Over the holidays, we got to spend quality time with family.
Livia – our new niece
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Noah – Still little but seems big now compared to his baby sister, Livia.
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Granddaughters learning the tricks of the trade while preparing turkey dinner.
Ninnie holding her youngest great-grandchild.
Learning violin from Marlee, the kids’ great-aunt.
Jammin’ together
Zaidie with all his grandkids
We went dogsledding one afternoon in Quebec.
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The experience began with the sound of the dogs barking as they begged to be chosen to pull the sleds. We were involved with putting together the dogsled teams and bringing the dogs out to be attached to the sleds.
I was selected to bring out the exceptionally strong dogs. Here I am pretending to be in control while I get dragged along.
Nothing gets the heart pumping more than to be strapped snuggly into a dog sled being whisked away by 6 truly excited canines who live to run.
Mélanie in the passenger seat below. She normally likes to be in the driver seat for gasoline-powered vehicles but when it comes to dogs, she prefers that I take the helm.
Léah and Naimah wrapped up tight.
Gabriel and Sabine, warm and cozy in their sled.
The athletes
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Frette = freezing cold
The weather has been relatively mild in Quebec for the last few weeks. However, it did drop down to –15 Celsius one day and with the winds, it felt like –25 Celsius. Of course, that didn’t stop the kids from playing outside.
Luckily, Naimah’s tongue didn’t stick.
The Pepsi commercial that coined the phrase in the title of this blog post:
Jingle Bell Run at school
Gingerbread houses (more icing on hands and in mouth than used on construction)
Lighting Hanukkah candles
Painting dreidels  |
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Santa Baby
Part 1 of the two-part finale of the enormously popular Harry Potter films opens in theaters today.
Léah as Hermione, the female protagonist in the series:
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Gabriel has never seen either of the “Iron Man” movies. But, the idea behind Iron Man is very appealing to a young boy - with enough smarts and resources, someone can build a technologically advanced suit of armour and become a superhero.
Earlier this year, Gabriel had stated that he wanted to be Iron Man for Halloween. I told him that we should build a suit rather than buy one and for the last few months, that has been our project together.
We used recycled plastic from milk and orange juice jugs for the panels of the armour, and the housing for the chest-mounted "uni-beam" was fabricated from a yogurt container. It took us weeks to collect enough materials for the suit.
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We “sewed” the panels together using cable ties and used many coats of spray paint.
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For the defining trait of Iron Man’s “uni-beam” light, we installed a camping headlamp in the chest piece running on rechargeable “AA” batteries. (This doubled as Gabriel’s flashlight for trick-or-treating.)
“Iron Gabriel” all suited-up and ready for some heroic candy gathering for Halloween:
