Oh Time, Where Have You Gone?

Things are moving along swiftly here in the Piggy household. Time is drawing nearer and nearer to that day when the title of this blog will need to change to These instead of This; Piggies instead of Piggy.

If all goes as planned (and I'm not crossing my fingers), Liam should arrive in about a week and a half. Gah!

So we're busy getting our rubber duckies in a row, hence the lack of blogging as of late. (I had a feeling that when I posted every weekday in October that it would translate into very little blogging for the next few months. My feeling was correct.)

SO, probably no more blogs between now and the birth day. They have free wi-fi at the hospital though, so I hope to be able to post from there on the day of or the day after his birth.

I'd totally live-blog the birth, but I'm worried about getting the computer too close to the birthing tub (yay water birth! ... and that's assuming that things go as planned and we meet the criteria for a water birth).

Oh, and Anna's been sick for about a week and just woke up coughing. Damn teething.

So ... bye!

Ho Ho Ho

Merry belated Christmas to all of my Christian readers out there (and those who aren't Christian, but celebrate Christmas anyway (like me)).

And a Happy New Year, too.

First Snowperson of the Year

Anna and I made our first snowperson of the winter yesterday. It was nice and warm out and our snow was perfect for it.


She was all about it, of course. She helped me roll the balls and pat down the snow. I set her up with tasks. Once the base was done I had her add snow to it and try to make it more round while I went and rolled the second ball.

"Daddy? What's this?" she asked and started carefully walking toward me with an upturned hand.

"That's rabbit poop, Anna. Just throw that over by the trees."

She knew it was rabbit poop. We followed some rabbit tracks only 15 minutes earlier and there was a trail of yellow holes in the snow with a little rabbit poop at the bottom of each one. She was fascinated.

"Birdies eat the poop Daddy?"

"No Anna, birds don't eat the poop. Birds eat seeds."

I think she was confused because we saw a big hole in the snow and ground earlier where a squirrel had dug up a nut. I explained why the hole was there and we followed the squirrel tracks over to a tree.

Poop in the snow -> nut in the ground -> squirrel eating -> tree -> bird eating -> birds eat poop.

I love thinking in two year old logic.



And yes, there is rabbit poop all over our back yard. Last spring I knew exactly where the snowman used to be because of the huge pile of rabbit poop left over. It's harmless I suppose, and well worth seeing those little buggers hopping around out there.



She's hugging the snowman in that one up there.

"Anna likes the snow," she says. On days like yesterday, I do too.

Trees and Lights

Anna drew this picture of trees and lights. She loves all the holiday lights that people have up on their houses. For the first time since owning a house, I actually want to hang lights outside. Just for the five seconds of her face lighting up when she sees them hanging on her very own house.



But I think I'll resist the urge. Maybe next year...

Video, Random Stuff, and the Birth of Sunday Night Night at the Piggy Household

Some more video of Anna. It's cute. You should totally watch it.



Yes, I taught her about toe jam.

You sort of hear it in this video, but it doesn't do it justice - the house shakes when she jumps to that turtle song and you can hear the whole place vibrate. It's nuts. I'm so glad we don't live in an apartment.

The baby in mommy's tummy is named Liam. It's odd to us that Anna said this directly into the little web-cam thing on our Mac. Who was she talking to? Herself, I guess.

There's no way she knows that all of you can see her. But she'll get it soon enough. People have told her that they saw her singing on the computer. It won't be long now before she puts two and two together, realizes I'm broadcasting her to the world and demand that I halt immediately.

Luckily, by then I'll have Liam to exploit for my own blogular gain.

Yes blogular. I'm getting on the "making up words whenever I damn well feel like it" bandwagon. Or blogwagon.

See? I just did it again. Oh, the words you can attach blog to to make new words.

Sorry, I'm in a rambling mood tonight. Just made some squash tomato coconut curry bisque tonight and it rocked. It's the second time I've made it and I'm two for two. So, I'll probably post the recipe soon.

After a nice meal and night with my brother, Mrs. Piggy's cousin and another good friend, we've decided that Sunday night will be Sunday Night night at the Piggy household. Sunday Night night will consist of food (cooked by me, for the most part) and games (video and otherwise).

I like the idea of a game night. And I like cooking for people. So it's a win/win.

H, I, J, K, emelado, P

It's been a while since I've given an Anna update. She's great, just so you know. Healthy as a horse (assuming that horse barely ever gets sick and has the boundless energy of a 2 year old human and eats like ... a horse).

Here's a video of her singing up a storm. She's been singing a lot for a couple months now, but every time I tried to tape it she'd get camera shy. You can tell she's shy here for the first ten seconds or so, but she gets over it and quickly falls in love with the sight of herself singing.



She's one more step toward being potty trained; no diapers except for during nap and night time. We made up the pee pee and poopy dance she does in the video to reinforce the fact that we're thrilled every time she goes in the potty or toilet (and if she goes in the toilet and you sing "pee pee in the potty" she will correct you. "Toilet actually," she'll say.) We also put stickers on a calendar for every time she goes number one or two in the toilet or potty.

