A Harold Lloyd Birthday Card

Chris is having a birthday, and luckily, our friends at the Astor Cinema knew exactly what to treat her to ... a night of silent movies, one of her favourite things in the world! This particular program was a Harold Lloyd double, "Safety Last" and "Speedy". "Safety Last" is the one with that fabulous scene of Lloyd climbing up a building and hanging off the clock (yes, the film sets up an excellent reason for him to be doing all that).

So, having established that we'd go to the movies as a birthday treat, all I had to do was make a birthday card. What do you think?

Planet of the Apes - the undiscovered sequel

Fans will be excited to know that the already-crowded Planet of the Apes universe has another element. For Jeff's recent birthday, one of the presents was a DVD set of all the early Apes movies. As I wrapped it, I read the blurbs to the boys, and they were excited! When I suggested we do something creative (like nice birthday cards) they were already creating a stop-motion animated film. No, epic!

It took most of the day. There were story boards, stop motion shoots, special effects, dialogue recordings, sound effects recordings and of course a fancy cover! There is a montage too.

There's even a blurb:

"Totally a real movie"
"What makes a Planet of the Apes film better? A HUGE EXPLOSION!!! WOOOOO!!!"
"A dramatic and unexpected climactic finale to the Planet of the Apes saga"
"It's definitely a legit end."

Viewers may find some aspects of this film challenging, particularly the appearance for no reason of monkey pirates, the ninja, and the fact that the main human character is a mime. We can put much of this down to the fact that Lego is such darn'd fun to play with.

Happy Birthday Jeff, enjoy your movie.

My Mother's Day

Phew, what a nice Mother's Day! Plenty of fun stuff that I enjoy - that's what it's all about.

I visited the market in the morning as usual, and came home to find ...

... a scrumptious kid-made waffle breakfast (yes, those ARE penguin shaped waffles!).

There were presents ...

some of which were supplied by the most wonderful school Mother's Day stall (which of course I had organised). That's one way to guarantee nice gifts. A pretty mug with an Earl Grey tea bag; a massager; a handy torch; and a candle. Nice, hey? And Dad came through with an arty book!

Then there's the cards - wa hoo, three hand made ones!











Thomas showing his sense of humour :
Don't worry, the birdy gets it right in the end...













Jonathan made this card at school, and the teacher MADE them add a promise to do something nice for Mum that day. As you can see I've used my turn up, and had to mark the card accordingly. I had him make me a coffee (with the proper filter). Thomas had to teach him how to do it. Tee hee, now I have TWO sons who know how to make proper coffee.

Then Catriona just made herself at home in the craft room and used some of my nice stamping goodies.
AND, we went out to the movies, and saw Star Trek (which I loved!).

AND we tried to go to dinner (too crowded, in spite of making a booking) so we ended up getting yummy pizzas at the local great pizza place.

Screwball Comedy Alert

ABC2 are starting a Cary Grant season - this Saturday they are screening "Bringing Up Baby" at 8.30. In this classic Screwball comedy from 1938. It's a scream - there's class conflict, mistaken identities, fast repartee, and a leopard. That's Baby. And a dinosaur too, in skeleton form.

Every handsome young actor who has any flair for comedy at all gets described as "a young Cary Grant" these days. See the real young Cary Grant for yourself!

I think they are showing "Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House" soon. That's a fun one too.

The Alien Truth About Tupperware

I'm kicking myself. I had some spare Tupperware mugs, a really nice lot with matching coasters, and I sold them on eBay. No problems there, that was a good thing to do.

But I forgot the best bit of the sales pitch!



These particular mugs are famous for : being used in SPACE!

In particular, they were/will be used on the spaceship Nostromo, which as everyone knows is the setting for the film "Alien". Here's proof - Ripley is refreshing herself during the tedious journey home with something from a Tupperware mug.

Pretty exciting, huh?










But wait, it gets more exciting than that!

In the famous scene (you know, the gory one), the little alien - umm - bursts into view; knocks over a Tupperware mug, and scuttles off the table! Now THAT is cool. Earl Tupper would be proud that his invention was serving the people of Earth so many years into the future. Aliens clearly don't appreciate it though.

A Perth Christmas

We are pooped! Champagne at breakfast time kind of wears you out later in the day. I retired by about 2pm for a good rest (watched part of a movie on my iPod, thanks, it was nice...). And bounced back ready for more Christmas as a result.

The true Gingerbread house got decorated some more (an enterprising 4 year old James decided some "logs" outside would be good. They were of course premium chocolates). Then it got eaten, by six cousins. Yum!

I scored a James Bond DVD for my collection (On Her Majesty's Secret Service - the only George Lazenby film) which I think is great! We've been on a 007 kick lately, and this will continue it nicely.

That's enough news for now - Kung Fu Panda is playing on the DVD player, and we know what fun that one is...

We Have Ratatouille

Planning the menu this week, someone came up with the idea of ratatouille. The kids, of course, said they wouldn't eat it unless it looked like the delicious dish from the Pixar movie of the same name. Well, here it is before the oven :













And ready for the table :

And how did it taste? Amazing! Next time I'm doing twice as much, and a crusty loaf of bread to go with it!

Thanks to here and here for the recipes.