Michelle shared this "Hello Kitty In Space" video with me knowing our family would enjoy the video tremendously (we did). While it's near identical to last year's "A Toy Train In Space" video, it's just as fascinating to see an every day object in near space propelled by a child's imagination and doing.
Lauren Rojas, a 13-year-old Californian sent Hello Kitty up into the atmosphere to test the effects of altitude on air pressure and temperature for her school's science fair. More about the video:
Cornerstone Christian school 7th grade science project. The effects of Altitude on air pressure and temperature. Cameras: GoPro Hero2 video footage. Edited By: Eddie Lacayo elacayo212@gmail.com Flight gear: High Altitude Science. Flight computer / Data acquisition: High Altitude Science. Tree Climber: Woodpecker Arborist.
We had the great fortune of catching Miyazaki's classic animated film, Kiki's Delivery Service at the Aero Theatre with Lulu's BFFs, NUF, RAD and Mi-chan. It was the first time screening a movie in the theatre for the pals and they were all incredibly excited! The kids enjoyed Japanese snacks made by Mi-chan and fresh popcorn from the theatre. They knew to be quiet and received booster chairs to help them see the screen. While some parts of Kiki's proved to be a little scary, the posse did great!
If you're interested in catching another Miyazaki film in the theatre, check out the American Cinematheque's showtimes for future screenings.
Having never seen anything Iron Man-related other than her preschool cubby mate's backpack, Lulu put on my bike helmet tonight and proclaimed, "I. Am. Iron Man!" and she was!
The puns and gags fly fast and furious in this Marx Brothers film—the perfect introduction to their inimitable brand of anarchic verbal and physical comedy. Monkey Business features the boys as stowaways on a New York–bound ship who are pressed into the service of gangsters on board. (1931, Norman McLeod, 35mm, b/w, 77 min.)
FAMILY FLICKS FILMS SERIES UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hammer Museum have teamed up for a matinee screening series of new and classic family-friendly films from around the world.
Parking is available under the museum for $3 for 3 hours.
Family Flicks is co-presented with UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Family Flicks is made possible, in part, through the generosity of supporters and friends of the Hammer Museum’s Kids’ Art Museum Project (K.A.M.P.). Additional support is provided by the Westwood Neighborhood Council.
Filmmaker Frans Hofmeester shot footage of his children, Lotte and Vince every week, for years, and made time lapse videos for each. The project is impressive and an amazing keepsake for the family. I can only imagine what conversations were had over the years. What a joyful family endeavor!
I attended the red carpet premiere for the Bob Marley Movie a few days ago and fell in love with the musician and legend all over again. I loved Marley's music the most during my college years and while I knew of how he lived and died, I didn't have much insight on who the man was. This insightful documentary filled in the blanks from young poet to revolutionary and leader. A few choice quotes from the film:
"My life is only important if me can help plenty."
"My richness is life."
Marley was released today and can be watched on Facebook, iTunes, and On Demand.
I love these portraits shot by photography/styling team, Hey Kid! {Kenney Rome}. They specialize in "creating unique images for children's clothing lines and editorial work as well as styled children and family sessions". These photos were taken at the Little Warrior boutique opening and I think they are my favorite photos ever shot of Lulu and I together.
Jessie, the photographer was amazing at capturing Lulu's attention, which made for capturing a great moment. Look no further for party pros and special occasions. Let Jessie help transform your memories into art. Check out Juneberry Photos and learn more about her commercial site here.
For Commercial or Portrait inquiries or to request a media kit please email kenney.rome@yahoo.com
I've never read Lulu an e-book before. "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" might be the first one. The beautiful bedtime story was born from the winner of the Best Animated Short Film in the 84th Academy Awards. More from the Studio:
Put yourself in Morris’ shoes as you dive into the story of Mr. Lessmore and his flying friends through Moonbot Studios’ first Interactive Storybook. In this reinvention of digital storytelling you can repair books, tumble through a storm, learn the piano and even get "lost in a book," flying through a magical world of words, giving you a dynamic journey through the story. This iPad App has been touted by Apple as one of the "Top New Apps for the iPad," and will surely be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Using rich CG animation, innovative interactivity, original composed music, and unique games sprinkled throughout the book, this App will revive a love of story in all.