The above video is part one of two. Two will come in the next day or so. Maybe Monday.

The Oil Painting - Part 1

Anna painted with oil for the first time last Monday. Yeah, I know, she's too young to work with oil paint. But she's a mature 2 1/3 year old. I thought she could handle it. And it's a gift we're giving her little brother once he's born. It will hang in his room. So ... that's a good excuse.

She did great for a long time until she got some on her clothes and my clothes and then we had to stop the madness. She had a ton of fun. I let her pick out the colors and basically do what she wanted to do. I suggested she fill in blank spots (teaching her early about composition and balance). She made some nice long strokes and chose a nice variety of colors.

Here are some photos.




I did the blue area to demonstrate one way to use the big brush and paint a lot at once.


After she went to bed, I continued to paint and make it into something more.



So now it's drying and once it's dry enough we're going to try again. And Mrs. Piggy will get in on it too. It's a family effort.

I'm thinking we'll let Anna paint some nice bright colors over all this with a couple different small brushes and then we'll take if from there. I'll post more photos once we paint more.

What do you think? Is there a color (or colors) you think would look good over this mess?

7 Things You Probably Didn't Want To Know

Things have been busy here and dammit if I just forget to blog for weeks at a time. Luckily, Liz at Food Snobbery Is My Hobbery has tagged me yet again. Thanks Liz!

Rules:
Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links.
Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. Ever since I was in high school I started thinking that I would die in a car crash before I was 30. This was probably because I didn't feel comfortable driving in any town that had a stop light. Since then, I've become a pretty good driver. At any rate, the odds of this actually happening are, of course, decreasing with every passing day. And this January the odds will drop all the way down to zero. That's right. I'm turning 30 in January. I suppose that could have been a point in itself, but the car crash thing was more interesting.

2. I cannot go to sleep in an unmade bed. Ask my wife. She used to laugh at me when I'd make the bed right before we got in it. That laughter eventually turned into a groan and now it's more of a silent spite. Especially when she goes to bed first and is asleep or nearly asleep when I come to bed. Yeah ... I'm sort of an ass. I've also slept in the same pair of shorts for about three years now and refuse to wear anything more, no matter how cold it gets. Before my current pair of pajama shorts, I had worn a previous pair for roughly 7 years before the elastic essentially disintegrated.

Am I actually admitting to these things?

3. I bite my fingernails. I have ever since this one day at a football game. I think I was in sixth grade and this kid and his brother (one and two years younger than me) asked me if I bit my fingernails. I said no. They said it was fun to do and then showed me how to do it. So I started doing it. And here I sit, eighteen years later, biding my time for just the right moment to exact my revenge on them.

4. I've never lived in an apartment. I moved from home to a dorm to the main level of a house that I rented with friends during the post-dorm college years, then to a basement in Saint Paul and then we moved into our house. I wonder sometimes what it's like to live in an apartment. I sometimes wish I had that experience under my belt. But for the most part I'm thankful for the way things turned out.

5. I drank a lot of Mountain Dew in high school and college. On average, probably two or three 20 oz. bottles a day. I was addicted. Then one day, after my wife and I had dated for a few months, she was talking about preparing for her friend's wedding. She was a bridesmaid. She said she might go tanning just a little bit so she wasn't so pasty. I said that that shit gives you cancer and no amount of it is healthy. She said, "Well neither is drinking Mountain Dew." I agreed and proposed a deal, she'll never tan if I give up Mountain Dew. She agreed. She later felt bad for me and told me I could have one now and then. But still, I've only had two bottles since then. That was over 6 years ago.

6. I'm enjoying writing this, but I also can't wait until I'm done so I can turn on the Wii and play Super Mario Bros. 3 which we just downloaded last week. I have never played a Mario game that I didn't instantly adore. And I'll kick your ass in Mario Kart 64 if you ever want to play.

7. I shop at 5 different grocery stores because I'm frugal and each place has something that none of the other places has. Target has 2 packs of Silk Soy milk for under $5.25. Cub has the only kind of frozen diced potatoes that I like. Whole Foods has cheap meat and cheese analogs. Mississippi Market Co-Op has great produce, bulk and deli. And Shuang Hur Supermarket has cheap, cheap tofu. Of the four, the only one I actually enjoy going to is Mississippi Market. Well, I like going to Target too, but that has less to do with the food and more to do with the toy aisles ... and the video games. What can I say, I'm a big kid.

I'm tagging:
My good friend Kris at I Believe In Everything.
Bex at How to Feed a Vegan.
Neta at Vegan Fun.
Vegan Noodle at Walking the Vegan Line.
Whichever sister wants to do it over at The Sister's Vegan.
Isil at Veggie Way.
Cristy at In A Garden ... Somewhere.

Size Matters Not

Anna was Yoda again this year for Halloween.

Some photos:






You can't see it, so you'll have to take my word for it, but she's levitating our Subaru in this photo.


Yoda kisses trees, right?


And finally, enjoying her spoils. Anna now knows what candy is. Thank you very much, Halloween.

I Finally Got Around To Carving Our Pumpkin