Smallville, Canada

I've been meaning to blog about this but I keep forgetting. So Greg sent me this video of a meteor shower that took place last week. Apparently it hit down close to my city and we were supposed to have felt a little bump (which I'm immuned to having grown up in CA) and hear a sonic boom. We live next to a pretty busy road so we didn't really hear any of it though.

Meteor rocks are supposed to instill people around with special powers (according to Smallville). I'd say it is true because boy does Tati have a talent for mega pooping but then she had that power before the meteor. We'll see what happens. I'll let you know what special powers emerge around here. Until then though, check out this video link. It is pretty crazy looking. Does that mean I'll have to keep my eyes out for Tom Welling? :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

These are some gourd mermaids. Yeah, a bead bra on a squash. And a mini pumpkin turkey. You make feathers out of paper and then tape them to toothpicks and then stick the toothpicks into the squash. I mean sure, I come up with these ideas but girlfriend takes them to a new level all her own.

So Canada Thanksgiving was back on October. Some nice people from the country of Turkey invited us over for dinner funny enough. But you all know we love to keep it real so we had Thanksgiving #2-American Style with all you alls. We outsmarted Canada this year though and bought our supplies in October when they were cheap and when they were available. Cranberries always go so fast and I love them in pretty much everything you could bake them in. I also love cranberry sauce but I've only ever had the canned kind when you slice it and make a PacMan face out of it (was that only in my family?). This year I made some from scratch and it was delish. It was better the second day though. The first day it tasted a little too much like Christmas. Anyway, after narrowly escaping my turkey catastrophe when all the giblets were frozen inside the bird and the clock was ticking, all ended up on time and delicious. I did question whether or not I'd be able to enjoy the bird after the giblet incident but apparently I recover quicker when I'm starving. Anyway, here are some pics to enjoy.

Tati Before:
(This girl can EAT! That is a full tray. That's a lot of food! She easily out ate her big sis.)

Tati During:

Tati After:

Yeah, that's right, she ate it all!!! She is going to eat us out of house and home.

Daddy After:
(We all know that feeling.)

Didn't get much rest though. These girls love him sooooo much!

Family traditions? Well, we always do thankful slips (Chloe told me stuff to write down for Tati like, "I'm thankful for my silly big sis.") and we usually put them in a bag and then read them on Thanksgiving. This year we decided to hang them on the wall. I liked it a lot better this way because we were able to see the gratitude all month long. It ended up filling almost the whole wall, my camera just doesn't have wide lens.
We always have some Martinelli's. This year we drank out of these little crystal goblet things my parents gave us. It's fun making toasts and this year it was really fun to see Tats take a sip. I wish we could've caught it on camera but sadly our camera battery ran out during dinner. Also, this year we dressed up for dinner which was really fun. It made everything just seem more festive and special.

It has been a little weird living here because the Christmas decore comes out everywhere in stores and stuff right after Halloween. It kind of throws your holiday calendar off a bit--but then again so does the weather. I've had fall leaves hanging for some of the Thanksgiving decore and the leaves on our trees have been long gone for weeks. We're excited to officially have the "ok" to start our Christmas decorating.

The Blog Fairy

Have you been enjoying my new header and new background? Do you wish you could have a cute header--something personal for your fam or something original and different for the holidays? So my childhood friend, Emily has started a new website. Here's a picture of us from back in the day!

(Aren't we cute. We're tidepooling. Notice my rolled socks. Greg says I look exactly the same. Do I?)

It is called, "The Blog Fairy". She has some free holiday backgrounds (for now and more to come later I'm sure) and also does custom headers or backgrounds. Right now she's doing a give-away for a free head-to- toe blog makeover. The deadline is Dec. 1 so go to her blog and tell her you want to be in the contest. For those of you still set to "minima", this may be that chance you've been waiting for. Anyway, she's a super great girl so spread the word to all your blogging friends and have them tell all their blogging friends and so forth.

Mom, what's up with your outfits?

What? We match?

No, that's not it. You guys look like Target.
(Photo courtesy of Chloe.)

We do look like we work at Target, don't we? How sad, but there is no Target in Canada. We're looking forward to Christmas in Oregon where I'm sure we'll go to Target a coo-koo amount of times and our relatives will totally not understand our thrill but for those of you already on the Target train (namely Rebecca and Emily), don't you feel my pain?

(disclaimer: After seeing myself in this lovely shot, I took my hair down. A little too Tori Spelling reality show, right? It always seems like a good idea to mix it up and do a new hair do but then I feel like I look like either a hick or trying to look too young for my age.)

Canadian Papoose

When is the last time you heard the word "papoose"? For some reason it seems like I said it a lot when I was a kid. Can't totally recall the "why" part of that. Maybe it had something to do with watching "Paddle to the Sea" so many times.

Anyway, this is my Canadian Papoose Car Baby. I never knew these things existed before. This girl offered to let us borrow it for the winter. They are so cool. It is like a carseat sleeping bag.

It even has a flap to cover their faces for the super windchill.

I love it because you can just put like one cozy blanket inside on the kid and then you're done. You don't have to worry about the bulkie blankets getting in the way of the seatbelt in the car or worry about any blankets falling down.

This is an idea I could've come up with but somebody beat me. It is made my Jolly Jumper (Cuddle Bag) in case you want one.

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.