LEGO Race Stop Motion

I received the LEGO Race 3000 game for Christmas. Once I built the game board it was just asking to be animated with stop motion. In the process I learned how to add layered sound tracks in iMovie. I think I'll keep my day job for a little while longer, though.

Charlotte's Pre-school Christmas Carols

Charlotte's Pre-K class performed carols for parents and friends today. I'm on vacation all week so both Carol and I were able to attend. The kids were all adorable, as usual. Enjoy.

First Snow of 2010/2011

First Snow

We're at least a month late getting our first snow but it finally arrived last night. Audrey and Charlotte have been pining for it to come. We didn't get very much - only about 1.5 inches. After school today it was just right for rolling into big balls to make snow creatures. A little grassy due to the shallow depth but that didn't matter a bit to very excited girls.

Now they are on the sofa drinking hot cocoa.

More Phone Microscopy

More iPhone Microscopy

The little cheap microscope I had glued to an iPhone case (see previous photos) had come unglued a while back. I finally had a chance to fix it, so today we were on another microscopy quest. We started around the house, but then Audrey and I went out for a winter walk in the woods and shot some interesting things. The images aren't all that great, but it gets a lot of oohs and ahhs from the girls and that's the whole point.

Three Busy Girls Today

Pretty nice to come home from work to homemade treats!

Charlotte Turns Five

Charlotte Turns Five

Charlotte turned five last weekend. It's very hard to believe that we have 5 and 6 year olds! And Audrey will turn 7 in two months.

Charlotte was very excited for about two weeks before her birthday. She would go to our big wall calendar at least once a day and count the days remaining. She told us many times exactly what kind of party she wanted, what kind of cake, what she wanted for breakfast and of course what presents she wanted. Of course both she and Audrey "want" everything they see in newspaper ads, on TV commercials and in the stores.

Birthday breakfast was specified with great precision. Mickey mouse pancakes with a chocolate mouth, a chocolate nose and chocolate eyes. Audrey added whipped cream to her specification. After pancakes we opened family presents like a little Christmas morning. Later in the day we all went to the theater to see Tangled, the new Disney animated feature based on Rapunzel.

Charlotte's birthday party was the day after her birthday. She invited all girls including classmates from last year and this year plus neighbor Anna and even sister Audrey (Charlotte put Audrey on the list). Carol made cupcakes to Charlotte's specifications (originally it was supposed to be a princess cake but Charlotte changed her mind). After a snack they got to eat cupcakes, and then after gifts they went back to the table and decorated Chinese takeout boxes and then a cupcake each to take home in their box. Everyone had a great time.

Charlotte is enjoying being 5.

Click the small picture above for photos and the larger picture below for video.

Click for Birthday Video

The Good Mother

I have to point out what a great mom Carol is. We often get into a phase where some aspect of parenting isn't going like we want it to. We'll feel lost for a short bit and Carol's brain will be working the problem (unbeknownst to me). Then Viola! Carol comes up with a simple and elegant solution.

One recent example was our bedtime ritual. It had gotten a little sloppy over the summer, and even before that was taking longer than we wanted it to. Carol came up with a simple idea: an alarm clock that goes off at 8:00 and at that time stories are over and the girls have to be quiet in their beds. The girls know about the alarm, and if they choose to goof off brushing teeth or getting pajamas on then it costs them story time.

It works like a charm. At least for us. The girls often do goof off and sometimes end up with only 5 minutes for stories. Usually they do better than that. But they know and accept the routine.

After about a week we decided to move the alarm time to 7:30 because we wanted them to have the opportunity for more sleep.

Charlotte usually falls asleep around 8:00 now. Audrey, on the other hand, rarely falls asleep before 9:00. She stays quiet in her bed, but she'll look at books or draw pictures on her glow pad for quite a while. She'll sometimes call one of us up for a last hug and kiss. It's actually a favorite time of mine because I get to see the rare "calm Audrey".

Anyway, I just wanted to express my gratitude to Carol for being a wonderful mother. And for devising a system with the bonus of another hour alone with her in the evenings to be grown ups.