Happy Easter

Our Easter weekend is full of fun. Look at all our goodies from Papy & Manou!
This chocolate plaque says "Joyeuses Paques", or, Happy Easter!
Amongst the goodies were these incredible works of art - all marzipan!
Thomas ate all of them, one right after the other, in about 4 minutes. We all have our vices.
Here's Estelle enjoying her Easter morning with a funny little cow egg cup from Cathy. The red egg you see on her tray is one that we dyed together yesterday.
Today we headed out at 10:30 to Mougins to Craig and Doug's Easter Feast. It was a warm day, not too sunny, but no rain. Here's a few shots of the grounds:

The new "conservatoire" or solarium recently built downstairs underneath the terrace.
Here's the cabana were I relaxed inbetween the meal and dessert.
I'm not the only one who needed a chaise lounge. It's a dog's life.
There were about 28 or 30 of us, including 5 kids.
A lot of super-yummy food, as usual. As you can't get hams here, one of the guests brought it over from London in her suitcase on Thursday so that Craig could cook it up.

Some poolside mingling.
Doug and Estelle take a stroll.
This used to be the back shed. Now it is Doug's office complete with Wifi - MELISSA, can you believe this was that old shed full of spiders?

And now for my traditional look at......the desserts:
Here's a flourless chocolate and almond cake covered in cream and fresh raspberries, decorated with chocolate eggs. Made by a British woman whose mom was a famous cook and had her own show.

Here is my cake, which is less stunning but a visual treat for all the children. I incorporated the chocolate plaque we got from Thomas' parents and several little decorations off an Easter package from sister Joan years back. 3 colors of frosting. And the children helped me decorate. Hence the crazy green lines (Martha, please note done with a plastic baggie for lack of a decorator's bag). Yankee ingenuity.
What you DON'T know is that I in fact made cupcakes last night, but as greasing and flouring just didn't work and they were not fit to bring as they didn't come out well of the mold. So I made a SECOND cake and went with the tried and true sheet cake. Mother, this is that Dairy Association 1956 cookbook recipe for the Fluffy Layer cake. But it wasn't fluffy! But Thomas has enjoyed eating about 14 cupcakes since last night since I just left them here.
Here's Doug's homemade apple crumble: whoah baby.
Here's the only store-bought dessert. It was loaded with cream and raspberries. Lucious.
Here's Claudia (Dutch), grating fresh chocolate over her Tiramisu. Thomas said it was fantastic. I don't eat Tiramisu because it always has coffee in it, which I don't care for. But it was a hit.
And if you just needed some fruit:
After dessert there was the big Easter Egg Hunt. These 2 little boys live in London but their parents are both American. They were all visiting C&D for the wkend.

Finding eggs in a tree.
On the prowl around the pool.
Estelle in hot pursuit of the older boys:
Estelle find some in the back next to the goldfish pond & fountain:
Little Dylan checks his intake:

My friend Philippe gives Estelle a hand while Craig looks on:
Estelle rakes it in:More running about:
The 3 littler kids comparing all the loot:
And then those boys took a dip in a chilly pool before going into the hot tub. Estelle enjoyed dipping her fingers and toes, under Daddy's watchful eye.
Meanwhile, before all this, Estelle's new bed finally arrived Friday:And here she is enjoying it:
Earlier in the week, my mid-wife and the other woman in my childbirth class came over and we had our class at my apartment as the center is having some renovation. Helene is one of the mid-wives who helped me during my first pregnancy - and here she is holding Estelle!

Here's Estelle, showing her affection:
Here she's trying to listen for a response:

All in all, a lot of fun and chocolate! And as tomorrow (Monday) is a national holiday, the fun continues - stay tuned!

Happy Fete to Me!

