Blogmas: Wooden + Dots Ornaments

Hello!

As you may have noticed, and I still don’t know what happened because I had plans, but we didn’t put out any pumpkins this fall. My sister did, she decorated her entire front porch with various sizes of pumpkins, but we did not. I found it very surreal, because that’s my favorite thing to do in September and October is paint pumpkins. After that, I think my body was like, “okay, we need to find an alternative fast!” because this project came out of nowhere, but it ended up becoming a new favorite of mine.

In mid-October, I started looking for birthday gifts that weren’t books (I know it’s shocking!) and I found these wooden shapes and I sort of fell in love with them and then I found ones that were Christmas related and then all hell broke loose in my brain!

In the last year and a half, I’ve been watching a lot of reels and regular videos on YouTube of dot art. I still don’t remember what inspired the find in general, but I’m forever glad it came into my life. I used it in my 3 projects last Christmas. It was only a simple red dot here and there with a Q-Tip but it was still a new thing for me and I loved it. I have been working on it throughout 2021 and I finally felt comfortable enough to use the technique in my new project: the Christmas ornaments!

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What you will need for this DIY:

• Wood cut outs – it’s important for them to be “unfinished”
• Acrylic paints
• Paintbrushes
• Dotting tools
• Damp washcloth
• Paint palette or paper plate(s)

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Before we get too into this part of the post, I wanted to show you how the ornaments came in the mail.

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They were perfectly stuffed into this cute Santa Claus box. I was originally going to get the 160 pieces but I’m glad I switched to the 40 pieces because I would still be painting right now! Anyways, they were four traditional Christmas characters: a snowflake, bell, tree and baubles. You get 10 in each stack, so you have multiple designs you’d like to trade off, you are welcome to do it evenly. If you would like to purchase this set or the others, click here for the Amazon page. You also get clusters of string for each of the ornaments, plus a small bag of metallic beads, but I did not use them.

Raining Dots

I started with the Christmas trees, and I copied the same color scheme I did with my last project, so I mixed my green with a tiny bit of blue and I love how they all came out. After finishing all 10 trees with their base coats, I moved on to the trunk and I poured a small amount of brown into my palette, and I used one layer of paint for that part. I am a lover of DecoArt acrylic paints, (thanks to Lydia May on YouTube!) I usually don’t need more than two coats depending on the shade, and I was very happy with my color choices this time around, including the yellow!

Once everyone was in the process of drying, I switched my attention on my design ideas for a few of my baubles. I knew I wanted to create a series of animals, but I’m not really good at it so I went looking on Pinterest and found a great step-by-step guide of the Fox for my friend Brittany. She was the one who really inspired this part in the first place. I continued to search for guides of the Cow and Pig, but I wasn’t able to find anything, so they were basically all free-foot sketches. After that, I stopped for the day, and came right back to it the next day.

A couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to add another selection of dotting tools. I have the smaller sizes, and I’ve been using them for about a year now and they are very nice for me to grip my toes around and make my dots, but the others are various sizes and I have been wanting to get them for a while now because I wanted to try my foot at the larger dots. I am having issues how to grip them, but I expected that to happen. I knew I wasn’t going to go all out with my designs (honestly, I had the phrase, “less is more” in my mind the whole time!) and I tried to keep it that way.

When I came back to my trees, I was ready to decorate everybody, and I used two colors: yellow and a light gray (I mixed my gray with a tiny bit of white!) and I painted the stars with those colors and would switch the yellow star with silver garland. I was smart with this; I drew out a zig-zag design on most of them and would follow the lines with my dotting tool and I really loved it! Some look like traditional Christmas trees, but there are five of them with the “walking technique” which is coating your desired tool with paint and dotting down the canvas, I love this so much I did it to my Bonsai pot in the spring! My parents saw the final tree with this design, and they love it. Honestly, everyone I’ve shared it to, has expressed the same thoughts too!

So, here are how the trees turned out.

There Goes Rudolph!

The second (or third) shape were the bells. I wasn’t impressed with the bells at all, they were very boring even without paint on them…

My thinking behind them was the golden bells you normally see on pictures, but I could not get the yellow to turn to a pretty gold and I tried like three different times and was only successful after finishing with them. I was so mad at that point, but I moved on though. Since I had 10 of these bells, I was influenced by a fragment of a carol “with silver bells ringing” I kept hearing while doing the base colors and I created the silver hue again for the rest of my bells and I thought they looked so adorable!

