If you’re one of the many voters disenchanted with the current presidential choices, consider taking a look at Mitt Zombie. Mitt Zombie: reanimating America one voter at a time.

Now that Liza’s talking, we can inflict more audio on you!

First up, Liza’s favorite new word: “What’s that?” If I played the entire recording I made instead of carefully-selected bits, you’d hear the two of us saying “What’s that?” “That’s a microphone” over and over.
[audio:whatsthat.mp3]

It started when Liza saw Saber, the dog next door, panting. She panted right back at Saber. Now she pants all the time. The other day Misty asked Eli about his lightsaber, and Liza, hearing the magic syllables “say” and “ber”, panted.
[audio:panting.mp3]

Liza likes testing gravity by taking her food, throwing it on the floor, and then looking down at it and saying, “Uh-oh!”
[audio:uhoh.mp3]

Liza loves her some butterflies.
[audio:butterfly.mp3]

We’ve said “thank you!” to Liza enough that she now parrots it back. If you hand her some milk, she says, “Thank you!” If you take the phone away from her so she doesn’t dial people at random, she says, “Thank you!”
[audio:thankyou.mp3]

“Hello” is one of her newer words. You can barely hear her playing with her pig phone in this clip.
[audio:hello.mp3]

This is one of her earliest words. I can’t imagine why.
[audio:stinky.mp3]

From one of my craft blogs, I found a pattern on this page of a robot. I decided that it was cute and that I could certainly make it for Eli.

Eli picked out the colors from a stack of felt that I had. Purple and green are always favorites, but the orange in the mix was a bit of a shocker. I think he picked it because it was sitting on top of the pile. I started out using black thread to sew him together but I quickly discarded that arm and started over because he looked like a Tim Burton reject. I rummaged around and found some silver thread and that totally makes his look.

Notice between this photo and the next he went from having matching legs to having mismatching legs in the style of the arms. When I discarded the first black thread arm, I cut out a purple piece instead of a green one. I decided it would be cuter to make the legs match the arms. Opposite, of course.

I made the decision to put hair on him and now wish I hadn’t. Eli doesn’t like it either. One of the first things he asked me this morning when I gave him the finished product was could we take his hair off because he couldn’t see the robot’s green head with the hair in the way.

On the third limb I figured out how to attach the limbs attractively. Unfortunately, the two good ones are the legs. Ah, well, Eli doesn’t know or care.

In this photo you can see how uneven the arms ended up. I matched them on the piece of green felt from the bottom but then when I started sewing them onto the back, I ended up with about 1/2″ of fabric that I cut off. End result: wildly mismatching arms.

I didn’t stuff him super full. I didn’t want to strain the seams by putting 5 lbs. of stuffing in him. He’s just a wee bit squishy, which is what we all want in our robots, right?

Here he is finished up last. I think I spent around 10-12 hours making him and around $5. I believe I could probably make the next one a bit quicker. I’m thinking of trying to make Liza a butterfly in the same style since she is all about the butterflies!

Even though he didn’t like the hair, he ended up naming him Tentacle, because of the hair. Go figure.

Also, as with so many things, the joy seems to be in the making. He’s only played with him for about 5 minutes. While in contrast, yesterday after nap he insisted that we work on the robot and he sat in the office alternately watching me sew on robot legs and They Might Be Giants videos on youtube.

Liza had her year check up today and she got shots in both legs and a finger stick. The doctor said she is cutting four upper teeth. So that’s why she is grumpy.

The only odd thing was that her weight measurement was slightly below average. My girl that eats everything in her path is not in the upper percentile for weight. I was shocked. Hopefully, this means she got her dad’s metabolism.

I know, I know, what are we thinking, changing the design every three years or so. Nevertheless, have a new blog design.

The only real content change is the “Shrapnel” sidebar on the right. We’re going to be dumping links in there that we find interesting but don’t feel like writing a full blog post about. If you hover over them, the tooltip will tell you more about the link. Sometimes. I make no promises. There’s even an rss feed for the links if you’re one of those feed-reading people.

The reason I ended up writing the LOLCat wedding ceremony is because some friends of mine asked me to officiate at a pirate wedding. They wanted something fun and complete secular, and hey, I was glad to help out. Of course, I had to have a costume.

(Picture courtesy John Schultz.) I managed to rope my mother-in-law into making me a shirt, and as a gift the bride made the vest and pants for me. As you can see, I’m reading from the holy tome “How I Became a Pirate”, by Melinda Long and David Shannon.

