Cara's Red Egg & Ginger Day

It was a beautiful day to celebrate Cara's Red Egg & Ginger Day. With lots traditional foods in the morning and a big feast at a chinese restaurant with 80 plus friends and family for dinner. Everyone had a great time especially Persephanie and Jaden since they knew that there will be lots of cake!

Lina

Movie Night: Toy Story

15 years ago, during a lunch, some animation co-workers and I went to see the movie, Toy Story. It simply blew our minds away. Went back to our office that afternoon both overwhelmingly inspired and extremely confused. "How did they do that?" and "How are WE going to achieve that in our show?" After many discussions and head scratching...we just hearty-breakingly concluded that we couldn't... at least not on our budget. But, we did have money to buy Toy Story merchandise!



Once we picked up the set and poked and prodded every well crafted button and pull string, it hit us. John Lasseter is a GENIUS! He made the toys exactly like the movie. That just continues the movie experience well beyond the 75 minutes in the theatre. Brilliant!

Years later, Woody, Buzz, and even the alien had been sitting on my shelf collecting dust (as in the movies). (We also have Mr. Potato head.. but, that doesn't really count as it was more a generic toy and wasn't exclusive to the movie franchise.) Fortunately, they had passed a few garage sales in recent times. Never had the heart to sell them or give them away since they were such high quality. Decided it would be nice to just pass them along to my kid.

That day has come. Seems like good timing.. since well, I have a kid now. And Toy Story 3 just came out.

Tonight I wanted to try something. I wanted to see if Persephanie is old enough to go to a theatre and sit though an entire movie without any bathroom breaks, talk, run around, cry, and more importantly to see if a movie can just hold a 3 year old's attention for over an hour in the dark. In our own home theater, lights were out and the volume was up. It worked.



The delight on their eyes was priceless when we brought out the toys immediately after the show. Shelving them for so many years paid off.

I'm pretty sure Woody and Buzz are really happy now.

Persephanie the "Babysitter"

Persephanie loves her new mui mui. She really loves craddling Cara and always asking to hold her. She's already a great babysitter.

~Lina

Presenting....17th Great Grandchild, Cara Chan!

Halloween

The Halloween weekend celebrations started at Willingdon Church's Halloween Carnival. Great venue for kids!
5 Bouncy castles, many games with candy prizes, hotdogs, popcorn, and ended with a great show from The Checkerboard Guy!











Then we hit Granville Island for some free hotdogs and hot cocoa. And of course.. free candy.



Aberdeen Mall to fill the loot bag.







Ending the night at Gma's.
Chloe Chow

Grandma Linda's complete set of granddaughters... Persephanie, Cara, and Chloe! Triple Threat!!!

Happy Birthday, Drew!

Sephie's 3rd Birthday

This year it was at Thunderbird Community Centre. Rented the gym with bouncy castle and a party room.





Lina came up with the circus theme. Made and painted the backdrops for great photo ops.

Project: Batman Costume

Halloween is my favorite time of year. Too bad it's only one day. You spend so much money on a costume and you only get to use it for a few hours. Sometimes, you'd rather just spend a little less and make your own. It's way more fun and rewarding anyways.



Kind of cute. But, kind of silly. I couldn't let Jaden go out like that. SooOOOooooo..... I had to make one for him!

Starts out with excersise mats. $8 for 4 sheets. I ended up using half a sheet. That means this costume would only be $1!

Dremel Tool drilled out the foam.

A heat gun to soften the foam, shape and hold.


I used a ball to shape some more foam to make the shoulder pads.

Super Glue the parts together.


In the end, I glued the breastplate and shoulder pads onto a small black t-shirt. And added a utility belt too. Cut a piece of black fabric for the cape. Sewed an elastic band around the neck of the cape. $3 mask from Walmart.

Now, Jaden is BUFF! He can literally take a punch in the gut and won't even feel it. BONUS: He won't look like the other 30 batmans out there!


Belt in pic. Missing is the arm guards. To be made soon.. for halloween!

Project: Batgirl Costume

At the department store checking out what to get for Halloween this year for Persephanie. Batgirl was the one since Jaden was Batman. It only made sense. Upon closer inspection though, this $30 costume was pretty cheaply made. IMHO, not worth the $30. Then a "Hey, I can do that for cheap, but BETTER!" moment rang in.

Challenge was set.

We had to go with the 1966's version of Batgirl (one with Yvonne Craig). No way we were going with Alicia Silverstone version.. Batman and Robin SUCKED. You can't go wrong with classics.



Here's how we did it:
$10 Fabric (Fabricana)
$7 hat (Michael's)
$2 mask (Diaso)
$3 yellow foam sheets (Michael's)

Started with paper templates. Pinning template down onto fabric in preparation for the sewing machine.

Broke out the sewing machine. Both Lina and I are truely amateur sewists (is that even a word?) We learn as we go.



Of course there's the infamous utility belt. The store-bought version had this cloth "belt" that pretty much had all the goods printed on it! So cheap. I KNOW we could do better. And have fun making one.

From Left to Right: Batarang, Utility pocket (it holds her change of outfit. There's her "Barbara Gordon" librarian uniform in there), Smoke pellets for that fast get-away, Bat-belt buckle, a vile of universal anitidote (bubbles from a candy store), Bat-Shurikens, Bat-cuffs.

The mask. Was a tricky one. Originally started out by making a wireframe of Sephie's head then paper mache it over. Got complicated.. then trashed that idea. Went out and found a nice felt cap from Michael's. Still had to cut to fit her head. The mask part was from a full mask. A generic one found at Daiso for a couple of bucks. Cut and glued together. Spray glued the same colored fabric over the entire mask. Then for some detail, added ears and white foam sheets behind the eyes to make them pop out a bit more.

The boots were a hand-me-down. Perfect color! Same purple/yellow scheme we were going for! Just need to add a touch of Batgirl-ness to it. And we're done!

Finish off the ensemble with batgirl arm guards/spikes. Made from more yellow foam sheets and glue. Velcro for belt, cape and shirt.


The obligatory Hero pose!


Before vs. After