Tuesday, January 29, 2008

re-hijacked . . .

ok, weird title, but i can explain.

first off, this was my blog (i'm andy, stacy's hubbie) originally and stacy hijacked it from me.

secondly, the blog-o-sphere is a much healthier and happier place since she hijacked this one. and you all are certainly more enriched by reading her blog posts than you would be from reading mine - that is if i ever got around to posting anything to begin with.

and third, i'm re-hijacking this for only one day, then i'm giving it back. the primary reason behind this is that today is stacy's 30th birthday. that's right folks, she is 30 years old on the 30th of january. she has entered into her golden year and let me tell you, she was GOLDEN way before this year, so i don't know what all the hype is about.

hopefully this hatched little plan of mine doesn't blow up in my face. i'm crossing my fingers hoping that i don't screw something up.

so, in honor of stacy's 30th birthday and more specifically, in honor of her as a partner, friend, mother, activist, lactivist and so on . . . i want to blog about why i think she was golden before this year and why she will still be gold well beyond! i think the best way for me to get this message across is to list out some of the enriching experiences in my life that i would have otherwise missed out on if i hadn't fallen in love with this gal. here goes!

  • got married @21 years old - very brave, but totally worth it. wouldn't change a thing
  • traveled around the world together - twice in 10 years!
  • became a regular at a local addiction recovery shelter for homeless men. this was not because i was particularly addicted
  • i am father to an amazing baby girl that was born at home - never thought i would say that
  • i will be a father to yet another beautiful baby that will be born at home - definitely did not "plan" on saying that . . .
  • i live in a solar house - i'm some sort of neo-hippie-environmentalist that i used to make fun of
  • i drive one car that runs on bio-diesel and another that i can sleep, cook, store soy ice cream, wash dishes and entertain a 2 year old in for hours.
  • fought for women's rights and equality in a stuffy church meeting - and i fought gladly!
  • i stopped eating meat after 7 years of convincing. yes, i can be abnormally stubborn
  • i stopped eating dairy after . . . not so much convincing
  • i became a stay at home dad and i love it
  • i'm proud to say that i know what ROA means when it comes to pregnancy! for those of you who don't know, maybe you should get to know your local doula? ;-)
  • i learned how to bake a cake - a vegan cake at that!
stacy has opened my eyes, softened and stretched my heart and heightened my awareness and consciousness in life. thank you stacy, i love you!

my apologies to the readers if this was way too mushy. i just couldn't help myself. :-)

to end this thing up, i want to share some amazing pictures of stacy with you all, that i think capture the beautiful, compassionate, sassy, silly and thoughtful person that she is. enjoy! there is both humour and beauty involved. i had to have some personal fun with this since it is her birthday and all . . .



a friend, a momma and a student. this is stacy with robin lim, famed midwife in indonesia and pretty cool lady in general.



for so many reasons, i find personal inspiration in this photo of stace




i think this is one of the most beautiful pictures i have ever seen! this on the beach in kuta, bali, indonesia




a fellow comedian. this is what we have found to do with our spare time and digital cameras over the years




man, she's cute. but, i'm trying to remember who would have taken this picture?




whoa - and still hot . . .




often posing as celebrity personalities in her spare time, i found her in the living room two days before halloween just standing like this?




this gal is one serious thinker. look at the brain waves just lightin' up the sky behind her





a trend setter no doubt, but a sunglasses designer - who knew?




a skilled teacher in the art of eating safely




a sassy momma, then multiply times two and all bets are off!




here we are. just setting the trend together. a lovely couple with a strong sense of style. i love what she did with her hair.




wait, that must be an original pair of the sunglasses there.





that lady does not have time to play. you can see why i fought for women's equality in a church meeting - there isn't really a lot of room for error. ;-)




talk about making friends and babies happy . . . i couldn't ask for much more in a partner!

