Well, another 20+ cms of snow today. I just spent nearly two hours on the driveway. To be honest, I love all this snow. Last winter was no good, but this winter has more than made up for it and there is still nearly half to go! I put together this video of snow, which I think turned out rather well due mostly to Nick Cave's excellent Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow. Press play if you want to see a lot of snow.

Karolina has a toy Santa that sings and dances. Robert also dances, as you can see.

Christmas Eve this year was celebrated in Sherbrooke, about an hour and a half east of Montreal near Magog. We recently met a Polish family, Artur, Beata and little Karolina, which moved there just a few months ago. Artur has a post-doctoral position at the University of Sherbrooke working on top secret nanotechnology to efficiently harvest solar energy for use in satellites (really!).

We arrived about noon on December 23rd with the whole family including dogs. First thing was to have a cup of tea and then head out for a dog walk before daylight ran out. Parc du Mont-Bellevue is a large natural area bordering the University. A loop about 5km long provided us a couple of hours worth of dog sledding, luge practice, canon balls into the snow and plenty of go-fetch.

Upon returning it was time to get to work with preparing the next day's feast. The responsibilities were divided as follows:

• Beata: Dough for perogies, soups, cakes
• Artur: Cooked fish, helped with home-made noodles.
• Bogusia: Perogy stuffing and herring.
• Alex: Stuffed buns

This year I figured out that making the bun-stuffing a day early was what I was missing from my dad's recipe. Beata made perfect borsch and the best home-made noodles, but unluckily her cakes fell down every time.

Jakub and Robert loved to play with their new two year old friend Karolina. Karolina's mother talked to her all the time and she picked up cute comments that didn't sound like they should come from a toddler: "Oh how wet the dogs are." "Oh what a huge meal". "Oh what a big racket." She's a delightful and intelligent little girl.

Robert loved all the musical toys in the house, especially the dancing santa. He danced with Mr Clause for hours. During the rare times that santa got boring there was always the house with all the real-life sound effects.

Dec 24 was all about finishing the food and then eating it. Everyone was pretty tired for some reason and we were moving a little slower than the day before. When the kids had their nap we also wrapped all the presents to put under the tree,

Another Polish couple and their boy came over for dinner. They brought desert including a delicious "Poppies and Macaroni", which was some kind of a sweet layered construction topped with whipped cream. I think I'll try to recreate it in the future. My aunts deserts from the Calgary Christmases were still king in my opinion, but these were pretty yummy.

We quickly gave up trying to make a dent in the food. I am not exagerating when I say that after everyone had gorged the serving plates looked practically as full as when they started. They must have had leftovers for weeks.

Then came presents, which just turned into a crazy free-for-all. There were two remote controlled cars. The fathers tried to handle the remotes, but the kids handled the cars directly.

All in all a great Christmas for two families alone in Quebec. I would go for it again next year!

Melanie and Joel got Jakub a very excellent Christmas present this year: A Build-a-Bear! They gave him a gift certificate and took him through the store to select his own custom bear skin and clothing. There was so much selection! He wanted to go for a dinosaur theme first, then he got fixated on pink dancing shoes, until finally he saw the butterfly wings that he settled on. The bear even came in a nice keeper-box, which made a perfect cocoon.

For the next few days Jakub and the bear were inseparable. This video is Jakub showing off his bear and giving a big Thank You to Melanie and Joel.

Today is the second day this month Montreal got a huge snow storm. The first day was a Monday (a few weeks ago), and hence school was cancelled - yey, no work! Today is probably worse - they're predicting 40cm of snow. I've decided to stay at home all day, and just have an awesome relaxing day (today's Sunday). I hope they'll cancel school again tomorrow, so I can have another day off.

Robert and Jakub are enjoying the free, non-rushing, no-errands atmosphere. We did some fun cooking / baking / decorating / puzzling this morning. Kubus and Robert were making forts and caves out of blankets all day. We were looking at the constant snow falling outside, and we started a nice hot fire in our fireplace. Now Robert is having an afternoon nap while Kubus is making up a story with all his little figurenes and cars.

I love our home. I love winter in Eastern Canada. I love snow days.

Christmas is coming, and we are having fun preparing. A few weeks ago, my Mom came from Calgary to visit, and we had an early Christmas feast with her (as she's going to Australia for two months, and we won't see her over the holidays). With her, we went to the Santa Clause parade here in Montreal, to start of the holiday season.

Last week we got our Christmas tree (from IKEA - $20 and then we got a $20 gift certificate, so it's like getting the tree fro free). Also we took out our outside Christmas lights and Kubus helped me with their arrangement. Last year we had blue lights hanging in a tree outside, but in the spring, squirrels thought the lights were nuts, and bit through the cord, taking them away. We still have them up there, but the cord cannot be connected to an electrical switch anymore. I still can't believe the amount of wildlife around in our neighbourhood...

Later that week, I wanted to make a gingerbread house with the kids, but I was too cheap to buy a kit. So instead we made it out of materials we had at home. That was fun, but the house is not as nice as I thought it would be. So I bought a kit anyway and today we put it together. I think I like my house better... what do you think?

Also, Kubus wrote his first letter to Santa Clause. He told me what to write, and I wrote it down. He wrote a wish list for all of us (even Joxer and Guapa). Then he signed it and drew a picture of the dollhouse he wants.

Yesterday, however, was the best part of all of the Christmas preparations. Every Friday evening, Kubus goes to Polish school, and yesterday night was his Christmas concert. He had to sing and say a few lines of a poem and dance. It braught tears to my eyes, to see Kubus singing so loud, saying his poem infront of all of the other parents and Santa Clause. He was so not-shy, so loud, so happy, so good - I was so proud! Then at the end, Santa gave each kid (even Robert) a package full of candy, cookies, oranges, and toys. After the concert, there was a party, and the kids from the polish school (along with Robert) were running around like mad, and having the best time of all.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This Hallowe'en we had the best weather. It was "no jacket" weather (+15C), so the costumes of Robert and Jakub were well showing while "trick-or-treating". During the day, the kids were having fun with their friends in the leaves. In the evening, Anita (Jakub's girlfriend) and Esteban and Adrian (our neighbourhood friends) came over and we all went out hunting for candy. It was great fun, and Jakub and Robert got two full bags filled with candy and treats... for dinner that night we had chips and candy.

My friends and I went to a football game at Olympic Stadium. The sound people turned the volume up to PAINFUL and the players turned down their level to BORING. So the last quarter was spent by me and the kids exploring the various ramps and hallways of the stadium.

Finally I got my puzzle book published! The Hexa-Trex puzzle book (only $5.95) is available from Nucleus Learning. Thanks and enjoy.

Found this old video of when Jakub was learning to crawl.