New Year's I

Happy 2009 everybody!

We just had our cheese fondue and the kids are playing while we kill time and burn calories before the chocolate fondue. (This year's theme is "diabetes".)

I just wanted to mention a nice observation about Oscar. He refers to himself as "bébé". He also makes little three word sentences. Just now, Emmanuelle held onto his car (auto) for him so that he could climb up on the couch. Oscar didn't understand that she was helping him, and demanded his car back: "No 'to bébé". Funny little guy.

The world as seen by Emmanuelle.

A bit of cold hard truth for a lot of misguided parents: Many of you think that your kid is the most talented in the world, particularly in the art department. Here's a flash: You're wrong. Just look at the tormented expression on Emma's face. That's an artist through and through. (note that this photo is pre-chin injury). Emma has been wowwing us with her many attributes, not least of which is her keen eye for detail. She does have the annoying habit of producing her best works in transient media (magnadoodle, bathtub crayons, ketchup) and just scribbling when it comes to pen and paper, but fortunately we've photographed a few examples for posterity.

(The wet hair was because of a bit of a bang touchup.)

Oscar. Note the "O"

Emmanuelle post-injury. The large round thing below the mouth is her cut. Vertical lines below eyes are tears, but note that she's still smiling. A couple of the scribbles were Oscar's vandalism.

Papa. The fuzz all the way around represents my beard. For some reason I wasn't wearing my glasses.

A rabbit.

Back home in a hurry

Cast your minds back about 2 years. Emmanuelle and Annick went to Quebec on their visit to Canada (I was still in Munich at the time.) Emma got a nasty bug and ended up on an IV in a Quebec city hospital. She kept her smile, though.


On this trip, Emma can be excused for not smiling quite as widely. She face-planted against a radiator in the hotel room. As we passed the front desk, Emma screaming and me clutching her bloody chin, I announced to the clerk, "we're stealing a washcloth." We had to make a mad dash for the ER, where they glued her chin back together. I think her teeth kind of got mashed around a bit, too, but they seem to be working their way back into place. Once we were there, Emmanuelle pretty much kept her composure, except when the nurse gave her a sucker at the end. Bad idea. It irritated the cuts inside her mouth (no surprise there), and set Oscar off crying because he didn't have one. (It ended up in the garbage)

Once that was done with, we grabbed a milkshake at McDonald's for Emma (soft food for a couple of days) then headed home a day earlier than planned to see if Santa had been there. Happily, he had, which probably helped keep Emmanuelle's mind off her wound. Since we hadn't planned on spending Christmas day in Montreal, we didn't have anything planned. It was macaroni and cheese for supper.

Hanging one leg out of the car helps in cornering.

Christmas in Quebec, part I

We drove up to Quebec city on the 24th. First of all, all the best for the holidays and the new year. Feed the children, end poverty, world peace, yadda yadda. Now that that's out of the way, can I mention how much the infrastructure in this province sucks? In previous trips to QC I've noted that people drive 130 but that it's bumper to bumper the whole way. In other words, if you enforced a speed limit, there would be some kind of huge traffic jam in both Montreal and Quebec, because there are not enough lanes of highway linking the two cities.
This time, the speed limit was enforced by a threat of freezing rain. We encountered our first traffic jam as soon as we merged onto the 20. (It consisted of two cars in the ditch, one on its roof). That jam was followed by about three others, and the upshot was that a 2 1/2 hour drive took us more than five.

Once we got there, the Christmas eve supper went off without a hitch. Christmas for the kids had started early when we opened the DVD player from one set of grandparents before getting into the car. (What a convenient coincidence...). It continued at the hotel when the kids got their next set of presents from Denis and France. After relaxing for an hour or so, we moved on to Uncle Jocelyn's where the turkey dinner was about to start.

Our little cannibal.

Uncle Michel may look menacing (when he tries) but we know he's a softy.

On the lookout for Santa

"Remind me again what the difference between reindeer and caribou is..."

Just about present time, and Emma is running around with excitement. Note how she leads with her chin...

Here's Michel doing the honours.

Our host, Jocelyn. I think you can see a really handsome bloke in his lens reflection.

Emma has a dog named Mao and two cabbage patch kids named Condi and Cheney. She now has a stuffed dog named Obama.

Have these older cousins forgotten their Christmases past? I can tell you that Santa hasn't...

Oscar finally got the hang of opening presents.

What do you do when you get new pyjamas for Christmas?

You put them on, of course!

Dora!
Oscar is more than a little tired. Just about time to go.

A big round of hugs.

Thanks everyone for a nice Christmas eve!

Kefir monster!

Given how much he likes this stuff, this may not be our first post on Oscar's appreciation for kefir.

A return to blogging

Happy to see us again?

If you think my blog maintenance leaves a little to be desired, you probably haven't seen my Christmas card performance. The first batch were mailed on the 24th.
Let's devote the first post to Christmas 2008, though it won't be the only post on this subject, as ours was more eventful than we would have hoped.

Oscar looks on as Emma unwraps the DVD player from Grandma and Grandpa Scrivens.

What would Christmas be without cinnamon buns? Well, probably it would be like 99% of other people's Christmases. Anyhoo, please don't photograph me in longjohns.

Christmas cards are going to be late this year

Well, I'm sorry to say, but as you can tell from the sorry state of our blog, Christmas cards are going to be late this year. It's a whole combination of things. Among others, I was hoping for a little early snow, but that didn't happen. We were working on a publication at work, and that took up a lot of time, too. You know, general this and that. Anyhoo, at least here's a sneak preview of some of the photos.