We gave Maletch a digital camera on his 3rd birthday, and it is the most awesome little camera! It is loaded with everything a kid could want from games to even video recording capabilities! It does not perform like a DSLR, hehe, with it's low 2 mp resolution but he doesn't seem to mind the low picture quality (most 3 yr olds don't care much about that)- he just loves that he can take REAL pics. This camera even came with jacks to connect and view his photos and videos on our TV, or upload them to the computer. It also comes with in-camera photo editing as well as software for editing on CD-ROM! Pretty neat, huh? I love that he is becoming tech savvy so young, but what I love best is that it gives me a way to see the world through his eyes! Sometimes I am surprised by what he wants to take a picture of- and sometimes he gets really creative setting up his shots too, lol! It is funny when I scroll through his photos and see all of our mug shots, and perfectly displayed groupings of toys, to freeze frames of a TV show, to many shots of just his feet. I will be sure to upload and share some of Maletch's favorite photos (that he took) in another post. He is very proud of some of his shots!
I was goofing around with his camera tonight and I took a video of Maletch playing on the computer, at first, but I panned across and saw Sariah opening Addie's present, lol! Caught-cha little stinker! Sorry Addie, hehe, I will re-wrap it! The video isn't the greatest quality since this was taken from his camera- but you can still make it out- but no Addie, you can't see what you are getting, LOL!
*Note: Be sure to pause the music player at the bottom of my blog before playing the video or the sounds will be battling. The pause button is towards the upper left hand corner of the player.
P.S. If you are interested in getting one of these for a child 3-10 yrs old for Christmas, it is the VTech Kidizoom Digital Camera Plus (the "Plus" part makes a HUGE difference from other models) they retail for $80.00-90.00, but I just saw them on walmart.com right now for 60 bucks (with free site-to-store)- great deal! Walmart offers 2 colors: pink or blue. I did a TON of homework on these (like everything else I buy) and this kids camera is the best on the market by far!
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Thomas the Train 2011!!!
Yep, we made it to our "Day Out with Thomas" today! Although it did rain on our parade, it did not rain out our fun! It was pretty dang cold and wet, and although that was a bummer, there was one positive side to the weather- it made it practically empty compared to last year. The lines were so short at each station there was almost no waiting for anything!!
Maletch is so funny, although he knew about this event because he had been counting down the days literally for over 3 months.... he said that he wanted to be surprised and that he did not want us to tell him on the day until we get there (just like last time)..... SO, I decided when we had counted down to 12 more days, that I would quit telling the exact number of days anymore, and just say, "Yep, pretty soon..." ... WELL that little bugger KNOWS how to count down from 12 all by himself because last night at bedtime, he says, "Mommy are we going to go see Thomas?" I said, "Yeah, pretty soon, a few more days." He said, "A few more days mommy, or ONE more day? It is only one more night-night and THIS is the night-night, right?" I didn't want to lie to him (it really broke my heart) BUT he said he wanted to be surprised, so I fibbed and said, "No honey, we aren't going to see Thomas tomorrow, we are going to do some errands though"... (and I made up a bunch of stuff, hoping that would distract him if I kept talking, plus it was a built in excuse for where we would be "driving" in the morning). I could tell this was confusing to him because he HAD kept track!!
I don't know how the heck he does that-- BUT he has done this to us so many times in the past with Disneyland- we did a similar thing like let him know in advance that it was coming so he could look forward to it- but like 2-3 days before I would stop saying the number of days (not to surprise him with those trips, ONLY to make sure he would go to sleep and not stay up all excited) WELL he had figured out how to count down (and keep track) of 2-3 days by himself and would ask the same questions the night before--- so I THOUGHT I had learned my lesson- so with Thomas - 12 days - I thought that was plenty of days to lose track of for a 3-yr-old, but NOPE!! Holy heck?!?!?!
Anyway, so we fibbed and tried to play it off as good as we could, and apparently we were pretty convincing because even though he initially DID know (on his own)- he did seem surprised when we got there (only because his mom and dad were fibbing) BUT, he was super happy that we did that.
I am glad he appreciated our "trick we played", lol, cuz I really hated doing it- but NOW John and I don't know how to let him know about something in advance so that he can look forward to it, without him always knowing the night before-- cuz you CAN'T tell him about anything coming, without him wanting a specific- he WILL ask you how many more days, and even when I have tried saying things like "about 2 weeks", he always asks, "How many days is that?" LOL! How he keeps track without a calendar, I really don't understand??? I have even tried telling him it was one day later (adding one day to the actual number of days) if it is really 6, then just say 7 from the beginning, but he heard me tell John the plan apparently, cuz he 'called me out' on that too, hehe! Man, what a dilemma!
