Event-ful Sunday

I took Miss "A" to two events yesterday. Orlando Magics: Flick-or-Treat and First Alliance Church: Annual Festival by The Lake!

 Arriving at the Orlando Magics: Flick-or-Treat event held at the new Amway arena. Three of the major radio stations were there along with Wesh 2 news :)

        "A" met two of the Orlando Magic dancers at the Orlando Magics: Flick-or-Treat event

                                                         "A" with a fake Dwight Howard

                                                "A" with a fake Jameer Nelson and Turkoglu

                                         ..and "A" insisted on taking a pic with a balloon ghost :-/

                                                             Orlando Magics dancers

                                                  Howard slam dunking over Miss "A"

                                                               gotta love Orlando ;-)

                                                      You got some big shoes to fill kid!

                                                          I totally want superstar seats!

                  We snuck in to the VIP lounge ;-p ... The VIP lounge and bar, super cool!! That is all ;)

They even built a playground on top for all the kids to run around in during games and such which is pretty cool

                                           Miss "A" on the roof top of the Amway center

at this point we left the Amway event to start heading over to our next Halloween event... but this is when mamarazi felt the urge to do a mini photo shoot in front of the old Church st. Station in Downtown :-p

At our last event, I did not take any pics except for this one pic when we first entered the First Alliance Church: festival by the lake event, 'cause both me and "A" were too exhausted at this point and we were both having a moment.... or two :-p

     Happy Halloween!! I get off of work early today, so I'll be take My lil' pirate Trick-or-Treating <3

Yo Ho Yo Ho, A Pirates Life For Me!

Introducing Captain Jack Sparrow's offspring... Miss "A".......YO HO, YO HO, A PIRATES LIFE FOR ME! :-p

                                                         ARRRRRR!

"A's" costume was a HUGE hit at Disney! I did not expect it to be this big of a deal (i guess 'cause everyone is used to seeing little girls in princess attire or something "cutesy") But everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was at "awe" with her costume. Random people at the park even asked me if they could take a picture of Miss "A". Aaand... she even got to meet Mr. Jack Sparrow himself :)

Her hat kept falling off, so you wont see much pics with her hat on lol.

you gotta have that Pirattitude!! ;-p

"The immortal Captain Jack Sparrow." It has such a lovely ring to it...

[Captain Jack Sparrow]: Did everyone see that? Because I will *not* be doing it again.

"A" was of course in charge here LOL.......
 [Captain Jack Sparrow to all the boys]: "If you had a sister and a dog, I'd choose the dog. I learned not to argue with the women!!" LOL

Miss "A" and Jack Sparrow <3

but she was too shy to talk with him :-/ (i guess it was the crowd?!)

Anyways, after some pirate fun in Adventureland, I took her near the castle so I can get some mamarazzi shots of her in front of the Castle with her costume before heading on some rides.

"A" on the Buzz LightYear ride

Our score sucked after the Buzz LightYear ride, so we had to go to the "losers" jail lol

"it's a small world after all"....I literally had to drag her out from this ride because she kept wanting to go back.

The castle is so pretty at night <3

Be safe & Happy Halloween to you all! What is your lil' one going to be for Halloween? :)

Disney Princesses in Real Life

Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

Re-imagining iconic Disney princesses as real life people is one thing art student Jirka Väätäinen does very well. Though on his blog you'll find posts about his life as a graphic design student, also featured are these beautiful renditions of popular princesses. The fantastic photo manipulations are a successful attempt at bringing these beautiful characters to life.

Of course, like many popular projects we post on, this series didn't quite start on purpose. It began with his fascination for the character Ursula from The Little Mermaid. "I had always liked her character so much that I decided to give myself a little challenge," he tells us. "I had so much fun with it that I could not stop... and here we are."

With an overwhelming response from Tumblr and blogs, Väätäinen received "a lot of lovely feedback" and quite a few requests to create even more characters. "I can't really stop now, can I?," he rhetorically asks. "It's not like I ever had a bigger plan with these, so I'm just going to continue having fun and make more characters that I'm personally inspired by."

So how, exactly, does Väätäinen go about creating these? "I find photos all over the Internet and then combine them in Photoshop," he says. "I don't base the characters on only one real person or picture - I pick, mix and blend features. I also do some digital painting, by hand, to make it all come together."


