Which Came First...?

In our case, the chicken came waaaay before the egg.  After nearly a year, finally, our first egg.

We're so proud.

Good -Bye February

Good-bye February. I hated you. You were dark and dreary and depressing and made us all sick. Good riddance.

Hello March. Hello maple syrup and St. Patrick's Day. Hello first day of spring, even though you'll feel exactly like winter.

I'm going to open up windows and let the blustery March air clean and refresh this house, getting rid of every trace of February.

The Beginning of Winter Break

Everybody is on February break this week.  Heather and I started our vacation on Friday because there is never preschool on Fridays.  We went up to Iroc to use the pool.

She wanted me to make a video of her "swimming."

 It's definitely cold and flu season. Our family has been plagued by one virus or bug after another.  You wouldn't know Heather had been sick to look at these photos of her having fun.

 Experimenting with her Barbie make-up.

 Even though we were all all coughing an hacking, we got some fresh air outside after the recent snowfall.

 I don't get to spend much time one-on-one with Cole these days, so yesterday afternoon we took a little snowshoe through the woods. Spike was overjoyed to have some company outside.

 And last but not least, here is a photo of Wayne working on his film career.

Lego Star Wars Episode III- Ben Kenobi VS Luke Skywalker on Bespin Landing Platform

"This is the third episode. Ben Kenobi faces Luke Skywalker again - on Bespin. This episode has the best special effects so far." - Wayne

Wayne applied some special effects to some of his still frames with Adobe Photoshop.  Also, through much trial and error, he was able to MacGyver a recording device (Wes's mp3 player) to act as a microphone compatible with our computer in order to add some dialogue. (During the dialog parts, you can also hear Wes playing piano in the background, totally unintentional, but not a bad effect.)

This time he used 127 frames in 50 seconds.

This is what goes on in our house when we're sick (me and Cole) and snowed in (possibly 8 inches of snow out there now and still coming down).

Episode II

Eighty nine frames in 38 seconds. Makes you appreciate what those professionals who make full length movies go through.

Luke Skywalker battles Ki Adi Mundi and Ben Kenobi in the Ewok forest.  Hope you can stomach the violence!

If you left a comment yesterday, be sure to check back to read Wayne's replies.

If Luke and Obi Wan Were at Odds

Here is a little stop-action Lego Star Wars video that Wayne created. It's an unlikely light saber duel between Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi.

Not bad for a first attempt at stop-action filming. The next episode will have music added to it - if we can figure it out!

Ordinary Days

It has been a rather uneventful winter and the life of this blog has suffered because of it.  I've had some complaints from some of our most faithful readers, so here is a bit that goes on in our ordinary, everyday life.  Not very exciting, but it is what it is.

 Cole and Heather sliding. Teamwork to carry the sled back up the hill. A rare moment - you won't very often see these two working together at anything except an argument.

On another day, Heather and I did some "sock mopping." All you need is some tunes, a tub of warm water, and some socks that have seen better days, and away you go.

 I wasn't expecting much, but the floors actually looked pretty good after this.

Wayne has been playing basketball this winter in the Jr. Hoops league, 4th grade thru 6th grade.  This morning he had a game against the other Glover team. It's hard to get nice photos in the fluorescent lighting of the gym.

 As always, when it's Glover against Glover, it was intense and close. There are such good players on both teams. The other Glover team was "home" and Wayne's team was "guest."  Wayne's team did end up winning the game by 2 points.

 Wayne has been bitten by the genealogy bug. Joanie and Natalie Kinsey-Warnock have been coming weekly to his 4th grade class to work on family histories and to eventually write stories which will be compiled into a book. Yesterday, he and Joanie spent about 5 hours at her house researching the family tree on ancestry.com. Then he came home and worked on it some more by himself in the evening.  This is above and beyond what he needs to do for his class, but he's just really into it. He can't get enough.

This is a 20x30 poster board that he and Joanie made and that he has added to on his own.  I'm sure you can't tell from the photo, but it goes back to 1585!

 That's a lot of work.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 Heather and I made a double batch of cookies for Wayne and Cole's classroom Valentine parties.  As I've probable mentioned before, Heather's preschool, sadly, does not acknowledge holidays of any kind, so she was very jealous. There were enough cookies for us to share here at home.

Hope you all had a "love"ly (ha ha) Valentine's day. Thank you for all the cards sent to W,C,H.

This past weekend Martha was in town for the collector's show.  Heather requested that she bring her skates and come skate with her on the pond. Here's a little video. 

Tonight, Tonight

Oh, you are going to get so tired of us and our new internet.  Here is another video of Heather that only grandmothers and aunts will find worthy.  Without further ado, here is Heather singing her version of Cole's favorite song, Hot Chelle Rae's Tonight, Tonight.

Making the Best of What Little Snow We Have (I'm Not Complaining!)

I took lousy photos over Christmas, and there hasn't been much going on around here, but just to celebrate our new speedy internet, here are a couple of videos and photos of some snow play.

Heather snowboarding:

Wayne's friend, Ben, came over this afternoon. They used sleds as shields for a snowball fight.

 Then, instead of sledding, a new sport: rolling down the hill.

And here is a snow person I made all by myself because everyone else was more interested in pelting each other with snowballs.