Belly!

Viv has discovered her bellybutton and thinks it's the funniest thing ever.

I couldn't resist

Alice's board theme inspired me to do one more.

Numbers Don't Lie

The Ape, the Monkey, and Baboon

The ape, the monkey and baboon did meet,
And breaking of their fast in Friday street,
Two of them swore together solemnly
In their three natures was a sympathy.

Nay, quoth baboon,
I do deny that strain:
I have more knavery in me
than you twain.

Why, quoth the ape, I have a horse at will
In Paris Garden for to ride on still,
And there show tricks. Tush, quoth the monkey,
For better tricks in great men's houses lie.

Tush, quoth baboon,
when men do know I come,
For sport from city, country
they will run.

Thomas Weelkes
1576-1623


Never doubt the power of monkeys- the current poll numbers are proof of this.

Horsey!

To Start off the Photoshop Contest......

I can't officially enter the contest, but here's a little sample to get everyone started:



Here's Alice's sample:

Some News

Some of you know this already, but most don't- #2 is a boy. We've been pretty sure of this for a while now but didn't get proof until the last few ultrasounds. I haven't posted the images of the proof, so you'll just have to take my word on it.

The first pic is one of those creepy 3-d ultrasounds and Alice has proclaimed him cute and says he looks like me. I'll admit that I have my days when I don't look so great, but will someone please tell me if I try to leave the house with an umbilical cord stuck to my face?

I tried to put some video up tonight but had some problems, so maybe tomorrow.

Sunday

We had another parade today and the weather was a bit more favorable. Viv even got a short romp in her sandbox after having some post-parade king cake. I'd also like to point out that monkeys have once again taken the lead. Also, I've decided that another photoshop contest is in order. Scroll down through the pictures for details.







You can photoshop either the above or below picture (or both, if you're feeling really spiffy). You have until Sunday, February 10 to e-mail myself or Alice the entry. I'm not sure what the winner will get, but we'll think of something.

Viv pics

Here's how the day went-

This is Viv and mom this morning. I don't understand how someone barely 2 feet tall can take up this much space:


We didn't get a lot of pictures today, it was pretty short parade here in the parish. Tomorrow's parade out her is substantially larger and we'll try and get some more.


This is from when I told Viv the South Carolina primary results. She was fairly pleased.

Tie

Well, we now have a three way tie with my witty commentary polling about as well as Rudy Guliani. We're going to a Mardi Gras parade today, so we'll probably have some pictures of that up later.

As I Suspected...

Monkeys have taken the lead in the current poll.

Action Shots

"Viv"

At last, she can say her own name:

possible changes

I've been having some problems with uploading images to the blog lately and I'm considering migrating the blog over to another site. I'll let everyone know when I figure out what I'm going to do.

At any rate, no pics for now.

Request

OK everyone, I want to get a census of who's visiting the site on a regular basis. I know we average about 20 hits a day and I have a reasonable idea who is checking in based on the address of the isp's requesting the page view. However, I'd like to request that everyone that reads this post leaves a response. At the bottom of the post there's a little pencil icon next to 'comments'- click on it and leave a little message. It doesn't have to be elaborate- just the equivalent of raising your hand when the teacher calls roll at the beginning of class.

It would make Viv happy:


Don't you want Viv to be happy?

I might also be encouraged to put up more posts if I had a little feedback :)

Vocabulary

Viv said her name for the first time today and that was just one of many new words she's come up with the past week. Until recently b, d and m words were her favorites, but she's expanded to pretty much everything but x, y and z this week. I'm a bit stunned at how fast her language is progressing since she hasn't shown much interest up to this point. She's also learned to throw both of her hands up in the air when she doesn't know the answer to a question. I'm sure I'm coming off as a bragging parent at this point, but abstract reasoning from a 16 month old is pretty f'n phenomenal. Though, I have to admit I really don't know squat about children that aren't my own, so maybe it's not that unique (though I doubt it).

Poop!

The first pic is a turd in a bucket. I've always wanted to send everyone a picture of a turd in a bucket but have never really found the proper occasion. Anyway, Viv has actually used her potty a few times this week. She's catching on, but we're not ready to ditch the diapers yet.

Zoo and two grandfathers

Viv got to go to the zoo today with both of her grandfathers. My dad is in town for a big convention for work and Alice's dad is working in Baton Rouge all of January. Anyway, here's a few pictures but unfortunately we didn't get any pictures with either of her granddads.

Finally

Sorry for the lack of recent posts but our internet connection at home has been hacked up for the last week. After Katrina there were no options here for cable or dsl so I managed to get in contact with this small company that does beamed broadband for secure commercial applications. Anyway, the owner of the company is a homebrewer as well and took pity on us and set us up with a system for next to nothing.
At any rate, we have this Motorola router/radio that beams a wireless signal to the top of the Domino Sugar refinery out here which then relays the signal to another radio in downtown NOLA and finally the signal is bounced to our ISP's systems. Normally this crazy setup operates at speeds that blow cable and dsl away (4 Mb/s or higher down the pipe), but for the last week it's been drag-ass slow or not working at all. Turns out that one of the connections downtown got configured incorrectly and the radio on Dominos kept cutting out because they had it on the same circuit as their x-mas lights, which kept blowing the breakers.
To make a long story short, it got fixed finally.

On to Viv- we told her we're gonna watch LSU in the college bowl championship tonight and I think she misinterpreted it:

New Years Day

Viv decided that her boots and gorilla suit were the order of the day.