Let's open up this pit

Juliet is very popular around here these days. The kids love this video and request for it to be played again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again. Oh well, at least it's not Gaga. Or the chipmunks. Or Gaga Chipmunk. And after all the upside down helicopter attempt is pretty impressive.

But... again, again, again, again, again, again... again, again, again... again...

 

"'My First Hardcore Song' by 8yr old Juliet"

Suddenly, Grandpa

We don't manage to get to visit grandpa much, so it's always a treat when we do. Anne suddenly arranged for us all to get up there last month. It was not coincidental that it was approximately his birthday.

Grandpa doesn't get out much anymore, or far from home when he does get out, after his strokes. So Anne brought him a favourite birthday treat: cheeseburgers from a certain ubiquitous establishment. We supplemented this with home made pea soup.

And now let's introduce Grandpa and Polly's three kitty-cats to the blog! Snoopy, Budley, and Molly. "So cute!" Istra says. Snoopy is big and reclusive. Budley is medium sized and a trouble maker. Molly is a wee little thing and super-extra-duper cute.

 Happy belated birthday, Grandpa!

The rest of the pictures from the impromptu party are here.

Back to the Christmas, Part 2

Second Christmas was in Hamilton. Once again we got up bright and early, grabbed the some stollen loaves, and hit the road. There, we met up with Selena's side of the family, including Whitney and Michael who are back after living in Manitoba for several years.

More family members means more presents for the kids! Lots of fun stuff for them. One of the biggest surprises was the scooters that Grammie got for them. They could not wait to try them... so it really was lucky for them that we had no snow this Christmas. Boots and mits in place, they hit the pavement for some serious scooting.

To see all the pictures, click here.

We ended up in the evening at the Suggitt's for a big family dinner, as usual. Oddly, this year I took a bit of  cooking upon myself, and made a mushroom and leek stuffed seitan loaf, which turned out really well.

Back to the Christmas, Part 1

Stollen

First Christmas this year was something a bit different. Bright and early, we packed up our traditional Christmas stollen, and the kids, and headed downtown to Anne's place for Christmas morning. Gramma had slept over there.

After opening presents, and brunching up on pizza omelets and garlic bread, we walked over to the skating rink. Both kids were enthusiastic this year about trying to skate. And both did really well, for really their first time seriously attempting it. Istra particularly, with her exciting new second hand skates, just did not want to stop. We went around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around the rink. She even skated a little bit on her own. It was actually pretty fun (and not as entirely crowded as I feared it was going to be). 

You can see all the pictures here.

Stollen note: Selena tried to health up the stollen this year. She used dried cherries rather candied/maraschino cherries; and some of the loaves were made with 50% whole wheat flour. I unexpectedly found I liked the whole wheat stollen better than the pure white. Perhaps it was pscyhological. As usual, of course, a simple lemon icing sugar topping was applied to all stollens.

Peaceful New Year

The kids are partying with Gramma. Leaving us free to pursue our own New Year's Eve frivolities, unfettered. So, with total freedom to do anything we wanted, we just went for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Aside from the odd throbbing house, a few clusters of the inebriated, and occasional stray artillery shells -- pretty pleasant way to occupy the flipping of the year.

Also I got to play with my mom's new handheld GPS...

(Hopefully over the next few days I'll collect some of the lingering photos from last year that haven't yet made their way on here... for the archives...)

Look what's for dinner!

Emeth, in his fussy stage, often claims we are having poo for dinner, or that whatever is for dinner tastes like poo. So... if he thinks it's poo anyhow, might as well save some money and "recycle"... right?

Actually these are the results of a seitan sausage recipe I tried today. The resemblance to a certain other substance is a bit unsettling! If you close your eyes, however, they smell uncannily like rather savoury hot dogs. "Spicy hot dogs", Emeth says. They don't taste overly spicy though. The flavour is pleasant, with a hint of maple. Amazingly enough these lovely things passed the kid-taste-test for both kids! This very nearly qualifies as a Christmas miracle around here these days.

Here's the Smokey Maple Sausage recipe I used. Not sure why mine turned out so much darker looking than theirs. It must have been the extra black mushroom soy sauce I used. Also I didn't mash my beans as much as I could have, leading to the interesting extra texture and colourization.

A (school) photographic line crossed

After some confusion, we got the proofs that school Picture Day did actually happen for Emeth. You can see below that it turns out Eme had good reason to confuse us with continual denials that picture day had ever happened for him. He simply must have had a premonition of the ridiculous result? So, anyhow, we declined to purchase these for reasons which I'm hoping are apparent:

If you don't know Em, and thus are not intensely embarrassed for him on seeing these bizarre reflections, these pictures do have some weird cuteness to them. But the point of (more-or-less) formal portrait photography is generally not quirkiness. Combine this with the somewhat exorbitant (in my opinion) fees charged for the privilege of obtaining copies of these factory farmed portraits, and our general lack of funds, we decided not to shell out this year.

(The psychology of school portraits is interesting. You find yourself feeling mildly guilty for not handing over the wad of cash -- even for horrific, forehead-slapping, atrocities such as are represented above. You fear that you're somehow missing out on something in your child's life if you forego buying --- this, despite already having hundreds (or even thousands) of great personal photos of the subject already. Truly a deeply captive market has been cornered here, it would seem.)

Istra's pictures were not quite so bad, though she did don her usual painfully fake smile. Istra loves picture day. She loves to dress up. But whatever you do, do not ask her to smile! If you do, you get the awkwardly strained results like below. Or worse. Every time.

Actually, we were afraid for Istra's pictures for a different reason. That fateful morning, Istra had got all dressed up, and got her hair in place, and looked all ready for her pictures... but when we got to school we found her hair a bit of a mess, and a garish yellow plastic hair band lodged crookedly on her head. Cautiously we inquired: Uh... Istra... where did you get that hair band... and did you put it on before pictures??!!! Istra happily said she found it in her backpack, and yes indeed she had put it on herself for pictures. Wonderful. We cringed.

But, much to our surprise and relief, the garish thing didn't look too terribly bad in the pictures when we got them. At least it wasn't insanely crooked. It could have been much worse.

But thankfully (if I may say, without disappointing anyone), the distress of Emeth's pictures, spared us from accepting any of these mediocre and strained pictures of Istra, with her surprise golden halo.

The main thing I was concerned about, was that I wanted the class photos for the archives. I figured, if need be, we could borrow one of these from one of the other parents to scan, but it turns out all kids get a free copy of the class photo whether they order the individual photos or not. I guess this is part of the deal that gets the photography company in the door to fleece the little lambs' parents. Well, it works out in our favour this year! See the class photos below.

Part of my justification of not buying these pictures, for the archives, and for relatives, was that in looking at them I couldn't help but think it'd be hard for me, with all my photography gear and experience, to do worse. So, in a back-handed sort of way, I found these pictures somewhat motivational to think about trying my hand at some formal portraiture. I have done some experimental sessions, but it remains to be seen whether I do actually produce a decent portrait-of-the-year for the kids or not. (The main issue is the lighting set up... organization and time.)

Anyhow, without further ado, here are the coveted (quite nice) class photos for those interested.