Playpens and Dollbeds

We decided to break out the wooden playpen we had been given as a gift for Estelle from Uncle RiRi and see what Léna thinks of it. However Sister #1 was more excited than anybody about it.Meanwhile, we prepare for our own Galette party in a few weeks. Here are the invites I made with Estelle using old crowns. Quite clever if I do say so myself!

She looks loony in the photo but she was cute as she went off to school the other morning:
Meanwhile, Baby has a new bed, gift from my mom - the greatest little doll bed hand-made complete with a mattress, pillow, pillow case, coverlet and crocheted baby blanket, all handsewn by some 100-year-old lady in mom's church group. The bed is the bottom of a Whitman's Sampler chocolate box. Love, love, love it. It stays on the bottom of Estelle's bed, "where I can see it"
Tonight at dinner, Estelle pointed to her soup and said to me quite matter of factly "This soup tastes like Vermont." Stunned, I asked "Why?", and all I could get out of her was "because." I approached it from many angles and I kept getting "because", or the occasional, "just because", and one time "because it does".

Meanwhile, Thomas videoed the playpen's inauguration:

Galette de Roi - The Madness begins....

As if we don't eat enough during the holidays, it just gets worse in January in France - thus begins the endless "Galette de Roi" parties. In my previous post(s) you've seen the "King Cake" with it's feve/bean, and crown, etc. Yesterday afternoon we went to another at my friend Chantal's in Biot, near Antibes.Chantal is one of 11 children just like me. She is #7. Her sister Nadine, #4, was also there with her German husband Otto, who became an American citizen 35 years ago. They lived in America 20 years but have been back in Germany for a few decades and have a 2nd place in Biot. We had some very interesting conversations around the Galette.
Surprise surprise - guess who got the crown!
In fact with larger galettes, there are 2 feves and 2 crowns. Here we are - 2 queens.
Here's Chantal making funny faces for Léna....I know of 2 more galette parties we've got in the next few weeks...stay tuned...yikes.

New Year's Eve

Any respectable French person starts the new year off right: by eating foie gras. On the 31st, we went out, without kids, to a gathering at our friends' Pierre & Iris here in Nice up in the hills. They had embarked up on making their own foie gras this year! Succulent! Above - spreading the famous foie gras on toast. Below - other delicacies on canapés, courtesy of Iris (who is Italian) and her friends. I got to practice my Italian for the 3rd time in a week. Bellissimmo!
Dove habitate? Italian, italian, italians - interestingly, the Italian tradition on New Year's Eve is to wear something red because it brings good luck. All the Italians at this party had red, somewhere on them.
Out on the terrace at midnight, looking towards the Mediterranean - my friend and theater buddy Philippe examines his champagne.
Meanwhile, ringing in the New Year with style, though she is slightly shriner-esque looking:
And lastly, enjoying some last moments with the older generation before their departure the next day.

And for the family members who have nothing better to do with the next 3 minutes of their lives: Estelle singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" in the tub. The angle is bad but I was trying to keep it from needing to be censored!

Thighs to Die For

You just want to gnaw on these drumsticks....

Meanwhile, Estelle is up to everything like reading:

Playing:
Dancing with Daddy:
Getting the "feve" in the "galette de roi" cake (frangipan = pastry filled with marzipan, traditional post-epiphanie - pre-Lent cake here, comes with ceramic thing hidden inside and a crown)
Making sure I did her pigtails right:
Off to school:
Alfalfa strikes in the bath:

Stay tuned for more nonsense in the next post! let it be known that today my baby spit up my own breast milk directly into my ear (thrilling), and yesterday in the wee hours the elder of the two upchucked her fries into Thomas' face. We've had a fun few days - long live the stomach bug!

Belated Yuletide

Happy New Year - but first......
Catching up with some Christmas photos.... Our advent wreath, and just below it you see a French hunting magazine, "Chasseur Francais", with a photo of Gerard, the husband of Thomas' godmother Sylvette (Guy's cousin). He is a big hunter and somehow got on the cover of this national magazine! Really cool!

Christmas Eve: All the presents under the tree next to each person's pair of shoes (French tradition).
Christmas morning: Estelle comes out of her room and sees Santa's loot:
A little elf enjoys Tata Agnés.
Gifts from America from Virginie our French friend in Wisconsin - Dr. Seuss! Yeah! Also good for chewing, esp when you have 2 new teeth.
Gastronomic aside: some of the goodies we've been eating lately. With the exception of the buchettes in the 1st photo, everything else was made by yours truly and Estelle.
Christmas sugar cookies with a little extra baking soda - whoops! but no one noticed!
...Half of a pan of cinnamon sticky buns...whoah baby, they were good, and a miracle, given I was substituting left and right and had no thermometer to test for the yeast...
---chocolate truffles rolled in cocoa or coconut, started by Agnés and finished by us:
Aunt Becky's (my aunt Becky) Black Bottom cupcakes...I made 70! Cheesecake and chocolate chips inside chocoloate cupcakes. What else!
Back to Christmas morning: Estelle opens her new Playmobile house and its many accessories...
Santa's Helper:
Christmas Day was sunny, warm and absolutely beautiful. Terraces were filled with people eating oysters in tee-shirts. We headed out for a run on Estelle's new favorite thing, the trampoline.
I think all that foie gras was catching up with me.
Palm trees looking good on this Parisian..

This years theme at the market was "Russian Christmas", so here are some big dolls with aunt and niece sandwiched in....
At the market we stumbled on candy canes, which do not exist anywhere over here except at a fair or market. I was delighted as was Estelle, who of course sees them in all her English holiday books but never had seen a real one. She is still savouring it a week later!
At 9:30 p.m. on Christmas Day, Estelle remembered she had something called a "stocking" (not at all done over here) and was surprised to find gifts inside.
Meanwhile I had had the bright idea to give Agnes a debutante knitting kit for a scarf - this turned out to be the bane of her existence for two days - dropping stitches, starting over, etc.
What you see them putting together here is another French Christmas edible tradition: walnuts, prunes, or dried apricots stuffed with marzipan. I'm not a fan of this almond paste stuff so I didn't partake but this is a standard in most homes, often also using dates.
Meanwhile, the knitting madness continues while Papa Thomas get a much needed nap:
Papy enjoys some one-on-one time with Léna
Remember I mentioned no tree stands? I tried to improvise one with this roasting pan (purchased specially for) but even though the water level descended, it was just that block getting wet, not the tree itself. Thus you can see the resulting needle nightmare:
What the top of the tree looked like 2 days after Christmas - bare naked:
In closing, here's our little cherub who has totally mastered sitting up, likes to chuckle and shows off her dimple and two teeth as often as you like:
She's wearing hand-made overalls that were a gift from Eliott's mom Fransiska.
On the 28th Léna had her 8 month checkup - almost 23.5 pounds (no that is NOT a typo) and 29.5 inches. Off the charts. Promise we are not forcefeeding! Still nursing for pete's sake!
Sisterly love.
A lovely few days around Christmas, despite a raging stomach bug that hit both Agnes and Andrée and thus merited TWO housecalls from doctors with black bags and shots. All very Little House and Dr. Baker. Love it.
VIDEO time - 2 very short ones:
First film: Chuckle a little, knit a little, pick a little, talk a little.......
And second short: stocking stuffers - straws and music on Christmas night. One week later, she has amazingly improved her harmonica skills. To be continued...