A few details/highlights/cute moments:
I chose the last departure time (train ride) of the day so that we could spend the entire start of the day doing the different activities. Maletch lasted all day without a nap, and without getting fussy- what a trooper! This way too, the whole day was a 'build up' to the best part- our ride on Thomas, and boy was he looking forward to it all day. He was so excited when we finally boarded, announcing, "All aboard" and blowing his train whistle... we got half way through our journey and the poor boy fell asleep, hehe! I really couldn't believe my eyes- but he was THAT tired, poor boy, he missed part of the train ride! Well, thank goodness he was awake for the first half, and then we made sure we woke him up before we got off (opposed to carry him) because I didn't want him to feel like he missed the end and didn't say "goodbye." I don't think he realizes he nodded off for a few minutes, and let's not anybody tell him, hehe.
After Maletch got his Thomas tattoo, as we were leaving the 'Tattoo parlor' (haha) he stopped and said, "Wait, Sariah didn't get a tattoo, we need to get one for Sariah!" My heart melted that he was looking out for his baby sister. He is always such a sweet boy, but when he shows thoughtfulness to her, it is always so touching to me. I think it was even more so since we were in a place that was so FUN, it would be easy to 'forget' to be thoughtful of others (like be thinking about the next fun thing we were going to do), but he continued to be thoughtful of her all day. He wanted her to get everything that he got. As far as the tattoo, although we hadn't planned on getting one for Sariah, hehe, of course we went right back in. Maletch said, "I think Sariah wants to have a Percy tattoo." That was a great choice, and Percy is what she got!
He always wants to share every thing he has with other kids (no matter where we are) and today was no different, right down to the bag of chips he was eating. "Mommy, I want to share my chips with that boy over there." Throughout the day, several of the employees had heard his thoughtful comments/gestures, and many were giving him special treatment, hehe! It is a pleasure to take him places and always has been- and I am so grateful for that!
I love their Thomas store! I scored a lot of cool Thomas merchandise again this time (exclusive Thomas stuff only available to event-goers). I picked up a few scrapbooking items, photo frames, cute Thomas clothes, as well as a few Christmas gifts for him!
We had a special bag of Thomas gifts for him when we got home to top off the perfect day! There were many goodies in the bag, including toys, videos, and other misc Thomas items- he loved everything!
I am just starting this post, BUT I have been working on the slideshow for what feels like FOREVER... the pictures are taking WAY too long to load (my computer must have something VERY wrong with it), so I still don't have all of the pics on here, nor are the ones that I have organized, but I threw some in a slideshow for now and I will just have to work on this later (right now I need a break). There should be more pics, and better pics later today/tomorrow.
I am so MAD at my computer because what should have taken 2 hours (to download, edit, and upload to internet) has taken 15 hours and I am still not finished!! UGGH!!! I don't have time to diagnose and fix my computer- dang thing- I just want to finish uploading photos!
Here is a "sneak peek" thanks for stopping by!
Much more coming..........
Maletch is so funny, although he knew about this event because he had been counting down the days literally for over 3 months.... he said that he wanted to be surprised and that he did not want us to tell him on the day until we get there (just like last time)..... SO, I decided when we had counted down to 12 more days, that I would quit telling the exact number of days anymore, and just say, "Yep, pretty soon..." ... WELL that little bugger KNOWS how to count down from 12 all by himself because last night at bedtime, he says, "Mommy are we going to go see Thomas?" I said, "Yeah, pretty soon, a few more days." He said, "A few more days mommy, or ONE more day? It is only one more night-night and THIS is the night-night, right?" I didn't want to lie to him (it really broke my heart) BUT he said he wanted to be surprised, so I fibbed and said, "No honey, we aren't going to see Thomas tomorrow, we are going to do some errands though"... (and I made up a bunch of stuff, hoping that would distract him if I kept talking, plus it was a built in excuse for where we would be "driving" in the morning). I could tell this was confusing to him because he HAD kept track!!
I don't know how the heck he does that-- BUT he has done this to us so many times in the past with Disneyland- we did a similar thing like let him know in advance that it was coming so he could look forward to it- but like 2-3 days before I would stop saying the number of days (not to surprise him with those trips, ONLY to make sure he would go to sleep and not stay up all excited) WELL he had figured out how to count down (and keep track) of 2-3 days by himself and would ask the same questions the night before--- so I THOUGHT I had learned my lesson- so with Thomas - 12 days - I thought that was plenty of days to lose track of for a 3-yr-old, but NOPE!! Holy heck?!?!?!
Anyway, so we fibbed and tried to play it off as good as we could, and apparently we were pretty convincing because even though he initially DID know (on his own)- he did seem surprised when we got there (only because his mom and dad were fibbing) BUT, he was super happy that we did that.