I left to dry overnight and I was really worried about how boring they looked, so that night I thought about adding a reindeer face on it and in my dreams they looked so cute and I was over the moon when I started sketching out how I wanted the antlers to go, but once I started doing my dots I got a little worried because the design started to look a little bit like a pair of balls and by my second bell, I became terrified at what was appearing but thankfully my mom thought they were great, especially after I put the eyes and big red nose at the end.

The reindeer/bells are definitely my favorite, even with the cock and balls antlers, they still look amazing! I did a good job on them and that’s something I rarely do when it comes to painting, is enjoy what I am creating, and lately it’s been so fulfilling to believe in my artwork for the first time.

Let It…

For the third ornament, we have snowflakes.

I think both the trees and snowflakes were the easiest to do because they required a small set of skill. You can free hand your designs to make things simple and they would still end up being very beautiful. When I began on the snowflakes though, I thought I would be able to play with my various sizes of tools, but I rarely got away from the blue tool, which is a little bit bigger than the purple tool. I basically treated the flakes like the trees when it came to their designs and used the walking technique quite a bit throughout the process.

And like the trees, I kept my color scheme pretty limited, I only used white for the base and used two different blues, but my favorite shade was the bright, neon like because it reminded me of the Frozen films. I’ll be honest, I had Queen Elsa and Princess Anna (and of course, Olaf too!) in my head all while I was working on these and I’m glad I did because it got me out of my head, and I allowed myself to make mistakes with them because I mean every snowflake is one of a kind so I just left them the way they were… well, some of them! There were 3 that definitely had to be fixed but after I was done, I basically pushed them as far away as possible, so I wasn’t able to add more dots!

The Cast of Characters

Lastly, the bauble balls were my least favorite because I knew what I wanted to do with a few of them and it scared the living daylights out of me! I got through in one piece thank God, but not without psyching myself out in the first round.

So, like I explained above while I was waiting for my trees to dry, I got started on figuring out what I wanted for three of my baubles, the rest was pretty much left until I did the base coats. I treated the baubles like the bells, as I split them up as they were painted in traditional Christmas colors: green and red. I was so worried the red would be too dark for my animal baubles, but thankfully they design held up great against the paint, and I was still able see every part.

My biggest worry now was, do I have a brush that was small enough to paint the character without creating a big mess around it, and I was thoroughly surprised as I found a tiny brush that was not only perfect for the designs, but it quickly became a favorite of mine because it allowed me to gain back some of the control as far as what I wanted to bring into each animal. I didn’t stop using my dotting tools though as I had made the eyes and noses with a small tool, and they turned out as adorable as my Rudolph/reindeers in the end.

When I was done with them, I was fairly tempted to leave the rest of the baubles plain, but I thought they looked too boring for that, and I started experimenting and I made array of different ones but I did one that spells the word “Woof” for a family friend, they have a Pittie and they recently got a Beagle puppy so as my mom told me, “it fits” for them, and then I surprised myself again but creating two baubles in a Ugly Christmas Sweater design and I’m still upset I did just do that with the rest but it was just a beautiful disaster that I need to remember for next Christmas!

Bring Me the Rainbow

My final bauble is very special because it is my nephew’s. Nolan has become obsessed with the moon and rainbows, and since I already got him a Moon phase garland for his room, I figured I needed to bring out his love for the rainbow too, so I reserved a bauble ornament for him. I don’t know why I didn’t do this with my nana’s ornament since she too is obsessed with the rainbow! Oh well, I will make a note of this for next year!

I was thrilled to do this for Nolan but I was also terrified too because I had to use the ruler to create a series of lines for each color, and honestly, this was a doozy! I was having a hard time making six, somewhat equal, lines for each dot and it was a hard task at first but once I got it all figured out, I poured out my paint on my palette and got to work on the actual dots.

This media has also become a favorite of my nephew too. He currently had two or three CDs I’ve made in the last year or so, the first one he just took home and the others I gave him because he kept holding onto them. I think in the new year, I will try to teach him how to do it so he can be excited about his own creations too! Anyways, I used my pink tool, which is the middle size and honestly, it was actually perfect for this design. I was going to use the tiny brush again to remove the empty spaces in between the dots but I stopped myself from doing it and messing the entire ornament up. Nolan was very excited to get his ornament. I don’t think he understood at first why I had given him a different design compared to his mommy’s pink reindeer, but I know he will cherish it nonetheless!

