Science Padawan

I realized the science force was great with Chloe one day as I was channel surfing. I happened upon a Discovery Channel special that was talking about mega ice dams and catastrophic floods in Washington, Idaho and Montana millions of years ago. After a few minutes of intense listening and scrutiny I suddenly became aware of another person in the room. Chloe was sitting in the love seat next to me. In an effort show some mercy I asked her if the show was boring and if she wanted to watch "kid tv" or the Food Network. "No, Daddy," she replied without breaking eye contact with the tv, "I like this show." As pride swelled deep within me I realized my dreams of one day having my very own budding science padawan were coming true.

Well, this past weekend was yet another opportunity for Chloe to wax strong in the Jedi Scientist ways. The University of Alberta Earth Science museums put on a "Science Saturday" for kids. Basically take all the people at Disneyland, stuff them into the halls and rooms of a single university building, then, in the pore spaces between people stuff tables with activities to teach kids about science: i.e. fossil rubbing, fossil casting in clay, origami crystals, bug stuff and (my favorite of course) rock/meteorite/mineral activities.

She loved it. I was especially proud of how interested in the minerals and rocks she was.
The volunteers working the tables would ask her questions to get her to think about stuff like "Where do meteorites come from" and she would sit, thinking and respond "They are like little planets that fall out of space, like shooting stars." Yeah, she's only 4, not bad.

My Yogis

Maybe this is a normal, documentable step in the baby process but I'd like to think my kids are extra special and they just naturally have exercising tendencies. It will be like, "crawl, crawl, crawl (pause, pause), yoga pose, (hold, hold), crawl, crawl, crawl". It's very cute. What's this pose called again? Help me out Amber.

Here's Chloe from back in the day:

And here is my new Yogi. This fool can hold the pose FOREVER! Glad they don't have my abs.


I'm just waiting for her to start throwing down some push ups. She's practically on her way already.

Emergency Substitutions

I just wanted to share my knowledge here. Something cool I learned. I wanted to make a cake but I had no eggs, it was too cold outside and I really didn't want to load my kids into the car, out of the car, into the stroller (Tats), out of the stroller, into the car, out of the car and home just for a measley pack of eggs. But I really wanted to make this cake and the recipe definitely said, "2 Eggs". What's a girl with a craving to do? So I took my problem to the internet and after reading many stupid ideas (like if I had "egg substitute" or "liquid egg" do you think I'd be googling this question to begin with?), I stumbled upon a real genius one.

1 egg= 2 T. of mayo

Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy but it made sense to me. And it made WAY more sense than the one that said to substitute corn starch. Huh?

Anyway, you wouldn't even know the cake wasn't the original recipe. In fact, dare I say the cake turned out even more delicious. Really moist. So if you're in a bind, do it, it works. I don't know how true with substitution would be for everything but at least for cakes it passed.

FYI, my favorite kind of egg:

First Snow

Well it happened. It didn't last very long but it happened. It is funny because I swear if we let her, Chloe would try and live off eating just ice and in this case snow. She goes outside to "play" in the snow and then all she does it eat the snow. It has been that way since her first snowball. And no matter how cold it is outside or how much she has eaten, she still wants to eat more.
Tati didn't know what to think. She was just mad that we had to put so many clothes on her and then she couldn't really move around so she was bugged by that too. But she sure was cute.

Since we were in the backyard, I just loaded her up in Chloe's car seat so she could see us. She got sick of being held.
It didn't last very long though because it wasn't super freezing but it was perfect for making a snowman.

Election 2008

I've been explaining to Chloe today about the elections in the U.S. and what voting is and why it is so important and how we always want people to vote for good things and so on. So tonight before we had our night time prayer I asked her to please remember the voters just like we've been talking about all day. Here's how it went:
"Heavenly Father, please bless the motors tonight that are motoring in the world and that they'll motor really good and choose good decisions to choose."

It wasn't really what I expected her to say but it was so sincere. We'll find out soon if it worked. So all you back in the mother land, hope you all motored today.

Let's Get Physical-Part 2

This is Chloe in all her glory. She really is a great dancer. I'd like to think she got it from me but whatever. Her Daddy taught her the "robot" but the "hula hoop" was all her. Enjoy.

Metamorphosis

This is the first time we've ever done theme costumes. Hopefully it is obvious what we are. If not, Tatiana is a catepillar, Chloe is a butterfly, Greg is the cocoon and I'm a butterfly catcher. Originally I was supposed to be the cocoon because I'm always freezing and Halloween night was like 35 degrees or something. Brrr. But the bag was too long and I needed to have some arms or else I was going to go coo-koo. Chloe dresses up every day so Halloween loses a little bit of its thrill. Anyway, this ensemble was just for a quick neighborhood party. I put Chloe in several layers underneath and thought she'd be ok but by the end of an hour, she was shivering and kept telling me how freezing she was. She was also getting a little bugged because everybody was calling her a bee. She's like, "Mommy, why do they all think I'm a bee when a bee has a stripey body?" All I could think to say was, "Well sweetie, sometimes people are dumb." There was a trunk or treat portion so I thought I'd include this shot of Greg and Tati INSIDE the trunk of "Igor", our new car from my Russian grandpa. We thought the name appropriate considering. It is seriously one of the biggest trunks I have ever seen. We love it.
For Halloween night, we didn't want to take any chances with being cold so dressed Tati up in a winter outfit with a hat that had ears and Chloe up in her snow pants and jacket with her butterfly wings on top. We called her a "Snow Butterfly". Yeah, it was sorta lame but what else could we do? Everybody else here wears those furry animal costumes with tons of layers underneath. I think back fondly on my California youth when I could be a princess and just wear my gown without tons of layers. Oh well. We did make out like bandits with the candy. Is it just me or are we the only ones who don't walk around with another bag for our baby's candy. I mean, come on, is she really the one who is going to eat it? I was surprised when some people specifically said, "And for the baby?" I did score a few treats for the parents from some really nice old people who said the parents need a treat too. (Don't they know who does the candy sorting later?) Oh and one of our favorite costumes of the night was a little boy around Chloe's age who was dressed as a muscley Superman but had a Transformers head. It is the boy version equivalent of when she was a fairy/princess/ballerina.


So time to vote. Which school of thought do you prefer for your kids and their Halloween booty: ration the candy or binge?

Also, what is your favorite costume from your youth?

I think mine was a princess. My mom made me this rad dress, crown and wand. It was this cool, shimmery, rainbowy purple material. I think I wore it for like 3 years.