our collective digital self
Posted by Michelle on Mar 8, 2014 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, More Family
Sort of a random catchall – Christmas, Hayley’s braces coming off, New Years Eve and the Winter storm in February.
And about 60 more…
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Posted by Michelle on Jun 1, 2012 in Hayley, pups & other pets
I love this shot of Hayley riding:
Hayley and Peyton made treats for the dogs at the SPCA:
Guinea Pig bath photos!
They had to carry about fake ‘sugar babies’ at school:
Posted by Michelle on Feb 11, 2012 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, More Family
We had another great holiday season!
We co-hosted a Christmas Eve party with our next door neighbors Wes & Jenn that turned out to be a huge success. We usually hang with them on Christmas Eve and we decided to ask a few more friends to come on over. We figured most people wouldn’t be around but they were! And they wanted to come so it got big right quick. It was lots of fun and hopefully we’ll do it again next year. We hang out with them on New Year’s Eve too and thank goodness that was a lot lower key even if Hayley had friends over.
We did the tree downstairs in the library this year for the first time.
I’m so bad about taking photos on Christmas day… I’m just so busy doing other stuff and then sleeping that afternoon. My mother-in-law luckily took some cute ones and shared so we can thank her for most of these!
One of her favorite gifts – a little pink papasan chair for her room.
The best thing in the world – my grandmother’s recipe for monkeybread. I have to make two batches each holiday.
And this was our sixth Gingerbread Demo Derby! We made a bunch of houses and had neighbors join us to smash them up! Super fun Christmas afternoon.
More photos from this set:
>>Christmas (slideshow view) (detailed view)
>>Gingerbread Demolition Derby (slideshow view) (detailed view)
Posted by Michelle on Nov 23, 2011 in Hayley
Tuesday night Hayley got the chance to shoot the Carolina men’s basketball game against Tennessee 
State sitting down on the baseline with the professional photographers. It was an amazing night, Jeff and I were just excited for her to have such a cool experience. Watching her down there was really fantastic.
She took my Nikon and did a great job. When we got home, I looked at the photos — they turned out to be even better than we expected, some are really quite good. She really does have a nice eye for what a good photograph looks like.
Hayley shooting:
I have a dear friend who is editor of the newspaper in Kinston, which is the hometown of a UNC player Reggie Bullock. Bullock was injured last season and last night, he had a fantastic game. I showed him the photos and he asked if the newspaper could use the Reggie photo she took.
So at 13, Hayley has her first published photo: http://www.kinston.com/articles/chapel-78079-victory-hill.html. Update And then Bryan followed up and mentioned how good they were in his blog, Blogging with Bryan C. Hanks with a link to all of them.
I think this one is my favorite photo:
See all of her action photos:
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Posted by Michelle on Sep 20, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
It’s hard to dislike birthdays when you have these two loves to celebrate with.
Posted by Michelle on Aug 21, 2011 in Hayley
Outside the premiere!
from the opening nightmare scene)
scene coming out of the woods
ending credits!!!
The moviemaking camp Hayley was in this summer had their big screen premiere for their films at the Varsity Theatre, a real theater in Chapel Hill this afternoon. The theater is one I went to a kid so it was absolutely amazing to see her on the big movie screen there!
Hayley was one of the vampires in the Gothic/Supernatural short film entitled Maximum Judgment. The film is about 25 minutes long and fantastic. It was scary enough they had to tell people they might want to take any little kids out for that short… so you know Hayley, the horror film fanatic, was thrilled with making it and how it turned out.
With the help from the staff, the kids write the script, bring in props & costumes, do each others makeup and even help film it. This is an amazing camp with fantastic staff. The kids did an super job – the instructors even said how they took more shots and footage of this group than any other camp. Really just an amazing group of people all around!
I posted the movie on Vimeo:
Maximum Judgment from michelle hillison on Vimeo.
See more photos from this set:
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Posted by Michelle on Jul 19, 2011 in Hayley
A fabulous new modern art museum, the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) just opened downtown Raleigh this year. I’d been looking for a good art camp, one that offered more than the average ones seemed to and I found CAM, in conjunction with the N.C. State School of Design, had these small group art+design camps for rising 7th and 8th graders.
The one-week summer studio session merges conceptual development with hands-on explorations and emphasizes the importance of the design process from the initial idea to the final product. Through one-on-one instruction with local designers you will develop your unique voice and individual abilities to bring creative ideas to life by utilizing critical thinking techniques that artists, architects, and designers rely on to convey conceptual and real propositions. In the collaborative studio setting you will explore hand-drawing, printmaking, physical modeling, sculpture, collage, and many other forms of creative media.
Clearly, I’d found the camp to send Hayley. She had a fantastic time and the last day they had an exhibit of all of their work from the week.
Her favorite piece, this stencil she designed, they cut for her and she used oil pastels to fill in:
Video of Hayley presenting her work to the group and instructors:
See more photos from this set:
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Posted by Michelle on Jun 5, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
The Ultimate Question of course is what age did Jeff turn this weekend. (i’ll assume the geeks amongst us have enjoyed my bit of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy humor)
I decided to get all fancypants and make him a homemade birthday cake. I did the inside in his beloved Virginia Tech colors even though it stained my Tar Heel hands. It turned out pretty cool!
My friend Jason got married that day too so we went down to Charlotte for that and then to Dave & Buster’s to goof off. I parked the jeep clearly right in the hottest part of the parking lot b/c my rear view window fell off.
See more photos from this set – mostly of my cake baking antics:
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Posted by Michelle on May 21, 2011 in Hayley, Michelle
We’ve been playing with fondant and cupcake decorating.
Little snake:
Collection of things we made drying:
First cupcake we decorated (a lovely homemade almond cupcake with cream cheese frosting)
Softball:
flower:
The batch:
Posted by Michelle on Feb 26, 2011 in Hayley, Michelle
For some reason I decided I’d be real crafty for Valentine’s Day. I made cards for Jeff and Hayley then decided to try a new recipe for my sweeties, cake balls. I basically used the cake balls recipe by the awesome Bakerella. I was going to finish it all myself but the final decorating part was too fun not to let Hayley help. I’m sure next time we make them they’ll look even better but they were so really tasty and cute.
See more photos from this set:
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