Santa's letter arrives

Bella and Vivi wrote their letter to Santa last night, and sure enough- that little bird flew it's wings off to get it to Santa just in time. They'll wake tomorrow morning to see his reply-(see below)
I'll try and catch it on video if possible, then post it here.
Merry Christmas everyone:)



Oh yeah- and for those that didn't get one of these- here's our Christmas card for this year!

CHOCOLATE KISSING!

check it!

Happy Birthday Lynn!

So- My wife has been like COMPLETELY ADDICTED to the book series Twilight and has been forgetting to feed our children because she's been reading them over and over and over... and over.. did I say over?!?!

Anyway...

When asked what she'd want for a Birthday gift- she requested the impossible.

"REally?" she said, "You'd be the best Husband in the world if you could get me to see the premiere of 'Twilight'."

I was like "ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? Yeah... like me, some Director at Disney can just CALL and GET US some Tickets."

I was actually hurt tha my wife would give me such an impossible task, especially when she KNOWS I'll do anything to make her happy if I can.

Well, I'll fill in the story more later, but with the help of Rob Friedman, I was able to pull off the impossible...

Happy Birthday Lynn!

here's a few...

Last year, we had heard about Little Tokyo having a festival/celebration called Nisei week. We promised ourselves we wouldn't miss it this year, and although there really wasn't much information as to WHAT exactly to do there, nor WHERE exactly to go, we headed down and had a great lunch and a lot of fun. Bella bought a cute HEllo Kitty purse, and we took in some fun people. Two of the fun events we were able to participate in were kite making, and the art of flower arrangement. The girls had a blast... (sorry, no pics of their flower arrangements)








ALSO... We've had a slew of Movie nights since it's inception, but last Friday we watched one of my favorites:)

YEP-

The Incredibles

Brad Bird and the awesome story team of Pixar just continue to blow my mind with each and every viewing of this film. Oh... not to mention the Art Direction, CHaracter Design, Animation, Music, Sound Effects, etc., etc., etc. I really love this movie and find something new and wonderful about it upon each screening. Luckily for me, it's Bella's favorite, too. So, It was her turn for movie night, and she picked a winner.





I'm not sure WHY- But.. Blogger.com is being a buttface right now, and I'm having problems uploading some images.
I'll try to add/update again later. I hope you enjoyed the pics ANYWAY!

OOOh Wait... FINALLY!



When the movie was over, I asked her what her favorite part was. She said "The part when all the Incredibles do this... and Elasta Girl does this... and Mr. Incredible is 'uh-uh' and Dash does this, and Violet is ... this". So, I asked her to draw it for me, but she said she was very afraid. She said she thought it would look silly. After a wierd beat, she asked if I could help her draw it. I tried to have fun and make my drawing 'silly' so that she could enjoy drawing hers.. I think it kinda worked.



The last thing I'll share a tiny bit about, and then let Lynn edit this later, was the get together that happened yesterday afternoon. Some of Lynn's past childhood friends (made because of Lynn's parents friends) continued to bump into each other and finally decided to do a "get together'. Not only for their sake, but to allow the torch to be passed along to another generation.

So, 5 girls total (2 others at Bella's age, and 1 Vivi's) spent the afternoon together while their parents hung out and talked. I'm sure it was VERY similar to what Charlene and her "Cousins" experienced when they were little.

Luckily Bella had 10 million Princess dresses, and crowns, and jewelry, and shoes and, (Deep Breath) a kickass Princess Tent, to keep them busy. Oh yeah- the popcicles and cake and snacks didn't hurt the fun either.

They all seemed to get along SO well that I'm sure it was a very special treat for my wife and other Mom's to see.

Just Because They're So Damn Cute!!

Cool Drawings

Hi btw, this is Charlene blogging... I know I need to do this more often. I have to admit, Zac is much better at keeping this up to date than I am.