Today is my "fete", or Saint's Day.
Every day is attributed to a saint, and April 8th is always la fete de Sainte Julie. This means I get lots of emails and text messages from people wishing me "bonne fete"! It is kind of fun!
A few photos of last weekend:
On Saturday after the pool Estelle decided that all her Playmobile people should be more free-thinking, thus as a result most of them had their hair removed to allow more brain energy. At the same time, she thought they could all benefit from a tea party using a Jordanian tea service I brought back from Amman years ago.Sunday off to the park with friends. You can see which kid ALWAYS gets down the slide first. Evil Kenival.
A little group at the park. Esteliott, Thomas and Loup (mom's Fransiska, Celine & Veronique).
Profile shot for the full effect.
We got out our Easter decorations.
Also we realized we could take one side off Estelle's crib to get her used to sleeping "in the open" as we anticipate the delivery of her new big bed in the next few weeks. Friday night was the first try. We found her on the floor many times - fast asleep. Since that 1st night there have been no incidents - but the cushions are still in place, just in case!
Sunday afternoon everyone got to have some tea.
Quite sure that the Jordanians don't put plastic Easter eggs in their tea sets. Sure this is some kind of sacriledge against Islam (or whatever).
And lastly, an opened-up delivery box makes for great drawing.

Always something happening!

Sing Your Heart Out

Estelle can sing. A lot. In French.

This video opens with a few warm-up songs and then the main attraction:
The rather complicated word-association song that Estelle sings after her warm-up songs is one that Tata Agnes began to teach her over the holidays in Angers. Thomas has recently re-introduced it to Estelle and we are astounded at how quickly she has picked it up.
You repeat a line 3 times. Then, the ending syllable of the last word of each line becomes the first syllable of the first word of the next line. I think this might be technically called a "kyrielle" or something. It doesn't make any logical sense nor are many of the words children's vocabularly, etc.
If you think I can keep up, you are WRONG.
I had to go on the internet just to look up the words and figure out what the H-E-double hockey sticks my family was saying:

The name of the song is "Three Little Cats",
and it would be like if your kid sang:
"3 little cats, 3 little cats, 3 little cats, cats, cats
Cat-scan, Cat-scan, cat-scan, scan, scan,
etc.
So here are the real words, or at least one variation on the internet. Is this the one Thomas and Estelle sing? You be the judge!

Trois p'tits chats, trois p'tits chats,
trois p'tits chats chats, chats
Chapeau d'paille, chapeau d'paille,
chapeau d'paille, paille, paille
Paillasson, paillasson,
paillasson, sson, sson
Somnambule, somnambule,
somnambule, bule, bule
Bulletin, bulletin, bulletin, tin, tin
Tintamare Tintamare
Tintamare, mare mare
Marabout (ter),bout bout [the "(ter)" means repeat 3 times]
Bout d'ficelle (ter) celle, celle
Selle de ch'val (ter) ch'val, ch'val
Ch'val de course (ter), course, course
Course à pied (ter), pied, pied
Pied à terre (ter), terre, terre
Terrassier (ter), ssier,ssier
Scier du bois (ter), bois, bois
Boissons chaude (ter), chaude, chaude
Chaudière (ter), ière, ière
Hier au soir (ter), soir, soir
Soir d'hiver (ter), ver, ver
Vermifuge (ter), fuge, fuge
Fugitif (ter), tif, tif
Typhoïde (ter), ïde, ïde
Identique (ter), tique, tique
Tic nerveux (ter), veux , veux
Veuve de guerre (ter), guerre, guerre
Guerre de Troie (ter), Troie, Troie
Trois p'tits chats (ter), chats, chats

Another Tri-lingual Experience

Yesterday Estelle entertained another little gal from abroad. Hannah's mother is doing a teacher exchange here in Nice for which I am the coordinator. While they come from London, her mom is Egyptian and her father English. This means that her 2 base languages are Arabic & English (and that ain't no American English, neither. More like Masterpiece Theater).
Between French, Arabic, and two versions of English, it was a linguistic free-for-all for about 3 hours yesterday.

However, crawling into Estelle's crib and pretending to be babies together required no communication. And here's a photo of some karaoke-with-no-borders.
Also please note that Estelle is not wearing her own shoes, but rather Hannah's shoes, which she thought were quite fun.
And just in case you were wondering what they were actually singing, a video.


