Christmas Vacation begins, Weekend One

This photo above is from this summer/4th of July, but that little girlie peeking out is Heather, and today is her 4th birthday over in Vermont - Happy Birthday to my goddaughter! It is also my nephew Jacob's 13th - officially a teenager today!
Yesterday morning, we took a stroll over to the Christmas Village, right when it opened at 10:30. Estelle was the first kid in to run around on the trampoline, her favorite. Meanwhile, Léna was in the Flintstone's car:

Here's Estelle running from one trampoline net to another. Normally there are 2 or 3 kids per net. Estelle had all 10 to herself!
Photo op on Santa's sleigh:
And here's "Santa's Reindeer Stable" (in English). Interesting, Dasher and Donner don't make the cut apparently. Only 6 reindeer! I loudly protested, singing the song for any passerby, noting with wild gestures that Dasher and Donner had no representation here!

Earlier in the morning (like 9:30) I had ridden my bike over to our old neighborhood to the bakery we used to live above, just to get some Buchettes de Noel. This is the 3rd time in a week I have gone, the other times there weren't any left because I went in the afternoon.
Above, clockwise: pink = buchette de fruit rouges (berries), then lemon (with coconut, I discovered upon tasting, blech), then praline with the deer, lastly, chocolate mousse. Below: close up of the deer, may be the closest some of my brothers get this deer season. :-)

And here we see Estelle, who will not eat an orange or a strawberry, eating a boiled quail's egg, with salt. She loves them, ate 3 in a row. Who can explain children's gastronomic tastes?
This morning we ate "oeufs à la coque", i.e. soft-boiled eggs. We have no less than 6 egg cups in our little apartment, a traditional gift at birth. For the first time ever, we used them. I just tried soft-boiled eggs for the first time in November courtesy of my friend Melanie and found I liked it very much.
Like I said, she won't eat a sweet juicy grape, but a soft-boiled drippy egg, no problem. Here she is:
Estelle demonstrates dipping her "mouilette" (thin stick of toasted bread with salted butter on it , literally means "a little wetter") into the liquid part of her oeuf à la coque:
I had two lessons at home this morning (yes, on the Sabbath!) with my favorite 2 brothers, Thomas and Quentin, home from the Naval Academy in Brest and Saint Malo and in need of some specific English assistance. While my Thomas was at the market with Léna, Estelle played quietly in her room during my lessons:

She was a good little girl - but she knows Thomas & Quentin well, sort of like her big cousins so she was not phased by them in the living room working with me. A close up of this little tea party. She told me they were eating soft-boiled eggs.
The rest of our day might involve some cookies. Who knows!

The 4 holiday "P's"

Parties, Packages, Preparations (and Planes, but that's not for a week)
Yes, that is a cheesecake and yes I made it. With about 8 ingredients being substituted but it was good nonetheless. Below: Fransiska's dutch apple pie (and she really is Dutch).
Here's a few shots from her birthday gathering Sunday afternoon:

Loup, Eliott and Estelle, early on before things got out of control.
36 yrs old!
Wait, who invited Jacques Costeau?
Playing on Eliott's bunk bed. Very fun.
You can just make out Eva (pink shirt) and Louise (blond elf on ladder). They arrived and then things got WILD.
Back at the ranch on Monday, afterschool arts & crafts.
Wait, who invited Richard Simmons?
Wednesday morning: before music class, we decorated for Christmas:

90% of that stuff is from Joan. If she ever goes bankrupt, blame me.
Estelle got a package from her godfather Francois Besseyre. Yeah!
A game to tell time, and a watch!
Our little tree:

Next: a package comes from Aunt Joanie on Thursday:
The original version of The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night - Thanks Joan! (p.s. send the credit men to see me when they come knocking)
Today: Friday at home with Léna. A little reading time with some juice in her room:
Two videos:

Parents' Night at School

Friday afternoon after school, parents were invited to come into Estelle's classroom so that the children could show them all the things they had been doing lately. I paid a babysitter (an American exchange student who is unfortunately leaving in a week) to stay home with Léna so that for once I could concentrate just on Estelly Welly. At 4:45, the show began:
Croquses
This is the calendar, absentee list, etc. Girls on the left, boys on the right. The little green names you see added on to some days all part of the advent calendar idea this teacher cooked up.
See some of the French names of the other girls with Estelle:
There are more boys that girls:
It's an interesting mix of names: Elie and Elias are Jewish boys' names. Wissem and Amar come from Arab families and thus have Arab names. Alexandre is African but he comes from a former French colony in African which explains the French name despite the fact that he and his parents struggle to communicate with the teacher. Everyone else is "French", more or less. Marco's father is Italian but his mother is English.
Above: Estelle shows one of the many things she has in her "book". Below: Every morning when she arrives, Estelle picks her card out of a pile on a table and goes and hangs it up on this little house on the wall. Below she recreated this for the photo opp:
These are lentils which they sprouted.

Advent goodies, hanging from an upside down stripped umbrella. Good idea! The kids all made these cones filled with candies (which they sorted and counted by category and color as a math exercise) and then each day they pick by lottery a number and that kid gets to take home his advent candy. It's a great system. Estelle STILL hasn't had her number called. She is very patient.
Above: Estelle shows her "book" to Thomas. Inside are all the different projects they have done which teach a different skill - like coloring in the lines (whatever) or putting things in order, matching, etc. Below: With a Christmas tree she had made:

Thomas surprised us by coming home early and showing up at this event. That made it extra special for Estelle.
Here is Françoise, Estelle's teacher. She is an absolute delight.
It was so great to have a chance to really get into her classroom and get a gander at stuff. Though, I have started volunteering a little English lesson in Estelle's class 3 times now so I am getting to develop a relationship with the Teacher a bit off the beaten path which is useful! I struggle to remember all those names though. And I think I butcher some of the pronunciations.
The photo below just is a cute one of Estelle and Léna watching a video sent by Aunt Laura of people singing the Hallelujah Chorus. They were transfixed.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like....

...peanut butter balls. Thanks Aunt Mart & Mary for the recipe!

"I wish my brother George was here"*

*Bugs Bunny , 1955
Can you make out that old man wheeling my blanket-wrapped piano into my building?
Wednesday, our new used piano was delivered. It is a white Hanlet 6-octave.
This was around flight of steps #5. They carried it all the way up using straps that went around their backs. Up and around all the landings.
Here's the grandfather and the grandson - you don't see the father on the other end...
15 minutes later...
Thursday afternoon, getting home from school, right at it again.
I feel lucky to have found a compact affordable solution to my 2-decade piano dream.

Ironically, being in a small apartment seems to have one great advantage - the piano is front and center and not in the basement or up against a discreet wall out of the way someplace.
It is very soft compared to the piano I was raised on, and it feels smooth under my fingertips, light, resonant. Everytime I walk past, I am elated.