Christmas Traditions

Hello, blogging buddies. Greg and I were talking about fun family traditions and just thought that I should tap into this whole computer wealth of knowledge. I'm assuming you know me pretty well so your responses can be catered to more of what you know I would like and not think too cheesy. If you mention reading something, it would be great to reference titles because I'm interested in either good Christmas books or stories that I wouldn't mind re-reading year after year albeit spiritual or fun.

Thank you for helping and hopefully the comments will help you with some new ideas too.

We don't have many traditions yet (thus the shout out for ideas) but for breakfast on Christmas, I've made gingerbread waffles now for 2 years. Then you put applesauce and whipped cream on top. It is delicious. Here is the link to the recipe and if you scroll down you'll see my comment on the website about it. We make them in a belgium waffle iron but don't fill it quite all the way so when the waffles press out the result looks like a snowflake so we call them "Snowflake Waffles".

My friend Rena gave me a good one today. She stole it from a magazine. You do a Christmas book advent and wrap the books and put them under the tree and then read one Christmas book a night. She just gets the books from the library since you can check each out for like 3 weeks but is also filling her library with books she'd like to keep forever.

(Adding another one so my sister will have to share a different idea)
My sister lets each child buy a new Christmas ornament each year to add to their personal collection. The ornament is something that represents the child's interest/personality. Then when they are grown up, they will have ornaments to take with them to put on their family's tree.

Ned Needlelander II

Try as we might we couldn't get Chloe to agree to a different name for our Christmas tree this year. Our tree last year was Ned Needlelander--partly in honor the 3 Amigos and partly due to the amount of needles that landed each day. This tree hasn't been losing needles like that but nevertheless, he's "Ned". We thought this was one of the major advantages of getting a real tree because every year it is different. Maybe next year we'll have a girl tree. You've got to love IKEA. Where else can you buy a real tree for $20 that is still alive that is. It is pretty much the luck of the draw when you go because all the trees are bound in twine and all look the same. Our new method this year was running our fingers down the branches to see how many needles initially fall off. It was my theory that this would prove just how fresh the tree is.

Chloe and Daddy did the leg work while me and Tats waited for them. There were a few too many tree obstacles for the stroller.
Here's the winner. See how much better he looks than all the rest of the trees? That's what Chloe kept telling me.



Here we are all together. This nice foreign gentleman took the shot. I don't think he noticed that Tati was in there.

It was a super fun night and we had a great time decorating the tree the following morning.
There really is nothing better than watching Chloe decorate so meticulously. It's nice to see our tree evolving. When we first got married, we made ornaments: bows- out of a roll of velvet ribbon and some icicles out of sparkly pipe-cleaners. Although they look a little ghetto now all these years later, we just don't have the heart to get rid of them.

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.