It was actually a very relaxing weekend - which is nice given the stress that usually starts amping up in the days before Christmas! I wanted to play with some more of my Christmas photography ideas, but really only got to try one - the shaped bokeh. Bokeh basically means blur - usually in the background of your image. Christmas is great for bokeh because it turns light sources into large fuzzy circles - which is because the light is matching the shape of your aperture (usually round!). But someone figured out how to make a shape by putting a cutout over the lens. This website has a nice tutorial on it.
It was moderately successful in that I made a shape! I didn't like the black ring around the photo, but that's apparently what happens when you have something covering up most of the lens. I honestly still don't understand how it works, but it obviously did. Now to just refine the method.
My mom bought a bunch of snow toys for the boys and we were hoping to get enough snow to use them this weekend. Not so much. Where is our snow?? We actually bought some of the block molds last year, so if we even get snow that is suitable, we can build a snow fort in no time! The tong looking item makes snowballs and the green one is supposed to make a snowball like object that you can just scoop up and fling.
Thomas has been practicing his scoop and throw method all week just by pretending the carpet is snow. I guess he got bored with that and has found other uses for the flinger. Here he is whacking the balls in the tower with it. He also was using it and the block to make train shapes in the carpet. Pretty clever - a block and two circles really can look like a train car, which if you do enough in a row will make a train. Not sure if it was him or his Nonni that started that one, but they were both having a blast.
We also dug out his felt tree. Again he was more interested in pulling the ornaments off than putting them on. Also note that he can't quite reach the top - the flinger was put into use to knock the remaining ornaments off the tree. Such a good use of "technology"!
After mom left, I put most of the presents she had stashed in her room under the tree. Big mistake! Henry was like a moth to flame with those brightly wrapped packages! I would move him to the opposite side of the room and within seconds, he would be army crawling his way back.
Those ribbons didn't stand a chance... I've now had to do patch jobs on several packages. So anyone receiving a gift from me, I know I am not the best at wrapping presents, but Henry made them all look way worse. Thankfully he hasn't gone after any of mine - I hate it when I find out what I am getting before Christmas. I keep thinking I should just move the presents to where he can't get them, but part of the pre-Christmas excitement is seeing them all stacked up under the tree. Oh well, I guess I can just stock up on repair tape... :)