It is strange when a small thought that can appear in the middle of a sleepless night, can grow into such a huge project and yet bring so much good to a slice of the world. Homemade gifts are good for the soul. I give kudos to anyone who has a small business and fix up orders every day, because that is no small feat! As I told my nana the other day, now that I am done painting and the cards were shipped out and people are receiving their ornaments, I still feel like I need to be doing something, and I really hope it was finishing this post.

I really hope you have enjoyed reading my process with this project. It was fun while it lasted, and now I can relax for the rest of this break. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a lovely time with your family, friends and/or pets. For anyone else, have a wonderful weekend!

Life | Meet Da Bunnies!

Hello.

Well, we have had some new additions to our family, and no, it’s not a baby!

My sister and brother-in-law have started their own little rabbit farm.

I don’t really know how it got started, but one day at the end of February, they came home from a day of doing errands and brought home a bunny from Rural King. During this time, they have a series of farm animals for sale there. They have baby chickens, ducks, birds, bunnies, and sometimes piglets. The only time I’ve been there, my mom and I spent too much time at the baby chicken station. They were SO adorable but we knew it would be a lost cause bringing them home because our cats would definitely make a meal out of them! .

Before I continue, I have to mention that we do know if they are short or long haired rabbits, nor do they know the exact breeds either! I think we should just be happy that we know each is a boy or a girl instead! My sister has never taken care off rabbits before. I’m not so sure about Brandon, but they’re making the most of it though.

Hopsin

This was the first rabbit they bought, as you can see Hopsin looks like she could be a long hair bunny, but honestly she only has this in patches along her body. All around her face is short except for the very top, so she has a “woke up like this” look to her everytime of the day, but I think it gives her more personality.

The first time she came over, we kind of trapped her in my room but she must’ve like it because she never stomped the floor very much! She definitely loved my bed though, at one point after she was finished exploring every inch of my bed, she found a comfortable spot and just kicked her back legs out and laid down and we were all in love after that!

After that, my mom was a little afraid she would get too relax and pee on my bed so Blondie put her on the floor and she was back to sniffing everything in my room. She decided that lying underneath my wheelchair was the best place ever! In her defense, it is next to my closet and kind of dark in that corner so she obviously felt safe in that little space to the point where she did the same thing when she was on my bed, and just went flat on the cool floor. If we knew she wouldn’t chew on any cords or go under the door of my actual closet and get lost in there, we would have just let her stay over there for a while. She looked so content and sweet over there, it was sad when my sister decided to go back home!

I watch a lot of different vet shows on the National Geographic WILD channel, so I have learned quite a few things about rabbits in general. One thing that I remembered the most was that rabbits are very social, and they like to be in pairs, so it wasn’t too long before they went and got a buddy for Hopsin–actually, they didn’t even last a day! They came home with DaBaby.

Bunz

I tried to warn you when I said they had started giving them rap names! 

When one became two, Nolan was beginning to get really interested in them. He has only been around cats and dogs, so rabbits are relatively new to him, but he seemed to form some kind of bond with Bunz. The reason why the name was changed to this, is because they are not looking to breed any of their rabbits, but wasn’t sure what sex this one was at the time so it was automatically named “DaBaby” but once they found out it was a girl, she ended up as “Bunz” . I don’t really know the significance behind it so I apologize for that!  

Bunz is absolutely adorable! Hopsin being black and white like their cat Samuel, Bunz is an entirely color to any of their animals in their house. Bunz is all shades of brown with a little bit of pink in her ears. Before bunny #5, she was the tiniest of the pack and I thought it was perfect for Nolan. He loves to give them their breakfast and thinks they eat cute and interesting! I have seen try to eat his crackers like them in the last three visits so he has been watching quite a bit but honestly it’s so sweet that as long as he doesn’t get choked, I think we’ll be okay about it.

If you didn’t know Blondie is attractive to animals. She is the main reason why Bootsie wasn’t able to leave our back yard when she first came around, our dad had told her to keep working with her to become comfortable with people, but after her dog Sydney died, nobody could bear to break her away from Bootsie so we ended up keeping her and thus, she started birthing liters and liters of kittens before we finally had to stop it and got all of the cats fixed. Funnily enough, now that she lives on the corner of our block, Bootsie now lives over there, underneath this bench that she dressed bottom part with cushions and a large blanket to shield them away from the cold. Oscar, Bear-Bear and Tavis all live over there and only come back when the humans come over to visit us!

