Not much to talk about this week. Just living, but nothing really interesting happened. Winter turned to Spring, which has made Amanda VERY happy. We got the kids' pictures taken at Target: [Click on pictures for a larger image.]
I love Maddy's eyes in the first one and Abe's smirk in the 2nd one.
We also got some pictures of Abe by himself, since he doesn't get school pictures:
Very cute, at least compared to the cheesy picture of me when I was Abe's age:
Have a great Springtime! I also created a list over on the right column with a list of our recent Netflix rentals, just in case you folks need suggestions/warnings.
My friend Katrina posted this on her site (http://binghamalley.blogspot.com) so, I figured I'd play along too, cause then I get a cool thing, and the faithful readers of MY blog get something, too!
The first FIVE people to respond to this post will get something made by me personally. What I make is my choice, but it will be made JUST FOR YOU! My choice. For you. However, (like all things that sound too good to be true :), this offer does have some restrictions and limitations: 1- There is no guarantee that you will like what I make! 2- What I create will be just for you personally. 3- It will be completed sometime this year. 4- You will receive no clues as to what it's going to be. I'll let you post a request of some sort with your comment, but still... it could be anything! 5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange if I so desire... it may blow your mind! Or it may not. It may be very simple and predictable... but hopefully you will benefit from it!And like most things that sound too good to be true, there is a catch. You must re-post this on your blog and offer the same deal to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. Not too bad, huh? In fact, I think it'll be a lot of fun!!So-- on your mark, get set, GO! The first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they posted this on their blog and want to win a free, FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift from me will receive just that!!! **Remember: You have to tell me in your post that you've posted this on your blog before you can be guaranteed one of the five slots!** Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!
OK, so I actually set out to write this blog over a week ago—February 23rd to be exact…but as usual, I got sidetracked by this, that and the other thing and so I’m just now writing it. But you’ll live, I’m sure… On the plus side, I got a short-term animation project doing a 90-second music video as well as a short animated “end tag” for their other videos. I was contacted by some twin brothers that got to know me via the Disney Dream CMO contest I entered last year. They contacted me last week about doing this video for some guys that had a band in the 60’s and are now getting back into the business or something to that effect. Should be a fun little project. I’ll let you know where you can view it when it’s all done! A couple weeks ago, we decided it was time to get going on our food storage plans. We bought some shelving and commandeered a good chunk of Maddy’s closet. Here’s the end result:
As you can see, not a lot of food in there so far, but it’s a work-in-progress. We’ve got the shelving, and we’ve also updated our 72-hour kits, which are a higher priority:
Now each week when we get groceries, we buy a few things for our food storage 3-month supply, which we’ll eventually be rotating through in our normal food consumption. Once that surplus is established, we’ll be buying some of the more long-term needs, such as rice, flour, etc. I’d say we’ll get cans of wheat, but I still have nightmares of our mom’s food storage…though the empty cans are great for keeping tadpoles in (just be prepared for frogs to take up residence near the house after you dump the tadpoles out your bedroom window). In other food-related news, we also recently took a trip down to “Many Lands,” a local food store that sells ethnic foods. See, for Valentine’s Day, I got Amanda “The Curry Book,” since she’s been wanting to make some other curry recipes besides our standard “chicken broccoli and rice” dinner. But apparently, we needed REAL curry/curry paste rather than the normal curry powder you find at Wal-Mart. While we were there, we also picked up some packets for a bunch of different meals: Coconut Curry Chicken, Yellow Curry, Teriyaki Chicken, chow mien, fried rice, etc. We also picked up a pack of those awesome sour candies from Japan, Super Lemons!
We made the Coconut Curry Chicken that night, along with some Jasmine Rice. It was pretty good, but VERY spicy…next time Amanda’s only allowed to use ½ of the seasoning packet!
Needless to say, the kids weren’t particularly enthused by the meal. However, a few days later, we made some honey chicken, beef and broccoli, fried rice and jasmine rice and had our own version of a Chinese Buffet (and invited Judy over to join us) and the kids liked that stuff a lot more. On Tuesday, March 3, the Watchmen Motion Comic was released on DVD and Blu-Ray. Of course I went out to buy a copy. We stopped at Wal-Mart, figuring it would have the best price, but it was $30 for the Blu-ray. Here’s their lovely display:
So we headed over to Best Buy instead, where I knew from the weekly ad that the Blu-Ray was $26.99. Joel asked if he could watch it, and in response, I read to him the warning on the back of the case: “Watchmen Motion Comic contains mature content some viewers may not find suitable. Inappropriate for viewers younger than 17.”
I haven’t sat down and watched the whole thing through yet, but I’ve watched a couple of the chapters, and it looks really nice, especially on a nice HDTV with Blu-Ray resolution. I’d been viewing the animation in partially-completed, low-resolution, compressed video on the computer. Seeing it in final form in all its glory was an entirely different experience. We’ll finish off today with some animation that the kids and I did in the past week or so. One day, Madison was really bored—it was a Saturday and Amanda was at work, and I was busy with things, and she was moping around the house. I suggested we get out our old digital camera and some Play-doh, and let Maddy make a clay animation movie. I gave her a short tutorial on animating the clay bit-by-bit, then I taped the camera to the table and let her loose on it. She did 2 different animations, then Joel also wanted to give it a try. Maddy’s turned out pretty well, especially in the beginnings of her animations. Joel needs a little more patience and some more poses, but I guess for his “ninja movie” the fast action is ok. I was curious to see how I’d do on it, and did a little animation as well…though Play-Doh isn’t really the best material to do articulate animations…So here’s a compilation of our animations, set to music from “Coraline.”
