Life with the Kids

Well, it's been a real roller coaster since little X-Man arrived. He's been a very good baby...eats, sleeps, poops, all very well. And Ariel is a very sweet big sister, always wanting to help and show off her brother. Jay had been struggling up until last Thursday...short version of the story (the long version is of course on her blog) is she turned out to have post-partum heart failure and we went back to the hospital to get her treated. Still waiting for more definitive answers from the cardiologist tomorrow, but so far she's surely improving. We've had a few outings but mostly she is taking it easy and I'm trying to help out as much as I can.

Here's some choice pics of the X-Man.






It's a great feeling having one of each, and I'm enjoying the completeness that comes from having a family of four...it's a new feeling, surreal and scary but beautiful. Here's my twitchy-witchy girl Ariel all ready for her first day of pre-school, and more family pics.






In other news, Spark Animation is coming up soon and once again I'm very proud to have had a small part in selecting content and volunteering. I will only be able to attend certain fragments of the show this year, primarily checking out The Secret of Kells, Coraline, Gobelins, 9, Best of SIGGRAPH (sponsored by VanArts), Mary & Max, $9.99, and of course the Saturday night party. Be sure that many pics will follow here.

Check out the line-up: sparkanimation.ca

SPARK Animation '09: Festival & Conference from Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH on Vimeo.

...and also in other news, I might as well break my silence and say that I'll be writing another book for Thomson(Cengage) publishers, tentatively titled The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation. It's a second volume for my original book, going into more updated detail on the craft, slated to launch June 2010.

With all of this plus online teaching, onsite teaching, usual work stuff, two kids, Halloween, and plenty of coffee & good tunes for the road ahead, I stand like Atreyu with Auryn in hand before the Southern Oracle ahead of me, and walk forth to ask for confidence to follow the Lord's plan for me. Stay tooned, my friends.