Happy Birthday Paige!!!!! 1 year old!! We Love You!!!

Vegetarian

Today is our 10 years anniversary of being a vegetarian. The last time I ate any animal was at my mom's house on Thanksgiving in 1999. I stopped cold turkey (I know, bad joke) the day after that.

I remember getting lots of questions such as, "Dont you miss eating meat?" "You don't even eat fish?" and so on (the answer to both of those is no by the way). I would always love to answer any questions anyone had but have always made it a point not to be a missionary about it. The easiest answer I could give would simply be, "I don't eat anything you have to kill".

I can say it was a great decision for Nikki and I. I feel healthier and cleaner inside than I ever did eating meat. Now we have 2 girls who we are raising as vegetarians and this gives them extra thought to what they are eating, teaching them compassion and empathy in the process.

So happy anniversary and congratulations to Nikki and myself, 10 years meat free!

Thanksgiving

Today we had a wonderful thanksgiving feast prepared by Nikki. It included Quorn Veg-Turkey Roast with cranberry-blueberry topping, broccoli, pears and raisins, mashed yams with cinnamon, pecan and pumpkin pies. Thank you Nikki!

Afterwards we went to Zilker and climbed around on what we call "Zoe's boulder", because she is the one who found it.

Dallas and other stuff

We just got back from Dallas this week. We went there for a solo art exibition Skip is having at North Lake College in Irving. We saw friends and family.

This is Skip's parents dog named Angel

Zoe running in front of Mammaw and Pappaws house (Skip's parents)

Paige

Zoe having fun

I think Zoe wasnt interested in taking any more photos at this point

Paige and Great Bubbie

Zoe having fun at her daddy's art reception

Our friends Sheedeh and Angie

The family

Angie, James, Nikki and Zoe

Also Skip finished a new artwork titled The Young Poet Rumi you can see on his art blog, and Zoe finished up her installation Tweedle Bug House which you can see on her art blog. She named it herself and for anyone who has visited is in the past several months will know, has been working on it for a while (its right in the path leading to our front door).

We took Sophie to the vet for her checkup, she is doing great. Our littlest family member has grown from a tiny one pound to 2.6 lbs. The Vet thinks she's about 9 weeks old now. We're going to introduce her to Miro and Napoleon over the next couple of days.

We are planning Zoe birthday 3rd birthday party right now. Wow, our little girl is 3!

One Month

This is my letter to my two girls one month after they had been sisters. I meant to post this when Paige turned one month old. We've been a bit busy and sleep deprived since then :) I'm still working on posting Paige's birth story. Stay tuned and please excuse the typos...

Paige - you're 4 weeks old! You're doing a great job adjusting to this strange and wonderful world. I wanted to write a few words down about your first month on the outside before my memory melts everything together into one big blob. When you were a day old Daddy and I were amazed by how alert you were. You made direct eye contact with us. Your eyes are intense. You're look seemed to ask "Where am I and what the hell is going on?" I think that you must have come from some place this is very different from this world. You nursed like a pro right off the start, and about every hour until my milk came in. Then you got the "milk drunk" baby thing. 

You've had some problems with gas and maybe some other tummy troubles. Your cry is quite strong and intense. It breaks my heart when you cry and I don't know how to make you feel better. The crying seems to be getting better especially at night. I'm hoping that your digestive system is maturing and won't bother you as much any more. I also suspect that you're sensitive to cow's milk like I am, so I'm cutting it out of my diet for awhile to see if that helps you (Update - it's made a world of difference. At this point, I'm making it official that you're allergic or at least sensitive to cow's milk).

The past couple of weeks I've been watching you discover that you can control your hands. I'm sure this must be quite the wondrous find, similar to if I'd discovered that I could levitate. While I'm changing your diaper you try to grab hold of the stuffed animal duck that Zoe bought you before you were born and the ring toy. You've hit them a couple of times but today (5/5/09) while you were in the bassinet you grabbed the rings and didn't let go. I'm very proud of you little one.

Big sister Zoe, I'm so proud of you, too. You have adapted to life with a newborn faster than I had expected. After Paige was born you were very sensitive to her cries, and understandably so. All of the sudden our quiet house was filled with what seemed like nonstop screaming. After a week or so of getting used to the sound and with the help of Daddy and I explaining that Paige's crying is her way of communicating, you aren't as upset by it anymore. I think you're having the hardest time with Paige not being able to interact. You want to play with her and all she does is eat, sleep and cry. I think you thought that she would be able to do more. Well, soon enough she'll be laughing and smiling and playing peek-a-boo with you (although I'm sure it's forever to you right now). You've also been a big help and doing more things on your own. 