Happy Birthday Stacy!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

he makes a mean smoothie.

enjoying the fruit of his labor.

my hubby loves to make all kinds of smoothies full of berries or other fruit, soy ice cream, nuts, chocolate chips, soy yogurt...any kind of smoothie. i am rather picky (hmmmnnn, no surprise there) about how i like my smoothies. even though i do not prefer nuts or chocolate in them, he still experiments a lot. i will usually at least take a sip and sometimes like the chocolate banana almond drinks he makes. basic ole smoothies with strawberries, OJ and a banana are what i prefer. thankfully, our dear daughter enjoys his concoctions from helping create them to slurping them.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

snow

it's snowing here! it's been snowing since late afternoon. the snow is sticking to the ground and likely to stay stuck as nightfall approaches. i really enjoy watching the snowfall, playing in it and the deeper the better if i have nowhere to be. although, it is supposed to be sunny tomorrow morning so that may melt it all.

we have been reading a lot of books about snow over the past few months. perhaps, b/c we lived in constant summer from june to october last year, i wanted e to know about winter! when she was three months old, we had a glorious time at canaan valley ski resort (it's really a state park that hasn't been rehabbed since 1974 or something) in a cabin with 10 friends. she and i took our first hike together, all bundled up in a fleece sling while hubs went snowboarding. the snowfall there was beautiful with full, lush flakes falling all day.

good ole canaan valley!
hanging with dad while mom is ice skating.
that fleece sling i was telling you about. it's an adjustable cozy carrier that i got for $10 from the trading post on MDC. we shared it for months with our nov babe.
lil ez learning to play "apples to apples", a hilariously fun night we all had riding rosa, dancing in molasses cages and drinking rum and rootbeer (except for me, as i hadn't introduced alcohol back into the body, at that point. didn't think ez needed white russians, just yet.). or, some ended up with just rum and rum by the end of the night.
the secret to avoiding tears while cutting onions is to wear ski goggles, of course.
this guy is one of e's first crushes. he went on to marry one of the coolest chicks around, leaving e to mourn and cry through the night. she is recovered now and close to the couple, i am proud to say. very mature of her.

at least 90% of our books come from the thrift store as that is where they are most affordable. and, some real treasures show up there! cool books like, "we were tired of living in a house" by Liesel Skorpen, which has a new 1999 edition. but, we scored the old skool version with fabulous illustrations. thus, we don't have all the classics, yet of course. in almost every trip we do come across one for .25 that i could have splurged $6.95 on to support the big book box and it's worth it to build slowly. being 2 years old, i figure we have a while to build up her library stash. we supplement with a weekly library trip for story time and a few books.

These are the beloved snowy books on our current reading list:
the snowy day by ezra jack keats (ezra and jack are two of her favorite and familiar names!)
snow, a dr. seuss book by p.d. eastman
snow, forgot who wrote it but it's told by bunnies
the first snowfall, by anne and harlow rockwell
winter friends, by carl sams and jean stoik

She pretty much could tell these books to me as she knows them by heart at this point. it kinda freaked us out the first time she was "reading along" with us. but, now, we pause through most books to let her finish the sentence. if we get distracted while reading or talk to someone else while reading, she helps us get back on track by pointing to the book page and saying, "talk to this".

A couple books contain long playtime in the snow followed by making hot cocoa. Thus, when we tell her, "it's snowing!" all day long, like we did today, her response is, "i need to make hot cocoa!" as soon we go out for a long romp in the white stuff, we will certainly counter with some dark chocolate cocoa full of warm soy milky goodness!

Friday, January 18, 2008

vegan christian

Did you know that there is a Christian Vegetarian Society? They publish a pamphlet that A and I read while at Lotus vegan restaurant in Perth, Australia. The owner only had one copy of it so made a copy on his fax machine for us while we chatted. This morning, a discussion prompted me to find it online.

From their website, www.all-creatures.org:

"Jesus  preached, “For I was hungry and you gave me food.… [A]s you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:35, 40 RSV). Yet, while tens of millions of people die annually from starvation--related causes and close to a billion suffer from malnutrition, 37 percent of the world’s harvested grain is fed to animals being raised for slaughter; in the United States, the figure is 66 percent.