Thumper & Chance 

Now, there was a reason why I mentioned about the story of Bootsie, because my sister can’t really be trusted to go on solo missions when animals, especially ones that are on sale, because if they look sweet or injured – like in this case, because she will come home with more than one species. I have to say, she’s done this before because one time we came home with 2 sets of hamsters in a number of four years! This should have been our warning that no animal is safe because she will bring it home!

So, this is Thumper and Chance the RapHare. I don’t know exactly know how they came up with Thumper, other than maybe watching Bambi recently but Brandon definitely named Chance (the bigger one!) after the actual rapper. One of the things that is both sad and special about these guys are, she got them for the fact that they were injured. You might be able to tell in the photo, as they each look like they have missing fur around their noses. As you might’ve noticed, these are both boys and don’t worry, they have their own cage. They live next door to the sorority house, so hopefully no baby bunnies anytime soon!

These guys were actually the first ones that I got to meet, because just after coming home, they came right over so I could see them. They enjoyed exploring the living room and kitchen. What we didn’t expect them to do was hang out around our fan in the kitchen. They seriously just sat in front of it and chilled out for a bit. Our dog ChiChi was curious about these guys but for the most part, didn’t mind them as much!

Trixie

I almost forgot about this one. My sister just randomly came home with her. We thought that after getting the boys, that they were done, but I know my sister too well – she has a soft spot for anything left behind and with Bunz, Trixie and Letti (as you’ll meet soon!) were all the last bunnies in the container at the store.  

This bunny is named Trixie, but I’m not too sure how she came up with that name but I wonder if our cat Tavis had inspired it as he is also black and white too! Tavis is also one of the quietest love bug out of the entire pride, and I haven’t heard too much about Trixie so I’m thinking her demeanor might be close to him. 

Personally, I think she is my favorite as she is mostly white with a tiny bit of black. She reminds me of their cat Samuel as he is all white with a few black shapes around his whole body, but Trixie is definitely smaller compared to Samuel! I think it’s far to say all of the rabbits are smaller than Samuel, because he is like a monster with a huge body and a small head!

Unfortunately, that’s all I can say about her right now. She seems to be a very chill bunny compared to all of the others, but the next one is somewhat similar too, which is how I was able to completely skip Trixie in the process!

Letti Lou

She took what our parents use to say to us ALL THE TIME when we were growing up, and that was, “when you move out of the house, you can own as many animals as you want.” It wasn’t until she took another solo trip that I begin to hear the voices of my parents saying that exact statement in my head over and over again. A part of me had to laugh because she came home with Miss Letti Lou. This one is actually smaller compared to the rest of the herd. I vaguely remember Blondie saying that she was around 8 weeks, but we’re not too sure though. She does really good with her sisters, so that’s all that matters!

Letti is the second bunny to not be inspired by a rapper, according to my sister, she named her after the character Letty from the Fast & Furious franchise. My poor sister hasn’t watched the entire series but remembers when our Uncle David took us to see the newest film at the time, and it had to been when Letty was found and Dom went to get her back, so my mind is saying Fast Five is the exact movie, but there have been so many that I’ve sort of lost track but I think I’m right though! Anyways, Letti Lou is by far the smallest and the color of her fur is the same tone as what Blondie’s hair use to be back in school, so I find it odd that she found a bunny like her in some way!

Axel & Onyx

And finally, we have hit the last two rabbits (at least we’re hoping so!) and for a few days, my dad didn’t know about these guys! For a good three weeks he only thought they had four bunnies, but Blondie and Brandon haven’t taken loads of pictures so for the most part he hasn’t seen them. I have a feeling that once this post goes up, he’ll find out all about them. 

Now this photo was taken a few days after they got them so they’ve probably put on some weight since they came home. I think Onyx is the on the left, as he is a lot darker to his brother. Axel has some brown tones in him but he is very spunky and unafraid of the cats. Blondie sent a video on Facebook to show Axel roaming around the living room and when Em called for him, he came back but first had to sniff–or at least try to!–Samuel and this seemed to spook him enough that Samuel went flying into the kitchen with Axel on his heels and what was so hilarious by it was the fact that Axel couldn’t stop, even after trying to spread his front paws out and that still didn’t help him all that much at first, but thankfully, he did figure out how to stop, but the whole thing was so cute and funny that I can’t get it out of my mind!

