Mike, Jill, & the Kid

May 20 2012

Beach Day with Daddy (Video)

“Ready? Go, go, go, go, go! Act like you’re on ‘The Amazing Race’!”
— the kid tries to get her dad to race her on the beach

Last month the three of us went to Half Moon Bay to play at the beach. Jill wrote a post on it here. Here’s a video of that day, including the kid singing and pointing out sites during our drive over the hill.

Music Used:

‘Cocaine’ from the Crumb soundtrack by Dick Justice
‘Sleepwalk’ from the 12 Monkeys soundtrack by BJ Cole
‘Better Times’ from Teen Dream by Beach House
‘Frog-I-More Rag’ from the Crumb soundtrack by Jelly Roll Morton
‘He Would Have Laughed’ from Halcyon Digest by Deer Hunter

By mike • by Mike, The Kid, Video • 0 • Tags: Beach, doll, dolls, half moon bay, kidspeak, sandcastle, spring

May 10 2012

Weekend Visit

Grandma and Grandpa came down to visit us this weekend…Auntie and Uncle joined us for pizza and birthday cake, and we had a party!

A comfy spot next to Grandma.

Reading comics with Grandpa.

We intended to visit a quiet bookstore in Mountain View…here we are walking down a lovely garden-filled street. Once we got downtown, we discovered that there was a street fair going on!

L immediately wanted to try the bouncy house. Afterwards we got a shave ice, sat down to eat it, and people-watched. Very entertaining! Grandma got some earrings, and ran into a favorite artist of hers.

After dinner we all went out to get a look at the Supermoon and peeked at Uncle’s test car. Hard to photograph…can you tell which dot is the moon in this pic?

Thanks all for a wonderful weekend!

By jill • by Jill, Relatives, The Kid • 0 • Tags: auntie, fair, Friends, Grandma, grandpa, moon, mountain view, Outside, uncle

May 10 2012

Screen Free Week part 2

Screen Free week was lots of fun. The kid always loves it…she delights in reminding her parents that it is ‘screen-free week.’ We capped our week by visiting with friends and family.

Friday morning we did some mending…

Friday night we went out with friends at Peninsula Creamery.

Sat. and Sun. we visited with Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie and Uncle.

We looked at the moon and played ’baby meeting’ together.

After all our visitors had departed, we wound down the weekend with some outdoor play.

Tigger learns how to use a magnifying glass…

Riding the big bike.

We made friends with our new neighbors this week, and did lots of outdoor playing with them.

We had a blast at the park, and it was such fun to have someone to play with and to walk home with!

It is definitely easier for kids to be screen free, and harder for the grownups to give up their tv, computers, and gadgets and focus on their children.

There is no need for kids to watch tv…any of it. There are so many other fun, interesting, useful, educational, active things they can do.

Screen-free week is an important reminder, to parents especially: whatever is going on in your world, someone is waiting, patiently, hopefully, for you to play with her. Before she grows up.

By jill • by Jill, The Kid • 0 • Tags: computers, family, Friends, moon, play, playing, screenfree, tablet, tv

May 3 2012

Screen-free week (part 1)

Yay! Screen free week! This week is screen-free week, so a week without tvs or computers or misc. devices for entertainment. Even though we (girls) are usually screen-free anyway, it helps to examine how much digital entertainment sneaks into our everyday lives. Here are some of the things we did this week.

Monday: We started the week by making a blanket fort in the nook.

I finished knitting my dolly dress…

…and madame did her very first sewing with a real needle and made a felt picture. She sewed the felt together, and sewed on the buttons herself!

Tues.: it was time for May day crafts.

We made may baskets, paper flowers, and maypoles, one for the dollies and one people-sized.

Then we danced!

Afterwards we took off for the great outdoors. We ended up at a new park with an interesting play structure we called ‘green mushrooms.’

When we got home the three of us constructed a train village, turned out the lights, and used glow sticks to direct the airplanes into the airport.

Wed: After a morning birthday party for Tigger (he has birthdays rather frequently) we went to Filoli.
The chickens were out again today, we were greatly amused by the chicken in pants! Forgot to bring camera, so here are some more pics from last week of those goofy chickens.

Daddy read the bedtime stories tonight, they were giggling as he shared one of his favorites, Calvin and Hobbes, with an enraptured little one.

By jill • by Jill, The Kid, Time Capsule • 0 • Tags: Chickens, computers, dolls, Filoli, knitting, Outdoors, Park, screenfree, tv

May 2 2012

Dancing and Unboxing

“Bundle took a bath three days ago. That’s a fact!”
— The kid states her case about personal hygiene

We have a tablet we keep in the kitchen. It’s pretty useful in a lot of ways. When not in the kitchen, someone lazing around on the couch or bed usually has it. We use it mostly as a:

Jukebox
Radio
Web Browser
Weather Tracker
Address Book
Email and Book Reader
Game Player
Map
Video Player
Recipe Box, etc.

To make it even more useful, I picked up an inexpensive bluetooth speaker to improve its sound a bit. This video shows us setting the tablet/speaker combo up. I think it has the kid’s approval!

By mike • by Mike, Geeky, The Kid, Video • 1 • Tags: android, Dancing, Gadgets, kidspeak, speaker, tablet, tech

Apr 30 2012

April, 2012 Collage

Some April kidspeak:

“Is this jazz or what?”
— the kid, over my shoulder, as I check out the hologram Tupac

“All we have is nothing!”
— the kid sums up our food situation as we make a grocery list

“Everything is hot as an iron in my soup!”
— the kid, while eating dinner

Some April Happenings:

All three of us went to the beach
A bunch of Easter posts here, here, here, and here
The kid saw some gnomes and chickens
We posted a video full of snow
The girls played with some old book
We posted the first of a series — Then & Now: At the Bookshelf

April Book Readin’:

A Confederacy of Dunces

The Walking Dead: Book Two

The Walking Dead: Book Three

The Walking Dead: Book Four

The Walking Dead: Book Five

Movie & TV Watchin’:

Inception

Game of Thrones, Season 2

In Search of Steve Ditko

By mike • by Mike, The Kid, Time Capsule • 0 • Tags: Collage, kidspeak

Apr 22 2012

Beach day with Daddy

We go to the beach lots, us girls, but rarely does Mike get to join us. Today was a very hot day inland so we all went on a cooling beach picnic together.

M said this was the first time he had ever been to our favorite spot, a sheltered nook at one end of the beach. We will have to drag you here more often!

L and her daddy made a sand village complete with waterfall and lake.

They carried who knows how many buckets of water to their village and had loads of fun doing it.

A new dolly came along for her first beach outing too (rarely do the dolls or toys go to such soggy locales!)

After the beach we walked (and danced) around downtown.

Sadly the historic landmark Cunha’s country grocery store is closing down.

We poked around their emporium upstairs.

It had lots of interesting items…old telephones, two vintage Labretta scooters, lovely old windowed cabinets, and a lot of cowboy boots.