We headed over to my friend Simon’s house yesterday for his daughter Grace’s 7th birthday. Evie loved feeding the chickens (including a bunch of 3-day-old chicks, not visible in the pictures).

There was a fantastic moonbounce in the front yard (I think these are called “bouncy castles” in the UK), so Emma decided to let Evie go down the slide solo. The first run went great, which I didn’t catch on tape. Evie’s second solo run, however, was a little bit of a catastrophe:

After a few seconds of bawling, Evie was game enough to try again, though this time on Emma’s lap. Things went much better.

Non-accidental words to date: Mama, Dada, Lenny (her stuffed cat), up, down, ball, bubble, pop, cup, hi, bye-bye, night-night, boo!

Possibly accidental words (or words said in context only once, never again to be repeated): Book, powder, light, and high-five (”hine dive”).

Here’s a sequence of the kitchen renovation—which is still unfinished. There was initially an add-on staircase down to the basement on the right, which took up a good chunk of the room needlessly. We also tore out all of the old cabinets, which were damaged and pretty useless. The one difficult decision was the old fireplace. The chimney had collapsed years ago, so it was unusable. After a lengthy debate, we decided to use the mantle and bricks elsewhere, and take it down. There’s going to be a pantry in its place.

Okay, more stuff to come soon—I swear—but in the meantime, here’s what I’ve been up to. (Well, not this week, since Emma and Evie are out of town, but in general.) Evie’s nana—here for a quick visit—can be heard laughing in the background.

There was a not-so-little bat surveying our renovation project tonight. The electrician and I had to duck a few times as he circled past our heads.

I can’t believe our little Evie’s a year old. It just doesn’t seem possible that this day was a year ago.

Plenty’s changed since then.

I made a quick little video of Evie going about her daily routine. I’m still trying to get it to embed in this site, but in the meantime, you can check it out by clicking the image below.

Needless to say, we’re more smitten with Evie each day. I hear that children go crazy for a spell around the two year mark. Maybe next year’s video will end in a cracked video camera lens and lots of tears (from me, that is), but at the moment it’s all pretty smooth sailing.

Happy Birthday, little love.

Over the holidays I redesigned Emma & Lorelei’s blog. This is their new home since The Daily Bedpost shut its doors at the end of the year: EMandLO.com (warning: maybe just a little NSFW, depending on your employer).

Anyway, they’re updating the site daily with new content, and there have been some great debates going on in the comment sections. So take a look.

I’m back from an absurdly long hiatus, though with the potential excuses of a broken laptop, a misplaced camera, and lots of traveling and visitors before, during and after the holidays. Anyway, to get rolling again and to kick off 2009, I thought I’d start with one of my all-time favorite things in life: videos of martial arts jackasses. Here’s my Top 5 list:

5. Karate Master vs. Wok Full of Burning Embers

4. Karate Guy vs. Coconuts & Metal Railing

3. Delusional Air-Punching Master vs. Actual Kickboxer

2. Jersey Guy vs. Wood Boards, a.k.a. “Ya Gotta Hold It”

1. Afro Ninja

Of course, all of these videos owe a massive debt to the platonic ideal of the martial arts fail video, “Afro Ninja.” Nothing else will ever come close. Without Afro Ninja, the Internet itself would be at least 50% less hilarious.

With over 80 million views worldwide (at least 1,000 of them by me), Afro Ninja has now come forward to talk about his experiences and is hoping to turn his embarrassing video fame into a feature film. I wish him luck!