The rest of their household seems to mind the rabbits okay. The cats are a little unsure, especially when they are out of their cages, but for the most part the cats can tolerate them. Chipper, however, he is desperately looking for a playmate I guess and doesn’t quite understand why the new kids on the block can’t rough house with him. He is curious about them and loves to hang out by their cages, he is a very protective big brother to the cats, Nolan and now the bunnies! So far, everybody is getting along and loves to cuddle with everybody, including me! Dad doesn’t really care for them all that much but I think he’s fine with it, if he doesn’t have to necessarily have to do anything with them…

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Have you taken care of rabbits before? If you have, how many did you have and what were their names? Do you have any advice for them or any other people wanting to take care of a bunny full time?

Happy Birthday Nolan!

Hello!

So today is a very exciting day as it is my nephew Nolan’s first birthday! As far as I know, we are not seeing him today but this weekend we will be together, with both families, so that should be both chaotic and fun at the same time!

I really can’t believe it’s been a year already, I mean, it just doesn’t seem right. The memories of us being at the hospital past 1am waiting for him to make his debut is still very fresh in my mind. The day (and night) was a long one! Blondie was a real trooper though, she was definitely the one who was the most uncomfortable especially before she received the epidural, that’s for sure! I do remember she was absolutely terrified to have that done, which I would be too, but I think for her I know she didn’t like the fact that Brandon wasn’t allowed to stay in the room with her. Another thing I know she absolutely hated was how many times they tried to stuck her for the IV. Despite her love of tattoos and piercings, she really doesn’t like needles that much! So, this was not something she looked forward to by any means.

When he decided that he was ready to come out officially, my dad and I were forced out of the room. I was okay with this, because honestly somebody needed to stay with him as he was wreck for most of the night! He does not like to see us in any sort of pain, so his youngest daughter going through labor almost put him over the edge quite a few times! As we were making our way out, it finally came to me that once we leave the room, she wouldn’t just be my sister, she’ll be a mommy to a little human. It was such a profound moment for me, because I kept thinking in my head of the times we had together, growing up, and even though I quickly accepted her moving out of the house and eventually marriage to Brandon; she was literally giving birth to her son and my nephew, I realized how different things would be but I was completely at peace with it.

Once we were told he was here, we rushed to the door before telling to stay out a little longer, which was a little cruel because we could hear him just crying as loud as his little lungs would allow him. After like 20 minutes, we were told to come in, but the air suddenly felt different. Of course it did, a baby was just born! I think we were there another for 20 minutes after the birth before going home, but we were back the next day to take more pictures and hold the little guy.

Fast forward now 12 months, and he is a thriving little dude!

Nolan and I have formed a nice relationship. My nickname for him is “cutie pie” and when he was a tiny baby, I would literally sing those words to calm him into dreamland while he was on my bed . Sometimes it worked, while others didn’t, but that was okay! He still likes it when I call him that, everytime we FaceTime each other, he always breaks out a smile to me. He is obsessed with me! He likes to do things with his feet, and I really adore his hugs! He’ll just wrap his arms around my neck and just stay there a few seconds which makes me so happy considering I wasn’t able to hold him as a baby like everybody else, so this makes up for it entirely!

My dad has already told me that he sees us getting into a lot of trouble later in life. I can agree with that in some firm. However, for the most part I am pretty strict with him, especially when it comes to my wheelchair–which is another thing he loves!–I don’t want him to get hurt by tilting over his walker or “car-car” so I have to basically grow another spine and tell him “no” and that’s definitely not one of his favorite words, everytime he gets told that he’ll instantly put his hands over his ears, and make his pitiful face at the same time, so you instantly feel guilty afterwards.

Nolan is a smart cookie though. When he was about six months old he started pointing at things, that one index finger gets a good workout considering the amount of things he tries to touch and mess with, and through this we figured out he really loves the color red a lot. My seat belt has the word “PRESS” in that color and he knows if you push it, something happens. So, he already has that curious mind to discover new things. He loves a number of other stuff besides of getting into things he shouldn’t, like fruit, animals, books, and water.

When his parents first started him on solid foods, he wasn’t really into a lot of different fruit. However, he really loves bananas, blueberries and strawberries. We recently figured that whenever he says “nana” it isn’t for my mom, which she is called “Mimi,” he might actually be asking for bananas! It took us a few months but whenever we talk them amongst ourselves, he starts saying that a lot!

