I won’t embark on a grand retelling of our (four consecutive) Christmas evenings. However, I placed a photo album online, stuffed with comments, for the various family members this might interest – or friends who feel like going through a hundred snapshots sprinkled with strangers. I’ll add more after New Year’s (yup, we have two or three festive visits to go, still).

Fetes 2008

Kiddos are K.O.
Dips are done.
I’m having a chocolate chill.

Hope you all catch a break today!
Have fun tonight!

Warning, close family members: We’ll be giving out a few copies of these pictures at Christmas (sorry I’ve sort of ruined the surprise, but it was the ideal way to spruce up my best wishes for the blog’s readers).

Frank and I acquired our joint-Christmas gift a little early. It’s a new camera. (What am I saying?) It’s a whole new level of photography. I’ve been snapping shots all day and getting the feel of this new DSLR, and right now this here material girl is loving her new Nikie like a third child.

The kids were asleep when the batteries were finally done charging last night, so we contented ourselves with cat pictures for testing.

All this morning, however, I could let the kids play together (having two of those can be useful once in a while) while I played with my own toy.

Xavier got a bit upset that I didn’t let his toddler hands handle my new expensive piece of gadgetry (and that I had my priorities wrong, having fun with my camera while he rolled around on an non-vacuumed floor).

Although he eventually decided to go with the theme.

I adore my, erm… our Christmas gift this year. It helps me to better show you how much beauty I see when I look at my kids.

For curious fellow DSLR owners, our new baby is a Nikon D60. Just the kit lens (18-55mm) so far, until we get better with it and get out of the automatic setting.

I’ve already given up my Christmas gift for mommy and daddy: my first steps!!

It’s a gift for myself, too, because my objective was starting to walk for my ten months, this morning. In fact, I didn’t even plan it, really. I was standing at the play table yesterday, I had a pirate in my hands, and I decided to get nearer to the castle to play with Xavier and grandma Manon. I forgot to lower down to the floor, I just… walked. Four or five solid steps. It’s grandpa Maurice, then mommy, who noticed my going. I would have loved for daddy to be there, too, but I took some steps for him too, that evening.

I’ll work on that this week – and mama will try to catch some of those steps on video (not easy work). And meanwhile, I’m still using my unique method of walking on my knees for carrying objects around, and crawling on my hands and knees for speed.

There is an annoying cold with a cough that’s bothering me these days, but overall, I’m doing good. I’m eating more and more solid food, although I still favor my cereal with vegetable purée. I still drink preparation, but since I just love drinking water with my sippy cup, mommy is thinking about offering me 3.25% milk in the cup. I’m not the bottle type, anyway… I have too much stuff to see to stay laying down on my back.

In fact, I watch everything. And I imitate. I’m imitating my big brother more and more: I mix and eat pretend-food with the toy dishes, I place little people/animals/blocks in a car and move it around on the floor, I offer daddy and mommy a drink in my sippy cup, I try to stick magnetic puzzle pieces on the fridge. I love to dance.

…and, just like my big brother, it seems I won’t sleep long nights before I’m a year old!

I’m starting, however, to get the gist of this whole name-calling thing. I’m slowly attaching names (cat, daddy, mommy) to people.

Alright, I’m going to play… huh… practice some more. Happy holidays, my friends!

- Orléane, 10 months.

At the risk of sounding like an info-commercial… My granite tile shower was installed in 2003, and it has been a few years since it was this clean. I tried many a cleaning product, and even a steam machine… no miracle.

Yesterday, just to give it a try, I unwrapped a Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser I had gotten as a sample when they came out – and that I’d dumped amongst my cleaning products a while ago. Woah! (See below.) Maybe not something I would use every week – I would be afraid it might damage the surface in the long run – but once in a while… shiny! I left a reference tile, see: