Fire Planes

We were hanging out when 2 airplanes started landing on the river outside our backyard to scoop up water.  They are taking it over across the river to a forest fire.  It was pretty cool to watch.  I couldn't really video the drop as well, but it was cool to watch with the binoculars.  

Christmas 2011

As I've mentioned previously, I had somewhat urgent surgery 3 days before Christmas.  Turns out my gallbladder was full of rocks and pretty unhappy.  We decided sooner was better than later since we had family in town for Christmas to help around the house and with Bella.  Surgery went great, they went in laproscopically and there have been no complications (woohoo!).  It did mean that I was a bit hopped up on painkillers Christmas morning though, so excuse the dark footage.  The video is a little over a minute.

In my haze I sort of forgot to pick the camera back up after I put it down, but the day itself was wonderful and I have lots of great photos in my personal memories.

The massive bookshelf dollhouse (aka doghouse according to Bella) was handmade (by Santa of course) thanks to some wonderful assistance from the Camp Lejeune woodshop.  The plans are from Ana White (here) with just a few tweaks like the molding around the windows and doors having some shape instead of being square, the fronts being rounded off and the roof having some fancy edges.  Both Santa and his her helper elf were really proud of the final project, though it definitely was a lot more difficult that the plans made it out to be.  The furniture and people are the very simple unpainted versions from Plan Toys.  Each room came separately so it fits her doghouse dollhouse great.  And once she is out of 'playing with dolls' phase, it will work well for books too.  We always love multi-function!

It has settled in our new playroom and gets lots of laughs and bursts of creativity.

Sad Reindeer, Happy Reindeer

One of the things in Bella's stocking was a light up reindeer nose.  So without further ado, sad reindeer, happy reindeer:

And no, she wasn't really sad, just flexing her dramatic muscles.

Yearly Ornaments

When I was growing up, each year I got to pick out a new ornament for the tree.  When I got married, my mother gave us my ornaments during our first Christmas together.

Vinny and I have continued the tradition, both for ourselves and for Bella.  We choose an ornament each year that signifies something we did during that year.  When we had Bella, we started getting 2 related things, one for her and one for us.  I write the year on each one in silver sharpie.  I decided when we started, that I wanted our ornaments to have a cohesive feel, so our ornaments are all handblown glass.  I'm hoping to continue this way for Bella, but we'll see.  This year, to commemorate our first year full time in the Navy, we got a life preserver/anchor ornament and Bella got a teddy bear with a stars and stripes hat. 

Because all of the ornaments on our tree are glass, the ornaments from my childhood (my favorite ones at least) are displayed separately.  I enjoy getting them out each year and walking down memory lane.  The light hit the 1989 disco ball this year and made them really shine:

Cause nothing says Christmas like a disco ball/smoke detector ornament!

Breakfast with Santa

In addition to the Santa photo shoot, the Emerald Isle park and recreation department also organized a breakfast with Santa.  The ideas were wonderful even though it fell apart a bit for reasons out of their control.

Everyone was given a number (based on the order in which you registered) and that was the order that you went to see Santa in.  They used the scoreboard in the gym to light up the number.  Bella refused to sit on Santa's lap again. (who was different from the photo shoot Santa) And each child got a small toy from a bin once they were done.

While kids waited they had breakfast (of course), a snowflake cutting station, a coloring station, and a Bingo station.  The Bingo was fun because the numbers on the cards were all 1-9 and they used M&Ms for markers.  Then each child had to fill the card before they got bingo.  Since everyone had the same numbers, just in various places, every child won every game.  The prize: they got to eat their markers!  They had also planned to have a magic show but the magician had car trouble. (I feel like there is a joke there, but I'm too tired to find it)

We had a good time especially because Bella's buddy, Blake, and his sister were there with us.  We kept trying to get a cute picture of the 2 of them, but it's hard to make two little bodies stand still long enough!

Handprint Reindeer and Fingerprint Christmas Tree, Finished with Snowman Paint

Whew, long title there!  This was one of our holiday crafts that I thought I would share:

We used tiny bells from Michaels for the collar and I went around the bottom of them with silver glitter glue.  The Christmas tree is made up of both my and Bella's fingerprints.  It's got some green glitter garland and a bit of snowman paint on the branches.  The star sparkles with some gold glitter.

The snowman paint was really fun.  It's 1 part shaving cream to 1 part white glue.  I added a dash of white paint because I thought it might need it but I don't think it was necessary.  I also put blue glitter in mine.  It gave it some dimension, but it didn't sparkle, so perhaps not the best addition.  It dried in about a day and half and has a bit of a spongy texture to it.  I ended up going back over it once it was dry and put a touch of clear glitter in the recesses.  That touch is one of my favorite things about the finished product.

I glued a ribbon on the back to hang it with, but ultimately decided to sit it up on a stand this year.  White walls + white canvas = weird.  I think if I had it to do again I would paint the canvas light blue before we started.

Adventures of Elf the elf: Part 2

Wow, Christmas season really sped past this year.  Or, I guess I should say last year since it's already 2012.  That's what happens when you have urgent and unexpected surgery 3 days before Christmas.  I'll fill you in on that soon.  I wanted to make sure that I finished up telling you about Elf's adventures.

Day 15: Bella opened her first gift from us, a hot wheels wall racetrack.  After playing with it for a while, she went to bed, but Elf wanted to go for a ride too!

It made me laugh to see her sleeping away only inches from Elf being mischievous.

Day 16: Elf had some fun playing with the light bright. (it's a younger kid version, but I can't remember it's real name so it's always just been 'the light bright thingie')

Day 19: Elf turned our remaining milk Christmas green and seemed a bit too pleased with himself.

Day 20: One of our gifts from my family was a Neato automatic vacuum (that I totally LOVE).  Elf thought he was quite the cowboy so he apparently took it for a spin.

Day 21: Elf wasn't as good with the lasso as he thought and got himself in a bit of a bind.

Day 22: Elf talked to Santa and found out how many goodies Bella was going to get for her stocking so he measured her stocking to make sure it would hold it all.  He got a little stuck.

side note: the pink socks belong to Vinny's mom.  She was visiting for Christmas so these became her makeshift stocking.

Day 23: Elf attempted to go sledding in my shoe

Day 24: After the failed sledding attempt, Elf slid down the bannister.

Christmas day, Elf was gone, back to the North Pole.  He left Bella a note on her chalkboard saying 'see you next year' and 'Merry Christmas.'  I can't wait to see him next year.

A note for others expecting elf antics at their house: our elf made use of pipe cleaners several times since his arms weren't always long enough or strong enough to stay in place overnight.  Might want to have some on hand before your elf arrives next year!

Santa photo shoot

I talked about this a few days ago, but I wanted to give a little rundown of how the Santa photo shoot went.  The event was organized by Emerald Isle parks and recreation.  They had you make an appointment, which was wonderful.  No feeling pressured if your child needed some time to warm up to Santa and no standing around waiting for a long line.

The photographs were done by a professional photographer, Jeff Pennell (here is his site) instead of a mall photographer.  And Santa was awesome. Seriously, I cannot say enough nice things about this guy.  (Santa's website is here)  He was very authentic.

So when we got there, you couldn't see the photography area.  And when it was our turn, we walked around and there was no Santa.  Confused?  I was too.  One of the staff brought me in on the gag though.  They set her up in the center of the scene and then told her to watch the far door because Santa would be coming through there.

 

Of course, Santa wasn't coming through that door, he was in the beach shack behind her:

After a few minutes of shots like these and Bella being TOTALLY clueless that he was behind her, we finally told her to turn around.

She looks him up and down and says, "Where are your reindeer?"  So...so...funny.  I think Santa told her they were outside so they wouldn't be scared.  I don't really remember because I was laughing so hard.  He sat down next to her and they started to chat about what she wanted for Christmas.

 

Luckily my hypnosis was working and she asked for a dollhouse as planned. (It may have sounded more like 'doghouse' but I trust that Santa will get it right anyway) She refused to sit on his lap, which is probably ok since asking a kid to be comfortable sitting on a stranger's lap probably isn't the best lesson anyway.

This photo cracks me up.  I don't even know what she was telling him.  Probably something about his reindeer, who knows.  But this is so totally her.  In charge, even with Santa.

And these are the others that so completely capture her:

 Such a little sweetheart.

And of course, the photo that was nationwide.  (Here is the post about that if you missed it)  Basically, our photographer and the Associated Press photographer got the same final shot.  We even remembered last minute to ask Santa to send Bella an elf.  And I will share his adventures of course.  It was a really great event and a wonderful start to our holidays!

 

Oh Christmas tree

Just wanted to share some photos of our Christmas tree and our girl who is so excited about Christmas this year. 

 

I got the instructions for camera settings for the photo above from pinterest (this link).  But it's manual mode with my f1.8 lens, ISO6400, shutter speed 1/30, set on a tripod.  I love the result.  These haven't been retouched at all either.  What do you think?