As far as animals go, when he was first born, I found this cute book that was about baby animals and it included spots of various textures, like faux fur on the bear, lamb, and lion cub. This is where we saw that pointer finger coming out because he loved feeling them. Since his household is basically a zoo, Chipper and the cats have grown to love their non-fur brother. Unfortunately, our dog ChiChi is still not a fan of him. She still growls and runs away when he gets too close to her on all surfaces! There are a couple of times where he has had a chance to pet her on accident when she is close to any of us, but it is always a brief moment between the two of them!

Lastly, he loves water! After he was first born, like all babies, they’re very unsure about taking a bath. He’s never enjoyed the fact that he has to take off his clothes and put on a new outfit afterwards, because he loves being a “nakkey-baby” so much, but getting into a bath is literally his favorite thing ever. Blondie and Brandon are still not very confident about letting him in a tub by himself, so someone is usually in there too. He loves to make waves and splash like crazy! He even enjoys laying flat in the water, and recently he got to go swimming in a pool and he thoroughly enjoyed that too! My sister was the same way, she loves being in the water for a couple of hours swimming and talking with friends.

This first year has flown by, but I have enjoyed seeing the transformation he’s made so far. I absolutely love him, he makes me excited for the future. He has a brought back a part of myself that I felt was fading away, so I owe him a lot for giving me my hope back. I also hope as he gets older he’ll actually want to watch basketball games, because we have yet to do that, blame Mimi because I frequently hear “he doesn’t want to watch that” on too many things I try to play on the TV. So far to her, he doesn’t like basketball, Ed Sheeran or Celtic Woman. I’m just trying to expand his interests in the best way I know how, and she is ruining our fun in that department! I really hope he doesn’t lose his curiosity and continues to be a very happy little guy!

5 Favorite Shows About Nature & Culture

Howdy!

I’ve always had a difficult time watching nature documentary series on Animal Planet, mostly because I never really liked when the hunters went after their prey, most of the time they were capturing young and giving it to THEIR babies! When I started watching some nature shows on Netflix over the summer, I kind of hoped I was over that but then I realized that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can never really be over that aspect of life in the animal kingdom! Truth be told, I’ve been watching nature shows for a long time on PBS, but it’s only now that I’ve kind of deluge a fairly large amount at one time. In my defense, prior to this happening I was binge watching both Arrow and The Flash, so I felt this would be a nice break away from the superheroes, I just didn’t think I would keep watching one right after the other like I did, but it’s been sort of helpful when it comes watching episodes of Jeopardy!

I am more drawn to the series that were made by a British or Australian company, but only because there are in two these areas on Netflix than any other country! I also like when there are people narrating each episode to the viewer, like the visual version of Audible! Thanks to this, I have become a bit of a fan of Sir David Attenborough. I’m embarrassed to say that I have watched close to three different ones where’s either in it or narrating what you’re seeing on the screen!

Galapagos (2006)

This was the first show I watched in July that basically started it all and it was narrated by the lovely Tilda Swinton. I think I watched this because I remembered that Jeopardy were running a contest for fans of the show to win tickets to go there with Alex Trebek last year. I figured that meant they would have several categories about it and I should get some knowledge about the Islands of The Tortoises.

I really loved this program! I found the fact that various birds, turtles, and seals all on this very unstable, volcanic place where hardly anything grows. The first episode basically opens up with what really surprised me, was that iguanas also live close to the edge of the cliffs. They actually live on a side where there’s an active volcano so the surface doesn’t really have anything for these creatures to eat, so they have developed a taste of algae at the bottom of the ocean. So, these spike-y little devils literally crawl to the ledge where the water is being brushed up the sides of the island by the currents and either jump or slide right down and they can SWIM! Now the really cool, and sort of adorable thing I loved about them is that when they finally come back to shore, since swallowing salt water is bad for them, they sneeze out the water out of the nose! I was really dumbfounded by this adaption.

South Pacific (2009)

This was a six episode series, narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. Now, I have to say, I watch funny moments on the Graham Norton show on YouTube a lot, and there was a clip of Benedict discussing with Graham about how he says the word “penguin” and it was funny as crap, if you want to check it out here you click here. Anyways, it was about a year or so, since I watched that clip and I finally watched the show and realized that he definitely can’t say that word right at all, even in a British accent, it still sounds bad!

