Liam Sings Annie

I wasn't kidding about Annie. At any given point in our house you can hear a song from the movie coming from one of my kids' mouths. Liam hardly watches the movie, but he knows the songs because Anna sings them all the time. Here he is singing the medley Anna and I sang for her talent show.

Activism of the Waffle and Educational Kind

The Global Vegan Waffle Party is nearly upon us. The Animal Rights Coalition is putting it on again this year, and if it's anything like it was last year, it'll be awesome.

The event will take place from 10-12 at Fuller Park on 48th St. and Grand Ave. (indoors at the little rec center there) in Minneapolis. The Facebook invite for the par-tay is here.

But maybe you don't live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Check out the Global Vegan Waffle Party page here to see a list of parties across the world.

And check out this collage they have on their site:

Anna's there in the far upper right corner. She is now famous.

I'm of the mind that having community pot-lucks and parties like this are a great way to open people up to delicious food that doesn't involve the oppression of other animals. It's a legitimate form of activism.

Events like this also foster community within the animal rights movement, which I think is important. Almost all of us want to belong to a community of some sort. The reason for that (at least in this instance) is not to insulate ourselves from the outside world, but instead to get our bearings, get refreshed, share ideas and commune with those who have, in their own time and way, come to view the world as we have. It's not essential, but it's damn close.

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Speaking of the Animal Rights Coalition, I've been volunteering for them for a while now and I keep meaning to write about how I came to do that, but never get around with it. I won't it in this post, either. But soon...

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After the waffle party, I'm co-facilitating a workshop called Help! I'm going vegan! with Dallas Rising, ARC's program director. We've done this once before and it went really well.

So now we're doing it again as part of ARC's Vegan University program, which includes these workshops, grocery tours and ongoing mentorship for new vegans and people who are transitioning to veganism.

Cool logo, huh? 'Like' the Vegan University page here if you've been wanting to find the vegan you.

The workshop will be on May 28th from 1-3 at Ethique Nouveau, ARC's store where all proceeds from sales go directly into their animal advocacy programs.

Anyway, this is the type of volunteering that I simply adore: Helping people go vegan. If I could do nothing but this all day (when I'm not taking care of my kids and cooking, going out with my wife, etc.) I totally would.

Talent Show

The talent show at Anna's school was on Friday. Here's our number:

Art and Annie

First of all, this blog now has a Facebook page. You can click here and like it if you want. I'll mainly use  that page for linking to these blog posts as well as to other things related to veganism, parenting and vegan parenting.

All right, now on to the art. 

Anna has produced a lot of art this year at school. We have kept most of it, recycled very little. I was going through it all with her the other day and picked out some of my favorites to scan in.

I really like the color and composition of these first two. She started doing things like this half-way through the school year. She was talking about missing us while she was at school and we suggested that she could draw us pictures when she feels sad about it. I can't remember if that's what these two are about, but here they are anyway. 

Here's one of our family. Left to right: Daddy, Anna, Mommy, Liam. This is an earlier one, I think. She's now adding big boxes on the arms and legs for clothing. 

Here is a page full of hearts (I think she said it was a hundred hearts, but I counted and it's more like 120). She said, "This is how much I love you."

Here is Venus and Outer Space. The word "venus" is written in there, but it's hiding. You could always click on the photo to view it larger if you really want to see it.

And last but not least: Annie. Anna has become obsessed with Annie. She loves the movie and the music. She sings it all day long. Hell, I sing it all day long. We have become an Annie family. When Anna draws pictures now, sometimes she'll sign them "Annie," and laugh hysterically when she shows us what she did. She loves Annie so much that this Friday, at her school's talent show, her and I are going to perform an Annie medley duet. I'll post video on the blog, assuming all goes well. This will be her first time singing in front of an audience.

Wish us to break a leg!

Oh yeah, she added hearts to this drawing. Because really, what's anything without hearts? Also, the writing there on the right says "4 and she turned 5," which is something that her little head just came up with and wanted to write down. Cool, huh? 

Trampoline

Jen (my wife) had this great idea last fall. She thought that the kids would be playing less outside once the snow started flying, so she bought a trampoline. The kids love it. Their mom is super smart.

So here are a couple videos involving the trampoline. The first is Anna doing a routine that she and Jen worked out. The music is from Yo Gabba Gabba, here.

I know this video pretty dark, but you get the gist.



And here's a video of them flipping over the safety bar. Isn't it great how kids do that? Take something that's meant to make things safer and use it to make it more dangerous?

This flipping business was Liam's idea. I just looked over one day and he was flipping over the bar. I, of course, encouraged more flipping.