Anyway, cool story to share. When I was pregnant with Bella, I was working at Disney Feature Animation and had the amazing honor of working with some of the most talented artists in our industry. One such man was Mr. Glen Keane. In case some of you didn't know who he is, he was the lead animator on Ariel, Beast, Aladdin... basically the main character in most Disney movies. Not only is he incredibly talented, he's also INCREDIBLY nice, which makes him even cooler. Long story short, we became friendly and would always say hi to each other in the hallways. He even jumped in on my baby pool that was started at work as to when Bella would be born. I had Bella and was home on maternity leave, when his assistant at the time, who was also my good friend, came by with a drawing for Bella from Glen. It was of Ariel swimming with Baby Bella. Now, just so everyone understands, Glen Keane drawings are a prized possession. Rumor had it that at one point, he had a paper shredder underneath his animation desk for his unused drawings, as per the company, because his drawings were just that valuable. We of course immediately framed it and it had been hanging in the girls room that they shared. Here's Bella below holding it:



So then of course we moved. Each girl got her own room, which was awesome for so many reasons. But one of the few negatives was that Vivi had to part with seeing the beautiful Ariel drawing every day. Glen was so kind to me in the past, and although I hadn't worked with him in almost 4 years, I decided to do something crazy and email him a very special request. If he at all had the time, could he please do a drawing for Vivi too so she could hang it in her room? I didn't hear back from him at all, which was understandable considering what I was asking. But then, out of the blue, I got an email from his assistant saying that she had a drawing from Glen for me and where should she send it. (!) I was totally floored. This just goes to show that you can be an amazingly talented, legendary, iconic man, but still be a very good person. Anyway, thanks Glen for continuing to keep my girls' spaces always surrounded by beauty (and the Beast).

2nd Movie night - WALL-E screening

Last Friday (6-27-08) I had the girls swing by my work to celebrate the release of WALL-E. We hoped the actual wandering WALL-E robot that had made an appearance a few weeks back was going to make be there for photo opportunities, but... no such luck. At least the girls got some toy give-aways, and some stickers. We DID take a photo with this fun cardboard standee, but it wasn't the same.

Later that night we had our second movie night and watched "Beauty And The Beast". I gotta say, still LOVE that movie. Wonderful music, classy animation, great art direction... what more could I ask for. That night did, however, warn us that VIVI was still not probably ready to sit through a movie at the Theatre. We found out for sure that next morning. We went to see WALL-E at an employee screening, and at approximately 10 minutes into the film , Vivi stood up and said "No more WALL-E". Well, I had promised taht I would miss this showing, and would see the back up screening I had signed up for later that afternoon.

Vivi and I played in the arcade at the movie theatre for the next hour and thirty minutes while we waited for Lynn and Bella to finish. We had so much fun even though the first 20 minutes we played, none of the games were actually even turned on yet. Vivi danced and sang, making up steps and funny songs as she moved around on the Dance Dance Revolution game. She was a blast:)

So.. I may have missed the movie the first time through, but the fun memory I'll have of that crazy DDR VIVI queen will hopefully live in my head forever:)

1st movie night

We finally made it! The first official Moncrief movie night went off without any problems last Friday night, and I couldn't have been happier. I've wanted to start this little tradition for a long time and now that we have the house we've dreamed of and the TV set-up to do it with, we gave it a try. It was wonderful. We all laughed out loud, and sung each song. What are we, the bRady Bunch??? Anyway- As you can see from the photo, we watched "The Little Mermaid". I made fun little tickets, each with the movie poster, along with their names and their snacks ( a pretzel and sippy for the girls, 2 pretzels and 2 diet cokes for me... Mama just wanted her water, she WAS allowed to have a pretzel, but decided against it at the last minute.. more for me..WOOHOO) We all enjoyed the movie as we have many times before, but this time we all cuddled up on the couch as one big family. YAY! I hope we can continue this for years to come. Next week is Bella's choice, I can't wait to do it all over again:)

It's been a while, but here's some pics

Sorry... A LOT HAS HAPPENED LATELY! Here's some photos- you figure it out:)