I am glad he appreciated our "trick we played", lol, cuz I really hated doing it- but NOW John and I don't know how to let him know about something in advance so that he can look forward to it, without him always knowing the night before-- cuz you CAN'T tell him about anything coming, without him wanting a specific- he WILL ask you how many more days, and even when I have tried saying things like "about 2 weeks", he always asks, "How many days is that?" LOL! How he keeps track without a calendar, I really don't understand??? I have even tried telling him it was one day later (adding one day to the actual number of days) if it is really 6, then just say 7 from the beginning, but he heard me tell John the plan apparently, cuz he 'called me out' on that too, hehe! Man, what a dilemma!
A few details/highlights/cute moments:
I chose the last departure time (train ride) of the day so that we could spend the entire start of the day doing the different activities. Maletch lasted all day without a nap, and without getting fussy- what a trooper! This way too, the whole day was a 'build up' to the best part- our ride on Thomas, and boy was he looking forward to it all day. He was so excited when we finally boarded, announcing, "All aboard" and blowing his train whistle... we got half way through our journey and the poor boy fell asleep, hehe! I really couldn't believe my eyes- but he was THAT tired, poor boy, he missed part of the train ride! Well, thank goodness he was awake for the first half, and then we made sure we woke him up before we got off (opposed to carry him) because I didn't want him to feel like he missed the end and didn't say "goodbye." I don't think he realizes he nodded off for a few minutes, and let's not anybody tell him, hehe.
After Maletch got his Thomas tattoo, as we were leaving the 'Tattoo parlor' (haha) he stopped and said, "Wait, Sariah didn't get a tattoo, we need to get one for Sariah!" My heart melted that he was looking out for his baby sister. He is always such a sweet boy, but when he shows thoughtfulness to her, it is always so touching to me. I think it was even more so since we were in a place that was so FUN, it would be easy to 'forget' to be thoughtful of others (like be thinking about the next fun thing we were going to do), but he continued to be thoughtful of her all day. He wanted her to get everything that he got. As far as the tattoo, although we hadn't planned on getting one for Sariah, hehe, of course we went right back in. Maletch said, "I think Sariah wants to have a Percy tattoo." That was a great choice, and Percy is what she got!
He always wants to share every thing he has with other kids (no matter where we are) and today was no different, right down to the bag of chips he was eating. "Mommy, I want to share my chips with that boy over there." Throughout the day, several of the employees had heard his thoughtful comments/gestures, and many were giving him special treatment, hehe! It is a pleasure to take him places and always has been- and I am so grateful for that!
I love their Thomas store! I scored a lot of cool Thomas merchandise again this time (exclusive Thomas stuff only available to event-goers). I picked up a few scrapbooking items, photo frames, cute Thomas clothes, as well as a few Christmas gifts for him!
We had a special bag of Thomas gifts for him when we got home to top off the perfect day! There were many goodies in the bag, including toys, videos, and other misc Thomas items- he loved everything!
I am just starting this post, BUT I have been working on the slideshow for what feels like FOREVER... the pictures are taking WAY too long to load (my computer must have something VERY wrong with it), so I still don't have all of the pics on here, nor are the ones that I have organized, but I threw some in a slideshow for now and I will just have to work on this later (right now I need a break). There should be more pics, and better pics later today/tomorrow.
I am so MAD at my computer because what should have taken 2 hours (to download, edit, and upload to internet) has taken 15 hours and I am still not finished!! UGGH!!! I don't have time to diagnose and fix my computer- dang thing- I just want to finish uploading photos!
Here is a "sneak peek" thanks for stopping by!
Much more coming..........
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Happy Halloween 2011!
I threw together a slideshow below that I will work on more later today.
You can check out "The Pollard Squadron" for now....
Do we look tough???
Yep, nobody wants to mess with us!!! :)
We had a nice Halloween with the kids although we didn't make it to the Festival on Sunday as planned because I was so exhausted (apparently). I didn't mean to, but I fell asleep Sunday afternoon and slept until about 1:30am on Monday- I guess our crazy schedule finally caught up to me. Anyway, John came home from work early Monday, so we could take the kids to the Festival Halloween night, but we got there just in time for them to close, so we stayed a short time and then headed for the Elephant bar.
John's dad (Pops) is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force so when John's mom saw some Air Force costumes at the Bx she couldn't resist getting them for the kids. Apparently they found the one for Maletch first, and when Pops spotted the baby girl 'Air Force Princess' costume/dress he completely flipped, hehe! They are adorable! They were able to give me plenty of time to find John and I some Air Force costumes too. I decided on flight suits for us, since the kids had fatigues, so that we would not all be twins, and also so that we would look a little more like Air Force than Army. They also sent some "Pollard" name tag/patches and official Air Force Patches and pins that we attached to all of our costumes, as well as official AF hats for John and I which really made our costumes complete!