Meanwhile, Estelle got new digs for the pool. Here she is testing it out, along with a Vermont Fish and Wildlife Hat from Uncle Cedric. Lovely color combination.

Today Estelle had a check-up at her doctor's. She is the model of the perfect patient now. She started stripping off her clothes in the waiting room while I had my back turned. It was all I could get her to do to stay clothed until we got into his office. She is 98 centimeters tall. Literally off the dang charts for height, can't imagine where that comes from. And 14kgs and something for weight. Like I know what any of it means, darn ole metric system anyway. You know your child is growing up when the doctor no longer weighs her in the baby scale but tells her to step onto the normal scale which she lept onto with glee.

Also he stood her against a wall that had a roving tape measure on it to check her height. I glanced wistfully at the baby scale and he said "Don't worry, you'll be back here soon enough for that."

Which leads us to a nice transition to...........



I can hear you all shrieking. Well, many readers have been clamouring for a glimpse so there you have it. Incidentally my OBGYN told me at my check-up last Monday that the baby is already 2kg600. This is when I nod and Thomas says you can hear my brain whirring trying to convert it to pounds. Dr. Max said "Remind me, how big was Estelle at birth?" I replied 3 kg and not a gram more. He said "Eh ben, là, eh ben, on n'est pas dans le meme equipe." Thomas hung his head with a laugh. I blinked like a deer in headlights trying to figure out what the hell that meant. They both took pity and explained: This means literally "We aren't on the same team here." or, loosely translated, this ain't gonna be no 6 lb 10 oz baby. Bigger. Ouch. Darn those bugnes from the bakery downstairs.

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

Today we were in a tri-lingual experience - and for once it wasn't Dutch.
Thomas' colleague, Salvador, who is from Argentina, came over with his daughter Renata (which means "reborn"). A wild and fun afternoon of French, English and Spanish ensued.

Both daddies took both girls to Park Vigier for fun and some games of hide and seek.

What you see behind the girls is the opposite side of the Port of Nice - the white lines painted on the pavement are for cars to line up when you wait to get on the ferry to Corsica.
Yesterday in a tricky move to keep her occupied whilst we were busy with other nesting tasks, I broke out something I've had squirreled away for over a year - a Madeline porcelain tea set that my sister Lisa picked up at a rummage sale at her school for a few dollars. It is absolutely darling. Estelle played with it nonstop for an hour. We had to tear her away to eat lunch. After lunch, she broke the sugar bowl. Oops.
Here's Estelle enjoying tea time - the funniest thing she said, which neither of us had ever heard her say and she must have got from her nanny is "Excuse-moi!". I also can't get over her knowing certain verbs and how and when to use them. I just barely mastered "renverser" maybe 2 years ago (to spill)!


For those who can't charge the video, here's a still photo of the same moment:

Yesterday in the early evening we actually did something social - went for "apero" or "aperitif" at Eliott's house. We were joined by another little boy we have met before, named Lou and his mom. There was a lot of fun to be had playing on Fransiska and Arnaud's bed.
And play dough. Lots of playdough action. At one point Evil Kenival showed up and demonstrated all the moves he has perfected in the comfort of his own home. This involved jumping off the top of the couch (already that in and of itself is a balancing act) and after landing with a bounce, going immediately into a headfirst somersault which then ended with another jump off the end of the couch. Thomas was amazed. I told him I'd seen it all before, there is nothing that kid can do anymore to shock me! Estelle and Lou stood by and thankfully had the good sense not to try it themselves. Only Eliott can pull that stuff off and not break his neck.
A busy and fun weekend! Lovely weather as well.

Happy Birthday Joanie!

I should add that when I start laughing, it's because Estelle had just said to me "I'm not gonna say THAT!" in response to my prompting that she tell Joanie she doesn't look a day over 29!

The Ides of March

Poor Ceaser didn't make it thru this weekend all those years ago, but we have.

