Greta’s Princess Birthday Party Pics (2014)

Here, as promised, are some of the best pics from Greta’s fifth birthday party at the log cabin in Verdugo Park. As you can see, it was a Princess-themed party with the guests (and their parents!) encouraged to come in costume as their favorite princess or pirate and a royal good time was had by all. Enjoy the pics…and happy birthday, sweetie!

Disney Princess LEGOS

Just when you thought LEGO had reached the pinnacle of coolness with the recent release of their fanboy-tastic “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” LEGO playsets, they take things even further by adding the Disney Princesses to the mix as well.

That’s right, brick lovers, the Disney Princess LEGO sets are here. And though several of the bigger name Disney Princesses like Snow White, Cinderella and Ariel have appeared in hugely-popular DUPLO playsets over the years, this is the first time Disney royalty has appeared in a “big kid” LEGO set and the results are freaking awesome.

Seriously, even if I didn’t have a Disney Princess-loving daughter, I would want some of these sets. Beautifully detailed with rich, subtle colors you don’t often find in the LEGO universe, the sets are far cooler than you’d expect, especially considering how totally lame and borderline sexist the company’s previous girl-themed efforts have been.

I mean, no offense to the toothy lasses in the LEGO Friends collection, but, girls can do much more than run an ice cream shoppe, beauty parlor and/or brush their horse’s plastic hair all day long. Say what you will about Barbie, but at least she has career ambitions, while even the best of the LEGO Friends sets feel a marketing scheme that never really took off.

Whereas the new Disney Princess LEGOS are so cool and character-specific that they actually breathe new life into a franchise that most parents I know feel has lost a little steam in recent years. And, by focusing on the strengths and unique skills/talents of each of the Princesses featured in the LEGO sets, the powers that be present girl characters that, you know, actually do things.

The Merida set highlights her archery skills, Rapunzel’s set focuses on her skills as an artist and even Ariel — who many consider to be the most offensive and weak-willed of the bunch — gets a chance to focus on her skills as a “collector of human artifacts” in one of her two LEGO sets. OK, maybe that’s a stretch, but, it’s better than nothing.

But the biggest surprise of all comes in the largest, showiest set in the series, Cinderella’s Romantic Castle. If you ask me, Cinderella was always the first truly modern-skewing of the Disney Princesses, but, rather than showcasing her skills at sewing and cleaning (both of which she obviously excelled at) Cinderella’s LEGO set goes out of its way to highlight her cheeky sense of humor by sneaking all sorts of hidden treasures into the castle. Her bed features a “secret drawer” containing a mysterious envelope (a souvenir invite from the Royal ball that started it all perhaps?) and another “secret room” upstairs hides a treasure chest behind a door that is only opened by a key hidden behind a trick bookcase downstairs. Forget romance, this castle is downright magical!

And in case you were wondering how long it takes to construct a 646 piece LEGO castle, I can tell you from experience — Greta got the castle from her Grandma Linda for Christmas — it takes forever. Just kidding. I didn’t actually log the hours, but, it took us a good two or three days to do it right. But, Greta and I had a blast building it and luckily, all of the big new LEGO sets come with very detailed instructions, so, we had lots of help.

And with my new “Lord of the Rings” Battle at the Black Gate LEGO set (yep, Santa heard my pleas as well!) due to start construction sometime this weekend, I forsee much cross-movie franchise bloodshed and turmoil in the land of LEGOS. Poor Cinderella will never know what hit her!

Oscar Nominees 2013

Wow, what a difference a year makes! Last year at this time, The Artist was winning pretty much everything it was nominated for, but, this year the Oscar race is wide open. Which, in my mind is always much more exciting. Equally exciting was the nomination telecast itself, which was hosted by the dreamy Emma Stone and this year’s Oscar telecast host, Seth McFarlane.

Yes, you heard me right, the reading of names from a prompter was actually very exciting this morning! Funny too! I laughed out loud several times, but, my favorite moment was when Stone announced the Best Supporting Actor nominees. After every name she said: “Nominated Before.” And they were! The category is full of previous winners. Crazy! And hilarious to make fun of it too. Honestly, I was a bit worried about Seth McFarlane hosting the show this year, but, if he’s as funny and original as he was this morning, then, bring that shit on, baby. He was on fire! And, he even scored a Best Song Oscar nomination for his movie Ted.

Anyway, most of the major nominees are names we’ve been hearing all season, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Life of Pi, Argo and Les Miserables all did really well in several categories, but, the biggest coup in my mind was all the Oscar love for Amour, which scooped up nominations for Best Foreign Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Picture! Wow! I can’t remember the last time a foreign film did that well. Good on, you guys!

