New Adventure! With dragons and dinosaurs!

Once upon a time, Kristena ate an apple. But it wasn't just an ordinary apple. The next day, something WEIRD happened.  She turned into a frog!  Then she turned into a dragon. But Kristena wasn't the only one that ate the apple: Arabella and Paul did too. Arabella turned into a princess and Paul turned into a fox!  

The dragon, fox and princess flew on the dragon's back to gymnastics class. They all did "apart, together".  After that, they all went on the zipline until the owner of the zipline kicked them off.

  

So instead of going on the zipline, they went to the dinosaur museum and there was a real life triceratops dinosaur there.  

It said "Rawr" and I (Arabella the princess) scared the dinosaur away by flying by herself. Then Paul the fox and Kristena the dragon saved Arabella the princess.  

Arabella riding the Dragon (Kristena) away from the dinosaur

Then Arabella flew by herself and ate another apple that turned her back into regular Arabella and then a princess again. And then she flew away with Diego! Kristena ate Paul the fox and then sneezed him back out her nose. Kristena said she was sorry.

To be continued....

So...What do you think will happen next? Leave a comment and maybe the authors will be inspired to write you in to the end of the story!


p.s. While Kristena and Paul were still here on Friday, we baked zucchini bread together, and took tons of photos for our first cooking blog post. But I still need to organize and sort those photos so it may be up to a week before I can post it but here's one sneak peek photo (cored zucchini doubles nicely as an eyepiece)

   

We had WHAT for Breakfast!?! - A Crowdsourced Story

Once in the morning, there were three kids named Arabella, Kristena, and Paul. The kids were waiting for a shipment of donuts to arrive. Before the shipment arrived, something terrible happened. Keith got the wrong donuts! In the box instead of donuts, there was a frog. The frog jumped out and went in the goose's mouth. The goose ate him. Him rolled and rolled inside the goose and then him jump, jump, jumped! Then the goose flew out the window the way it came in. Then Arabella ran out the door and tried to catch the goose. She flied, flied, flied up in the air to catch the goose! She caught it and held it in her hand. Arabella reached in the goose's mouth and got him (the frog) out! Frog said "I want to go this way!" Arabella walked with him in her hand and walked over there (the way the frog wanted to go). 


 Continuation of this story was interrupted by the arrival of the shipment of donuts as scheduled.

Thanks to Kristena, Paul and Arabella for the story, and thanks to Keith for being a reliable donut shipper.

This blog is like a box of chocolates.....

you never know what you are going to get.  I was going to insert a photo of a box of chocolates here, but I couldn't find any cute enough non-copyrighted ones online, so here's a random photo I took myself:

This is my State of the Blog post now that it's been up a little over a month. When I started this blog a little over a month ago, I didn't know how to do anything.  Luckily, Blogger makes it pretty simple but there was still a learning curve. Picking the name "what arabella did" alone took hours!  I now know how to add videos, I added a badge and have listed my blog in Technorati, Sacramentobloggers.com and BlogCatalog.  Things I hope to improve in the next month or so: Posting more writing, improving the layout of the blog and adding more local Roseville features here. 


I know there are organized people out there that have multiple blogs for different topics but I don't see myself having the discipline and time to do that. So be forewarned -this blog may include but will not be limited to the following: 


parenting / Arabella stories, photos and photojournaling of what we did / thoughts about being a work-at-home mom / Keith's thoughts about being a stay-at-home dad (still twisting his arm for a blog post) / my zany plans to lose weight / my zany plans to improve productivity at work / what I'm doing to make my blog pretty and get people to read it / general self improvement / crafts / cooking / life in Roseville / book reviews / news items I found interesting / tech gadgets / rants / unsolicited relationship advice / how-to tutorials / podcasts I like / digital scrapbooking / self-improvement / home decorating / arts & crafts / a lot more I can't think of right now.  


Thanks for checking in with Arabella and me here at our corner of the blogosphere!!  We love to hear from everyone that is reading the blog so please leave us comments. 

Arabella before & after with Pixlr -o- matic

I love Pixlr-O-Matic - I know everyone else in the world uses Instagram, but I needed something I can use on the desktop computer too and it only works on phones. So I was searching apps in the Chrome Web Store and came across Pixlr-O-Matic which is super simple and easy to use even for me - it's the antiPhotoshop.  

Here's a pic of Arabella that I am particularly in love with: 

Before

After

Grandma Susan's Birthday

The Family

Arabella and Grandma sharing a hug.

Arabella looking on with delight as Grandma opens the gifts she picked out for her.

Grandma and Arabella holding Grandma's
new squirrel tape dispenser.

Green Butterflies and Twittering Birds!

What Arabella wants you to know today:


Green butterfly. Butterfly likes to flap his wings. My teddy goes with my green butterfly. Play with the book - Elmo book. 