Our awesome friends at The Feel Good Film Festival are offering a pack of four tickets for Sunday's event (11:00 am screening of MOVIES BY KIDS) or a pair of tickets to the gala with open bar on Friday. The following link is for the MOVIES BY KIDS ticket sales: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/187678
More about the festival:
The Feel Good Film Festival is a non-profit event showcasing films with happy endings, that make audiences laugh, and that capture the beauty of our world. Held August 12-14, 2011 at Raleigh Studios (5300 Melrose Avenue, LA 90038) the 4th annual FGFF features 10 World premieres and 70 Los Angeles premieres of independently made feel-good films, celebrity carpet entrances, and nightly galas with free drinks. Film schedule and tickets available at www.fgff.org. [Donations & entry prices are all tax deductible.]
To enter, please leave a comment telling me what made you happy today! We'll pick a winner Thursday, August 11th at noon PST via Random.org
Enjoying a raspberry pop on the street corner, Lulu got lots of chuckles from the corner bodega's patrons. This week, Lulu rocked athletic Stormtrooper gams. Not as sexy as Jeremy Scott's legs, but funny, still.
Co-presented with the UCLA Film & Television Archive Recommended for ages 6+
Toby runs away from home to join the circus, convinced that his family doesn’t want him. This confusion is cleared up by story’s end, but in the meantime he lives a kid’s fantasy; inhabiting a colorful alternative world, becoming a circus acrobat, even befriending a lovable chimp, Mr. Stubbs. Versatile kid star Kevin Corcoran shines in this heartwarming adventure story. (1960. Dir: Charles Barton. digital video, color, 95 min.)
A rare opportunity to have Tim Burton sign your exhibition catalogue (seen here) and Art of Tim Burton purchased at one of our LACMA’s stores. Tim Burton opens to the public on May 29.
Pavilion for Japanese Art | Free, no reservations | Signing limited to 2 books per person | A receipt as proof of purchase from LACMA stores is required | Signing will end promptly at 2 pm | Purchase books online
When a Volkswagon Bug follows him from the dealership, racecar driver Jim Douglas doesn’t know what to think but soon discovers this is no ordinary car! With the help of his equally eccentric mechanic, played with comic gusto by Buddy Hackett, Douglas takes his four-wheeled magical friend out on the racing circuit while trying to keep it out of the hands of an evil car dealer. The original big-screen incarnation of Herbie, “The Love Bug,” remains a timeless classic for the whole family. Get ready and start your engines for fun! (1968, 35mm, color, 108 min. DIR: Robert Stevenson)
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.
Parking is available under the museum for $3 for 3 hours.
FAMILY FLICKS The UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hammer Museum have teamed up for a matinee screening series of new and classic family-friendly films from around the world.
Public programs are made possible by Bronya and Andrew Galef, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, and an anonymous donor.
When a Volkswagon Bug follows him from the dealership, racecar driver Jim Douglas doesn’t know what to think but soon discovers this is no ordinary car! With the help of his equally eccentric mechanic, played with comic gusto by Buddy Hackett, Douglas takes his four-wheeled magical friend out on the racing circuit while trying to keep it out of the hands of an evil car dealer. The original big-screen incarnation of Herbie, “The Love Bug,” remains a timeless classic for the whole family. Get ready and start your engines for fun! (1968, 35mm, color, 108 min. DIR: Robert Stevenson)
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.
Parking is available under the museum for $3 for 3 hours.
FAMILY FLICKS The UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hammer Museum have teamed up for a matinee screening series of new and classic family-friendly films from around the world.
Public programs are made possible by Bronya and Andrew Galef, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, and an anonymous donor.
Wow! What a crazy night. We attended the star studded 'Art in The Streets' artist reception at MOCA and it was overwhelming. While it was great to see so many friends under one roof at the same time, it was distracting to look at Banksy's work while Jake Gyllenhaal wandered about (too much eye candy)!
Lulu, no stranger to museums, loved the reception. She ran from room to room exploring the artwork and paused to take in a few special pieces with exceptionally bright colors. She had a really good time and people paid her a lot of attention. Not so surpisingly, Lulu lasted an extra couple of hours but was wiped out for the ride home.
