Today we went to Bailey 5th birthday party at the Huntington Skating Rink. Bailey is the son of Whitney, who I work with and April has played with her for softball.

I was really sure how Ean would take it as he tends to shy away from new things, however we have been trying to pump him up for it. It went rather well. Ean took to his skates immediately and we even tried a pair on Ella. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a pair on April.

All in all it was a great party with one exception. One of the ladies dressed up in a Birthday roo costume. Ean had the fear in his eyes, but as long as stayed across the rink from here he was alright. Ella, on the other hand, loved the costumed lady and went right up to her to get her picture taken.

Thanks Whitney and Bailey for the invitation!

**Sorry for some of blurry pics. Moving kids and dark lights don’t make great pictures.**

I know that I’m several weeks late, but April attended Ean’s preschool party for Valentines day. The kids had a blast playing games and eating cupcakes and cookies. They played with a parachute and silly races. Great fun by all!

Here is some pictures and a couple of video clips to show for you.

From Valentines Day

Back in January, Ean’s preschool went to East of Chicago and made their own personal pan pizzas. The kids absolutely loved getting their hands dirty and decorating their own pizzas with sausage, pepperoni, and cheese.

Check out the pictures below for Ean and his friends.

From Pizza Field Trip

Now that Ella turned two, it was time to move her from the crib and crib matress into a big girl bed.

While we were discussing Ella’s bed, we wanted to move Ean out of his race car bed and into just the matress. This would free up alot of space in his room for the massive amounts of toys he owns.

Both changes took effect today and both kids are excited about the changes. Now, I hope that they will both stay in them tonight.

The other day we put Ean’s minifigures all together on his Lego table.

I was pretty surprised at how many that he had. 116 is the final count that I had, but there were about 4 or 5 more that we couldn’t locate at the time.

He plays with them all, we just run out of room to store them all.

Winter has hit the wonderful Markle area. When the first day came that was actually decent, Ean wanted to go outside and play in the snow. He was actually crying when we wanted him to come back inside to eat.

I didn’t get dressed up so I didn’t go with him when he played on his slide, but he had a blast and it was funny watching him go down the slide full of snow. Thanks to certain grandparents, he also throws snowballs as the windows and doors.

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.

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:

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