Tag Archives: ellieivey

The Party Continues

Ellie’s Birthday happened For Reals with cupcakes at school. It also happened with all of her grandparents the weekend before and AGAIN at Build-a-Bear on Saturday. The Build-a-Bear party was really nice – engaging, sweet and the Party Bears (folks who work there) throw a great party. Even better than I expected.

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That bear’s name is Rosie. She’s getting dressed.

So it’s back to normal.* I’m working on Easter orders and trying to get a couple toys (cats and elephants) back in the shop. I’m also working on a little surprise for y’all!

Has anybody played LittleBigPlanet 1 or 2? Ellie and I started a game in 2, but the levels in the game progressed beyond her gaming experience pretty quickly. Game play is a good fit for us because if she can’t make it, she can just wait for me to get to the next way point and reappear…but for many of the levels (with the grapple especially), she’s waiting for me a lot. I hope that some of the user-created content will more suit her style (which revolves around sticker placement, jumping and dressing our characters like cats).

*famous last words

Field Trip: Gulf Coast Exploreum

Our field trip series continued with the Gulf Coast Exploreum, a kid-focused science center in Mobile. I’m very glad we worked our way through the physics exhibit and the iMax movie about coral reefs (Ellie loves reefs) before we made it to the imaginative play room.

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It was really well done – a boat with bells in a ball pit and a light house in the corner (with a working light and fog horn). There were loads of plastic fish and a pretend fish market with a cash register and bins for sorting. That’s all she wanted to do after that. She even gave up lunch at Moe’s to rescue more fish from sharks and the horrors of the Fish Market.

After everyone made it safely into the boat, we drove it to the coral reef and released them all where they would be happy.

(Sheep pattern early next week.)

Field Trip: Sea Lab

In the few weeks left before school starts,* we’ve planned a bunch of field trips to places we’ve been meaning to go but just haven’t managed to visit. Today was the Dauphin Island Sea Lab!

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hee

They’ve got a little octopus, fossils, a lot of delta fish, rays, coral, a bit of a salt marsh, a pretend fishing boat and plenty of information about all of it. You can also see the oil rigs out in the Gulf. There’s a little wind tunnel thing that *supposedly* blows 72mph wind (just under hurricane strength) on you.

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I didn’t have a pocket anemometer to prove anything, but I don’t buy it.

Ellie had a great time – the wind machine was her favorite part. With the possible exception of the gift shop, of course. Please note the plush sea star in the wind machine with us.

*boohoohoo

Crumbly

Ellie has had an unhappy tummy for the past couple days. She has been eating a lot of crackers.

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A LOT of crackers.

Everything is covered in cracker crumbs.

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And everybody.

Frames

Michael needs a new pair of glasses. A box of five sample frames from Warby Parker arrived in the mail yesterday. These are Ellie’s favorites.

twinsies

They match her Build-a-Bear glasses

Oh, the beard. He couldn’t decide if he was doing Movember, and then liked his beard and left it. Ellie LOVES it. And I love it when Ellie draws his picture: he’s got a squiggly on his head for his ‘curlers’ and a squiggly on his chin for his beard.

We’ll just see how long this post-more-with-more-pictures-and-less-words thing lasts.

Guest Blogger: Turkey Prints

Today we have a guest post from crafting expert, Ellie. I’ve transcribed her instructions as accurately as possible and my Mom took the step-by-step pictures. November’s Mindful Fiber post is more done than it used to be. Please enjoy this tutorial while you wait.

Turkey Handprint Project

Materials:
Paint
A hand
Paint brushes
Bowls to put the paint in
Paper
Something to wash your hand off with (wet paper towels work)
A marker

Process:

1

Step 1

Step 1: Paint your hand.

2

Step 2

Step 2: Paint the feathers (your fingers) one color. Paint his head (your thumb) another color. Paint his body (your palm) another color.

3

Step 3

Step 3: Stick your hand down on a piece of paper like this.

4

Step 4

Step 4: Pull your hand up and wash it off. Or make more.

Step 5: Let it dry.

6

Step 6

Step 6: After the paint is dry, use a marker to add feet and an eye and a beak. Turkey!

Step 7: Yell “I LOVE YOU!!!”

Editor’s note: Step 7 might be optional I can’t really tell. Happy Thanksgiving!