Christmas Vacation continues....Nice & Angers

A week ago on Estelle's first day off from school, we started making our Christmas cookies...


Even Léna got into the act:

Tuesday afternoon we went to a "Gouter de Noel" at Emmanuelle's house - she has 2 daughters Charlotte & Maelys who are at Estelle's school. We know them thru Eva & Louise. So these 6 little girls spent a few hours together. Emmanuelle made us waffles!
Here's Estelle wearing one of their costumes that they let her borrow, even! It makes me realize I have no dress-up clothes for Estelle.
Weds and Thurs are a blur of rain, laundry and packing. Friday morning at dawn we flew up to Angers and by some miracle avoided all the cancelled flights which plagued Europe last week. We arrived to see a few changes in Estelle's room:

And a sitting room ready for Christmas:


Friday night we went to mass and Saturday morning there was some excitement!
Estelle made out like a bandit.
Our breakfast table:
For our Christmas dinner we had a "chapon". This is a castrated rooster, I learned. Very good.
At 4:30, as tradition goes, the Saulnier family joined us for champagne and the Buche de Noel.
This year after years of threatening to do so, Guy made his OWN buche and so the one below (from a bakery,chocolate mousse) had some competition. Somehow I don't have a photo of Guy's! It was very much like the ones I have made in the past. Excellent!
Lots of fun everywhere for Léna...
The day after Christmas (yesterday) we walked over to the Moreau's house for some Christmas cheer around their central fireplace. There were 4 different families represented, all neighbors from the cul-de-sac area where Thomas grew up and where his parents still live.

Agnes with Sebastien Rigollet and Virginie Saulnier.
Here's Lucie Rigollet and her two boys Ferriolle and Robinson, who are both within days of my own girls.



So far, lots of sweets and meats but no sweetmeats (yet).
It's pretty dang cold (32F) but no snow.
More playdates this afternoon etc. All is well.

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: