needing a delorean hot wheels toy and has already watched the movies about 3 times each... he's talking about marty and doc non-stop... and it's going to be a looong set of school holidays.

aladdin

best. day. ever!

aladdin has always been my favourite movie, so i was thrilled (yet a little hesitant) when i heard they were making a live action version. we went to see it today anddddd i actually loved it.

i must admit the thing that made me the most hesitant was the genie not being robin williams. okay, i am not stupid, i know he can't play the genie as obviously he is no longer with us... but i was scared that someone else would ruin the part. when they announced that it would be will smith i was a bit.... miffed. i mean, everyone loves will smith, but he's a totally different kind of funny. but it worked. he made all the right jokes, threw in some funny references (including a few fresh prince ones that doug loved!) and made the character his own. the thing that i noticed the most though, was that robin williams, even if he were here, couldn't have played the part that way. smith is considerably younger than williams would be and he threw in so much movement and energy that i just don't think williams could have. he was different. and different is sometimes great.

i loved loved loved jasmine. i love that she had direction and ambition and knew that she wanted to make something of herself, purely to better her people. she was the best. most of all, i loved that disney gave her a song. it's always annoyed me that jasmine didn't have a song of her own - and speechless was incredible. i'm obsessed!

aladdin was great and i loved him. i loved that he was awkward and relate-able. he was an excellent choice for the title role. 

all in all, i would say it was amazing. the colours and scenes were incredible and i will 100% be watching it again - and again.

disney, you never cease to amaze me. you are absolutely incredinle! ♥

aquaman

we managed to sneak in a date night on friday night. after getting dougs mum to come and watch the kids, we went off to see aquaman at the local cinemas. baby alex enjoyed his third time at the cinema on daddys lap... he obviously has no problems with his hearing as he jumped multiple times during explosions and loud scenes. it was cute as, but i did feel sorry for his little ears cause there was a lot of them!

so, the movie? it was good. not great, but good. lots of good one liners and amazing graphics. basically it was a superhero movie. some of them are amazing... some aren't as amazing. saying that, i did enjoy it and i'm glad we went.

the highlight came afterwards, when we stopped it at the new diner, (made to look old fashioned, like 1950s style, on great northern highway,) joey's diner. it's just inside the swan valley sports club and it's amazing. super friendly staff, old fashioned diner food and a cute outdoor area. we loved it so much and will definitely be back... a great end to a great night!

mary poppins returns

(not pictured, almost 5yo who suddenly hates pictures)

as a little girl, i watched mary poppins over and over. we didn't have a great deal of movies to watch, back in the day when dvds still weren't a thing and hard drives hadn't even been thought of. but someone in our family had recorded mary poppins one night when it had been on television (ads and all) and i wore that video out!

i loved the music, the characters, the nursery, the admiral, the make believe and magic lands... but most of all mary poppins herself. (i've even dressed as her for two seperate halloween parties over the years i love her that much!) as far as i am concerned, julie andrews is the flipping queen of disney! it's a well known fact that she was hand picked by walt disney for the part and when she said she wasn't able to because she was pregnant, he said, "that's okay, we'll wait!" if that doesn't make you the queen of disney, then i don't know what does.

imagine my excitement when they released the teaser trailer and then trailer for mary poppins returns! i was hanging out to see it, and exactly a week after it was released, my mum took the kids and i to go and see it. so. flipping. happy! i loved every minute. emily blunt was perfection. her mannerisms, her singing, her accent (of course)... she was just ideal for the part. i'm just so glad she got to do it, because history repeated and she was pregnant when they chose her too!

*When Mary Poppins (1964) was being written, the lead role was offered to Julie Andrews by Walt Disney himself. Andrews told Disney that she was pregnant and couldn't do the movie. Disney wanted Andrews so much that he postponed the production in order to accommodate Andrews' pregnancy. When this movie was announced, the history repeated as Emily Blunt was also pregnant and the movie was postponed to accommodate her pregnancy.

i love to read the movie trivia for pretty much everything i watch, so i read on... only to have my idea of julie andrews being the queen of disney, cemented in place. she is so gracious!

*Julie Andrews turned down a proposed cameo appearance as the balloon lady, fearing that it would be too distracting. Julie said, "this is Emily's show, and I really want it to be Emily's show." Quite poetically, the balloon lady part went to Angela Lansbury, who had been considered for the role of 'Mary Poppins' in the original film before Julie Andrews was cast.

i also loooove this trivia. i loved bert so much in the original and it makes me insanely happy to know that dick van dyke has still got it at 93 years old!

*Dick Van Dyke was offered four options for his dance scene, each with a varying degree of difficulty. He insisted on performing the hardest dance routine and refused any help from fellow cast members while filming the scene.

i can't tell you just how much i loved the movie. i had read mixed reviews about the movie before going with the two major points being 1) that it's too long for children (not true, i have a 7 and almost 5yo and they were fine, other than fighting over who got to hold their baby brother for half of the movie) and 2) that it's a terrible remake. um, what? it's not a remake... i think it's important you remember it's a new chapter and in no way a remake of the original. it's so worth seeing and i enjoyed every minute. 

disney, you've done it again, walt would have loved it! ♥

(trivia points from imdb.com)

what an honour!

well the day has come, miss madeline received her first honour certificate today at their junior school assembly. it was adorable, they don't tell the kids beforehand, so she went up to get it with a look of absolute joy on her face, she was thrilled beyond words. of course i am a proud mum over here too... especially seeing as her teacher miss hannah said something so lovely about her "being a kind and caring classmate who is always striving to bring the best out of herself and those around her!" wow. lucky miss hannah has never seen her at home! hahahaha.

we celebrated (shhh there's no need for her to know that it was already planned) with the pinker girls this evening watching mamma mia 2 at the cinema. maddie and i love the first one and we have watched it over and over (and listened to the soundtrack in the car a million times) so it was a perfect movie to take her to. we loved it. i especially thought the younger cast were amazing, i feel like they got it so perfectly spot on when they chose the actors. it's just lovely. cheesy, but great. a definite must see if you like musicals!

my little pony: the movie

we checked out my little pony: the movie this afternoon with some friends. the movie was okay, the kids were not... i was about ready to resign as a mum. joseph is not doing so well being restricted in his sling (which has been upgraded to something he can't move about in and it's driving him crazy) and hence he's driving me crazy! he waltzed about the cinema here and there and decided at one point he didn't even want to watch the movie... while madeline wouldn't stay in one seat - and let's just say i didn't see a lot of the movie. it seemed nice, lots of bright colours, cute songs and... well, i guess we will be watching it on dvd on day so i can see what actually happened. 

oh being a mum is hard. i am hoping one day it pays off and as they grow up i'll feel like my hard work paid off. but, here's a picture of the girls looking all sweet and innocent (while joseph flat out refused to be in it...) to make it look like we had a good time. 

cars 3

dreams came true for this little man this evening. cars 3 was finally released in australia today and after months of bugging us to watch the previews and clips on youtube, this cars obsessed little man got to see his idol lightning mcqueen on the big screen. as you can see, he was completely thrilled to bits and was so so happy to be there.

checking out the fun stuff in the theatre lobby

it was a great family night and even though i'm a lot older than 3, i really loved the movie! i thought it had a great moral and was lots of fun for the kids... i'd totally watch it again.

i have to leave you with this quote i saw on facebook this week though, because it made me laugh so hard... does lightning mcqueen have life insurance or car insurance? think about that one for a while...

moana!

i am completely and madly in love with the new disney princess movie moana. from the minute it began and i heard the first cry to the land, i just felt so emotional and such a tie to it. if you are new here and haven't followed me for long (or ever... lol. i am pretty sure family and super close friends are the only people who are following along here) please allow me to tell you about my husband douglas. he was born in western samoa, a beautiful polynesian island to a samoan mother and a father from new zealand who has maori heritage. they moved to new zealand within a year of his birth, but finally years later in , we had the opportunity to travel with our little family (when joseph was just 7 months old!) in 2014 to upolo, his family island... and spend 2 weeks there with his mother, some of his extended family (who still live there) and my parents, who were serving a mission there at the time. 

we has such a wonderful time and i think douglas finally had the chance to see where he is from and who he really is... and most of all to finally know his people. i would go back in a heartbeat ,as we have such wonderful memories of our time there. it was so good for the children to spend time in the islands and for me to see where doug was from. 

moana is based on the stories of many islands, including those of the people of samoa. i was so taken into the movie and felt such a love for the story, the islands, the songs and the people. i can't wait to watch it again. please go and see it if you haven't already and treat your children to a good story about a beautiful group of people

movie day ❤️

there is nothing better than a catch up with friends you haven't seen for a while... mel and her kids went to new zealand for over a month and we were so happy to have them back and for the kids to hang out again while we caught up. joseph and analeah are always so funny today, i love this picture of them together and i seriously can't stop laughing at it.

these girls had a good time too... we cranked a movie in the theatre room and gave them a bowl of popcorn each, while we gasbagged away. 

straight outta nollamara

it was dougs birthday today... and it was also conveniently the australian release date of straight outta compton the movie about the nwa crew. he was dying to see it from the minute he heard about it, so it was the perfect birthday treat. 

i have to admit, although it wasn't eaxctly my thing, it was well done and certainly interesting... and i really quite enjoyed being educated about compton. haha. let's not get too carried away here.

we had an awesome time though, taking some mates along for the ride...

