I know – crappy home videos that people dread watching, but I wanted to share them anyways.

Ean’s preschool class made a trip to the Christian Care retirement community before Christmas to help spread some Christmas cheer and some of their excitement. The kids sang a couple of holiday tunes, handed out cookies that they helped decorate, and show off some of their favorite toys to the residents.

I was really surprised at how open Ean was in sharing and talking to the guests. He tends to shy away from the large crowd type of activities. Maybe he is growing up after all.

Well, our Christmas holiday is wrapping up and we are working on retiring the old stuff (clothes and toys) and moving the new toys/clothes into the rotation.

Other than the snowy and cold weather, our holiday was a good one. Ella wanted nothing to do with unwrapping presents, but loved pulling socks from the stockings. Ean, on the other hand, loves opening presents so much so that he was unwrapping his presents and not waiting for anyone to watch him.

We still owe a couple of gifts and should get them out hopefully by the beginning of the new year.

I hope everyone had a great holiday as well.

I won free tickets to see the Colts play the Jets on December 27th. Unfortunately the coach decided to the loose the game for them and pull most of their starters when they only had a 5 point lead and allowed the Jets to come back and win by a large amount.

The roads were very snowy as we got about 3 inches of snow throughout the whole day and the roads were not always fast moving.

Other than that – we had a blast as it was April’s first professional football game and Lucas Oil Stadium was huge and a great place to be as a fan!

From Colts Vs Jets

From Colts Vs Jets

From Colts Vs Jets

Here is the slide show of our day:

While there is not a creature stirring in the house, we wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and safe holidays!

Ean had his Winter Party at school and had a blast doing it. The kids all exchanged gifts and even Miss Leslie gave some gifts to the kid.

The kids decorated cookies as well that they were going to hand out at the Christian Care Nursing home (video to come shortly) and they played several games.

Here is picture of Ean and Isabelle:

It’s funny – the kids never eat all of their food in one sitting. However, we discovered a place that the kids not only eat at all of their food, but they ask for seconds. Sakura’s japanese restaurant, which was previously a date night eatery,has been put on the lunch rotation. It has also been placed on one of the Fort Wayne favorites.

Thought that I would try and get everyone into the mood.

After the great adventure to the pumpkin patch, where could Lancaster preschool top that? The Walmart Bakery, where the kids get to learn about how they make bread, decorate cake, and they could even decorate their own cupcake and eat it afterwards.

After watching some things online about Lego Stop motion, Ean and I decided to try our hand at it as well.

Here are some early screen tests that we worked up. I’m waiting for Ean’s Christmas table, which will have four of the green lego boards glued to the top to help reduce the movement on the table before we get any additional movies movies made. Ean learned that he didn’t have the patience to do a long movie because wants to move the guys immediately, instead of a step by step process.

What is even the most amazing part is that everything was free except my camera.

This was the first test using a webcam and a free software application:

Luke Skywalker Screen Test from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

Ean and I were playing with Star Wars Legos and decided to attempt some stop motion.

Second test using a multiple motion movements in it. Still using the webcam.

Hoth Attack from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

Han is returning from patrol and he loses control of his Tauntan and starts to run. Lo and behold a snowtrooper makes an appearance.

Next I get to play with with a better table, lighting, and maybe even sound effects.

Tried using our smaller digital camera, but the autofocus kept focusing on the legos in the back

Sword Play Test from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

I’m still playing with different camera settings to see if I can get it looking better. The camera was in autofocus and focused into the legos on the back of the table.

The first attempt at audio on our first small feature film. I used my Nikon in manual focus mode. The only downside is that there was no preview so it was harder to go back and see where everything was, so something would get out of focus or in the wrong location.

The Lost Son from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

A fan made video made by Ean and Dylan to continue the story after Return of the Jedi.

I think in the end, I liked how the webcam part worked because I could preview and see where the images were before snapping it (even though I got a few hands in it). Keep an eye out for additional ones especially after Christmas of 09