Monthly Archives: December 2020

Family, Food, Photo-A-Day

Saying Good Riddance to 2020

Family New Year
Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00731

In many ways 2020 was the worst year ever. However, if I look closer at the year and what it has given us It hasn’t been without good points. Allison and I are both working and because of our jobs we have been able to care for the kids as they have their hybrid learning schedule.

This year brought many challenges to our fitness. When the pandemic shut down gyms and our dojo we were able to continue to train via Zoom. Slowly we were able to go back to the mats and continue our training. This year Eva started training in Jr. Krav Maga and she has embraced it with such joy. She loves training and is having a good time with her friends. Andy is continuing to make strides in the right direction, too. While he is not as enthusiastic about training he goes and does the best he can. I have gotten very serious about working on the next level. Within this coming year I may even be eligible to test for my Black Belt. I have a very long road ahead and have to get my fitness level up to be able to accomplish this goal.

This past year has been good for Allison and I because we were able to spend mornings walking together and through that ad eating right, including Isagenix, we were able to lose a good amount of weight, each.

So, it has not been a terrible year all around. Luckily, we’ve been healthy, employed and able to spend more time together.

We spent today doing various things. I worked on several videos for my YouTube channel and that has been beginning to pick up some steam. The kids played and watched shows and baked some cupcakes.

New Years Eve Cupckaes

I put together dinner and made a little mini cookout menu. I made bacon cheeseburger nachos with mini kielbasa and pretzel nuggets.

New Years Eve Dinner<>then Allison and I watched Ellis Paul’s New Year’s Eve show on Facebook Live while Eva and Andy did their own things. Andy watched Odd Squad in our bed and I had a feeling that he’s be asleep by midnight. I checked on him at 11:45 and he was awake. 15 minutes later he was asleep and Eva tried to wake him but he was so out. I went up to move him to his futon and when I tried to move the covers he pulled them back. I bent down to pick him up and he wrapped his arms around my neck. I lifted him and the cold caught him and he woke up. He announced, “I made it!” Yes, you sure did kiddo.

App Alert, Photo-A-Day, Review, Technology, Video Game

Creating Video Games with Doodlematic Mobile Game Maker

Andy and Doodlematic
Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00730

Doodlematic sent me a free Mobile Game Maker kit to try out and review. Opinions are my own.

Finding creative things for kids to do on their iPads and other devices can be tricky. There are so many mindless video games out there for them to play over and over. But what if kids as young as 6 years old can create their own games? With Doodlematic they aren’t just doing the simple mindless things, but rather they are engaging their minds and creativity to turn their hand drawn creations to digital life. Doodlematic was one of the most innovative and interesting things I saw at Toy Fair last February. When I walked by the booth they were handing out playable cookies. What are playable cookies you ask? they were cookies with an image on them that you could scan into the Doodlematic game and then play that image as a video game. They also handed out small Doodlematic kits that allowed you to play a mini version of the game and create your own games.

Andys Game

Here’s how it works. You have five markers and each marker color functions as a specific thing in the game. The Green Marker is for your avatar, the main character of the game. This is the character that will move and jump and interact with the world you create. The Black Marker creates floors and walls, these are solid pieces that the avatar moves along and cannot move through. The Purple Marker is for pieces that the avatar can interact with. These pieces can move, be stacked or more so that the avatar can use them to also help them get around or prevent themselves from getting hurt by hazards. The Red Marker is for making hazards. These can be things like fire or bad guys or what have you. The ultimate point of the game though is to get to the goal and that is where the Blue Marker comes in. You use The Blue Marker to create the goal.

playing Doodlematic games

So, kids draw a scene on a piece of paper or on the special books inside the Mobile Game Maker Kit. Then they scan that image into the Doodlematic program and they can give properties to their game. Does the game have gravity turned on or not. Do you want more of an adventure game or a slingshot type game. What do the hazards do, do they move back and forth or stand still. There are a number of Power ups to your game build that change the game in various ways. Maybe you want to ide the goal or make portions of the game move, you can do that by using the power ups. So the original artwork is the starting point for your game creation but it is your imagination that takes everything to the next level.