Also very excited to see Naomi Watts score a Best Actress nomination for her fine work in The Impossible, even if poor Ewan McGregor got overlooked…again! Grrr! Also totally overlooked was John Goodman, who shone in at least three major movies I can think of and would have made a perfect rookie addition to the Best Supporting Actor category. Also totally robbed was John Hawkes for his superb work in The Sessions. He was awesome (as was his co-star Helen Hunt, who did score a nomination this morning for the same movie). If you ask me, I’d say Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) stole more than a loaf of bread this time around, he also stole John Hawkes Best Actor nomination. Sorry, Hugh, you were great, but, I’m just saying…

I was also stoked to see David O. Russell back in the Best Director race after losing out on a DGA nomination early this week. In fact, the only holdovers from the DGA’s nominations are Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg. I can’t even remember the last time the lists were that different. And though I’m sorry Ben Affleck didn’t score a nomination for directing Argo, I was excited to see Russell back in the running as well as the Beasts of the Southern Wild dude and Michael Haneke for Amour. Neither of which I’ve seen yet, so, I’d better get busy!

Anyway, in the end, I think I’m rooting for Silver Linings Playbook the most. The movie is fantastic and has really crept up on me over the past few weeks since I saw it. Like a lot of my favorite movies, it really sticks with you and that’s always good. Also, it scored nominations in every acting category, as well as nods for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, which is a good sign. Especially in year with no clear frontrunner. So, go, Silver Linings Playbook!

Dying to hear what movies you loved or hated this year and, more importantly, what you thought was overlooked. So, feel free to comment away. And to see a full list of this year’s nominees, click here.

Greta’s Dance Recital: The Event

OK, first off, let me tell you that dance recitals are worse than children’s birthday parties on the exhaustion scale. Seriously, Mrs. Yeti and myself felt like we went to war this weekend. Thankfully, Mrs. Yeti is off today (Monday), so she can relax while she, you know, catches up on last week’s laundry and shit. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do too. But, if I could, I would totally sleep all day, not just sleep in, mind you, but, all day long. That’s how tired I am.

That said, the dance recital was incredible. All the dancers were great, everyone showed up on time (even us!) and the show went off without a hitch…until the intermission, when, the announcer said in a very calm voice: “There is no emergency, but, could Cindy Kim’s mother please come to the stage.” I’m not kidding, man, you could actually hear people’s hearts sinking as poor Cindy Kim’s mother hurried backstage. Thank God it wasn’t my kid, I thought.

So, I headed to the bathroom and took my time coming back only to find Mrs. Yeti hurrying down to the backstage entrance in a panic. WTF? Did I miss the non-emergency announcement for Greta Yeti’s parents? Yikes! Stopping at our seats just long enough to grab my backpack full of Greta-sentials, I took off running down the aisle after Mrs. Yeti and found her on the other side of the backstage curtain in a flood of tears.

Mrs. Yeti was holding a sobbing, hysterical Greta while her teacher, Miss Sommer (more about her later) tried in vain to calm her down. Now, I should stop here to say that Greta rarely, if ever, cries that hard. This was like, maybe the third time in her life that she’s been that far gone and with the intermission clock ticking down (her performance wasn’t slated to begin until after the intermission) my heart filled with dread, and as terrible as it is to admit, all I saw were dollar signs. A $150.00 dress she’d never wear onstage, the $25 admission price everyone in our group shelled out to be there, photos, videos…oy, my head was swimming with wasted cash at the thought that she might not take the stage at her first recital. And then there was my second thought (which, most people would say should have been my first) which was, what the hell happened? Why is she so upset?

That answer was easy. Greta was playing and coloring with the other kids backstage and got a little bored, so, she laid down and fell asleep. Yes, she can and does sleep anywhere. It’s a gift and a curse. The problem was, when she woke up in a sea of strangely-costumed-toddlers, puffy foam stickers and coloring books, she didn’t know where she was and she flipped out. Luckily for her, mommy and Miss Sommer were there to save the day.

Sure, I provided provisions from my backpack (“You need a Kleenex? Got it! Cuppy? Right here!”) and did my best to make her laugh, but, those two did the heavy-lifting in the child calming department and what do you know? Greta actually stopped crying and calmed down. Then I jumped in with a little dance parent pressure: “You know, if you don’t dance, your friend Fiona might not know how to do the routine.” Almost instantly, Greta looked up like: “Oh, wow, I can’t do that to my friend. The show must go on!”

And then, to really slam it home, I told her that her beloved Uncle Guy-Guy and Aunt Laura were videotaping the show in the balcony and wanted desperately to see her dance. A professional toddler-whisperer from way back, Miss Sommer put it a bit more eloquently: “Look to the sky when you dance, they’ll be up there watching you, Greta!” And once again, that brave “show-must-go-on” look flickered across Greta’s face as she wiped away her tears and told us she’d stay and dance. Which was great, because, the way Miss Sommer said it, I was ready to get up there and dance in Greta’s place myself.

Anyway, the lobby lights flickering on and off outside, Mrs. Yeti and hurried back to our seats and waited to see if Greta would, in fact, take the stage with her class. And four sets later, she did. And she was beautiful. I told her later on that I thought she was very brave to go up there on stage in front of all those people after she’d been crying and she just shook her head and said: “I’m not brave, Daddy. I’m Greta.”

She most certainly is…