Unpuzzling Christmas Carols

Unpuzzling Christmas CarolsHow well do you know the old familiar Christmas carols? How many can you pick out from these Christmas carol puzzle pictures?Try the Christmas carol puzzle game at a Christmas party, a Christmas cookie exchange or a family Christmas gatherings. How well might your family members or friends do with the Christmas carol puzzle? How about classmates or coworkers?Need the

Snowflake Sugar Cookies

So I guess it is now tradition for me to try and squeeze too much into my visits home. I just can't help it. For some reason home+Mom+Mom's-fabulous-kitchen-and-everything-in-it=baking! for me. I'll plan months in advance of a trip home what I want to cook for dinner or bake for dessert. I store up my recipes and copy pages out of cookbooks and come armed and prepared to camp out in the kitchen. Part of this trip home was squeezing in sugar cookies. I wanted to try just simple and pretty snowflakes with Mom's new snowflake cutters (so cute!).



We were doing well with the dough all made and waiting for us in the refrigerator, but time snuck up on us and after decorating the tree Saturday night there was just no energy left over to start on the cookies. We were baking/icing/decorating all these cookies up until the minutes Brandon and I had to pack up and walk out the door. Sammy managed to be hired and fired all at once as Mom and my bakery's apprentice (but he did do such a nice job on his cookies!). And Brandon got to show off his white piping skills with a very, er.. original spider man snowflake- nice job hun! (Spider man snowflake not pictured hehe).

Martha Stewart Magazine will be the death of me.

If anyone reading this has come across this magazine and thought to themselves, "Hm, this would be a fantastic recipe to try"- please, I beg you, flip the page. Brandon and my Mom can attest to the fact that this recipe was not only quite difficult but single handedly allowed us to dirty every bowl and spatula in my Mom's kitchen (which is saying something considering my Mom has so many bowls and spatula's we don't know what to do with them all). Maybe it was the fact that my pregnant and irritable self didn't have enough patience while making them, maybe it was the fact that we were rushing out to dinner that night, or maybe it was the fact that there was my beautiful christmas tree waiting to be decorated... whatever the case, these *individual* {cough-cough-GIANT) Martha desserts were more trouble than they're worth. Mom's original chocolate mousse recipe still reigns supreme althought we liked the cake recipe and the mousse had its strong points. We all decided that just ONE of those rounds is enough dessert for 4 people (unless your name is Jacquie and you happen to be pregnant with one very hungry baby girl!). And on a side note I have to mention that little Sammy loved the mousse because it lacked the strong coffee that Mom's mousse (originally my Aunt Sharon's recipe) calls for.

Cool Christmas Crafts

Cool Christmas CraftsChristmas is coming up fast, but there's still time for some handy holiday crafting. Many of these Christmas craft projects are kid-friendly. Plenty of these holiday crafts make great Christmas gifts as well.3 Easy DIY Christmas Place Card Holders A festive Christmas table may need creative place cards to help guests find their places. Place cards help party attendees to

Flee the Flu! How to Recover from the Flu and Prevent Relapses

Flee the Flu! How to Recover from the Flu and Prevent RelapsesFlee the Flu Have you and your family faced the flu? Had more than enough of "ahem" and "achoo"? Don't panic. There's hope for me and for you. Just follow these links ... and you'll see what to do.c2009 by Linda Ann Nickerson Top 10 Ways to Survive the Flu Fighting the flu? What can you do to feel better faster? What simple

my cousin of the week #27

a variable oystercatcher in new zealand, aka Haematopus unicolor, or a torea-pango to the maori.

calgary zoo- prehistoric park amendment

a big thanks to Blackie Lagoon and Cameron D. for pointing this out to me...

turns out when i said the calgary zoo's prehistoric park was closing in february of next year i was wrong!

rather then shutting down the old place, they are upgrading it with a bunch of new dinosaurs! as you can see from this photo of a nice new sauropod being helicoptered into position (photo borrowed from here). ironic given my last post touched on the many generations the prehistoric park has gone through.

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i'd made the assumption the park was closing due to hearing the prehistoric park was losing popularity in the post jurassic park and royal tyrrell museum world (the museum is very close to calgary after all, and is world famous). they have also been talking about building a new arctic exhibit at the zoo, and so i thought this explained why the park was closing. they were going to use the space to build the new arctic centre...
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in my defense, the only official line from the zoo on their website is "[The] Prehistoric Park will be closed until February 2010 to prepare for something BIG!!We apologize for any inconvenience."
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the morale of the story is don't announce guess work as fact... though to be fair the zoo could have given a few more hints then "BIG"... cause a new arctic centre would have been big.

not that i'm overly upset i'm wrong! cause this means not only is my childhood favourite still going to be around... but it'll have some new dinosaurs for me to check out!!!