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The other day something awesome happened to me. I received a screener copy of the new romantic comedy, Unleashed, to review on my blog.

I almost never watch movies at home, though I see almost every single cartoon movie that comes out at the theatres. See, I’m one of those people who loves going to the movies.

But I rarely watch them at home because there are NONE that I even want to see. I have pretty much ONE genre of movie that I enjoy: romantic comedies.

Although, actually, I did LOVE Wonder Woman this year. It was very romantic comedy-like even though it was technically an action film.

Okay, well, Wonder Woman aside, it seems like it has been decades, yes, literally decades, since there were any good romantic comedies. These days so many movies are raunchy or just dumb and not funny at all.

I personally don’t see the point in watching a movie that isn’t at least a little funny. I do not need movies to make me feel sad. The news does that. If I want to be sad, I will learn what channel the news is on.

Remember back in the 90s, back when I was in high school? Romantic comedies were a dime a dozen. Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan reigned supreme.

Tom Hanks was sleepless in Seattle. He also had mail, email that is.

Richard Gere picked up a pretty woman.

Hugh Grant lived on Notting Hill.

Julia Roberts was just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

Brides ran away.

We went to my best friend’s wedding.

Cher taught us how to negotiate our grades, proving she wasn’t clueless at all.

There were 10 reason I hate you, which were really 10 reasons I don’t hate you…

We learned how to lose a guy in 13 days, or something like that. Did she manage to lose him, though?

OH!! And Mel Gibson knew exactly what women want. Hilarious!

What happened to those movies?? Bring them back!!

If you agree with me at all, I have good news for you. I stumbled across this movie almost accidentally.

After a stressful week in which I saw Alan maybe a total of 4 hours, I needed to turn off my brain and relax with a happy, funny movie, after I put the kids to bed.

I put Unleashed in my Blu ray player and settled into bed to watch.

Alan was up and walking around getting ready for bed, and he kept yelling back to me, “What’s so funny?”

Y’all!! I laughed HARD at this movie. The cat who becomes a man–a handsome man, y’all–had me ROLLING.

The main character is a single gal who moves to San Francisco with 2 pets. Did you ever see That Darn Cat? (An old, also hilarious film) In That Darn Cat, the man becomes a cat. In Unleashed, her pets become men because of a wish she makes.

Watching men play the part of animals-turned-humans was HILARIOUS.

Oh, and by the way, RUDY is in this movie! Doesn’t it seem like he’s in so many awesome movies? By Rudy, I do mean Sean Astin from the Lord of the Rings, Rudy, Mom’s Night Out, and more. Oh, and did you know that Sean Astin is Patty Duke’s son??

In this movie Sean Astin is the guy you’re rooting for to get the girl, but I won’t ruin any more of the plot for ya. Download this comedy!! You will be so glad you did! It’s available at some theatres and for digital download at Amazon, Google Play and other outlets.

Is it kid friendly? I know you’re wondering. Eh…

That depends on your kids. It does have a little bit of language and adult situations. It’s probably PG, but then there is one scene of her getting ready, wearing a bra and pants, so it definitely depends. I just wanted to give you a heads up on that. There are no violent or sexual scenes, other than kissing, and there isn’t much of that either.

I watched it after my kids went to bed, and was able to thoroughly enjoy it without having to constantly hop up and help small people…

Long live chick-flick comedies! You will laugh so hard at this one!

The post Where have all the romantic comedies gone??? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

“Bob! Bob! Bob!”

I have a treat for you all today! A Very Veggie Giveaway!

I have always liked Veggie Tales, even before I had children. The silly songs are a delight, and each and every episode shares a moral or Biblical principle. There is usually even a Bible verse to go along with the lesson. Love!

But they do all this without losing the fun, and that’s what makes VeggieTales so unique.

JD loves Veggie Tales so much that he often walks around the house toting an asparagus (Alfred) in one hand and a cucumber (Larry) in the other. And every single night, without fail, JD asks me to sing the Veggie Tales theme song to him. Not even kidding. The funny thing is that I actually know all the words! But in my defense, I’ve been mommy-ing for 10 years now.

Here’s a clip from the newest “Veggie Tales in the House” collection, just released on DVD today (March 25, 2016– right in time for Easter baskets):

I sat down and watched almost the entire DVD with the kids. 8 episodes! I don’t think there’s an age limit. We all enjoyed it, but Caleb (age 8) and JD (age 2) are my biggest Veggie Tales fans. They’re in it for Larry, who is both cute and funny. I’m in it for the songs and lessons. This one has themes on responsibility and kindness.

And as always, Bob and Larry will remind your children that, “God made you special, and he loves you very much.” That’s a message you won’t find on many kids’ shows, for sure:

We give the new collection all of our thumbs up, and we hope you enjoy it too.

It’s for sale at The VeggieTales Online Store as well as any Christian bookstore. Or, if you’re feelin’ lucky, enter the giveaway! I’ll announce the winner in 7 days, right here on https://storiesofourboys.com.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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I don’t know if Alan’s parents were trying to tell us something when they sent us to see this movie…Ha!…….But I DO know that it was INSPIRATIONAL and so REAL.

Go see it THIS WEEKEND. It’s playing at theaters everywhere right now. You won’t regret it! You’ll leave the theatre saying, “Yeah! Bring it on! Let’s do this!”

The post Go see this movie! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Last night Alan and I booked a babysitter and went to see the new movie “Mom’s Night Out.” Thankfully, MY night out was a lot less eventful/stressful than the one you will watch in the movie.

