Gong Xi Gong Xi!

It was Chinese New Year last week, so we hosted our annual CNY MESSAGE event just this past Sunday. I actually had a lot of fun baking (though was very tired of course!) lots this year. I made some pineapple tarts (I’m guessing I had about 150 pieces of those), some suji biscuits (made with good ole ghee!) – those I’m guessing I had about 200 of, plus I had to give some (unbaked ones) to our cleaning person as we just had too much, made some cat’s tongues that didn’t turn out as nice, as I think it is because of the butter we have here in France. Someone mentioned that the butter / flour is of different consistency here than from home (wherever home is… )… I never quite understood that, thinking it was just some ‘bitchy’ remark about how things are always better ‘back home’… and also thought that well, sometimes my cookies just don’t turn out right because I’m not that great a baker. Well! I now realize that it isn’t me. I had PERFECT suji biscuits (last year, they failed miserably as I’d used ‘normal’ butter) as I had used real ghee! They didn’t spread nor burnt too quickly. They were a great delicious golden color! The cat tongue just spread too much (it tasted great though!).
Our MESSAGE friends started arriving at around 3.00 pm. We got the girls all dressed up in their gorgeous Chinese outfit that mahmah sent over (except Bibou didn’t want to wear the red cheongsum! She wanted to wear pants – which was a surprise as she normally prefers to wear dresses). Bibou had fun playing with all the kids who came. They all also had fun with Daddy, who played on the guitar and sang some songs. Daddy and Bibou did a GREAT duet, the Elephant Song which I regretfully didn’t take a video of! Arrggh! Next time.
Angel is recovering well from her bout of chicken pox. She didn’t scratch much and besides the few big ones on her head and the large one on her forehead, most of her spots were tiny and dried up. So hopefully

she won’t be too scarred. Unfortunately, she’s still not sleeping. W
ell she did while she had chicken pox, and that’s probably ‘coz she was all ‘drugged’ – we’d given her some prescribed an
tihistamine for her itching and that probably helped with her sleeping at night. Last night, we stopped giving her and she was up! From 4.00 am until about 6
.00 am! Arrgh. She’s sitting up very well and can stand (with help). We’re trying to get her to crawl and stay on her tummy, but she still doesn’t like it much. She is able to reach for things and will determinedly stretch and grope for items in front of her that she wants until she gets it. I think she’s also getting into stage where she recognizes the people around her… oh boy, no one strangers carrying her soon I think. On Sunday, though she didn’t complain, she looked a little weary when someone else was carrying her and for the first time ever, she reached out for me! And slide towards me so that she can be in my arms again. She’s also becoming very very vocal! I’ll try and upload videos of her soon. In the meantime, enjoy the photos update. I do like the picture of the two girls in bed together. Bibou loves to have Angel in her bed with her. I think she treats her like a little living doll! She's sweet with her really. And though Angel pulls her hair all the time, and she would complain that Angel is pulling her hair, she'd shrug it off when I say, oh, dear, I'm sure she's sorry. She doesn't mean it. She loves going up to her and 'chat' with her (but all in French, sigh).