My costume is shorter than I would have liked, but it was the only flight suit I could find in my size. I don't know why so many Halloween costumes are that way? My costume aside, I thought we looked tough, hehe! Even little Sariah, our newest recruit in our squadron was ready for trouble! And our leader sure looked HOTT in his uniform! :)
We received lots of comments, although.... if I hear "Look at the Army family" one more time, lol! I don't know how many times I said, "We are AIR FORCE", LOL!
One of the highlights of the night was when Maletch asked me to dance with him. Although I dance with him a lot- the way he asked me seemed like a boy asking a girl at a dance- it was so cute! Of course Maletch danced in his true "Dancing with the Stars" fashion, and wouldn't let me do otherwise either. And while we were dancing in the Elephant bar (where nobody else was dancing) not only were we not caring what anybody thought, or who was looking, there was something about that moment I can't explain that I just knew that I would remember it forever. Thank you for the dance Maletch!!
Sariah 5 1/2 months
Maletch 3 1/2 years
I just realized that I did post pics of Sariah trying her first smoothie (which she LOVED) but I didn't post the pic of her facial expression when she first tasted it- it was HILARIOUS! She made the face like she didn't like it, apparently she had to get used to it first, hehe- she looked like it was the most disgusting thing ever- ok note to self- I will get that pic later today (it's on the other computer) AND also Maletch (my super picky eater) cracks me up, he never wants to try anything new- WELL he didn't even want to try a dessert that he LOVES (for some reason it looked different to him), and I also snapped a photo of the look on his face (the look he makes when he is looking at food he is unsure of) and that photo also made me laugh out loud, and I didn't post that one either. OK, so that is 2 pics I need to add....
You can check out "The Pollard Squadron" for now....
Do we look tough???
Yep, nobody wants to mess with us!!! :)
We had a nice Halloween with the kids although we didn't make it to the Festival on Sunday as planned because I was so exhausted (apparently). I didn't mean to, but I fell asleep Sunday afternoon and slept until about 1:30am on Monday- I guess our crazy schedule finally caught up to me. Anyway, John came home from work early Monday, so we could take the kids to the Festival Halloween night, but we got there just in time for them to close, so we stayed a short time and then headed for the Elephant bar.
John's dad (Pops) is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force so when John's mom saw some Air Force costumes at the Bx she couldn't resist getting them for the kids. Apparently they found the one for Maletch first, and when Pops spotted the baby girl 'Air Force Princess' costume/dress he completely flipped, hehe! They are adorable! They were able to give me plenty of time to find John and I some Air Force costumes too. I decided on flight suits for us, since the kids had fatigues, so that we would not all be twins, and also so that we would look a little more like Air Force than Army. They also sent some "Pollard" name tag/patches and official Air Force Patches and pins that we attached to all of our costumes, as well as official AF hats for John and I which really made our costumes complete!
My costume is shorter than I would have liked, but it was the only flight suit I could find in my size. I don't know why so many Halloween costumes are that way? My costume aside, I thought we looked tough, hehe! Even little Sariah, our newest recruit in our squadron was ready for trouble! And our leader sure looked HOTT in his uniform! :)
We received lots of comments, although.... if I hear "Look at the Army family" one more time, lol! I don't know how many times I said, "We are AIR FORCE", LOL!
One of the highlights of the night was when Maletch asked me to dance with him. Although I dance with him a lot- the way he asked me seemed like a boy asking a girl at a dance- it was so cute! Of course Maletch danced in his true "Dancing with the Stars" fashion, and wouldn't let me do otherwise either. And while we were dancing in the Elephant bar (where nobody else was dancing) not only were we not caring what anybody thought, or who was looking, there was something about that moment I can't explain that I just knew that I would remember it forever. Thank you for the dance Maletch!!
Sariah 5 1/2 months
Maletch 3 1/2 years
I just realized that I did post pics of Sariah trying her first smoothie (which she LOVED) but I didn't post the pic of her facial expression when she first tasted it- it was HILARIOUS! She made the face like she didn't like it, apparently she had to get used to it first, hehe- she looked like it was the most disgusting thing ever- ok note to self- I will get that pic later today (it's on the other computer) AND also Maletch (my super picky eater) cracks me up, he never wants to try anything new- WELL he didn't even want to try a dessert that he LOVES (for some reason it looked different to him), and I also snapped a photo of the look on his face (the look he makes when he is looking at food he is unsure of) and that photo also made me laugh out loud, and I didn't post that one either. OK, so that is 2 pics I need to add....
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