“South Pacific” was about all of the islands in their different shapes and what kind of life they support around the Pacific Ocean. One of my favorite things about these types of shows is that it gives you an insight of life on these islands, not only for the animals, but humans too! You see tribes of people, living off the land and they’re so out there away from other people. We did visit the Galapagos Islands again throughout the series, but you were transported to other smaller islands, I really enjoyed learning about the different plants, when editors use the fast-moving on how fast the landscape changes! I actually fell in love with the Birds of Paradise species, and they are usually located on New Guinea and Hawaii, but they are decorated in different colors and shapes with really unique ways of attracting a mate and fighting to be with that female as well. It can get a little weird, but their dances make it all worthwhile trust me!

National Curiosities (2013)

This show was the longest out of the whole list! It had probably 12 episodes in the three seasons it was on BBC, but what I truly liked was that they are about an hour-long, but they’re comparing origin stories of two different species so you kind of need that amount of time to explain what makes these animals so complex.

When I would watch this, I always felt like I was becoming more of a naturalist, like David Attenborough. He has this caring personality and it shows whenever he has an animal next to him or sitting on his lap, you can feel that affection aerate on the screen and it makes you want to change your mind on some of the creepy species and help support them later on, although it didn’t work on spiders or snakes! One thing that he does on this is that he’ll talk about how they discovered, and the evolution of theories they had for each one, my favorite was when they thought Platypus were a hoax in the 1800’s!

Monkey Planet (2014)

Monkey Planet was my most recent to watch and I really enjoyed myself! It was hosted by Dr. George McGavin and even though this was only three episodes, I have realized that it doesn’t take much for me to giggle as these mischievous monkeys were really my downfall when it came to watching this late at night!

I’ve always loved monkeys, but while I was watching this I realized that I don’t give them enough credit when it comes to their intelligence. I mean, they are our distant relatives. At first, I was purely watching it because I wanted to learn more about the different types, but instead of having an episode devoted to a certain type, they were squished together but after a while I was okay with it. The colors of their fur and cute facial expressions were too much and once I found out how they all get their food by banging rocks up against tough shells or grabbing a stick of some sort and poking it through small holes in a branch about killed me in the best way possible!

Baby Animals In The Wild (2015)

I really have a problem with baby animals, thankfully no babies were harmed in creating this series, thank god! This was hosted by Luisa Prosser, and consisted of 10 episodes ranging of animals located in deserts, forest, jungles, and mountains. There were times in the program where they would share snapshots of babies in captivity so you got to see them after they were just born or a few weeks old, and told about their characteristics in the wild.

I think the two places that made me wonder why these animals would still want to live in these areas where the arctic mountains and desert. However, once I saw how they were able to live, I had a change of heart pretty quickly and the one species that really grabbed me was the Ibex. The mothers give birth on top of their dry cliffs and after a few days and the babies figure out their footing, the mothers need to get around food and water so they go down these steep cliffs and their kids just follow them down, some of them being overzealous and sprint down that made me very queasy but they have these pads on their hoofs that help grip the rocks underneath to keep them stable, but good gosh! It made me really nervous, but nobody lost their balance so that made me feel better!

I have to say, it was extremely hard to pick out five shows for this post, because I have watched little over 12 of them in the several months, but they’re surprisingly fun to watch. You’re seeing these animals having a blast on top of having to continue searching for food and water, and they all have information stored up in their minds from previous generations. The fact that some of them are still able to live in their natural environment like in a dry savanna of West Africa or lush woods in the middle of France was so cool, but I’m not going to lie when I say seeing the monkeys steal fruits and vegetables off of market stands in India cracks me up! It was just so fascinating to me!

How are you when it comes to nature and cultural shows? Was there one that really made you go, “wow”? And just for good measure, what is your favorite animal(s)?

Favorite Family Friendly Films!

Howdy!

You know, I look at my sister and wonder about her sense of humor a lot. She can laugh at the silliest things! She will share different videos on her social media outlets and even at family gatherings, that can be both scary and shocking at the same time! How can she (and Brandon too!) think some of these ridiculous things can be comical? I credit myself for sticking to myself on what makes things funny, and I usually always go for movies that have very few sexual and offensive jokes in it. I enjoy the cleaner and fun family friendly movies.

This list is complied of different comedies and dramas that I’ve enjoyed both as a teenager and an adult. To me, they’re timeless and I can actually see some relatable things in the film; I find it a bit odd that there are characters that remind me of the cleaner versions of my family members! If you’ve never seen any of these movies or haven’t watched some of them in a long time, I strongly suggest you make time in your day to watch one or two at least.

