Back in Time

Hannah loves her iPad.  She's gone through tons of apps and games, learned all kinds of things (frog dissection app?), has access to Facebook (yes, she's on Facebook!) and email.  But one of her favorite things is the camera. She loves to use the crazy camera features.   She loves to take videos of herself and her friends.  We regularly have to delete most of the pictures or videos (she doesn't seem to notice).

Back in March she saw a new kids' TV show called "Dinosaur Train".   She really liked it.  It's made for preschoolers, but she didn't know much about dinosaurs, so it was interesting to her.    We got dinosaur books from the library, and dinosaur toys.

We were surprised when we discovered this video she made!   She took the part of the narrator, and had her toys do the action.  When you watch it, you'll see Hannah look over to the side.  That's because she's looking at the iPad screen to see what she looks like in the picture (the camera is to her left side of the iPad).

I've added some text to help you understand some of the tricky parts.    It's long, but pretty entertaining...You can get a real feel for her imagination.

No problemo !!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Going back in time...

Cheesin' with Daddy, age 4

Our family is not known for its organization.  Or, rather, most of our family is not very tidy.   One of us is very orderly, and he tries to survive in a family who values entropy.  Most of us also have amazing skills of procrastination.

We have a couple of decades worth of family photos.  All jumbled in series of shoe boxes.  All of them are from pre-digital age.   One of Hannah's favorite ways to spend time together is to pull out a box of photos and run through handfuls of pictures.   She loves pictures from she was little; shrieks of laughter emerge when she sees a ridiculous pose, or a satisfied sigh when she comes across a beautiful one.

Hannah has remarkable stamina and interest in the family pictures.  (means=the rest of us are sick of it)

But she's been in heaven lately because we're finally sorting out all the boxes and loosely organizing pictures by year.   Then they'll all be shipped out to be digitized and put somewhere in the cloud or hiding in a terabyte external hard drive.

Two year old bunny...

Mischievous and hungry two year old.  

One of my favorite pictures ever.  Fourth birthday!

It's a good time for us to take on this task. We have a month to get it all done.  Our formal dining table is COVERED with pictures.  With Thanksgiving coming up, we'll need a clean table for our turkey!

Disclaimer:  Kate and I spent a long time organizing these same boxes of pictures over a decade ago. We sorted them out along the perimeter of my bedroom.  We had almost finished when Hannah managed to sneak into my room. She made an ENORMOUS mess, shuffling all of the pictures into a mound.  We were so disheartened that we just put them into boxes where they've lived since.

#13/31 Photography and Captions by Hannah

This is my Rescue Hero Command Center.  I bought it myself.

That's a BIG goldfish.

It's not Puddle.  But it is a Big Puddle.  

(Puddle is our baby painted turtle.)

My mom is silly in this picture.

I drew a picture of an airplane for my Dad when I was at the airport.

This is inside my Grandma and Grandpa's car.

My Daddy made a perfect smile so you can see him!

My mom planted a strawberry plant.  Can you believe it?  A strawberry in October!

Raspberries.  They taste yummy!

These are watermelons.

I like to make videos on my camera the most.

A Three Hour Tour

Not Really. Hannah has been taking pictures again. This time I started to teach her how to create a montage. Now I think I've created a monster. Enjoy the randomness.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A thousand pictures is worth one word

I guess the word is, "Hmmm."

Catching up

Guess who's come to town? Kate arrived home last night, only missing one flight (not bad for flying out of Minneapolis in the winter). I put her to work right away, making chocolate dipped pretzels.

Then Hannah took the camera to document her handiwork.

And her fish.


(Yes, he is getting big, but he's a little magnified from the glass. Yes, he lives in a vase.)

And the stockings await...

Kate caught us practicing our duet for Hannah's piano recital tomorrow!

Hooray! We made it through without mistakes! Let's hope it works out that way tomorrow!


This afternoon we had a little reindeer fun!




Hope you are having fun preparing for Christmas!

Photos by Hannah

Hannah's friend Elisabeth came over for a sleepover last night. They had lots of fun playing American Girl dolls and Webkinz. Later they watched "Annie" on DVD. That kept them up late enough that when the finally got to bed, they both conked out right away. They didn't even wake up until 9:30 this morning! Now that's my kind of sleepover!

Hannah took some pictures of the evening.















This morning I heard some giggling. Upon investigation, I found that Hannah discovered the confiscated Halloween candy (I shoulda thrown it out!). She filled her mini-claw machine with the candy and dumped out her piggy bank. They weren't even planning on eating any of the candy, they were just practicing their "claw skills"!

Elisabeth is so much fun--we can't wait until she can come again!

Tagged or not, I'm it!

Since my brain is still recovering from the exceptional food intake over the past few days, I am stealing an idea I saw on another blog. It was a "Tag! You're It" kind of thing. The task was to look at the fourth picture in the fourth picture file on the computer, and write about it (or something close to that, I think...). If you've got a blog, do a show and tell too, and leave me a comment so I can come and see what secrets your fourth file shows!

So here it is:

This picture was taken on New Year's Day 2006. We were in the Atlanta airport, waiting to fly to Tampa. For Christmas that year, I got my first digital camera. It was Katie's last year at home, and we wanted to do something fun together as a family, so we went on a cruise to Cozumel and Grand Cayman (and probably somewhere else too, but I've forgotten). I had already taken a nice picture of these two patient kids, so, as usual, Hannah wanted to make silly faces.

We had a great time on the cruise. Hannah went on a submarine ride, and the older kids took their first scuba lesson. We snorkeled, danced, played games, ate well (except for the last couple of days...rough seas. Eww.), and had fun!

Wow! Chris has grown so much in three years! What a young 15 year old he was! Hard to believe that two weeks after this picture was taken he started his first semester at the community college! That's kinda crazy, don't you think?

Here's the picture I took just before the one above:


On another Chris note, I am so HAPPY to be able to say that he is currently PAIN-FREE for the first time in nine months! He's been going to a chiropractor three times a week for the past month. His residual back pain from the fractures is gone, and he's working on gentle exercises to gain more range of motion. We are so thankful for this blessing!

I hope you all have had blessings that have made your Thanksgiving holiday wonderful!

Too many pictures....

We've had plenty of rain in the past month (12 inches at least!), so we have a nice crop of mushrooms. Hannah has been enjoying watching them grow. She spent some time outside with the camera today, and now is dictating this post:

That one is my back yard, with a tree:

This mushroom is growing from on the ground.

These are so cute. This is a family of mushrooms.

This looks like an umbrella.

This looks like a flower.

I took this picture for Katie. I'd like Katie to be here.

See the pink mushrooms?? (Giggle giggle) They are my feet mushrooms!

I think it looks like Epcot Center. It looks like a brain.

This looks like a bowl. A salad bowl.

I know! It's a burned marshmallow mushroom!

This is a flying saucer.

(Sigh)

And that's the end of the Hannah Mushroom show.