#squadgoals hahahahaha

madeline and joseph getting daddy's presents ready to unwrap.

happy birthday doug! the kids and i are so lucky to have you in our lives. thanks for all you do for us.

what we did on our holiday

we went on a child-free (thanks mum and dad) date with my best friend and her husband today, to event cinemas gold class to see what we did on our holiday. oh my word. i have not laughed that hard at a movie in forever. it was just classic british humour at its finest, that had all of us laughing from start to finish. i will not spoil it for you, but if you like brit humour, this is a must see. you will not regret it. 

please just trust me. you can watch the trailer here.

hunger games part 2

finally saw the hunger games - with mat & jen... last night. maddie thought all her christmases had come at once to see them, she'd been asking for jen non-stop for weeks (ever since we went up to visit and get the bassinet) "where's aunty jen? i go see aunty jen? i see the emu?" so funny!

i liked it! i thought it was very well done and thankfully followed the book quite well (i hate it when they ruin a good book by making it a movie... twilight? dead and buried.) the books really impressed me, i thought it was such a fabulously original concept... (even though it's such a sad story!) and i was glad to see the movies thus far have been quite true to them. 

jen and i were discussing the books afterwards - and i would like to make a prediction right now... we were stuck reading this ridiculous book called "animal farm" in high school and we hated every minute of it, (yes, yes i am fully aware of the fact that it's a "literary masterpiece" but the two of us hated it with a passion, it went on and on and on and on and onnnnn about a topic that could not have interested me any less...) but i think that in 20 years time, high school senior english will be reading "the hunger games". hopefully they will appreciate it as much as we did, cause it is great. so well written and one of those books that you really don't want to put down.

so - you read it here first - hunger games, coming to high school english! if i'm still writing in 20 years - watch me gloat.

winner!

i really want to say that i never win anything... but if you refer to one of my earliest posts here, you'd know what a load of crap that is. i have won a few things in my life... but right before christmas i got an email from goldmark about a competition they were running and the prize was "now you see me" on dvd. i am not going to lie. i am obsessed with this movie. i watched it like 3 times in a weekend when i first discovered it. so good. i am a sucker for all that magic/illusion stuff and i just love it. 

so off i went, wrote my 25 words or less of what my favourite item in the goldmark christmas catalog was and why pressed submit - and didn't think anything else of it, until the dvd arrived in the mail this week! go me! i was beyond stoked and may have already watched it. a few times. thankyou goldmark.

if you haven't watched it, go watch it now, i may or may not be watching it as i type this...

despicable me 2

cutest thing i have ever seen in my life? maddie's first trip to the movies. we took her to see despicable me 2 today and i just wanted to cuddle her the entire time. she was so adorable, sitting on her little booster seat, holding daddy's popcorn that was practically the same size as her... watching gru and the minions run a muck. she was completely enthralled, laughed at all the right places and was so well behaved that i wouldn't even hesitate to take her again. all in all, i was well impressed with her first go - she might even be lucky enough to get a second!! doug is thrilled with all the options of kids movies he is going to be able to see.

les miserables

doug and i just got home from seeing this masterpiece on the big screen. oh my goodness, it was incredible. i feel like i have suddenly understood everything that the story was really about, all the stories from each character, so much more about the characters and what was really going on! it was so amazing to see all the sets up close (which is always very difficult when watching it on the stage of course...) and the facial expressions and it was just - perfect. such a tragically sad story but well worth the watch! loved every minute!

kings park moonlight cinema

saturday doug, maddie and i went to the moonlight cinema in kings park with tickets that jen and mat gave us for christmas to see tintin. dad used to tell isaac and i tintin stories all the time before bed... full of hidden treasure, snowy the wonder dog (who had his voice box removed and then had woof woof tattooed under his paw to ensure he could still communicate) and albanian spies. always albanian spies. so who better to take along... mum and dad. :)

i love the moonlight cinema, you rock up at 6:30 and find somewhere to laze about with your picnic blanket and chairs, eat your picnic and then lay back while the movie plays. it was a great night, we settled maddie and then popped her in her bugaboo sleeping bag, inside her little mosquito tent. she is so well behaved, you can take the kid anywhere!!

so cozy! ♥

breaking dawn part 1

jamie-lee and i went off to see breaking dawn part 1 tonight. honest opinion? there's a lot of tedious scenes that are just downright crickets chirping in the background-ish. (awkward, awkward, awkward...) but... when one has read all the books and loved them (yes, i admit it, i like twilight. i don't love it like crying in the streets and stalking the actors, but i like it yes.) you have to see all the movies, no matter how bad (or good) they may be. and... the movies always provide a lovely quick fix of the book when you a) don't have time to read them, or b) quite simply can't be bothered.

i must say (and warning if you haven't read the books spoiler alert to follow!!!!) the scene where the werewolves end up splitting off into two packs because jacob and sam are arguing over what to do with bella... you can hear all the werewolves thoughts out loud... and they sound like a freaking pack of transformers, except with no moving mouths, (so more like power rangers i guess) and man was it funny... not in a good way. lame is a better word. jamie and i had a great old laugh at that one.

all in all - it wasn't that bad, the wedding was beautiful!!! and rio, oh do i love rio, so that quick stop over was more than enough for me!! but still... give me the book anyday, a fine effort nonetheless. just have to wait and see what they do with the last one! :)