Merry (belated) Christmas everyone!

We've been up north celebrating with my family and are now back in Calgary getting ready for a New Years bash at our house. I was lazy and didn't take many pictures at Christmas (I'll steal some later from my sister-in-law ;) but here's a fun shot from Zoolights here in Calgary before we left. We've gone every Christmas since we've moved here (3!), and with the same friends, so I guess we are starting to form some Calgary traditions. It was slightly chilly but the snow was so beautiful and the girls were having the time of their lives. I don't think I've ever seen Elianne so excited, and she had to run up and touch nearly every set of lights that were in a shape that caught her eye (ooh, giraffes! oooh, flamingos!). Only Mehdi, the African of the family, was suffering in the cold...so the girls and I bought him the warmest pair of mittens we could find for Christmas. There will, after all, be more of these outings to come.

It's cold and blowing outside and we're not sure we'll ever get our cars out of the giant drift in our driveway, but the girls don't seem bothered by a day stuck inside. Mehdi and I are both tackling the piles of marking we have to get done for our classes, but the girls are happily entertaining themselves with a game of "Native American ". (See costumes below; one pair of Chinese pajamas, one jerba from Dubai.) As I write this, they've moved on to creating a realistic-looking firepit in the teepee they've constructed out of chairs and blankets in the dining room.

Their little adventure had me reminiscing about Anissa's earlier obsession with Native Americans back when we lived in New Hampshire. Her first month of preschool, she started asking me odd questions like,"Do Americans drive cars?" and it had me wondering whether Mehdi and I were spending too much time analyzing the American/versus Canadian way of life. That is, until we realized she was asking about the Native Americans of long-ago that they were studying at school. (Just now I heard Elianne declaring, "I am American!" to which I had to agree that, yes, she is indeed!)

Notice anything off with Anissa's smile? Her two front teeth have been loose for weeks now and keep moving closer into the middle, sideways, in all kinds of crazy directions, but refuse to fall out. I can't help cracking up every time she greets me with one of her kooky grins.

Oh, my girls, my sweet little girls. I must kiss them a zillion times a day. Someday they won't put up with it anymore, so I'm sneaking in as many as I can right now!

Way back I-don't-remember-when, maybe even right after last Halloween, Anissa decided she wanted to be a dolphin for Halloween this year. My Dad always helped me assemble my Halloween outfits as a kid, and we came up with some pretty awesome costumes: Erik the Red, with real fur garments and a Viking helmet; a mad trapper (reused those furs!); Miss Piggy in a sequined dress. I have fond memories of the time we spent together building those out of whatever we had at home, so I thought I would try my hand at making a dolphin costume.

(Okay, I confess...I first did a few checks of local thrift stores in case I would stumble across a more convenient option. I also searched online and found a $1600 mascot costume. Hmmm...)

I don't sew and don't have a sewing machine, but I found a few ideas online and melded them together to make my own plan. Anissa helped me pick out the felt and I set off on a hot-glue-gunning adventure. Earlier last week, Elianne watched Anissa try her costume on and declared that she no longer wanted to be a princess. She wanted to be a dolphin too. Back to the fabric store, but there was bad news: the grey felt was sold out. So I had to buy the expensive, 3 times the price per meter, heavy duty felt in order to make a second dolphin. The next day, Elianne changed her mind yet again (upon receiving a horse costume from friends) and we now have one and a half dolphin costumes.

Fast forward to Halloween night. I was curious what Elianne would decide to wear ("Please, don't say you want to be a dolphin," I mentally pleaded, as the hot-glue gun was not even plugged in to finish the job). To my surprise, she announced she wanted to be Dora. This is why, in the photo above, she just looks like a regular girl out gathering candy. There was no time to throw together a freakishly-large brown bob wig, and there was no way I was cutting her hair. Oh, and by the way, the photo doesn't do my dolphin justice. It looks much better from the side ;)