What Gretchen wants you to know today:


We have a twitter account know at @whatarabelladid. And I have no clue what I am doing!  Anyone who does know how to use Twitter HELP!  How can I get rid of skeevy followers (or can I)? And how do I see what other people have answered when people ask questions? It's so not Facebook.

Here's a cute random picture of Arabella thinking hard that I dressed up using Pixl-r-Matic - I already got the 411 from Arabella and I know what she was thinking hard about. But we want you to guess. So leave a comment what you think she's thinking and/or a funny caption!  Happy Monday!

Arabella 4th of July pic

Forgot to post this on Fourth of July!

Blast from the Past - Arabella's First (and only) TV Appearance

From February 2010 (Arabella about 3.5 months old) - Thank you Samantha Lowman for figuring out how to put this on Youtube.


The video is from when Arabella and I went to Herself Moms (www.herselfmoms.com) for postpartum sculpting class.  Herself Moms is a great resource run by the fabulous Julie Hurst for prenatal and new moms for breastfeeding support, prenatal massage and yoga, and classes.  We went to the location at Sierra College and Douglas right on the Roseville/Granite Bay border, but there's also another location in Downtown Sacramento at 1925 U Street. It was a great experience until Arabella was crawling age, and I met some cool moms and babies there - best of all Julie Magee and Arabella's BFF Allison!


Viewing Instructions: I highly recommend fast forwarding through the first 20 seconds, and then watch but with the sound off until 45 seconds in b/c the offsite reporters keep inanely interrupting Stephanie and inferring that the other offsite female anchor is pregnant - listen if you want, personally I think the way that it went down was possibly sexist and unquestioningly obnoxious. And I'm saying this as someone who is usually a big fan of Good Day Sacramento. (Also as a wannabe stage mom, I had to use a lot of self-control to keep myself from yelling "Shut up so she can talk about my baby!") - Stephanie had plopped down right next to us and asked Arabella's name right before the cameras rolled, so I was pretty sure we would get a shout-out!. They cut to Arabella at 24 seconds in and boy is she cute - and I'm saying that both as a average TV viewer and her doting mother. She literally gets about 15 seconds of fame and they say her name on TV.  From 1:45 -1:50 in is a peek of Julie Magee and Allison in the back!




Speaking of Julie Magee, she now runs these awesome Signing Time classes at Herself Moms which I highly recommend if you want to sign with your baby and/or toddler!  It is VERY hard to find baby signing instructors in the Roseville area (at least it was during Arabella's preverbal days in 2009/early 2010) and Julie is highly effective and very reasonably priced. Plus it's a great time to meet other caregivers and babies (I say caregiver instead of mom b/c I've also seen dads and grandparents at the classes - it's beneficial to everyone who cares for the baby to know what they are "saying" with their signs.)


I copied the following from http://www.herselfmoms.com/classes.html :

Signing Time Classes

Signing time is recommended for ages 2 months and up. Learn how to communicate by 
signing with your child on a wide variety of subjects. Your little one has a lot to tell you 
before they can speak! We will engage their 5 senses while making learning fun. With a little 
hands-on practice you can become spontaneous and natural with your signs. You will learn 
how to take advantage of key opportune moments throughout your child’s day and use them 
as natural learning moments!

For more information call Julie Magee @ 916-955-2144
Classes are ongoing; join anytime
Cost: 4 weeks $60.00  8 weeks $100  12 weeks $120.00

1: Natural Energy Park | 6 Future Playgrounds That Harness Kids’ Energy While They Play

1: Natural Energy Park | Future Playgrounds That Harness Kids’ Energy While They Play 

I don't have time to write anything but I thought this playground was super cool - and it creates energy! My favorite part is the Rainbow stair rail. There's some more cool playgrounds if you follow the link:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680066/6-future-playgrounds-that-harness-kids-energy-while-they-play#1

First Tiltshift Photo try

View of the Alameda County Fair from the top of the Ferris Wheel - I used Tiltshift to make it look like a miniature

New Arabella Story - oh yeah, oh yeah

Arabella wrote this story by telling it to me in the car sentence by sentence, then making me stop after every sentence and read the whole thing back to her. So this story has been highly verified for accuracy by the author.

Kitten named Ariel lived in a castle. Her had knees. Her walk on the sidewalk. Talks to horsie. Grandma named the horsie named angel horsie. New princess named headband. Ariel can't let cat hurt the dog. Kitty kat say "ME-ow". Trees rush down the slide. Then purple bear talks to a horsie. Horsie, live in grandma's house. Then he get curious and he get in ferris wheel. You didn't crash in the teddy bear and him get in the trees, then him sit in him princess lap. Horsie doesn't tell my story to princess. Then horsie rushed down the slide. Then sit down on the slide on butt with them. Grandma susan get in shoes, gets princess drew. Then old lady put in the shoe. Now girl walked in the tunnel. You can't come. Oh yeah, me come over and talk to you. Oh yeah, oh yeah. The end