I couldn’t find a pirate-themed ceremony, so ended up putting together one of my own. Of course I have to share that ceremony with you, dear Internet.

—

Rogues, scoundrels, roustabouts, privateers, pirates, and even ninjas¹, we have come together on this Saturday to witness the joining of person 1 and person 2.

person 1 and person 2, you are entering into a commitment born of love. Before these witnesses you are joining together, creating a union that involves both joy and responsibility. You must enter into your marriage with no lien on either of your ships or crew, free of other commitments. Bring forward the sword! [Someone brings forward a sword.]

Do you both swear on this sword that there is no reason why your union cannot proceed? [With luck the answer is “no”.]

[To person 1:] What is your full name and rank?
What do you desire? [“This woman’s hand in marriage” or somesuch]
Will you have this woman as your partner? Will you love her, comfort her, and honor her? Will you protect her, no matter who might board your ship and attempt to wrest her from you, as long as you both do love? [Aye.]

[To person 2] What is your full name and rank?
What do you desire? [“This man’s hand in marriage.”]
Will you have this man as your partner? Will you love him, comfort him, and honor him? Will you protect him, no matter who might board your ship and attempt to wrest him from you, as long as you both do love? [Aye.]

[To audience:] A marriage is more than two people. It is also the trusty crew that surrounds them and helps them. person 1 and person 2’s marriage will be blessed by your support. All who would provide that support, say “Arr!” [Arr!]

[Vows go here.]

The rings, please. [Someone brings the rings.]

The ring is the most instantly recognized symbol of marriage. The ring is a circle, indicating the infinity of unbroken love. Like life, it returns back upon itself. Whether the rings are lovingly bought, taken as part of rightful plunder, or stolen from a sunken chest, they symbolize the happiness, wholeness, and love of your marriage. Your exchange of rings shows how your lives are now intertwined.

person 1, place the ring on person 2’s hand and repeat after me:

I give you this ring / as a symbol of our love. / It is a reminder of / our promises / to each other.

person 2, repeat after me:

I wear this ring / as a symbol of our love. / It will remind me / of our promises / to each other.

person 2, place the ring on person 1’s hand and repeat after me:

I give you this ring / as a symbol of our love. / It is a reminder of / our promises / to each other.

person 1, repeat after me:

I wear this ring / as a symbol of our love. / It will remind me / of our promises / to each other.

Bring forward the sword again! [Again with the sword sword.]

When you both jump over this sword, it symbolizes you cutting past ties and moving into the future together. [The couple jumps the sword.]

May your wedding be blessed, and may it be spoken of wherever the Jolly Roger flies. I now pronounce you man and wife. You may both kiss.

I am honored to present person 1 and person 2. Three cheers! Hip hip – [HOORAY!] Hip hip – [HOORAY!] Hip hip – [HOORAY!]

Yo ho ho, me hearties! Drink up!

¹ We had two people dressed as ninjas² at the wedding, one of whom was in the wedding party. (back)

² That is, two ninjas that we could see.

I have reached a milestone in parenting: I have had my first “wait till your father comes home” moment.

I knew things weren’t going well at home yesterday. Thanks to the miracles of Web 2.0, I don’t even have to wait for a phone call to know Eli and Liza are spinning around wildly and creating chaos in their wake. It finally got bad enough that Misty called and asked me to come home early.

That was right before Eli threw both a temper tantrum and a toy at Misty.

At some point in the last few weeks, trolls snuck in and replaced Eli with a changeling, presumably because we haven’t baptized him. He’s been getting angrier, complete with foot stomping and fist clenching. He’s like a mini Bobby Knight, only instead of a chair he threw a squeaky toy at Misty.

When I got home, he’d been sitting in his room for a while. I got to have That Talk, the one I always hated when I was a kid. You know the one: a parent sits down and has you say what you did wrong and then explains why it’s wrong and geez, couldn’t you just paddle me and get it over with?

On the other hand, this is giving me a good break from Zack and Wiki for a while.

A chocolate fudge Pop-Tart iced with raw chocolate chip cookie dough.

Don’t look at me like that — we didn’t actually make this breakfast treat. But if any of you do, you have to post pictures and let us know to what hospital we should send your get well flowers.

Does anyone else have a challenger for bad breakfast food? Other than the Good Morning Burger, I mean.