Fun time at Ludimax with Friends

Daddy took the day off yesterday and so we thought it would be nice to take Bibou to Ludimax (even though the weather was the best all week! It has been grey and very cold all week, and finally the mercury went above 5 degrees yesterday and there was a little bit of sunshine for a while!). We called some MESSAGE friends who had family over from Toronto and they too were really interested. So off to Ludimax we went, all 6 adults, 3 kids and a baby. WOW, it was PACKED, even at 11.00 am in the morning. Bibou got really excited once we came to the door, she recognized the place and was all really to run in. We had to tell her that she had to wait a while, while we waited in line and then registered everyone.

Once we're in, bam, she was off, especially since she'd met Tiphane, another MESSAGE member friend who was there. She knew him and both of them went off together. However, I think that it was the adults who had more fun! They apparently had 'oiled' the slide with a slippery spray and everyone was shooting off from the slide! All the adults kept wanting to go back for more. Bibou was still too scared to go on the slide, and so she stayed 'safe'. She did, however, discover the push cars this time and got on them, and pushing herself. It was funny to see her concentrate!

Unfortunately, it just got too packed and lunch wasn't being served in a timely fashion! (we had waited for more than 1/2 hour for some susssage and pomme frits! They just weren't able to cope. So we canceled our order and headed out to... McDonalds. All the kids were in favor of that and totally enjoyed that :)... well, so did we adults.

Little Princess

A very special present that Bibou received this year was from the Lepages - a wonderful chest of dress up! There were 4 different princess costumes in there and today, Bibou wanted to play dress up (oh, if you didn't know already, Bibou has the whole week off as the creche is closed this week and I took the week off to be with her. What an experience to say the least. I think she's so tickled to have Mummy all to herself for the whole day that she won't leave me alone! I've got to be with her 24/7, which isn't easy, especially when one needs the bathroom! But overall, it's been fun. We play with all her new toys that she's received this year, her favorite being her playdoh sets and the stickers / drawing set. We've also been learning a lot of new words as I go through flash cards with her. She of course doesn't go anywhere with her 'baby', who constantly has her bottle stuck in her mouth, poor thing! Unfortuantely, it's been really really cold, for me anyway, so we've not been able to go outside. This afternoon, I even tried asking Bibou if she wanted to go to the park... she took one look at the grey, very cold-looking outside and said no! smart girl :) but so we're stuck indoors )

Anyway, I digress. Yes, dress up. So we got out the costumes and put her in the dresses. Oh, one new word she learnt this week is... PRETTY! LOL, she knows when she's got something pretty on and she says "pretty" and wants to look at herself in the mirror. So once she got the dress on (unfortunately, it was too cold, even indoors, for just the costume, so we had to leave her underwear on), she went 'wow', pretty and wanted me to carry her so that she can look at herself in the mirror. She even let me take some photos for her, but not too many, 'coz she wanted me to play with her. She, however, remembered our little 'trick' on taking photos together, and she kept coming to me, climbing onto my lap and say photo! It's been fun!

Thank you sooo much Kirsty for the present.

Merry Christmas Everyone

It's Christmas already, and we hope that everyone had a great time, and that Santa Clause was good to you. Santa visited us late on Christmas eve, after Bibou went to bed, and filled the 'area' under the tree with lots and lots of presents. We couldn't wait for Bibou to wake up the next morning to see her reaction. 'Unfortunately', she did get up early! - at around 7.30 am, she was up and ready to go! So we all got up, got dressed and went downstairs.

She was really tickled to see sooo many presents that turned up overnight (she had about 7 prezzies to open that morning!). She was ooohing and aaahing for sure. Once we put a present in her hands, she really got the hang of opening them. She couldn't wait to rip them all open. We had to pace her a bit. We started off with a small present first, a small box of stickers. She's really good at ripping up the wrapping paper, though she gets frustrated with the sticky tape and looks to us for helping. With the stickers, she wanted to start using them, so I pulled out her paper book and she started filling a page with stickers. Daddy took the opportunity to run out and get some crossiants, pain au chocolate and a baguette (can you imagine? lathered with rich sweet butter and jam). OOOOhhh,,, it was a lovely breakfast when Daddy came home (quite quickly too). Everything was nice and warm, Daddy had a cup of cafe au lait and me a nice cup of tea with condensed milk (bad girl!). Bibou had her cup of milk, and we all sat at the table and had a gorgeous breakfast!

After breakfast, we continued opening presents. Bibou got a lovely dress from Mamita and Grumps, a leapfrog touch pad from Kongkong and mahmah. From us, we got her 2 different boxes of stickers, a playdoh set (which was a big hit, she loves playdoh right now and this set is a big barrel filled with about 10 different colored pots plus a fun factory bit), a potato head fix it up set and her favorite - a doll that drinks from a bottle (you fill it with water) and pees!! She was sooo exicted when she opened that (it was the last thing) and she kept going 'baby! baby!". She couldn't wait for me to finish tearing up the box to get to the baby. She (still!) kept holding on to baby and wouldn't get her baby go. She would keep feeding her baby the bottle too. In fact, she loved the doll so much that she kept baby with her when she and Daddy went to church! (I was really bummed that I couldn't go - I had to prepare lunch!). But she looked just soooo lovely in her gorgeous red dress, stockings and also her 'rabbit skin' coat.

(Oh and Daddy got a DVD box set of 'From earth to moon' - A Tom Hanks special, a thriller book, a pair of slippers and some warm socks (requested by Daddy), a nose hair trimmer (I had a hard time getting that! They laughed at me at the store) and a special key chain that had a picture of bibou engraved on it).

Yes, Christmas lunch - we were pleased to have the Lepages over for Christmas lunch. Daddy made his famous foie gras (prepared 3 days in advanced), and for the first time, I had a roasted capon, stuffing(gibblets, ground pork marinated, bread crumbs, mushroom, bacon, roasted chestnut, onion, garlic, celery), mashed potato casserole, roasted vegetables and roasted potatoes. I was really pleased that everything turned out great! We were all stuffed and had to wait for a while before we even attempted Kirsty's delicious lime cheese cake.

It was a wonderful day and what an end - Daddy sleeing on the couch with Bibou cuddling up to him (I was doing the dishes! but couldn't resist taking this shot)

We hope everyone had a great time!

A busy weekend (not too long ago!)

Been meaning to update the site for a while now, but we've all fallen ill, with me totally losing my voice. I vary between sounding like Minnie Mouse and Marilyn Monroe, with no control over what squeaks come out! or if it does squeaks out or not! Sigh.

Anyway, here's another quick update. 2 weekends ago was a jam-packed weekend. First on the Friday evening was Bibou's creche christmas party in the town centre. The kiddies (and their nannies) all helped to decorate the hall. Some with their own drawings too. Everything was all decorated nicely and there was some food and drinks. This year, Bibou wasn't in top form though, I think she was then coming down with something, plus all her friends weren't there. Of course, Dan wasn't there, and her other companion, Margot wasn't there either as she was ill. Poor Bibou looked a bit lost. She did, however, totally enjoy spending the time with Tata.

We decided to leave the party 'early' and explore the fair that was going on in town. It was the Christmas fair, with lots of stalls selling little Christmasy stuff. As we left the party, we came upon a merry-go-round but with cars and other types of vehicles and lots of lights. Bibou went squealing towards it, she was really excited on seeing it. When the music stopped, she jumped into one of the cars, but 2 seconds later, she decided that she was going to be afraid and starting whining! Gosh, not sure what's up with her these days. She's afraid of everything. I jumped into the car with her, and she was fine, especially when we got started. She was laughing away then. We left after just one round though - I was too dizzy :)

Unfortuntely, the fair was just too crowded, and we didn't think that Bibou would enjoy it a lot. So we just decided to go to monoprix, our supermarket in town. They have little shopping carts for kiddies, and Bibou just loves them. I had fun snapping shots of her pushing her cart with this intense concentration on her face, and she going 'pardon' to anyone who dared to be in her way. She got a lot of laughs and giggles from everyone around.

On Sunday, we were off to Paris Neige, which is actually a huge exhibition hall that has been converted into a kind of indoor ski resort. There were lots of activities, like skiing, sleding, ice skating etc. Unfortunately, the place was jammed -pack, there were lots of families with their children and as we were queing up to enter, there were all these characters in costumes, like a snowman, a rabbit etc. Bibou was not happy! She got scared, especially, as we entered and got 'bombarded' by all these characters, people with make-up on, men on stilts etc. We got her to calm down after a while, but most of the activities were too 'old' for her. We tried sledding with her, but she cried all the way down. We finally found something that she really enjoyed ... the bouncing castle! She jumped and jumped and jumped and didn't mind when the other older kids bumped into her. We spent most of our time there until it was time to leave. I hope she gets past this scared phase soon!

What a difference a year makes

Well, Bibou's school pictures for this year has just came back. I love it don't you!?? It's a perfect capture of her, that slight smile, like she's gonna be up to something or other, I'm up to some mischief... oooo definately. It really cracked me up!

Apparently, the school photographer had a hard time trying to get her to sit still for the pictures! I don't find it hard to believe, as she's such a 'mover', it's like she's got ants in her pants. She cannot sit still for anything. Even when watching her favorite shows, she's gotta be moving her legs, her butt, something or other, while her eyes are trainned on the TV.

