In which Helena engages in some fangirl flailing

I had something happen this week that turned out to be pretty exciting.  Iain MacKinnon (of Isle of Lewis, Scotland) wrote this fabulous "Rainbow Connection" parody for The Grimm Podcast.  As soon as I heard the song I thought, "This needs to be a video!"  I could just see the whole thing in my head, listening to it.  Now sometimes I get ideas that may take me months (or years) to implement, but every once in a while I get struck with something that I just have to do RIGHT NOW.  This was definitely one of those cases.  I started working on the video that night, in a frenzy of concentration, and had it all finished and uploaded by early afternoon the next day.

Response has been great and just so fun. We got a re-tweet from actor David Giuntoli (which gave me a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights moment), and he also made a nice comment on Iain's absolutely perfect Kermit voice).  And we got a mention from Akela Cooper (one of the writers on the show), who said "We all got a big kick out of this this in the writers room today."  The video got 1,000 views in less than two days.  I kept coming back and refreshing and squeaking in amazement. 

Of course the video is entirely peripheral to Iain's awesome song,  but it's just been fun to be involved with something like this that made a bit of a splash for a couple of days.  I was riding on an adrenaline high for a while there. 

When I finished the video I was in a hurry to share it, and after I got it uploaded I realized there's a stray frame that I missed.   Of course now it drives me nuts every time I watch it  (my Engineer Dad genes keep poking at me).  I must keep this in mind the next time I get over-excited about something.



I have to share these LEGO minifigs that I put together recently.  (Yep, I'm obsessed.)  Kate has been playing with them.  We had to explain--"This is Nick and Monroe.  Nick is a police detective, and Monroe is... ummm.... He's a clock maker."  (She's a little young to watch the show for a few years yet, I think!)

I also finished my review of Season One on Amazon.  50 more days till Season Two,  Oh, the torment.

March of the Penguins

The Big Four-Oh

Yes, I spent my fortieth birthday playing with Legos.  (Excuse me--LEGO bricks.)  Second childhood?

I've been getting used to "going to be forty" for a while.  Now that part's past and I am forty.  Funny how that happens.  I don't feel forty.  (Apparently I don't look forty, either.  People are often surprised to learn how old I am.  Or maybe it's just that my kids are so young.)

Doug and the kids were all recovering from colds, so I went to church by myself. (I think a lot of other people were sick too--we only had one child in nursery.  It was a very low-key kind of day.)   Then home for birthday lunch and LEGO!



First, the pictures with the adorable children!





The card Kate made for me.




The present!  LEGO Medieval Market Village--1601 little plastic pieces of fun.  I've been drooling over this set for a while.  Half-timbered houses!  How cool is that?



Kate couldn't wait to help unload the box.  "I think there's more in here!"  (She's wearing a watch that Becki Foutz brought back from Hawaii for her.)



"Cows!"



This is what 1601 pieces of LEGO looks like. Lots of bags.



Mother-daughter LEGO time. What a nice way to spend a birthday!



Kate helps put together the tree.



(The tree is kind of annoying--it doesn't stay together very well.)



It's not a simple set to put together!  Its was especially tricky trying to assemble everything while Kate was playing with the pieces.  I would spend long minutes looking for one specific part, only to discover that Kate had attached it to something random in a humorous manner.  This happened several times.

We still haven't quite finished.  I'll post more pictures when it's done!

It was a lovely day, with many calls from my family and aggressively off-key renditions of "Happy Birthday" (except for Barb and Kyle, who for some reason prefer to sing in the key of "on.")  Doug cooked for us (twice) even though he wasn't feeling entirely well.  I had plans to put some candles in a Honeycrisp apple, in lieu of a cake, but we got busy and ate the apple without the candles.  It was quite tasty.

Mini We

Our family in LEGO minifigs!  Aren't they cute?  I think I got Doug down pretty well, aside from the hairline of course.  And I wasn't able to get the girl's and boy's hair in the same color.  The fun thing is that Kate really does have a pink shirt with white sleeves like that.

Kate gets a kick out of the LEGO family.  It's so funny to listen to her playing with them.  ("Oh no, Andy's been captured!  You have to help him!")



Minifig Kate has her own pet dragon!  Kate thinks this is awesome.

I got some of the parts directly from LEGO and found some on BrickLink. BrickLink is a very cool site. A little hard to figure out at first, but very, very cool. (While I'm at it, I'll put in a plug for Bricklyn Bridge. Great service!)

Leggo my LEGO

I have developed a desire for Legos.

I'm still not sure where this came from or when it happened (perhaps from playing with the Duplo blocks in the nursery at church), but I found myself  haunting lego.com, browsing the Pick-a-Brick store, and calling Doug to come look at this.  But it didn't seem like a good idea to bring something like that into a house with a busy two-year old who still sometimes put things in his mouth.  (Andy's been chewing on stuff a lot lately...maybe he's cutting molars). 



We got Andy some Duplo blocks for Christmas.  Both kids have been enjoying playing with them. But I still wanted some regular Legos. 

Now, I'm not really supposed to say Legos, since LEGO is a brand name and doesn't have a plural form. Apparently I should be saying "LEGO bricks" or something along those lines. And LEGO should always be written in all caps.

So anyway, I wanted some regular LEGO bricks.   And the more I thought about it, the more I really didn't want to wait.  Finally I just said, "Let's get some and just keep them away from Andy."



So we did. In a frenzy of shameless consumerism, we picked up the cute little Knight and Castle building set (I fell in love with the door and the windows--Kate likes the dragon, of course) and then the very next day we went up to the LEGO store at the Bellevue Square Mall (which was cool but crazy crowded) and filled up a large cup with random pieces at the Pick-a-Brick wall.



A couple of weeks later we also got the large pink brick box, which is full of girly cuteness. (And a pony!)

LEGO sure has changed since I was growing up. Or perhaps not changed, as such, but definitely expanded. I'm quite sure they didn't have pink bricks when I was a kid.

Kate and I have been having fun with them. (And Dad too!) She calls them "the tiny Legos" (Errr...tiny LEGO bricks. Yeah.) and when she wants to play with them we keep them on the kitchen table, and make sure to clean them up as soon as we're done. So far this seems to be working pretty well.



Minifig Sally (that's short for "mini figure," in case you're not up on your LEGO-lingo) driving her pink jeep. Kate turned it into a dragon with the addition of horns and a tail. And I think those little round pieces on the front are meant to be eyes and nostrils.



Kate came up with this bird all by herself.



I was thinking that the extra room in those bins they give you was probably a psychological ploy to entice you to buy more bricks to fill up the space, but it has occurred to me that they're also useful for storing your finished creations. Kate does seem to enjoy the building aspect but so far she's been much more interested in playing with the things that she's put together. We've come up with some funny little creatures. The one on the left has been dubbed "Eye Stalks."



Andy occasionally expresses his displeasure at not being allowed to play with the Legos, but he's having a good time with the Duplo blocks. He likes to make tall towers.



When he's older we can all play with the Legos together!