Father Of The Bride (1991) – Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams, Martin Short

I actually watched this movie for the first time in a really long time a few months ago! My mom recorded it back in January and she’s the one that showed it to me. Growing up, the two of us kind of enjoyed the second movie better, but after I watched it after all this time, I thought this was better!

How is this relatable though? Well, I literally saw things in this movie that we dealt with my dad before Blondie got married. There were WAY too many similarities! I also want to show this to my dad and say, at least she didn’t want a wedding planner like Franck! Now that I’ve watched it, I find it very cute and yes, I cried while watching it and as I remembered Blondie’s own wedding. I was sort of a mess by the end of the night!

Beethoven (1992) – Charles Gordin, Bonnie Hunt, Nicholle Tom, Christopher Castile, Sarah Rose Karr

This movie always makes me cry! The beginning would just break my heart, nobody wanted him and when somebody did, they wanted to hurt the poor guy! I remember watching this a lot as a kid, and blame it on my sister to always pick it! She was like a damn ox, she could get through every sad part in a movie, whereas I am definitely my mother’s daughter who usually has tears rolling down my cheeks before the climax of the saddest scene ever!

I think one of my favorite scenes is when Beethoven goes off on a little afternoon adventure and finds a child who will share an ice cream cone with him. Now as an adult, I find this absolutely disgusting (even though my dad does this with ChiChi with both Popsicles and suckers!) I just thought it was so cute back in the day! I also love the doggy standoff at the end of the movie. You have this row of both large and tiny dogs ready and willing to attack these dognappers and that crazy vet.

Casper (1995) – Christina Ricci, Malachi Pearson, Bill Pullham, Cathy Moriarty

One of my favorite movies from my childhood is Casper! I always found it weird that I was never interested in ghosts or spirits after watching this though!

This one also makes me cry. Man, every single one has made me bawl my eyes out so far! I think it was last scene while the “human” Casper is dancing with Cat, and James sees his dead wife Amelia float up to him, those scenes always get me going but as bittersweet they are, I do enjoy the film as a whole! The uncles are absolutely hilarious and I have been known to quote some of the infamous scenes too.

Dr. Dolittle (1998) – Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wilson, Norm Macdonald, Chris Rock

I love this movie, but if you were ask other members of my family, they’ll probably tell you that the second was better! The bear was freaking hilarious! Anyways, this was good, but I think because of how serve the tiger’s condition was, it made my mom, Blondie and I all cry our eyes out!

I really loved the funny scenes involving Lucky, the drunken Monkey, and Rodney the Guinea Pig. The part where Lucky (poor dog) is getting checked out at the vet and that German Shepherd is like being dragged across the floor because he knows he’s about to get fixed and he’s basically pleading with his owner with “please, I’ll never look at another poodle again” and yet as one walks right out of the door, it immediately captures his attention, after they pause to let them through the doorway, the poor dog is back to begging. Of course, the best part is when it’s Lucky’s turn and the vet just without warning just puts his hand up Lucky’s butt and the only thing that Lucky can say at that moment of impact is “Hello!” I just crack up instantly, because it’s the best if not the only reaction, one would have at that moment.

Rush Hour (1998) – Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Elizabeth Pena, Tzi Ma, Tom Wilkenson

This is a movie where you can watch in the morning, afternoon, or late at night. It’s one of those that can help boost your mood because it is just so freaking funny. Even though, this is a movie where watching it in closed captions should be a requirement because you can have a little bit of trouble understanding Jackie Chan in certain scenes, I still thoroughly enjoy it.

Cheaper By The Dozen (2004) – Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, Alyson Stoner

When my mom recorded the remakes of Father Of The Bride, I actually found this one playing on Starz quite a bit and I instantly had to watch it too. It’s been a really long time since I’d seen it, but I do remember the laughs and especially the pranks played on Nora’s boyfriend Hank, played by Ashton Krutcher. Gosh, he was so perfect for that role, because he was so funny as this stereotypical model, only thinking of himself. The younger kids were the best jokesters on the planet.

I know I probably could have added a few more onto this list, but I actually had to remove a couple because I think I will do another post that’s similar to this post, because it involves animals. I actually have three other movie inspired posts coming soon, so you’ll have to keep an eye open for those too!

What are some of your favorite family oriented films? Are you a purist when it comes to comedy or do you mind it being a little obnoxious like my sister?