Mulan


Ariel (The Little Mermaid)


Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)


Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)


Jasmine (Aladdin)


Megara (Hercules)


Pocahontas

Jirka Väätäinen's website

Halloween = Candy, Costumes, and Raging Sexism

It's almost Halloween, and I'm having mixed feelings again. I love Halloween-- the decorations, the dressing up, the events, the candy, the pumpkin carving, yadda yadda yadda.

But I loathe-- and I mean loathe-- the bullshit sexism that goes along with it. Sexism is often institutionalized in today's world, but for Halloween it is just flagrantly twirling its nipple tassels at us.

Really? A sexy skunk?

This is Alice in Wonderland.

And while I could go on and on and on and on and on about the expectation of women dressing like hookers on this hallowed holiday, turning helpless animals and storybook characters into sex-crazed, lingerie-wearing, fetish-enabling, pedophilia/zoophilia-inflicted misogynist perv-tantalizing creatures, what I'm going to focus on is the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in toddler costumes. Sound awesomely interesting? Read on!

Now, "A" changed her mind every day for the last two months about the costume she'd have for Halloween. Princess, fairy, shark, Big Bad Wolf, butterfly... every day it was something new. So when she said she wanted to be a pirate three days in a row, I figured it was semi-safe to commit and procure a costume. I looked online and in stores and "A" decided  that a pirate costume was the winner. Great. I personally love Pirates of the Caribbean and the outfits.

But did you know that Pirates is in the boy section of the costume places? So are dinosaurs, superheroes, humorous costumes, police and firefighter costumes, and all spooky costumes. Guess what's in the girl category? Never mind. I'll show you.

BOYS

TV/Movie (Includes Yo Gabba, video game characters, characters from Cars and Thomas the Train, Scooby, Spongebob, Toy Story costumes, etc.)

Superheroes (Includes Superman, Green Lantern, etc.)

Sports (Includes football players, baseball, etc.)

Dinosaur (Duh)

Classic (Includes pirates, ninjas, monsters, devils, etc.)

Career (cops, firefighters, astronauts, military, cowboys, etc.)

Animal (Dogs, assorted zoo creatures, etc.)

GIRLS

TV/Movie (Princesses, Strawberry Shortcake, Lalaloopsy (whatever the hell that is), Minnie Mouse, storybook characters, Dora, etc.)

Bugs (Bees, butterflies, ladybugs)

Classic (Cute witches (not spooky), ballerinas, angels and devils, mermaids, clowns, etc.)

Career (Cheerleader, genie, dancer, referee, etc.)

Disney Princesses (Duh)

Princess, Fairy Costumes (Duh)

Storybook (Alice, Red Riding Hood, cute witches, rag dolls, etc.)

Superheroes (Spidergirl, Supergirl, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, etc.)

Let me point out some obvious stuff.

1. There are no angel costumes for boys; just devils. Because boys should be mischievous and devilish.

2. Girls have no scary costumes. Girls should be pretty.

3. Girls have no funny costumes. Boys are funny. Girls should be pretty.

4. Athletic goals are vastly different. Girls can be cheerleaders, referees, even soccer players, as long as they're cute. Boys are tough and strong and... whatevs.

5. The career aspirations of girls vs. the aspirations of boys are also wildly different. Each-end-of-the-spectrum different.

Astronaut

Cheerleader

6. Look at this shit.

Elmo

WTF?

Spiderman

If there were a Spidergirl, she wouldn't wear this.

SpongeBob

Come on.

7. God forbid a little boy want to be a Care Bear or a unicorn or something. THE SHAME. (This is heavily sarcastic, for the literal.)

Now, I know, I know-- boys can just buy "girl" costumes and vice versa. But the point is, we keep clutching on to these stereotypes and it's stifling us. It's crippling our imagination. It's limiting our vision. And it's even hurting some. It's not just stupid Halloween costumes. It's the message behind them. Girls SHOULD be one way, boys SHOULD be another. If you are "other," you are different. And guess what? Even in 2011, different = bad.

And that sucks.

So, while I love Halloween, I hate it, too. Because on Halloween, gender expectations seem exaggerated. An in-your-face reminder of how we judge and crate people in to what "we" believe they should be. We need to remember that every day kids, teens, and adults face these ridiculous expectations. We see it in bullying, discrimination, and exile. When are we going to just mind our own damn business and let people be who they are meant to be?