family

Charlotte the chef

While excavating the family dumping ground (otherwise known as my desk) the other day, I came across the following two recipes written by Charlotte sometime last year. I wish I could be more precise as to the dates these were written, but sadly I didn’t scrawl the dates on the backs as I usually try to do.  Must have been out clubbing seals or raiding tourist sailboats on those days.

Like the best archaeologists, however, I’m able to guesstimate a time frame based on the artifacts found immediately above and below the recipes, which is corroborated by what I already know about the development of communications at that time  (i.e. Charlotte’s handwriting and spelling). It’s all very complicated.

Outmeal Recipe

1. Pour in outmeal

2. Pour in a lot of water

3. Put in cinnomon

4. Put in brown suger

5. Put it in microwave for 15 sec

6. Put on raisons

7. Put in a bit of milk

8. And eat it

Smelling good! Thumps up!

Popcorn recipe

1. get out ingreddeints. butter and popcorn nuts.

2. get out other stuff        bowl, popcorn pumper.

3. put popcorn nuts into popcorn pumper.

4. start pumping the popcorn

5. when it’s ready heat butter and pour it in

6. eat it or put in bags For shcool.

Considering Charlotte’s recipes already surpass some of those by the best-known television chefs  (see Rachael’s Ray’s Late Night Bacon recipe and Paula Deen’s English Peas recipe on the Food Network), I predict she’ll be a huge star in the celebrity chef world in another twenty years. Guess I’d better start being nice to her.

reasons to love and fear Foster

After supper the other day, Foster took me aside and said, “I need to get a job. How do I get a job?”

“Why do you need a job?” I asked.

“Because I need some money.”

“Why do you need money?”

“Because there’s a Lego man Charlotte really wants and I want to buy it for her.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And I need two dollars so I can go to that machine in the mall, the one where you use a claw to pick up a toy, and try to get the blue bear for Charlotte. She really, really wants that blue bear.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can do,” I said and thought, awwww, quit breaking my heart, kid. Isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard? How many ten-year-old boys do you know who spend their time daydreaming about what to buy their little sisters?

The next day, a Body Shop order arrived for me and included in the box were three little manicure sets – one for each kid. (They were marked down to $2 – go check it out if you need a manicure kit because there might be some left.) Inside each kit is a pair of nail scissors, nail clippers and a metal nail file.

Within a minute of receiving his, Foster held up the pieces one at a time to show me. “Look, Mom. The clippers are for snapping the lock on the gate, the scissors are for cutting the phone lines, and the file is for stabbing somebody! It’s The Ultimate Murder Kit!”

Uh, okay.

Sweet, loving, considerate, homicidal freak.

See this innocent little face?

If he asks for a two dollar loan, I’d just give it to him.

 

insert your own snow pun

Although yesterday’s predicted snowpocalypse wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped, I’m not going to be one of those people who sneer, “Duh, it’s Canada. It snows. Get over it,” because I understand the advance buzz about these storms makes life a little more exciting and I’m all for that.

We weren’t buried alive in snow, but we did receive a fair amount – I’d guess between a foot and a foot and a half or whatever that is in metric. (Must remember to study up on the metric system soon because I “teach” it to the kids next month. Maybe they’ll know it and can teach me.) Anyway, I can’t gauge exactly how much snow fell because I’m doing all my guesstimating from inside where it’s warm and dry and requires slightly less shovelling.

Exhibit A: snow drift on the deck, taken during the storm yesterday afternoon –

 The table on the right that’s almost covered in snow is quite a tall table, so I’d guess the drift is a good two and a half feet, maybe three feet there. No, I will not go measure it.

Exhibit B – snow drift at front door, taken this morning –

Note the impression of the door panels in the compressed snow. Very classy.

Exhibit C: Murray met by wall of snow at back door, taken this morning –

Poor guy. Nowhere to look but up.

product shown is not actual size

The late January sun slices into the kitchen at just the right angle to make a foot wide sunbathing area for the dogs, which they politely share:

 It doesn’t last long so they soak it up while they can.

While I was transferring that photo from the camera to my computer, I came across this unexplained bit of weirdness:

I don’t know what it is exactly, who made it or who took the picture, but I’m guessing it’s candy. Some kind of candy sculpture. I shudder to think about what might be holding the pieces together.

This photo is what I get for leaving the camera within reach of the short people.

the most (fill in the blank) time of year

As the kids get older, I find Christmas more and more enjoyable with every passing year. Sure, babies and toddlers are cute and it’s fun to dress them up and watch them scream their guts out on Santa’s knee, but they’re also needy and irritable and poop a lot, none of which are qualities I purposely seek out in friends and companions. This pre-teen age, however, is perfect. They aren’t too jaded or “cool” to be excited about Christmas, they hide themselves away for hours before Christmas to make gifts for everyone and, most importantly, they no longer beg for big, noisy, obnoxious, battery-devouring toys that make me want to hurl them (the toys, not the kids) into the driveway and back over them. Repeatedly.

No, now they want books and clothes and make-up and technology. They want to walk into Future Shop and take one of everything, essentially. Which would be expensive, but still better than having a house that looks like a Toys R Us.

Here are the young revellers, modelling t-shirts and a new tiger hat:

 And here’s Foster, ever-so-slightly pleased with his new Wii game:

And Charlotte (for whom every day is Hallowe’en), cuddled up with Glen in a new fuzzy blanket:

And Anna, trying to put on Glen’s new parka:

See that poor dog? That right there is the definition of resignation. Look at his limp little limbs. Why bother struggling? Just let the giant, pink, tiger-headed girl have her way and eventually she’ll get distracted and move on to something else. Fortunately, he received a ton of new toys and treats to make up for the humiliation.

My birthday, on the other hand, never seems to become more enjoyable. I turned 39 (shriek! how can this be?) on December 28 and my lovely family took me out for Chinese food before bribing me with gifts to continue doing their laundry for another year, then presented me with this:

Cupcakes decorated to look like balls of yarn. How cute is that?