Handsome and outdoorsy

Now that winter is here in earnest, the kids need serious bundling before going outside. I have no idea how Lauren accomplishes this on a daily basis all by herself, but I guess that's why we pay her the big bucks. Here are Isaac and his friend Nicole waiting patiently for the big kids to get dressed.



And here is his winning smile. People love this smile. Random strangers stop us on the street. We hear it all the time. I'm just trying to figure out a way to make a living off it.

Hanukkah day 8

And so, inspired by our success a few nights previous, I decided to make the leap and get a menorrah for our family (sponsored by a generous donor who shall remain nameless), so that we can light candles every night of Hanukkah from now on. But of course, I insisted on having something a bit modern and groovy and slightly unorthodox (not in a religious sense) and so I found the menorrah of my dreams (were I to dream of such things) hand made by an industrial designer in San Francisco who, ironically enough, is also married to a non-Jew. But if anyone needed proof that this was the right menorrah for us, instead of it arriving a few days after the last day of Hanukkah, as both the shipper and Fedex had predicted, the menorrah arrived at our doorstep on the morning of the eighth and final night of Hanukkah. A true Hanukkah miracle!



Daddy Draper showing his little girl how to light the candles. I suppose it will fall to me to show her how to leave cookies out for Santa.

Hanukkah visit from Grampa Shalom

In preparation for Hanukkah, Gabrielle and I made a donut-custard cake I have made in the past. It's simple: rip up a dozen donuts and then pour an egg and cream mixture over it, let it soak, then bake. Gabrielle is actually a real talent in the kitchen - she is the most consistent egg breaker I've ever known. She almost never gets any shell in, even though the process she uses is, um, unorthodox. She gently oh so gently taps the egg about a million times and then when she moans that it won't open, she kind of crushes it in her hands and *voila* out pops a perfect egg.



Isaac loves his gift: a box of brightly-coloured waxy sticks!



No Isaac - those are Hanukkah candles! Here, have this cool little sportscar instead...



So cool. And Gabrielle just loved her little monkey puppet theatre. Seriously well done on the gifts papa! (with just a weeeee bit of help from Marie, who was unfortunately too sick to travel).



She also loved everything else about Hanukkah, especially the potato latkes, which she globbed with sour cream and wasn't at all picky about. Nothing makes a jewish mama feel better than having her little girl utter those magic words: "more latke please."



She loved all the candles, needless to say. We spent alot of time convincing her that they were not to be blown out, and then she chastised my dad when he blew out the last millimeter of burning candle as he was trying to leave. A 3-year old never misses a beat.

First year stats: Little Mr. Average

At his first-year check-up, we found out that we have somehow managed to follow-up the World's Most Robust Girl with Mr. Middle-0f-the-Road, weighing in at 10.1 kgs (22.25 lbs), which puts him at the 45th percentile and his height puts him at the 55th percentile. His rather diminutive doctor tried to reassure me that he's above average for height, but c'mon, just barely!

Genetics is weird.

Isaac is 1!

Finally.

What can I say - it's been a crazy year. It sort of flew by and it sort of felt like every day dragged by as if coated in glue and molasses. But Isaac is one and is turning into quite a little character. My prediction is that he turns out to be a concentrated, determined guy who's a picky eater. Or he may not turn into my father - we can only wait and see.

;-)

Pictures from the little man's party:



"Happy Birfday to Baby Isaaaaaac....."



One thing he's not picky about is dessert. Sugar is yummy.



The proud grandmother, trying to keep Isaac from destroying the house...



Gabrielle's best bud, Logan, always up for cake.



Gabrielle and a variety of her former caregivers, Susie and Erin.



G and Susie. Those two smiled through the whole party.

And the school learnin' begins....

This exchange between Mark and Gabrielle last night:

Mark, reading the book about chipmunks: "They sleep all winter long! Isn't that crazy?"
Gabrielle: "Yeah, they hibernate!"

Apparently, she learned it at school. She's also developing a fairly impressive vocabulary of sign language. To what end, I don't know, but it's part of the curriculum. Who knew that going to nursery school could be so educational??

Cat in the hat and sock monkey for Halloween

Gabrielle was decidedly undecided in the weeks leading up to Halloween. When I first asked her what she wanted to be (a month ago) she blurted out "Cat in the Hat." Brilliant! I thought. Then she said "no, I want to be a monkey." OK, I thought, she's been a monkey the last two years, maybe this could be her 'thing.' "No! Cat in the hat!!" she insisted. "But sweetie..." "No!! I want to be a monkey!!" "OK, we'll get you a ..." "NO!! I want to be Cat in the HAT!!" she interrupted.

And on and on it went for the next three weeks, a constant moving target of monkeys, cats, dinosaurs, etc... at which point I put down my foot and told her she was going to be the Cat in the Hat and she absolutely and positively refused until I told her she didn't have to go out trick or treating and suddenly it didn't seem so bad.



It turned out pretty well! She's actually wearing a borrowed skunk costume, doctored up with a long black tail, borrowed Uncle Sam hat covered in white satin with red ribbon, and a big satin neck scarf. Logan and Declan came over before trick or treating and showed off their amazing costumes, including this cool fire truck costume for Logan with a lit-up spinning cherry on top.



Later on, Gabrielle's friend Celydia came over with her mom and they went trick or treating in our neighbourhood. Celydia is the tiniest little elephant with little eyeglasses - extremely cute with a huge personality.



And Isaac got to be a monkey after all - sock monkey, that is. He didn't really go for trick or treating, so he and I went to one house with G and then headed home to hand out candy (and sleep).



