Christine has been anxious to have something posted to YouTube. She thought the boys’ LEGO videos were neat, but she isn’t quite up to making her own. The other day she was dancing to Acapella, a new song by Karmin (which song Christine absolutely loves), and I told her I’d record it. Here she is, in all her dancing glory 🙂
Here is the latest in the LEGO stop motion movies. This one was actually done before the Spider-Man one, but I didn’t get it done until today. Andrew and I made up some lines, and then he, Matthew and I recorded them. Fun stuff!
Matthew got the LEGO Batman DVD for his birthday, and one of the extra features was about some stop motion videos using LEGO figures. This inspired Andrew to make his own. For Andrew’s birthday he got a LEGO set from 2002 from the first Spider-Man movie called First Chase. This is when Uncle Ben is killed and Spider-Man is wearing his home-made costume with the balaclava mask. Andrew recreated the scene using 426 photos. I put them together and we found the theme song to the old cartoon to have as background music. We hope you enjoy it.
I’m later than normal getting this out, but there is still 6 weeks until Christmas, so there is still lots of time.
The drawing of the names has been done, and the results are below. Most people are buying for people they haven’t bought for before. Three people are buying for people they bought for before, with the most recent being 3 years ago.
Note: Please look it over and let me know if there are any mistakes. We don’t want people buying for each other as part of the gift exchange. We also don’t want spouses buying for each other as part of the gift exchange.
Here are some guidelines:
We’ll be hosting the Christmas Eve party and Christmas Day dinner. We’ll send around another email later with the details of who is bringing what.
In case anyone is wondering, we are definitely getting in the Christmas spirit. It looks like we’ll be putting up our Christmas trees (we have 2) on Nov 19 as part of Family Home Evening.
Lastly, this is the kids favourite song/video at Christmas:
Well, Halloween has come and gone. We ended up with a lot of rain (remnants of Sandy), but it was barely “spitting” out while we were trick or treating. The kids each got a huge bag full of stuff… enough to last them for a couple of days anyway 🙂
Below are some pictures of the St Catharines kids and the pumpkins we carved. Then I’ve also included the various pictures from the other kids as well.
Matthew really wanted a couple of turtles for his birthday. We looked into it, and new baby red-eared sliders were $50 a piece. If we had to get a tank, filter, light, etc it was going to cost us a lot. I looked on Kijiji and found an ad for a complete set including a 1-year-old turtle and a 4-year-old turtle for $45. The ad said that the turtles liked to go outside and play on the grass and that they had “great personalities”. Matthew was very excited about that, so we went to get them. One turtle is quite large, while the other one is just kind of big. We got a large tank, sunning dock, light, turtle food, turtle snacks, some rocks, a filter plus the turtles. It was a great deal.
When we picked up the turtles, the woman said that they liked to eat guppies. We went to the pet store on Thursday night and asked about guppies, and they said they didn’t have them. I asked what the cheapest thing was that turtles would eat, and they replied, “Anything!” They said that you could get a dozen rosey reds for a couple of bucks, so we went for them. We ended up getting probably 3 dozen for the same price. When we put them in the tank, the turtles eagerly hunted their new food.
I had no idea turtles ate like this. It’s pretty neat. Andrea was with us and took a video. You can see it below or directly on the YouTube site:
At the request of several people, the drawing was done early this year. Last year, the drawing took place November 6, and today is October 24, so we’re about 2 weeks early…
The drawing of the names has been done, and the results are below. I believe that no one is buying for anyone that they’ve bought for in the last 5 years or more.
Note: Please look it over and let me know if there are any mistakes. We don’t want people buying for each other as part of the gift exchange. We also don’t want spouses buying for each other as part of the gift exchange.
Here are some guidelines:
I assume we’ll be hosting the traditional Christmas Eve party at our house again.
Thursday we headed off early to Aquatica with Grandma and Grandpa.
We were at the park by 10 am, so it still wasn’t that warm outside, but the water was nice, so it was fine.
The waterproof camera we borrowed from Andrea came in handy again.
We didn’t go anything new, just the same stuff as the other day. We played in the wave pool, went along the lazy river (Loggerhead Lane), floated around in Roa’s Rapids, and played in the Walkabout Waters area. Christine found a very small waterslide that she loved and she must have gone down it 50 or more times.
Considering that the park is by SeaWorld, there is a surprising lack of animals/birds/fish in the park. I figured that somehow they would have integrated them more. There are a few Macaw, a large aquarium you see as part of the Loggerhead Lane lazy river, as well as some Commerson’s dolphins that you can see in Loggerhead Lane as well as from one of the water slides. They are black and white, kind of like Orca whales, and they often swim upside down (as you can see in the picture). Apparently that is so they can see prey above them.
You can also see the dolphins from an underwater viewing area. Unfortunately none were swimming by when the picture was taken.
As mentioned before, Grandma and Grandpa did come out with us yesterday and today. Grandma isn’t 100%, but she is getting better.
We got back home around 1:30 and had lunch and then relaxed at the house. We had breakfast for dinner, and then the kids had a bath. They were almost in bed on time, and then Lisa and I went out to go to a few stores.
Friday is our last full day in Florida. We are going to go mini-putting again in the morning, and do some shopping. We’ll then go out for dinner and head out to Downtown Disney one last time.
Many years ago whenever Lisa wanted to do something boring, I would say to Andrea and Brianna, “I wish I were mini-putting”. They ended up getting me a custom made t-shirt with that phrase on it. You’ve seen it many, many times, I’m sure.
Unfortunately, the shirt just got too thin and started to rip around the letters. I had to throw it out 🙁 Good-bye old friend!
On another sad note, last night Lisa and I watched the movie 2012 last night. If you haven’t seen it, DON”T!!! You’ll never get that two and a half hours back…
I have, but don’t remember these strange creatures…
