video – Page 7 – Out Of Their Minds Design

Wait, WHAT?

Ok so today we were cleaning up the remnants of lunch, Ian was sitting playing over on the first step, a handful of coasters in his hand. From her chair Melissa counted them as he moved them “One, two, three, four, five…”

And then Ian chimed in, moving the coasters and pointing, but more importantly… counting. Melissa and I fell silent in shock… he said the rest by himself, without any kind of aid —

“Seeks, Heben, Eight, Nine, Ten.”

Melissa and I looked at each other in disbelief and then applauded and cheered. Ian was thrilled with our reaction.

But that’s not all… hopefully I’ll have a video of him trying the alphabet. He doesn’t have that down nearly as well as the above, but you can hear the pieces falling into place.

EDIT – I don’t have the alphabet video yet, but here’s a nice one I took around Christmas time of Ian as a raspberry machine. Enjoy!
Click here to see Ian as a raspberry machine!

New Camera

NOTE – this is the last update of 2008… I’ll spill the beans about Christmas when we returm to Rockford in 2009!

So we’re starting to catch up to the present now. Over the course of the last many entries, we’ve been edging closer.

I decided a week or two that it was time to upgrade our camera technology… I ended up buying a model about a third as expensive as what I had been planning to spend. Curiosly between the camera, accessories, and another item or so that I decided to buy, I still contributed in my way to the recovery of the US economy.

To give you an idea of what this thing is capable of, this is a still image that has been reduced in size and compressed slightly. So this is one of the many frames per second that is captured in the video example, to follow:

Image example

And here’s a video… again this has been reduced in size and quality so that it can be hosted on the web.

Video example

Christmas Recital 2008

Determined parents braved horrifying roads, ever-worsening weather conditions and a filled-beyond capacity parking lot to see their offspring put on a 15-30 second show of Christmas cheer the night of December 9th, 2008. And of course we couldn’t let it go by without getting it on video! Please forgive the part where you can’t see him behind the other kids — I did the best I could under the circumstances! The first part is the better of the two, as most of the second one he isn’t all that visible per se — I split them up so that you could opt out of the latter half.

Part I

Part II

On the First Week of Christmas…

Because of the busy schedules of everybody involved, Grampa Dave and Grandma Marcia came over for an early Christmas on the 7th of December! They picked a great day, too… it was the one magic day of the week that had flurries instead of snow showers.

We all had a fantastic time… Ian’s personality really shined and he did us all proud.

I’ll tell the rest of the story through video and pictures.

I took the videos that Grampa Dave shot with his camera and stitched together the best moments that he captured into one large movie. It is 7mb in size. Click this link to watch the video if you have the bandwidth/connection to handle it.
Early Xmas Highlights

Just to get us all in a festive mood, here’s a great shot that Grampa Dave took of one of our favorite ornaments! See this image larger.

And for those of you Scrooges that need to get in their mood, here’s Ian’s “poison apple” face. See this image larger.

Grandma Marcia takes the time to read Ian a story while he waits patiently to begin opening presents. See this image larger.

First present, a sweater with a train on it? Cool! “Daynkoo!” (Thank you) See this image larger.

I love this shot because of how wide-eyed Ian is about his new robot. If you didn’t get a chance to check out the highlight video, we asked him what it was, and quite clearly he said “robot!” See this image larger.

He was as patient as an almost two-year-old can be, but this didn’t stop him from being very excited. Here he leans to get a look while Grandma and Grampa attempts to release the robot from its packaging. See this image larger.

As excited as he was, this still did not compare to his excitement when opening his big mystery gift! It was a tee-pee/tent! See this image larger.

“Guys you’ve got to see this, there’s like this whole other room in here!!!” Indeed, he grabbed Grampa, Grandma, Da and Ma and pulled us all into the tent. See this image larger.

A nice hug for Grampa Dave… it is neat to see such love in my father’s and son’s eyes. Moments like these add years to your life, I’m absolutely sure. See this image larger.

You still having fun in there? See this image larger.

“Let’s see, robot – check, Grampa Dave – check, doggie – check… I’ll be right back with more!” See this image larger.

Thank you Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Dave for your generosity, and making the trip out to see us for early Christmas! See this image larger.

I can’t really think of any other good stories, but as I may have mentioned, if I leave a hanging “One…” with a pregnant pause, he’s chimed in with “two” and “three.” He also has “readysetgo” down, particularly if you ask him the right way.

Thanksgiving 2008 Epilogue

Finally, here are the videos I promised everybody.

The first one is of Ian and Kaylee at their cutest. Click here to see the video, of the “two man horse.” (Watch it once without reading this and I’ll point out a couple things on your second time through… Notice that the horse stops to pick up a boat? It also stops for Ian to pick up a blanket… if you turn up your volume you can hear him exclaim “blankey!” as it comes into view. A moment later you hear me laugh and as Grandma Barb comes into view “Gramma!”

The second movie is not for the feint of heart. This is Connor singing “Who Wants to be my Girlfriend?” I did my best to match his radical musical styling with crazy and chaotic camera direction. Great Grandma Chapman, I think you can skip this one. (I will say that you might love Ian’s reaction. Something about the timing of those claps…) Mostly I wanted to make sure Mel and Ben had access to this for when Connor brings home his prom date in 10 or so years. 😉 Check out “Connor Sings!” here.