We were off to Drauginaun for the day yest, under an hour an a half away in the region called The Var (name of the river). We were visiting the newly built holiday home of the Mallets, friends from Angers whose son Francois is a old old hockey buddy of Thomas' from the PeeWee ages. You've seen him and his parents René and Martine on the blog before.
This property has been in René's family for 6 generations. The building that they have totally renovated used to be the family farm's "abattoir" - or, slaughterhouse. Here is it now:

Estelle loved playing in the rocks and dirt. I'm so glad I dressed her for the occasion.
This landing with all it's railings was a great source of fun.

Outside there was a lot to discover!
Here's doctor René explaining the finer points of renovating a slaughterhouse to Thomas.

They explained to us that this area has very strict zoning laws, and so no one is allowed to construct anything "new". You can only renovate existing structures, and you must keep the same style, etc. of the walls. So this photo below shows the small enclosure to the left, which will be their "poolhouse". Which hilariously used to be the pigpen, or "cochonnerie". They enjoyed making jokes that really them in their own poolhouse will be like walking into a pigpen. This was funny since they are both doctors. I should also add that "cochonnerie" also means "stupid thing", like if you say "Oh mince, j'ai fait un cochonnerie", it means 'oh darn, I've gone and done something stupid".
This big empty space will eventually be the pool. It used to be a big watering basin for the animals. Stacked in the middle you see the traditional clay shingles which the workmen removed from the old structure and have reused on the new. There are no nails, they are just placed in a certain fashion.
Estelle enjoyed this chaise lounge. Meanwhile I kept thinking of the chair that comes alive and battles Snoopy during the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special.
Martine is hiding behind René as they explain the finer points of sunbathing to Estelle.
Meanwhile, a very famous bike race called the "Paris-Nice" was going on this weekend. It always ends in Nice on a Sunday. Ironically, Saturdays "stage" was going right by the old slaughterhouse in Drauginaun! Here's a photo of my leg that was supposed to be a shot of the helicopter which was so close to the house that Estelle was mildly intrigued/terrified and I thought those clay shingles where gonna come right off.
We had to go home a different way in order to avoid the blocked roads.
Back home last night, she had a lot to say before taking a shower with Daddy in his swimsuit.
He had just said to her "tu es nue comme une verre" (you are naked like a worm!) and she interpreted it as "nu comme une pomme de terre" (= naked like a potatoe). This provided several minutes of screaming laughter that ended in hiccups.

Meanwhile, today began with a double batch of pancakes and succulent syrup from my brother Cedric. Some pancakes went wrapped in aluminum with my ever-so-sporty husband and Eliott's dad as they crossed the Italian frontier to hit the slopes for the day. The rest of the batch was devoured by Estelliot and Estelliot's moms. Namely me and Fransiska. Eliott keep saying something over and over in Dutch to his mom, who smiled and told me "he wants more syrup."
We finally rolled our bellies to the car and made our way to Villefranche, to the top-notch playground there. Unlike the playgrounds here in Nice, it is new, very clean, in excellent condition and hardly frequented at all. It also has a lovely view of the sea and lots of benches in the sun or the shade.
We spent a great hour in the warmth of the sun, I was in a light shirt and no coat. The kids had a blast. There are two enclosed playgrounds. Once for ages 2-6, another for ages 6 and up. After 20 mins in the younger, we moved to the larger and Eliott, whose future career is as a stunt man, really got to show his stuff on this massive slide that I wouldn't even go down, pregnant or not!

Estelle remained in calmer waters:

In this photo above, another little boy had a motorized car which Estelle quickly got the hang of. And below we have Evil Kenival in his finest hour.
After about 20 times going down head first (again, this is a slide for 6 year olds, not 2 1/2 year olds!) he did get a slight fat lip but hardly a tear was shed. Estelle went down twice, but she dragged her hands to slow herself down. Not so for her fair-haired friend.
Here's a short film of Estelle practicing for her permit. You can see a bit of the soccer field below this playground with a match going on, and beyond that, the sea in the bay.