This was a seriously cute, wholesome, sometimes funny, sometimes tear-jerker movie. It was produced by a Christian film company, and stars several unknown actors, but also has Patricia Heaton and Trace Atkins, which is also awesome. Actually, some of the other actors looked familiar too, but since I’m completely out of touch with pop culture, I wouldn’t know who is famous and who isn’t half the time!

Alan’s mom has been telling me that I just have to see this movie because a.) It’s hilarious and uplifting and b.) I will totally be able to relate.

I went expecting to laugh hard.  I did laugh a few times, but the truth is I cried more than I laughed….but don’t let that scare you. It was a great movie, you should all go see it, whether you are drowning in children (as I am) or not.

Women who did the whole toddler thing ages ago will probably find the references to children drawing on walls, raiding the kitchen, and playing in the toilet funny. At my stage, it just looks like every other stressful day of my life.

I wasn’t quite prepared for how uncanny the resemblance to my life was: hence the tears, so the good news is that you might be able to watch this movie without crying at all. The similarities were just insane: red-headed mom of three little ones (Okay, I said similar, not exact), mom-blogger–seriously–, church attending Christian lady, and by the way her husband was often out of town, and her son loved to play in the toilet. Thankfully, I do not have the whole ‘neat-freak/germ-phobe’ issue she confessed of.

Her kid drew a photo of their family, and the dad was represented by an airplane flying over the family. This reminded me of when Alan came home from Iraq the second time, and at his return home celebration, Caleb ran to the wrong man at the airport.

Also: Dan did grow out of the toilet phase about a year ago. (Thank you, Lord!) And Alan has gone quite a while without traveling now, but oh buddy–have I been there!

So when you watch a movie about someone doing all the things you do and feeling all the stress you feel, tears are just going to happen.  I’m pretty sure the main character said a few exact lines that I have actually written here on my blog.

Oh! And Patricia Heaton was hilarious and relatable as a mom of a teen as well! I especially related to her texting difficulties, and that was the one thing that really got me laughing out loud. If you’ve ever texted me, you may know that I am horrible at it! That cracked me up.

The message of the movie is wonderful: embrace your life and your job and just do it without letting all the stuff get to you– so it’s messy. What isn’t? And this is the beauty of it being a Christian film: the other message is that Jesus loves you right where you are. Just trust him.

It was wonderful. Go see it, and when you do, you should know that there are a LOT more cute scenes all the way through to the very last credits. If you haven’t seen the part where the mom and dad tell the little girl that mommy and daddy were just getting in some cuddle time in the kitchen floor, then you haven’t seen the end of the movie yet.  Stay until after the very last credit.

2 thumbs up here!

The post Mom’s Night Out: Movie Review appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Joshua burst my bubble the other day. After a whole winter of people telling me I look like a Disney Princess (Anna from Frozen), and walking around feeling pretty good about myself……la-te-da…..

Joshua says, “You don’t really look like Anna to me.  You gotta take us to go see How to Train Your Dragons 2!  Hiccup’s mom is who you really look like!  I mean, you might look a little like Anna, but really you look like Hiccup’s Mom!!  Can we go??  Will you take us??  Will you? Will you?”

Eh. I guess she’s not such a terrible person to be compared to ……child abandonment aside…. Still, I’d rather be compared to a Disney Princess.  Let’s go back to that.

Delusions are so much nicer than reality. : )  Let’s move on…

By the way, How to Train Your Dragon 2 comes to theaters in June.  Joshua is an EXPERT on when all movies and video games marketed towards little boys are released.  We don’t even have cable, but somehow he always knows these things.

Speaking of cable, we cut our cable a month ago, and we don’t even miss it at all!  Guess how much money it’s saving us…..NONE!  Disappointing, isn’t it? Our media services were all bundled up so well, that cutting cable would save us a whopping $10 a month, and since we’re moving in June, that makes it not worth the trouble of having to hunt down the cable store and return the box.  You know?  So we just unplugged it from the wall.

Actually, Alan plugs it in once a week and watches some Revolutionary War tv show he’s into.  Ha!  So I guess we just sort of don’t have cable…..

Guess what else happened last week that I was so excited about?  The boys did so well on their report cards that I took them to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate.  Caleb had his best report card ever, all good grades, and he is now on grade level for his reading.  WAhoo!!!  Go boys, go!  Yeah, Joshua wasn’t so keen on having his picture taken while eating.  In my defense, he moves too fast for me to take his picture when he’s not eating.

They had a great time. Daniel is a Chuck E Cheese Mastermind.  

You can’t make this stuff up:  Daniel walked around to all the machines, collecting the tickets that other kids had left behind.  Before kids realize the power of tickets, they often flitter from one machine to another, without stopping to collect their tickets.  Daniel is our #1 Easter egg finder and our #1 ticket earner.  The older boys earned about 15 each.  Dan earned and collected 50.  Haaaa!

He still isn’t quite crawling yet….Instead, he scoots backwards great distances, but isn’t he adorable?

He’ll figure it out soon. I keep forgetting to mention that he is down to only two breast feedings per day.  He now eats plenty of solid food and drinks whole milk instead.  He would have no part of formula, so regular ol’ milk is working just fine.

Busy, busy week ahead, as usual!  Oh yeah!  Our EFMP paperwork was approved, and we have ‘Request for Orders’ in hand.  One step at a time.  We almost have everything we need to book a moving truck!!  Hurray!!

What’s everyone else up to this week? Hope you are all having a good one.  At least it’s raining and not snowing! April showers bring May flowers!  ; )

Best quote I saw on the internet this week:  “When you have a bad day, a really bad day, try and treat the world better than it treated you.”  –Patrick Slump

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