I think you're enjoying having more "Zoe time". Of course, I'm sure its been difficult that Daddy and I are spending so much time with Paige. You're doing a great job. Daddy and I both love you very much.

Its been a while...

Its been a while since my last post, I blame Facebook.  

Any day now Nikki will be giving birth.  Zoe is excited about being a big sister and we are excited about welcoming our new daughter to the family.  Nikki will be having a homebirth, which I think is great.  Nikki really did her homework about homebirths and midwives, and decided on this option.  It is by far the best option for us in welcoming our daughter into the world. Im very proud of Nikki for taking the time, thought, and consideration to make this choice. We will post photos of the new one (along with her name) in the next few weeks, whenever she decides to come out.  The midwife is going to let me catch the baby, which will be a thrilling experience. I was right beside Nikki the entire time Zoe was born but did not touch Zoe until they placed her on Nikki's chest.  Nikki will be at 39 weeks this Friday, and is ready to get he show on the road.

 

So what’s been going on the past month or so? We have gone out to some parks in Austin.  SXSW came through, my friend Steve and I went down 6th St listening to all the bands playing.  Its seemed like no matter where you were you could hear15 bands playing at once.  We both like this band from Australia that was playing in one of the clubs but didn’t catch their names.  On the way back to the car we saw this couple strip down to their underwear and jump in a fountain and dance around, that was entertaining until security guards showed up and stopped the may lay. Austin has really rekindled my love of music.   

Nikki had her baby shower.  A large group turned out to celebrate and it was great to see friends and family.

Our friend Angie and her son James were in town for a bit to visit.  We hung out at the park.  James discovered the joys of throwing rocks in the water and became quite the pro after a while.

I surprised Nikki with a group of friends at wholefoods for a birthday cupcake get together. It takes a lot to 1. fool Nikki and 2. For me to keep a secret about a surprise party, so I was pretty proud of myself for pulling it off successfully!

Some of Nikki’s friends came by our place and did a house blessing.  It was a very nice thing her friends did for her.  I didnt know what to think of it at first ( I thought cauldrons and naked chanting was going to be involved) , but it turns out to be a great idea, a wonderful and thoughtful ceremony for welcoming a new baby.  Plus the house smelled like sage for a couple of days after which was pleasant.

Im really into learning about constellations and other objects of the sky.  Right now I can point out and name about 6 of the 88 constellations on a clear night.  I usually use orion to find the other constellations around it. 

It turns out Napoleon has diabetes.  She will be ok, Nikki and I have to give her 2 shots a day, a very low dose of insulin.  She seems to be gaining weight now and more playful. 

Ive attached some photos below. Some of these have been on facebook, but there are a lot of new ones as well.

The next post will be when the new one arrives!

A quick look back at 2008

Here are some things that happened over the past year for us.

• We moved from Plano to Austin
• We spent Nikki's 30th birthday at her 2nd favorite place to eat, Gobos in NYC with friends (her favorite place-Zen Palate in Union Square had closed down).
• We traveled to West Virginia to visit Skip's grandmother
• 2 of Skip's 3 remaining grandparents passed away.  Nadine on his dad's side and Paxton on his mom's side. Skip did get a chance to have a good, long talk with his grandfather in the hospital before hand, which meant alot to him.
• We went to Boulder and the Rocky Mountains for a nice mountain holiday in the spring.
• Nikki started a new part time job at home.
• Skip picked up artist representation at a gallery in Dallas
• Zoe turned 2!
• We learned that we will have a new addition to the family next year!

We have everything moved

This weekend we moved all our stuff from Dallas (Plano) to our new place in Austin. My parents helped bring the artwork, plants and other delicate things down. Late last night I finally moved all the boxes in the house and returned the uhaul.

This week we will be unpacking, setting up internet and all the things necessary to get the house ready. Hopefully by next weekend we can relax and go have some fun.

A New Day in Austin

We rented a house in Austin! Its a duplex, we have the back part. Its in a neighborhood called Brentwood. Nikki also found a midwife. She has a pet turtle who lives out back of her house. Zoe had fun watching Shelly the turtle eating corn. We are moving in the next couple of weeks.

New design each morning

Our neighbors (and fellow vegetarians) across the way are from Southern India and each morning they use rice flour to create designs on their doorstep. I took a photo of the one this morning. Our neighbor says she knows thousands of designs and its a way for others to see what is going on with the house hold. Very cool!

We're moving

Its official, we are moving to Austin in October. There are a lot of things to do outdoors and lots of local restaurants (including many vegetarian ones). It close enough to Dallas to visit family and friends with no trouble. It a town more our style.

