mamm, kur liela karote?

well, since the title is in latvian, i'll write in english today. for all of you, for whom translators might be hard to come by... the title means "mom, where is the big spoon?" and it comes from a well known latvian fairy tale, which, like most latvian fairy tales speaks of work as a virtue and scolds the lazy.

today was an important day - a girl from paris paid kaspar a visit. we had breakfast at 11 am, ate bagels for hours and drank cappuccinos and mimosas and kaspar was on his best behaviour!

and now he's sleeping soundly and i have a list of christmas related things to do, like wrap gifts, write cards, finish orders, call friends, make dates.... oh lala. so, i leave yoy with some pictures of kaspar and his big wooden spoon. his favourite toy of the day.

and for those of you, who have kept voting for steve's band 'elliott brood's' song 'the bridge' on national playlist at the CBC radio site. thanks so much! they are still on the list, for the fifth week in a row. wow! i'm totally impressed, as they are the only relatively unknown and new band on the list. for three weeks they were in second place (one of the weeks, only one vote seperated them from being first!) and now for the last two weeks they have held out in fourth place. so... keep those votes coming and heck, invite all your friends to vote, too!

christmas tree

here it is. his first picture with our christmas tree. he looks so serious... we were home alone, so he had no choice, but to sit in the big chair while i took this photo. more to come later...

atkal snieg. sovakar uznacis tads ists putenis. butu jaiet lauka skuret sniegu vel pirms eju gulet, bet tik loti negribas. varbut jagaida kamer steve nak majas... varbut vinam uznaks iekariens skuret? diez vai. sovakar vinam velais vakars. tas parasti nozime, ka mes vinu redzam ap kadiem 4:00, kad kaspars mostas. es varetu te sedet un verot ielu un puteni vel ilgi. izskatas jau briesmigi skaisti! viss tik balts, tik tirs, tik apputejis! sniegs man rada tadu istu ziemsvetku sajutu. neciesu svetkus bez sniega. protams, daudzas lampinas pie majam uz musu ielas jau ari piepalidz! vakar vakara mes izdekorejam egli. bija gandriz vai zel dekoret, jo soreiz egle tiesam pati tik perfekta, tik skaista, ka gandriz vai gribejas atstat tadu pat pliku. tas laikam butu tads parak ekstrems izleciens kaspara pirmajos ziemsvetkos... varbut nakosgad :-)

es sodien peksni attapos, ka ir jau 15. decembris. tik sausmigi skrien laiks. neesmu vel kartinas izsutijusi uz latviju (jaludz jau jums ieprieks piedosana, ka tas sanemsit par velu!). nav ari vel davanas sagadatas. pat liekas savadi, cik loti minimali es izjutu to tipisko ziemsvetku steigu. ja nav jaiet pa veikaliem, jabrauc ar publisko transportu, tad kaut ka tas decembra troksnis paiet garam. tik fantastiski! miers... it ka jau butu jasak uztraukties... bet...

godigi sakot, sodien man uztraukumam vairs neatlika energijas, jo kaspars ar saviem zobiem mus visus te terorizeja. ja lidz sim es sudzejos, ka vins maz gul, tad tagad vins gul vel mazak. ja lidz sim bija vins uz rokam jaaizmidzina, tad sodien vinu vispar no rokam izlaist nevareja. un tad vel ir uznakusi tadi jauni untumi, ka piemeram - jauna zoba izmeginasana uz mammas zoda. ja! vins man sodien ta iekampas zoda, ka es burtiski iekliedzos un to mazo nespetni parbaidiju tik sausmigi, ka vins pec tam nebija vairs aizmidzinams. tad vel, vins ir izdomajis, ka no 3:00 nakti lidz 5:00 no rita nav verts gulet. tas esot tas labakais laiks spelitem! vakar nakti man nekas cits neatlika, ka speleties ar vinu turpat vai divas stundas pirms vins bija atkal gatavs iet gulet. ja. nevaru sudzeties, mums patiesam iet interesanti! galvenais labi, ka mes esam te tris pieaugusie, ko vins var tramdit no rita lidz vakaram. (pareizak sakot no rita lidz nakamam ritam) ar vienu jau vinam nepietiktu! un visi tris vinu lutina, cits par citu vairak... kas bus velak? es jau lielas ceribas lieku uz jums visiem.... vasara bus laikam javed uz latviju maciba pie stingrakam tantem un onkuliem!

nu, laikam jau man bus sovakar jabeidz te dzejot. jamegina vel kadu stundu nosnaust, kamer kaspars gul. citadi, kas to lai zina vai dabusu gulet pa nakti jeb ne... es nemaz iedomaties nevaru, ka butu tagad ja mana muterite un steve nebutu seit. cik labi, ka tas laiks ir pagajis! tas nebija vieglas nedelas...

the first...