First house: our neighbours. He opens the door as a salty old sailor. Then he bends down, in character, and gives them a classic "aargh..." and Gabrielle dives off the porch and into Mark's waiting arms.



Now you see her, now you don't! Unfortunately, this set the tone for the rest of the night - she was a bit cautious in all the rest of her interactions...

Nonetheless, she came home with tons of candy, which we let her eat her fill of that night. And Mark was thrilled to find out we didn't get too many trick or treaters (guess why).

Snow day!

Halloween snow man = delicious.

Standing! (for 8 seconds or so)

with Gabrielle in the background playing her favourite game, "you can't do that - you're just a baby."

Giving Thanks in Lennoxille

The night before the big Thanksgiving roadtrip to Lennoxville, G and I busted out the pumpkin pie recipe and made an awesome pie. She couldn't stop eating the liquid pie leftover after pouring it into the shell, and couldn't wait to eat it once we got there. Final verdict: she loved it. Seven slices later... Leave some for us!





Window art - this came as a bit of a surprise to us when we arrived there - who knew why she was being so quiet on the car ride??



Little Ms. Punkin' Pie 2010.



Junior Ms. Punkin' Pie 2010.



Learning man stuff.



Learning girl stuff.



Cousins! Girls happy, boys worried.



I don't care what anyone says - a plastic bag IS a toy. The boys took awhile to warm up to each other but there was enough interaction to consider it a success. I've been saying that this year is the "year of the girls" but next year will be all about the boys. Did I mention we volunteered to host Christmas at our house this year? Bubble wrap the coffee table!!

New friends

Lauren has a friend, Lisa, who is also a nanny and has two children under her charge similar in age to Gabrielle and Isaac. G and Madeline are close friends, having already had some transformative life experiences together such as....



waiting for the bus!



getting face painted!



being licked by cows! Ewwwww.....

Dance like nobody's watching

Gabrielle's favourite for dancing: "Put on Arcade Fire!"

Erin and Sean

Sean: Can I hold Isaac now?
Erin: No! Keep practicing.

Wo-wen!

Also known as Lauren, our wonderful new nanny. Unfortunately, the one letter that challenges Gabrielle the most is L, so Wowen it is, at least for now.

The kids love her, the transition has been seamless, and every day there's a pile of new crafts waiting to be hung on the wall. We wuv Wowen.

On the rocks

While my dad and Marie were visiting, I thought they would enjoy seeing one of the 7 Wonders of Ottawa - the Balancing Rocks of the Ottawa River. It is actually a work by a local artist, who spends all of his time making little rock sculptures using the rocks found on site and nothing else. The rocks are precariously balanced and there are warnings everywhere saying not to touch the sculptures. Oops, I forgot Gabrielle can't read.



No matter, G loved jumping around and was mostly interested in splashing around with her rain gear.



Rocks shmocks, look at the little fish!



Papa in his classic Soviet-style pose for the camera: arms tight by the side, standing at attention, face showing no joy. And then 3 seconds later:



Reality strikes! :-)

Slight family resemblance?

In this picture my dad and Isaac's faces are at the same angle to the camera so you can see the identical shape of their face and ears. I did a *tiny* bit of subtle Photoshopping for enhancement purposes only.

And then there's Ben!

Hard to believe my little nephew Ben flew halfway across the country, unaccompanied, but there you go. I remember him as a screaming little baby. Things have improved alot since then - he did no screaming whatsoever in his three days with us - thanks Ben! We loved having him: Mark got to play some golf and I got to find out what the twelve-year olds are into these days.

My three handsome men:



And Ben, the fashion guy, picked a fantastic skirt for his little cousin. Did she love it? YESsss...



My mom came to visit her grandson from Halifax and grabbed a little nibble on Isaac's ear while she was here.



Oh look, he likes chewing on rib bones! Who knew?...



And my dad and Marie came to visit Ben as well. Of course you wouldn't know it, as I only have photos of my kids with them - I'm a very bad auntie, sorry Ben. Anywho... here's Isaac at the beginning of every visit with people he doesn't see often: who the hell are you?! He warmed up quickly, as he always does.

Drapereses gone wild!

Well sorta. We actually just took on the Presqu'ile Provincial Park for a couple of nights - not really the wilderness, but it did involve sleeping outdoors for two nights with only a high-tech six-man tent between us and the critters.

What I really love about camping is that Mark instantly transforms himself into Crocodile Dundee and remains so for the duration of the trip. Khaki shorts, shirt, hat, probably undies too.



Inside of aforementioned tent. Lots of room for all of us and Mark and I could easily stand up in the middle - a drastic change from the one-and-a-half man tent (creepy visual) we slept in across America. Isaac kept rolling off his foam into the extreme corner of the tent, his face mashed up against the walls of the thing, so I'd do a quick check a couple of times a night to see if he was breathing. In this photo, we are trying to convince the kids to take their naps:



Isaac got to play with his pal Sawyer, who is five weeks older than him. Play is a strong word. Shove things at each other and occasional hair-pulling (because Sawyer can't get him back) is a more apt description, I think.



Our campsite faced out onto this lovely view: Lake Ontario never looked more like an ocean.



Logan and Gabrielle gettin' funky with glowsticks...



Let's all look out at the waves and contemplate the nature of reality. Or at least what we're going to have for lunch.



The day we were leaving, we managed to get Isaac down for his morning nap. Oh so very cozy - man, I wish I could sleep like that.



Angie and her little man Declan.