We will miss our family and friends in Dallas, but we are only a half a days drive away.

Ahhh, summer in Texas

Nikki took a photo with her phone of the temperture this afternoon while we were driving in the car. 109°
I was hoping it would break 110 (Im into even numbers), but it didn't.

2 boys with cool names

Congratulations are in order for 4 of our friends and family on their new baby boys.
Eugene and Catherine congratulations on Eden
Greg and Jen congratulations on Atticus

The Impressionists at The Kimbell

We went to the Kimbell in Ft Worth today to see The Impressionists. It was a great exhibition, it had Monet's Stacks of Wheat, Van Gogh's self portrait and Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day (which surprisingly is on a giant canvas-I didn't know). I could go on and on about all the artists, but if you're interested you can visit the site. We took some photos outside (cant take them inside). Overall we had a great time.

The only thing I dont like about shows like this is when your are trying to look at a piece of art and someone comes up, stands really close to you and breaths down your neck trying to get you to move over (a lot of Nietzsche's will to power going on at a crowded exhibition). Also, some people take these exhibitions extremely seriously, as if they are researching Monet's brush stokes for their doctoral thesis, so they have this "I just smelt a fart and it hurts" look plastered on their face. Its art, it doesn't smell like farts, so unclench and get that look off your face people.

Some people at these museums are extremely nice and friendly. One lady at the exhibition today commented to us "These artists would have loved to have some as beautiful as her (Zoe) to paint".

Burning Down the (Apartment) House

We woke up to the sounds of helicopters and firetrucks. The main office building of our apartments burnt down this morning. You can read about it here. Too bad this didn't happen a couple of days before the first of the month, we could have told them our rent check was in there.

Miro

On Saturday afternoon we had our back door open, it was nice and sunny outside. We were cleaning up our place and keeping an eye on Miro at the same time. Miro has a tendency to jump over the patio railing and go exploring (both our cats are indoor cats).

So we had the door open for a while and noticed Miro wasn't around, we started looking for her inside, couldn't find her. Then we started looking outside, all around the apartments, we drove down the street, opened cans of cat food, ect. We looked for almost 4 hours straight. Nikki was going to swap her sandals for sneakers and went to get her socks out of the sock drawer and found Miro sound asleep inside it!

We think that Miro had jumped in the sock drawer and Zoe closed the drawer. Zoe was helping us clean up the place.

Dallas Arboretum

We joined the Dallas Arboretum today. We can get in now anytime we want for a year. They gave us some dark chocolate when we joined (as you can see from the photo below).

schmap

A travel site called Schmap contacted us about using one of our travel photos we have on Flickr. They are using our photo of the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome as one of their reference photos.

Fa, fa, fa, fa, fa

Zoe has made some huge developmental advancements since she got over feeling crappy when she had roseloa. She's talking almost non-stop during the day. She's picking up new words sometimes having only heard them once or twice. One day last week, I counted her saying 5 new words.

The last couple of days she has been saying "eye-Da". I'm not sure what it means but I think it's a declarative statement. I believe that the "eye" is "I", just can't figure out what "Da" is. Maybe she is saying something like "I am", or it might be her trying to pronounce "Zoe". She says it very loud and forcefully over and over again. I can't find any context for the phrase. We thought it might be "I want", "I have", "outside" or "olive" but it doesn't seem to be any of these.
Zoe is also saying "mama" and "dada" all the time now. I love that!

She's been trying to tell us about things that happened in the past. This week there was a huge thunderstorm that came through the area around 3am. It woke her up and she couldn't go back to sleep for an hour or so. The thunder and lighting were continuous and the wind was so strong that the front door to our apartment was banging - it sounded like someone was trying to get in. The next day I was changing her diaper and she made the sounds for sleep "fa, fa, fa, fa" and then pointed to her ear, and then made a loud noise. She was telling me that she heard loud noises while she was sleeping last night. It's a bit like playing charades.

Another funny story from last week. As I mentioned, Zoe says "fa, fa, fa, fa" because that's the sounds that Daddy makes when he's pretending to sleep. We were in the car going to dinner and the Talking Heads' song "Psycho Killer" came on. If you don't know the song, the chorus goes like this:

Psycho killer, que'st que c'est?
Fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, far
better Run away

Well we told Zoe that they were singing about going to sleep and she thought that was just hilarious. She still giggles uncontrollably every time I put the song on.

Photos of the storm's aftermath

There was a big storm that came through North Texas last night. These were all taken within a couple of miles of our place