Graduation

Ladies and Gentlemen… as you probably know, this week marks the beginning of Ian’s time in the “older toddler” room. There was, of course, a high brow, joyous ceremony to honor his step into a more mature world. I include a video of said ceremony at this link, enjoy!

Here’s the video, click here!

Dance!

Some random updates for you:

• Ladies and gentlemen, video footage of Ian dancing!!! Click here to see very short video!

• New Feature! On the right in the “sidebar” of the page where you’re reading this, there’s a new section called “Twitter/Live.” It should be somewhat up-to-date with the latest and greatest news if we’re on the road. Believe it or not, I can make an update to that area of the site with my mobile phone! So I just type it in, send away, and (boom) there’s an update! It’s also just easier in general to update via Twitter, so expect to see some tidbits there if you don’t see an entry here.

• Today Ian and I were watching an excellent children’s film called Kiki’s Delivery Service. It is the story of a very friendly witch, who has a cat that she can talk to, and how she comes of age. It’s a very charming movie, on the level of Disney animation. At any rate, we’ve seen this movie about 6 times with Ian at least, but this time in particular Kiki’s cat Gigi was cracking Ian up like crazy. I think it is the first time I’ve seen him really react to what’s on the tube instead of just staring at it blankly.

• It is with a small bit of sadness that I announce the retirement of bathtub duck. Ian has finally just gotten to be too big. Our little baby’s a boy! It happens so fast.

• During today’s Dada/Ian Monday, Ian found an old toy of his under the couch, and played with it a bit. Here’s some pics:

We had a lot of fun, but it was funny to see how large he is compared to this toy. See this image larger.

He used to kind of lay there in it staring up or down… now he can run around the house dragging it in tow. See this image larger.

• One final word, if you weren’t already handed a copy of Ian’s Greatest Hits Vol II & III you should be getting yours in the week(s) to come; production is finalized, covers and inserts printed, done, done, done. (I seem to have an extra “Volume III” disc… I might have just made a back-up, but let me know if yours is missing in the case… either scenario is pretty possible.)

The cover to II&III’s case uses this imagery… You’ll never know that my socks were stuffed into the hat to make it look full… unless I told you. 😉 See this image larger.

Hi again!

EDIT – Ok, here’s the link to the video! This one’s not too big. The usual warnings apply about how the video works and stuff.

Click here to enjoy the video!

I can’t say I’m all that happy with this particular video… since this was taped he’s much better at annunciating the “h” in “hi.” In this video it sounds more like “aye,” but suffice to say he’s doing much, much better with it than what you’ll be seeing here.

Some interesting observations:
• Ian pulled his zooey/pacifier out the other day to say something to me. It didn’t make any sense, but it was funny to watch him pull it out, speak his line, and plug it back in.

• A day or two later Melissa said he pulled his zooey/pacifier out to say “Hi!” and then, again, plugged it right back in.

• Uncle Ben called for some router advice on Sunday and got an earful of Ian saying “Hi! Hi!” in the background.

• Today Ian got to see baby Robins up close and personal. Several are around on our property trying to get life started whilst doting parents chirp angrily from rooftops. Sandpipers have decided to make a nest under our pine tree. That’s a kind of conifer tree, Ian. 😉

• Ian said something that sounded vaguely like “good boy!” about two days ago. He said “Don’t touch!” this weekend. Is that a sentence technically? If so, there you have it, his first sentence. Melissa and I saw a dog on the way home from church, but Ian couldn’t see it. We both said “Look Ian, a woof-woof!” And this was the first time I have heard him use his tone to convey a question in response: He said “woof-woof?” with the second “woof” significantly higher in pitch.

• Ian balanced a cup of cheerios on top of his sippy cup yesterday, and put a bubble wand in a tube of bubbles and blew on it — Didn’t get any bubbles, but kudos anyway. The most impressive part of that was the size of the wand and tube; these were specially made for a wedding we went to recently, to fit nicely onto the “program.” A tube not much bigger than a sharpie marker, and a bubble wand that fit so tightly into the tube that it looked like those commercials you see on TV for mascara. But he was able to line it up repeatedly. Pretty impressive for a 16 month old, I guess!

• Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but Ian has great chef potential. I’m guessing… I don’t know, maybe for the last three months or so, he’s been taking small bits of food and adding them to the spoon as it approaches his mouth, or just dipping. He kind of gestures until you get the ingredients before him. This morning he dipped a few bits of waffle into applesauce.

• Ian’s Greatest Hits III DVD is entering the final stages of production thanks to Melissa keeping Ian busy this weekend. Anytime you think about thanking me, thank her instead… So this is the 2nd part of the two disc set. I still have to print out some covers and whatnot, so we’ll probably be into the weekend before progress is made again, but when that’s done, I’ll be sending or handing these out.

Goodnight Little Man

Experience the horrible trauma* of trying to get Ian to go to bed by viewing this video. (Usual note applies here, this is a long video to download… and the loading bar doesn’t work at the moment… just click the link and wait to be instructed to hit play.)

Click here to see the video.

*Yes, I’m kidding, as you’ll see when you click. The only kid I’ve ever seen giggle his way to the bedroom. Also revealed: Ian is a “blankie-boy.” That green pile he collapses on at the end of the video is one of his blankets!

Mini-Movie III: Run From Horse Truck!

This short movie gives a peek into the new game Ian and I created that is a bit like a really redundant car chase… enjoy! (Click the link and press “play” when it says to!)

Click here to view the short movie!