Only a fraction of what chickens, pigs, and other animals eat makes them grow edible flesh—most is needed to simply keep them alive or to grow body parts that people don’t eat. Consequently, farmed animals consume much more food than they produce. Converting plant foods to meat wastes 67–90 percent of the protein, up to 96 percent of the calories, and all of the fiber. Because land, water, and other resources are limited, the world can support many more vegetarians than meat eaters. As worldwide demand for meat has grown, the net effect is that the world’s poor have become increasingly unable to afford food of any kind."

"In Genesis 2:15, God instructed Adam to “till” and “keep” the Garden of Eden, and by analogy we may see caring for God’s Creation as our sacred task. The typical meat eater’s diet can require up to 14 times more water and 20 times more energy than that of a vegetarian. Indeed, current use of land, water, and energy is not sustainable; resource depletion threatens to cause hardships for humankind this century.

"The Bible depicts vegetarianism as God’s ideal, and the diet conforms to the central biblical principle of steward-ship. In Eden, all creatures lived peacefully, and God told both humans and animals to consume only plant foods (Gen. 1:29–31). Several prophecies, such as Isaiah 11:6–9, foresee a return to this vegetarian world, where the wolf, lamb, lion, cow, bear, snake, and little child all coexist peacefully. Christian vegetarians, while acknowledging human sinfulness, believe we should strive toward the harmonious world Isaiah envisioned—to try to live in accordance with the prayer that Jesus taught us, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10)."

These are just a few of their key points. The website is concise and informative for you to check out. Where are my converts?

Thursday, January 17, 2008

sweetest puppy in the world

getting some sweet love.
sherpa loves running around with is lil toddler friends.
about 6 months preggo with ez in buxton!
we were always a co-sleeping family. when i was preggo with ez, sherp would snuggle up on my belly.
the sweetest.
Friends came to visit and sherpa greeted them kindly. he loved to be on my lap; i am about 7 months preggo with ez.
halloween 2005: rice and jon scott dressed up as a preggo me and sherpa! (britney spears and i were preggo so i dressed up as her. hubs dressed up as k.fed. evidence of why i should never go blond!) this was about one week before e was born!
yes, he is a co-sleeper.
what a great smile!
running around.
resting after playing fetch in the backyard.
sherpa is dressed up as darth vader to go with the family star wars theme: halloween 2006.
playing catch with e in the backyard.
at the beach (the wonderful town of buxton!) last spring for a camping trip.
getting some love from lil e. after this, she threw a pad of paper and a pen on the floor and said, "sherpie, draw!"
out on a nature walk. can you see his heart shaped butt?
last month, getting more love from ez.

he had to have surgery today. he had a lump on his leg and it grew over the past week. he was licking it and it started to bleed some. so, we had it removed for him. he seems to be doing really well in his recovery now. we are just loving on him and have been praying for him all day. please pray with us for him. ez is learning so much through this time; right now she's staring at his incision curiously.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

christmas eve evening

The tradition at my house growing up, probably like many of you who celebrated christmas, was to open one gift on christmas eve before bedtime.
My siblings and I loved being able to do this as kids!
My mom most likely chose the actual gift that we were allowed to open that night.
Since being married, we anticipated doing the same thing in our house. This year, Ez got to join us in picking out a gift to open with us. We helped her chose one my mom had sent her in the mail. It's way more fun to do with a lil toddler around. Especially, when she models her hat, sunglasses, reindeer purse and grippy slippers!
I opened my gift from hubby. Believe it or not, i did not have any cookie cutters until this christmas. My mom also gave me a whole stack of them!
Ez caught on quick as a Home Alone cheek slapper. This is one of his fave movies but I had never seen it! Ez hadn't seen it either so we got to watch it right away!

Friday, January 11, 2008

Christmas Eve Pictures






reading a story of the events surrounding the birth of jesus. it was a bit of a challenge to explain why we get gifts and how that has anything to do with why we celebrate the birth of jesus.