The Adventures of Elf the elf, Part 1

I'm so glad we got on the 'Elf on the shelf' bandwagon before Bella was too old.  We got a great deal on it during a super sale too: only $15 when it normally retails for $30-$40.  We took Bella to see Santa on November 30th, so it was perfect timing and I had her ask Santa to send her an elf.

She was so excited the next morning to find the book and then see the elf on the mantle waiting for her.

 

I asked her what his name was going to be and she said, very certainly, 'Elf.'  I tried a few times to get her to pick a different name, but she definitely thinks he is Elf and that's all there is to it.  We read the book and made sure she knew that the only real rule was that she couldn't touch him or he would lose his magic.

Day 2: After having a bare tree in the living room for 8 days, Elf decided to start decorating the tree.

Day 3: Goofball Elf takes a whirl on the fan.
Day 4: Elf flips

Day 5: Elf decided to take a chance and come down to Bella's level.  She had been very good, so he brought her a little gift (a little owl she had been pining over that I said she couldn't have, but then snuck into the cart). We had been wrapping the night before, so he got into our supplies.

Bella pointed at him and told Vinny, "Don't touch him Daddy!"  Then she grabbed him and went running around the house.  So much for that.  So he disappeared for a day to regain his magic.

Day 6: Elf MIA to regain magic

Day 7: Elf reappears, bathing in a bowl full of marshmallows.  Bella runs off with him again.

Day 8: Elf MIA to regain magic

Day 9: After a long evening of making cookies, I left the flour out.  Elf decided to make a flour angel.

 Day 10: The flour angel stunt was messier than anticipated.  Elf needed a shower:

Day 11: Elf takes a little fishing trip

Bella finally seems to understand the words 'do not touch.'  Whew!  I'll give a rundown of other Elf activities soon!

Superstar Bella

Bella recently had a little photo shoot with Santa in Emerald Isle.  The experience was amazing.  We had an appointment, so no waiting in line with 50 other kids and being pushed out of the way after they take 2 shots.  There was a professional photographer (nuff said).  Proceeds are going to benefit a local food bank and the humane society.  The Santa was awesome, as Santa should always be.  And now our little girl is all over the internet.That's right...and not just on our blog.


I'll share some of the Santa photos in another post, but there was one shot that was pretty awesome:

It just so happened that the Associated Press had a photographer there who took this photo.  It ran with an article about how the recession is affecting Christmas all over the country.  It's been pretty amazing to see over 16 pages of google hits for her name.   This photo does say it all though.  It captures her so well.  Her loving little soul and gentle heart.  I'll just be over here, being a proud mama...

Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween to all you out there on the web.  Thought I'd share some photos from our recent Trick or Treating.

On Thursday we went to the NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores for their trick or treat under the sea.  I can't say enough good things about this event.  There were tons of decorations, lots of vendors handing out candy,

And even an underwater pumpkin carving contest in the shark tank with a bunch of staff divers.

 Those pumpkins behind her there are in the shark tank!

Hermit crab Bella!  They also had a cool maze, face painting, and a hay ride to take us back to our car.  And it was only $6 each...a crazy great deal!

We had lots of fun with our Halloween attire.  She went as Cinderella for the aquarium, and a cat for Halloween night, but a fashion maven like Bella had to have other outfits as well.  This was my favorite:

For Halloween night itself, we headed over to one of Bella's friend's, Blake's, house.  There was a whole sky rainbow that was awesome on the way there. (I'll share that in a few days)

Bella and Blake played for a bit and then we all headed out trick or treating.  They had a blast and got very worn out.

 And my favorite shot of the night:

Unreal Clouds

Since I started taking the painting class, I've been paying more and more attention to the sky.  And I've noticed one thing over all others: the real sky is absolutely unreal!

A few days ago I shared the big storm that rolled in.  Those were called shelf clouds by the way.  Then I saw these:

If I had painted these, the critique would be easy.  The real world is pretty unreal though.

Big Ol' Storm

This CRAZY big storm rolled in and I had to share the photos.

Here is the backside of it:

 

Oddly enough, the massive thing didn't drop one bit of rain on our house.  I think it saved itself for the coast.Very creepy.

Ballet - The first year - Part 2

These photos are courtesy of my friend, Laura Yates. (here is her website) Her daughter Maddy is in Bella's class (and is awesome at it, BTW), and Laura is a professional photographer.  Yes, please!


Bella has actually been listening in class a lot better.  We have 'the talk' about how ballet class is a place to listen and learn, not to play...every time.  But it seems to be working.

I've also been taking ballet classes myself.  It looks like our adult class will also be doing the recital in May, so I look forward to sharing my own dancing craziness at some point too :) (and, yes, I tried having the talk with myself, but it didn't work.)