yay! he's got it! his first tooth has broken through. over the course of the night, he kept me up and i could not figure out why he wouldn't sleep. he wanted to feed every hour and kept waking up and fussing all night. by 6 am i was beside myself. steve got up to take him with the intention of letting me sleep for another hour, but how could i? how could anyone??? the crying echoed through the house and even though i was pressing one ear into the mattres and had two pillows piled on my head to drown out the noise, it wasn't gonna happen. so. i got up. took kaspar for a while. as we began playing and he did his usual 'i chew your finger' game... i noticed it. it was like a little tiny sharp razor edge on the bottom gum line. how exciting! first tooth, and he's not even 5 months, a few days shy of 5 months. i'm impressed! and feeling much better about the lack of sleep, because at least now i know the reason for my staying up all night. it makes a difference, believe me! i got out all my teething gels and drops. got the kid a bit drugged :-) and as he relaxed, we stood by the window and watched the sunrise together. the entire neighbourhood was painted pink. even the smoke from the chimneys rose pink. but, the fun didn't last. he was tired. waking up at 6 am means taking the first nap by 8am. he passed out, still quietly whimpering in his sleep... i wonder... how much does it hurt to have your teeth come in? does anyone remember that time in their lives?

we had big plans for today. we were going to attenda a funeral. yes - that can be exciting for us! it's an outing amongst adults, after all. the funeral is for a mother of a family friend, who passed away. she was a 100 years old. i'm not kidding! but, since the whole teething event has taken us by surprise, i think we will stay in. kaspar is not in much of a mood to be amongst a whole lot of people. and i think he's got a bit of a fever, too. besides, it's a good reason not to go outdoors, because the 'feels like' temperatures today have been posted in the high teens. even though in reality it's only -6 out. i'm still not much of a believer :-)

here are a couple of sunrise pictures for your viewing pleasure and kaspar, passed out at 8 am. don't you wish we all could take our first nap at 8 am? having made it to work, just after dealing with the morning traffic... it would be such a good idea. an hour long nap. i say we should lobby for it. the elections are coming up... if we cannot get the whole of canada to do it, then at the very least the city of toronto, or ontario. in latvia it should be easy to accomplish. we just have to convince vaira vike freiberga... :-)

cold, dark & snowy days

it's strange how fast the days fly by. especially at this time of the year. it's almost as though the year itself is racing us to the finish line. but in january time slows down. february, too. by the time march rolls around i always feel like winter has been here forever. like the spring will never come. and this year we have allready had an unusual amount of cold days and snow! personally, i'm almost done with winter. i would be very happy, if winter lasted until mid january and we'd have tulips blooming by mid february. however, do not misunderstand me. i do like winter. as long as it's snowy, not too cold and nice and short. so, no... i don't want to live in florida or anything like that.

sunday morning we drove out of town to get ourselves a little christmas tree. for many years we have been getting potted trees for christmas (and most years they have lived to see not only one christmas, but two!!!) it always made me feel better to be able to plant the tree in the spring, in some friend's parent's back yard. however, this year i had to come to the painful realizations that none of our planted trees have survived. they must cut too much of the root system, when potting the trees. that's my guess. so, this time we decided to go out and chop ourselves a fresh little tree from one of those tree growing places, where you walk into a field and pretty much every tree is perfect, every one is grown for the exact purpose of being butchered during the month of december and even though the landscape looks pretty, there is a certain sadness to it. indeed, on these farms, every tree is beautiful, yet, we still spent a good half hour walking around, trying to find 'the one'. it was an absolutely gorgeous day - snow falling, not too cold, just like this picture... next year, we hope to find a smaller, less commercial tree farm!

early on a sunday morning

i cannot figure out this blog posting to save my life. no, i have not read the help pages, so i truly should not be allowed to complain. but. but... the pictures in the last blog looked so crappy. i think i will have to learn how to use html - the mumbo jumbo of letters, forward slashes and brackets.

thanks to a certain someone, we woke up bright and early. 6:20 am. still dark out. boy, to think that i used to complain about having to get up at 8 am for work! now, days when we might sleep until 8 or 9 are extremely rare. they usually follow nights of no sleep. this morning we managed to play hide and seek in bed for a good 45 minutes. (steve must have been going crazy, as he only came to bed at 3am) by now, i've had two cups of good strong coffee and am feeling much better about life :-)

yesterday we spent the day milling about and receiving guests. the open house was a great success. we all sold some stuff and by the end of the day were feeling quite happy and intoxicated. i'm sure it had nothing to do with the mulled wine we sipped throughout the day. tania and paul kicked around for a bit longer, while we got the fireplace going, only for the second time since moving into this house. it's awesome. there is nothing like it! having a real fire going in a house on a wintry evening is absolutely blissful. especially coupled with some good old gram parsons.

posted pictures: first is a pic of tania love's gorgeous silk pillows and skirts on our couch. they did look marvelous in my living room. too bad i cannot keep the rest!(got to brag that my mom made that 5 seater couch for us in one day on and old frame we pulled off the curb on garbage day! we love it!!!) the second is a pic of tania howell's birds. my favourite illustrations of hers! she's applying for a birdwatching grant in latvia (as of yesterday)! we might need some volunteer guides and translators :-) !
the third is a (bad quality!) little shot of my newest line of jewellery. yes. i've gone colour crazy! if i could have found coloured stones, i would have used them, but for now it's enamel. enameling in the middle of the night. and the last, but not the least... kaspars. i swear he was trying to learn to whistle. you know, that loud two finger whistle, like the guys in the ballpark do it? unfortunately it's an art i have not mastered. i was no good as a teacher. however, i'll proudly point out that after a half hour of messing around, i've taught myself enough html to post pictures, where i want them to appear. and the right size, too! hope y'all appreciate my efforts! and now we're off to the tree farm. while the snow is falling and kaspar is happy, and steve is not working, we're off to chop a little tree down for ourselves. we'll keep you posted!