If you live in Los Angeles and are looking for a family-friendly activity, I highly recommend visiting 'Art in the Streets' at MOCA. The exhibition is up until August 8.
Like the thousands of children before her, Lulu loves Goodnight Moon, the children's picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown. Published in the late 1940s, it seems as popular today as it ever was then. And just like the Sophie giraffe, it's one of the items you know nearly every parent-friend of yours has.
I have always thought the book's art by Clement Hurd to be a little dark, maybe even creepy. But Lulu's demands for the book to be read over and over (in French and English) reassured me that she was digging the small cast of characters, rhythm of the words, and bedroom full of fun.
Goodnight Dune, a retelling of the children's classic updated with Dune characters and environments is making the pop culture geek in me flip out. Who created such a cool mash up?! Enter Julia Yu, a senior developer at The Daily Beast. In her own words she describes her inspiration and process below:
Goodnight Dune was written and illustrated after I saw this article for Five Sci-Fi Children's Books on College Humor, linked from a Reddit post which asked for a more fleshed out version of the book. While the original parody art was amazing I decided to stick closer to the original Goodnight Moon art style, using some stylistic elements from the David Lynch movie version of Dune.
Wow. Seriously. Wow. So cool! I bet all Gen-X parents are loving this new iteration. I only wish Goodnight Dune could be published and read nightly in our household. Following are a few images to get you psyched. Read the whole thing here:
[Shout out to my pal Michelle for the link share!]
I love how new toddlers walk around all drunken master style (this stage passes so quickly). The reality is, this babe's acting normal, but in this context, her actions make her look like a drunken fool! I can't decide if the martini/wine glass sequence is my favorite or if her eating off the stranger's plate is funnier (corn spitting included)!
The trailer above is from Johannes Nyholm's short film, "Las Palmas". The movie will be shown in its entirety (running time: 14 minutes) at the Market Art fair starting tomorrow in Stockholm for a couple of days. Catch it while you can; otherwise the film will be released sometime later this year.
I know this is a car commercial (kudos VW for the Star Wars license), but this kid's papa rocks! With only 300 views at this time, I'm certain this clip's going to blow up today. Our generation can't resist this kind of brand integration -- or at least, I can't!
We've inherited two Darth Vader costumes for Lulu for when she gets a little older (I'm hoping she might fit one by this Halloween) and I hope that she'll someday try to conjure up The Force with as much earnestness as the kid in the video. And I can already hear myself saying, “Do or do not... there is no try.”
Lastly, did anyone notice that the bedroom where little Darth was trying to move the doll was a girl's room?! Is little Vader a girl?!
Carroll Ballard (Duma) made his feature debut with this gorgeous adaptation of Walter Farley’s classic novel about a boy and a majestic stallion who meet during an ocean voyage and bond while stranded on a picturesque desert island. Ballard balances action with subtle characterization, convincingly detailed art direction, and breathtaking cinematography by Caleb Deschanel. (1979, 117 min. Dir: Carroll Ballard 35mm, color)
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.
Parking is available under the museum for $3 for 3 hours.
When I was growing up, I was always a wee bit envious of the kids at our elementary school rocking homemade costumes for the annual Halloween parade. In fact, I remember really loving my friend Jennifer's hand sewn pumpkin costume in the third grade. It just looked so damn soft. Believe immigrant-kid-me, I didn't mind that we got boxed plastic-poncho costumes with the stiff masks with knife-sharp-cut-out lips. But I had fantasized of having a homemade costume once or twice.
Last Halloween Lulu was five months old and not really mobile yet. We stuck her in pirate pajamas and carried her around like baby booty. This year, Lulu could actually walk around and trick-or-treat and I was excited by the prospect. While brainstorming costume ideas, Silvio commented that Lulu looked like the character Boo from Monster's Inc. I searched everywhere online for something really cool and instead found cheap-looking costumes that cost too much money.
This Halloween I was feeling ambitious. I googled "Homemade Monster's Inc. Boo Costumes" and stumbled upon Coolest Homemade Costumes. I read about how each parent made their Boo costume and it seemed easy enough. My more-experienced-sewing-friend Karen agreed and also offered to help me with this endeavor.