Well, after I put this year's picture up, I went back to last year's photo, and wow! What a change. She no longer has a 'baby' look, like she did in last year's picture! And her hair has definately grown much longer. (I still don't know how to cut her bangs though!). My baby girl, all grown up!

Bibou a go-going

It was Bibou's photograph day at the creche today, so I'd put a really cute outfit on her, so much so, I couldn't resist taking a few pix myself when we came home this evening. You might not see it, but the skirt even came with its own 'ruffles' petticoat under the skirt. It was just tooo cute. As i was taking the pictures, Bibou kept running to me, wanting to give me kisses, and then she realized that she could see herself on the camera after the shot was taken, so 'wow' (she says, in a really cute way), we've got to see the pictures then. I hit on the great idea that for her to see the pictures, she's gotta let me take them first, thus, I was able to get some!

After a while, we started playing around and managed to get some pictures of the both of us. We ended up laughing and giggling, rolling on the floor with laughter as it was really fun! We'd both say "BIBOUUUUUUUUU", take a pic, have the flash go off in our eyes, and then look at the pix. She was just sooooo curious.

The other day, she totally surprised me by singing (along with me of course) the whole song of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She knows all the words. In fact, she knows most of the words to her favorite song. Here's a picture of her singing her favorite "Wiggles" (off topic here, did you know the lead singer, Greg has left the band? So sad!!!) song - rock a bye bear. Oh and for some reason, she started doing the 'splits'! She's starting to show some very flexible moves recently. Twisting and turning, stretching and bending. Sometimes it just makes you wish you were just as flexible.

Little missy also is like ole 'faithful', everytime we come home or get out of bed, Bibou would run and get everyone's slippers so that our feet won't get cold! That's sooooooooo sweet of her. The other day, Daddy came home and she was making a rukus, we couldn't figure out what the problem was, until she became tugging at my very heavy laptop bag - my bag was on top of daddy's slippers and she wanted Daddy to have them on.

She's showing a very strong streak of independance and strong willed. If she's set her mind to something, it's going to be very difficult to try and persaude her otherwise. She's also very determined to do what we adults can do. Currently, her most recent 'show-off' thing is her ability to reach up and push the switch to turn on the lights. She's most proud that she can do that, as previously, it was something only us adults can do. She brushes her teeth everyday in the morning and evening, and that's because Daddy and I brush out teeth too. Try to brush her hair for her? Nope! "FIN!" (her name for herself), "Fin brush" (Josephine will brush her own hair).

Long due update!

It's been a long time since my last update (well, the last one on our scan doesn't count as there wasn't much on Bibou). So here's my guilt update! It has been difficult in the evenings as Daddy is working now and he has long hours. Most of the evenings, I have to rush home to get Bibou, get her dinner ready and our dinner ready too. Tonight, the traffice wasn't too bad, so we got home at a decent hour. Out came the camera and I snapped away!

It's been a month since the last update I think and boy has Bibou changed in that time! She's so much more chatty and responsive. Her vocabulary has increased tremendously both in English and French. She can also tell us what she wants more or less, like 'encore water' or encore chocolate (her favoriate of course :)). She can count up to 10 in both English and French and tell you what animal sounds a lot of the animals make (like dog - bow wow, cow - moo etc). She can switch between English and French, like when she says Merci with her nanny and thank you with us. Her favoriate singing includes a number of her fav songs too! She's a regular parrot too! Picks up words soooo quickly. Our recent newest addition that made Daddy and I just crack up was 'come on'! Especially in the morning when we're chasing her to hurry up to get ready for 'school' / 'work' for us. (oh and hurry hurry too).

She's very independant and strong willed. If she has set her mind on something, it's difficult to try and persuade her otherwise. Our persuasion skills are put to the test! It's a bit of a bartering trade sometimes. We choose our battles of course. Much easier. She is however, really sweet at most times, very thoughtful, generous and caring. She loves to give big hugs (and say BIG HUGGGG) and lots of kisses. Waking up with her is just great as she gives hugs and kisses to wake you up.

She plays very very nicely with Margo, her new companion at tatas. They play very well together, and she no longer has a 'sharing' problem with Margo. (she does still have a bad sharing problem with other kids though). The other week when tata had the week, she went to another tata who looked after baby twins. She was very very helpful and sweet with them. She was always kissing them and stroking their faces. She would go and help get their bottles, picked up stuff that the babies drop, rock them if they cry, get their pacifer etc. The tatas said that she was a biiiiig help.

She's a big girl now. She can take off her coat and scarf and hang it up all by herself. She takes off her shoes when she gets hone. It's a real joy to be wth her. of course I shan't go into details abt her tantrums!!. Please enjoy these latest updates of photos! Until the next time, which shouldn't be long, seeing that Christmas is round the corner!