Sunday, November 18, 2007

More Halloween stuff!


Jeez, it's taken me a while to get these posted. Once again, my excuse is that I'm so darn busy I can't see straight, but it's a good thing too. Josh is working on my website now, and I'm SO excited to be running my own gig. I'm going to need to be working like I am now for a while because of course, I couldn't live off my business for a least a year or two, until it starts generating a good revenue stream .
I'm excited to be carrying my cousin Julia's awesome dolls that she makes *hi Julia!* and I think they will do really well. I have some waiting to be put up on the website, and I have to hide them all from Aloka because she cannot keep her hands off them! Josh is also just finishing up her website so once it's done, there will be a link to it on this blog.

My dad and stepmom, Jeanne just visited this weekend, and we all had a great time. It was a whirlwind, but wonderful nonetheless, and Aloka loved waking them up in the mornings (they slept at my house). Jim and Lynn, we hope you come soon too! Aloka misses you terribly and wants to crawl into your bed at 7am to wake you up too!

And now for some fun pics from Halloween. I dressed up as I-don't-know-what, Retro future Austin Powers chic or something. I threw my old Ant hat and costume that we made a few years back onto Richard, who by the way is so not into dressing up for Halloween. So it was pretty cute that he put it on for me. We took Aloka trick or treating just a little bit, and Richard's daughter Emily also took her out for a half an hour or so. She got to pick out a small pile of candy that she wanted, and I told her the rest was going over to Josh's house. It did go over to his house, but she forgot all about it, and Josh got some yummy sugary treats all to himself! So it worked out well, she wasn't uncontrollable and only had a strong sweet tooth for a few days afterwards, and it's now under control again. She has such a tendency to get so hooked on sweets if they are around.
I was hoping Josh would take her out for some trick or treating too, but he had a crazy deadline, and was busy working.

And speaking of sweets, I am totally off of sugar and gluten! I stopped eating gluten at the suggestion of my cousin Cara, and I can't believe how much better my belly feels. It did make me loose 5 pounds which I didn't really want to loose, but oh well to that i guess! I'm trying to compensate by eating tons and tons of ghee, my new addiction! ;) It's so good! It tastes like popcorn butter.
Ok, enough typing, here are some pics. The first batch (and a couple movies) are from Aloka's Waldorf school. Sheilagh, Aloka's teacher, put on a Halloween Market Place, which was like a little village with all sorts of different market booths (parent's dressed up). The children got "money" from the bank (chestnuts) and could go around and buy things at the different booths. There was a baker, and hat lady, a miller, a candle maker, a wizard who tended a fire and you could buy a wish rock and throw it in to the fire and it would spark. it was very magical and fun. Aloka didn't want to leave!

Her purchases, and some chestnut money still jingling around in her basket


The Baker

Aloka and Claire (the unicorn)

She wished she could be a real fairy she later told Josh in secret!

Here's another great video. The world through Aloka's eyes, notice how long she lingers on things that interest here, ie. treats!


And then later that night Aloka and Andrea (our roomate) both dressed up as Cinderella!



This is Andrea and her friend, in the second costume of the evening, Wayne and Garth!



And Richard, borrowing my Ant costume!




Sunday, November 11, 2007

Kinda young to start working, but hey, it was her decision!


I just found this old photo when I was sifting through some past online photos! She was just over one!

Friday, November 02, 2007

Pumpkin carving with Aloka!

Ok, this post will be a little more upbeat than the last dreary one. Fall is still completely beautiful here, with lots of sunshine and yesterday was even a warm one. Leaves are still beautiful colours and crunchy everywhere I go.
Winter is starting to tease us with the occasional morning snow flurry, and up at Richards house, it's already starting to stick to the ground (he lives right next to the ski hill).
So Halloween has come and gone. It was quite the festive and exciting holiday for us, and it seemed to creep up on me without me realizing it, and then all of a sudden it was in one day and I had a hundred things to do!


Aloka and I went over to Richard's house and we carved some pumpkins with Beth and Emily.
Richard didn't do one. He was busy puttering around getting his land ready for winter. He gets a TON of snow, and everything is completely covered by about 5 feet of snow and unable to be uncovered until spring.

Aloka had SO much fun. She did some carving and lots of drawing and playing. While we were all busy working on our designs, Aloka decided to make everyone pumpkin soup! She found a pot full of hot water on Richard's wood stove (to humidify the air) and added a whole bunch of pumpkin innards (mostly fleshy chunks of pumpkin, she avoided the stringy stuff!), then she found the salt and added some of that, and stirred it up.
We're so busy with our carving and she's humming to herself as she's cooking, no one realizing what she's doing! Then she got 5 little bowls, spoons, and a ladle and served everyone up a bowl. Soon we noticed we each had a bowl of steaming hot pumpkin soup sitting on the table, one for everyone!
We all actually did eat some of it, first dressing it with a little tamari. She's such a cook!












Our pumpkins turned out great, and I got a video of Beth and Aloka.

Next post will be a fun one of Halloween, costumes and all!
This is the one Aloka and I did

Beth did this one


Emily's is on the far left.