Following are instructions for making a Monster's Inc. Boo costume. It's easier than it reads and it's not as hard as it looks (embrace safety pins)!
1. Take the pre-measured purple fabric and fold it in half. Layer batting inside of the fabric. Safety pin closed. Run the fabric with batting through a sewing machine around the edge to create a stuffed rectangle. Run the rectangle through the sewing machine in the same direction three or four more times to create the "quilted look". For the armholes, cut out crescent shapes on each side at the same height. Run the frazzled edges through a sewing machine to close up the cutouts.
2. Roll the purple bodysuit into a tube. Sew the soft loop tape Velcro and fastener on opposite sides of the ends of the tube. Make sure they're lined up properly and can seal shut.
3. Cut different sized and shaped teeth from felt.
4. Mark the middle of the body tube with a piece of tape and sew the felt teeth on the top edge. Sew one tooth at a time starting from the middle, outwards.
5. To create the hood part of the costume, fold the pre-measured purple fabric in half, stuff with batting, and cut out a crescent shape. Sew felt teeth on the top part of the hood starting from the middle, outwards.
6. To create hair on top of the hood, take different-sized chunks of mop threads and sew them randomly all over. For larger chunks of hair, try braiding smaller groups of thread together.
7. To create monster eyes, take a supersized black Sharpie marker and color in half of each Styrofoam ball. Then color in two circles in the middle-front to represent pupils. Twist black pipe cleaners together to create eye-antennas and stick one end of the pipe cleaner bunch into the colored-in part of the Styrofoam ball. Take the other end and sew it into the hood.
8. We ran out of time to properly assemble the costume and ended up safety pinning the hood to the body. If I had more time, I would've sewn this part together. Also we didn't actually measure Lulu or the fabric (we eyeballed it) so the body tube was a little roomy for her. Instead of sewing in elastic straps to help keep the tube up, I used safety pins to keep it together.
9. Even though I bought silver fabric, I had Lulu wear a grey sweatshirt as a shortcut for the arms. I didn't have the energy to figure out how to sew arms together and the grey top worked fine.
10. Lulu wore grey leggings, socks and sparkly silver shoes. We put two mini pigtails in her hair to complete the ensemble.
Lulu's Monster's Inc. Boo costume was created in a little over 24 hours. This was the first time I had ever made a homemade Halloween costume without throwing a bunch of store-bought items together and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of what walked the streets Halloween night! Random people yelled and pointed "Boo!" as Lulu waddled down the street and several homeowners declared her costume the best one they'd seen all evening. I'm proud to be a mom that makes homemade costumes. And I'm excited again for Halloween.
Lastly, there is no way I would've been able to have made this costume without the help from my very kind and generous friend, Karen Chen [thank you, Karen!!!!!]. Seriously. She totally sewed the body tube and hood for me and helped me layout the plans for the costume.
If you ever decide to make a Boo costume, I'd love to see your finished product. Feel free to share links or photos in the future. Good luck, enjoy our photo album, and Happy Halloween!
Fierce Hugs Adorable organic baby clothes by my sister Hani Hong! Receive a 25% discount with promo code "IRONFISTS" at check out!
Free-Range Kids Here's to common sense parenting in uncommonly overprotective times!
Gever Tulley A Senior Computer Scientist, writer, and practicing sculptor who created the Tinkering School (a wonderful summer camp I want Lulu to attend someday).
Kumquat Baby Childrens clothing designer Angelyn de la Garza creates "soft, comfortable, modern clothing" for cool kids and design savvy parents. Receive a 20% discount with promo code "tinyironfists" at check out!
National Geographic Little Kids Lulu's first magazine subscription. It was once my childhood dream to work for NatGeo. I fulfilled that dream in 2008.
Sex and the Single Ape Creator of Tiny Iron Fist's logo/banner, Steven Nereo is your go to guy for hip beats and teen drama design!
Jane Goodall Institute The British anthropologist who inspired me as a child to graduate college with a degree in environmental science.
YummyFun! Our sweet friend Clare Crespo hosts the wildest cooking show ever! This kitchen can't have too many cooks, so come get some!
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