Gerardo Arce: January 25, 1951 – December 11, 2011

I miss you.

Last night? Spaghetti night. Also? Bath night.

For some reason, I just felt like letting the kids just get messy. After all, a thorough scrub-down was in the plan after dinner.

They didn’t disappoint.

Little Roo (with his fresh boo-boo under his eye) grabbed his plate and dumped it.

And this is why I take so many pictures… to get money shots like this. My beautiful, messy boy.

The noodle on the left? Got there by itself. The ones on the right? Well, Big Roo had a hand in that.

And then the goofiness started.

Despite all the craziness of two kids (yesterday the highlight of their day was running and scream through the house), THAT silly, brotherly love makes me melt.

Out of the 100+ pictures I took for Easter, I narrowed it down to six to share with you. I’m sure you’re grateful because how many pictures of kids hunting eggs can you possibly look at, right?

Super interesting stuff

The innocent, peaceful pose I get when I say "look at the camera!"

The first time I've ever bought matching outfits (other than Christmas PJs)

I love how Burt the pink bear has mulch all over his head.

Oh, that smile! ::melt::

Such a sweet picture I had to do something different with it.

Finally getting around to posting some pictures I took of the kids back in February. In lieu of paying a great photog for a photo shoot (I am out of a job, ya know), I did it myself. I ran around like a crazy woman to get some shots of them. Sweat was “swut,” oh yes, because these kids are FAST. While they aren’t the best QUALITY (I blew the sky out quite a bit), they capture exactly what I wanted- two boys who are curious, silly and just plain beautiful.

(I’m trying out the WordPress gallery feature so it auto-crops these into squares. Click on the image if you want to see the full pic).

Again, I’m behind. I thought I took this picture back around Thanksgiving (because they ARE pilgrim hats after all) but alas I did not. Big Roo made his hat in school and we made a mini version for Burt at home. After laying on my dresser for two months, I finally grabbed the hats so I could take a snapshot of these two cutetastic pilgrims.

Better late than never, right? And at least, I can move those hats off my dresser now.

Part of the reason I’m always “behind” is that I try to do too much. I know this. And thus I’m behind in this project as well. A book of 25 days of Christmas. I don’t do this every year- it’s just that I did it for Big Roo his first Christmas so it’s only fair that I do it for Little Roo too right? Don’t get me wrong – it’s SO fun to do. I have all the pictures and notes. I just need to put the dang thing together!

Maybe I should shoot for finishing by Christmas 2011.

Courtesy of my new favorite iPhone app… Instagram!

P.S. If you’re on Instagram, let’s connect. I’m Adventuroo (surprising I know).

As you may have heard, actor Leslie Nielsen passed away this weekend at the age of 84. I got a bit sad when I found out because while I’d never claim to have “known” Leslie, I did get to work with him a few years ago.

I’d like to share a few pics in honor of Leslie.

As you guys know, I’m in marketing. Been doing it for over 10 years. Working with Leslie was definitely the glitziest thing I’ve done thus far… not sure anything can top it!

I worked at a credit union in Arizona and one day my boss threw out an idea for our next commercials. He wanted to convey that doing business with the credit union (getting a loan, opening a checking account, etc) was SO easy, even so-and-so could do it.

We brainstormed who that so-and-so would be. He wanted someone relatively well-known. We sat there and thought about it and then it came to me in a flash… “what about Leslie Nielsen?”

Turns out he lived in Phoenix at the time. The idea was born and that year, I flew out to California to have dinner with Leslie, his wife, agent and our ad agency. It was my “reward” for coming up with using Leslie as our new spokesperson. I had dinner with him twice in two years. The thing I remember most is that we all got dessert and he wanted to try everyone’s so we passed our desserts around and shared.  It was like sitting at the dinner table with a hilarious grandpa.

My forehead was as shiny as my shirt, apparently.

The next year I was further along in management and actually worked even closer on the commercials. I flew to Hollywood and we spent a full day and then some on the set with Leslie.

Leslie’s trailer… he had sushi for lunch. We ate sandwiches with the film crew. Man, I would have loved a spicy tuna roll.

The storyboard… we marked off each scene as we got it filmed.

Leslie getting make-up…. this commercial was about Leslie wrecking his race car and needing a car loan… FAST!

The stand in… actors apparently have stand-ins. This guy stands around in place of Leslie while the crew gets the lighting right and runs through anything else that needs running through. Leslie’s stand-in worked with him for over 20 years.

And finally, you knew I’d get an autograph, right? By the way, I was ten weeks preggers with Big Roo here!

Throughout the filming, Leslie was just hysterical. He’d add funny quips to the end of his lines. All of us, even the director, were all holding in our laughter while the film was rolling. The director could barely say “cut” because he was trying to hold it in so bad. Once he mustered a “cut!” we busted a gut laughing at Leslie’s antics. Good times, good times.

Anyone who brings that much laughter was truly a gift to the world.

On a final note, you’ve gotta see Leslie in action. I’d love you to watch one of the 10 commercials we did with Leslie over three years. It’s also one of my faves (and the lady was barely older than Leslie so we had to do her up to look older than him!). They disabled the embedding feature so you’ll have to click here to watch it. (The fact that Leslie is wearing PJs above will make more sense after you watch this.)

Rest in peace, Leslie. I’m sure you’re cracking the heck out of people up there.

Got a favorite Leslie quote?

]]> http://www.adventuroo.com/2010/12/wordful-wednesday-working-with-leslie-nielsen/feed/ 18 http://www.adventuroo.com/2010/11/wordful-wednesday-turtle-and-a-bad-knight/ http://www.adventuroo.com/2010/11/wordful-wednesday-turtle-and-a-bad-knight/#comments Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:45:16 +0000 melissa http://www.adventuroo.com/?p=3459

Aaaah Halloween with young boys. An excuse to dress them to your heart’s desire before they start demanding fangs, creepy costumes and lots of fake blood.

This year Little Roo donned Big Roo’s old turtle costume (because how could I let that cuteness only be witness for a total of 30 minutes like 3 years ago?)

Big Roo got a plastic sword from Grandma and only talked about being a knight from then on. So, he was a knight, although he emphatically called himself a “bad knight.” In fact, I had a hard time getting a smiling pic because he kept doing a bad knight sneer.

First… I present to you the bad knight.

The shield I made from cardboard (ok, hubby drew it and I cut it and painted it. ok, I only painted the yellow part. I DID make the handles though so naner naner.)

Giving Daddy Roo props for this one. That was one cheap, grey plastic sword until he got his hands on it. I applied some gold powder on top for a little shimmer and sealed it with Mod Podge (thanks the recommendation of Twitter peeps @2old2tap and @julialadewski).

Moving along to the turtle (who is anything but slow)…

Good God I love this costume. I mean… turtle toes? For real? CUTE.

With detachable shell…

Cuteness is magnified when you put the two together!

By the way, my friend Stacy from Kids*Stuff*World is doing a virtual Halloween costume parade this week. Go link up YOUR cute kids all dressed up!

]]> http://www.adventuroo.com/2010/11/wordful-wednesday-turtle-and-a-bad-knight/feed/ 16