January 21, 2012

Alden 2nd Birthday

We have been celebrating the birthday of Mr. Alden for almost a week.

Starting with the party last weekend and trickling forward with gifts and packages and working our way through the cake. Thanks to everyone for the good wishes and awesome toys.
Some of his favorite thing include a book of fake tattoos
The game of bird bingo
and a puzzle that is a map of the US. We use it as a play environment for his small toys. There is a mean alligator that won't let anyone else come to Florida... fun stuff.

January 15, 2012

Alden's Birthday Party

We celebrated Alden's birthday a few days early this year since his actual birthday falls on a Wednesday. We held it at the Children's Museum in Portland, which is probably Alden's favorite place in the whole world. His good friends Sophia and Evelyn were there, but also a few new friends from his preschool this time, Henry and Ariana.
They had a blast!! It was probably the most excited and overstimulated that we've seen Alden, but he was happy and excited to see his friends and played for about 3 frenetic hours, stopping only briefly for cake and ice cream.
The museum has a little party room in the lower level where you are supposed to gather, eat cake and ice cream and open presents. The room is rented out in 2 hour increments and theoretically you can party in here for the whole duration. However, the excitement over the museum was so great that the kids didn't really have it in them to finish their cake and ice cream before lure of the museum got too much to bear and they all cleared out. I'd venture that they spent a maximum of 15 minutes in here total. I don't really know therefore if they even liked the train cake I made. But it was a nice, quiet place for parents to catch their breath and grab a bite of fruit salad or a quick chit chat with another adult. It was the best birthday party yet and a huge success. Hooray for the Children's Museum!!

January 12, 2012

Float / Play Exhibit

I am in this exhibit till the end of the month.

"Float/Play, a highly unique and whimsical interactive installation of video, art and soundscape, has opened in UMA's Danforth Gallery and runs until January 30th.

An electronic arts collaboration of UMA faculty and students, Float/Play features the works of Susan Bickford, Kerstin Gilg, Robert Rainey and Clay Waits in an arrangement that playfully transforms the viewer's experience in time and space.

The exhibition, which consists of seven unique projects providing a carefully choreographed journey through a complex web of interactions, includes: a 25-foot interactive projection screen activated by an electronic fishing pole interface creating virtual ripples along the "pond" surface; a whimsical 25x25 foot submerged lake-bottom manifested in ink; and three 10-foot floating beach balls displaying projected images including the viewer's face translated into graphic zeros and ones..."