The Ruark Kids » Video

Thalia sings and then loses her cool

John — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:23:04 +0000

Back in March, I noted that Siena ends almost all of her video appearances with the request, “Can I see my video?” Thalia has picked up on this, and also wants to see her videos. So, after capturing her singing, “Down by the bay,” a song she and Siena learned at school, I decided to keep the camera rolling after the take, as it were, to show you what happens when our little prima donna actresses are off camera. Watch as Siena gets Thalia riled up, watch as Thalia turns bright red! I figure if any of the girls’ videos have a chance of going viral, this one might be it, so share the amusement!

Thalia loves her new bed

John — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:21:01 +0000

Earlier this week we dismantled the crib and put Thalia in a twin-size bed. It’s an aero-bed mattress that we just put on the floor, so she’s welcome to just roll out of it onto the floor for now. The first night she was all over the place: sideways, backwards, wrapped up in sheets, body on the floor with head on the mattress at the foot of the bed, entirely on the floor. She was also up until almost 9:45 “celebrating” (mostly, singing and bouncing and chatting while Siena tried to get her quiet); it was a lot like their first night in the same room together. Already within a few days, she’s gotten the hang of sleeping with a pillow and under the covers and not rolling off as much.

But she still loves it, as evidenced by this video, in which she is shouting “New bed!”

Faux Dooda and other goodies

John — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:03:26 +0000

Thalia can do some impressive things, like almost sing the A-B-C’s and nearly in tune too:

But, being still not quite yet two, she does have some amusing verbal misfires still, including:

Bathing soup (bathing suit)
Lego room (living room, and accurate since that’s where we keep the Lego’s)
Mix phoot (mixed fruit, the little Del Monte fruit cups)
Aunti Mock-it (Aunt Margaret)

And my current favorite:

Yes, that’s Faux Dooda for smoked gouda. We verified tonight that anything that starts with “sm” she starts with an “f” sound. It worked with smokin and smock, but then when I tried “smart,” she started to get wise to me.

Video dump

John — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 03:28:23 +0000

Here are a set of videos over the past few weeks.

First, in mid-March, Siena helped me put out a brush fire. She did the same last year (almost exactly a year ago).

The following day, Siena and Thalia rode around on their vehicles, with some assistance from Nonna. Note Siena’s rebel, hands-free approach to riding.

Siena and Thalia played a silly game of “I see you.” Unfortunately I was too late to capture Thalia shouting “I see you Siena. I see you daddia. I see you mammia.” Siena picks up the ball and hurtles downfield with it.

Finally, Thalia has learned how to climb on the couch. And she understands so much, too!

Grrrr, argh

John — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 03:54:08 +0000

Here are the girls tonight after dinner, acting like monsters:

And then Siena decided to do a woofing and meowing song. I like this video primarily because of Thalia’s sigh at the end–good comic timing.

By the way, if I ever own a production company like Joss Whedon’s Mutant Enemy, then I’m going to name if “Can I See My Video?” Appropriately aged and nerdy readers will note that note only does the title of this post refer to sounds the girls make in the first video, but it is also the voice over of the aforementioned production company’s end-credits logo. See, for instance, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCLPHSVtvmU.

It’s only a snowflake. It’ll melt.

John — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 03:25:10 +0000

(Title taken from the wonderfully illustrated book “Snow,” uttered by adults who don’t think a snowflake or two will turn into a white-out.)

Note, I published an entry Mama wrote back on Jan. 21 but I didn’t realize wasn’t published yet, so you can read it here.

Today was a balmy 39 degrees, so we got outside with Siena in the afternoon while Thalia napped. Sadly both girls are sick; Siena only a little now, but Thalia registered a 103 fever and was generally sluggish this evening.

I took some videos of our activities outside. First up, Siena enjoyed sledding down the “mountain” that the plows have made in our yard in order to keep our driveway clear. This hill is taller than us; we think it’s around 8 feet or so. Siena is able to get half-way across the yard from the top of this, though she has a rather more abrupt and ungraceful end in the one run I filmed:

Barley joined us in the front yard, and found it tough going. Siena preferred to be the star of the film.

Finally, a longer one that pans around our driveway to show the snow cover, and of course, Siena wanting to have herself videotaped.

Great Movie Quotes, Part 1

John — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:07:55 +0000

I think I might start filming Siena quoting great movie lines. Here’s the first:

Happy Birthday, Thalia!

John — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:45:45 +0000

Thalia is one year old today. What a year! She’s gone from this:

to this in one year:

That, by the way, is one of Thalia’s birthday presents, and she loves it!

Thalia clocked in at 30 inches (75%) and 22.5 pounds (also 75%), so she’s a little better than the median range she was at before, but not close to Siena, who measured in at 30 inches (and a mere 20 pounds) when she was 9 months. That being said, Mama and I are happy that Thalia continues to grow longer and not just wider, or denser as we were starting to suspect. Mama hypothesized that Thalia would just turn into a white dwarf star and eventually become a baby black hole, sucking in all food and light.

Siena, in the past year, has gone from this:

To this:

So she’s growing really well too!

Thalia giggles

John — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:27:11 +0000

We caught Thalia’s special peculiar giggle on video finally. Whereas Siena had this Montgomery Burns sinister laugh, Thalia has almost a pigeon coo. Here she is eating some tasty pasta. You can also hear Siena singing about eating green beans. This is pretty normal for us at the dinner table.

I apologize for the first 6 or 7 seconds of prep work. I don’t have a decent movie editing program yet, and I forgot to clip these on the camera before I transferred them to my computer.

Crawling!

John — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:11:29 +0000

Thalia really got herself mobile for the first time last week. Now she cannot get enough of standing up, sitting down, crawling around. She can get herself from a fully prone or supine position to sitting up, and she can get where she wants to go. Happy baby!

Unfortunately, not so happy house. We probably will need to baby proof more than we did with Siena. Or just be willing to take more risks. Siena never pulled herself up on anything she could get her arms onto, whereas Thalia will just grab right onto the hairs on my legs and start hauling herself up. She is likely to try to pull up via a CD tower or something else that could fall on her. And she has a greater tendency to put stuff in her mouth, still, so we need to hide all the small stuff.

Tenzing, as you will see, can take care of himself.