Florida

We've arrived in Florida, visiting this blog's number one fans...

Lucie and Malo went right into the the pool, bright and early (think7:30am) on the first morning.

  

Malo then quickly moved on to taking driving lessons in his Popop's home-built race car (did we mention that said Popop built the whole thing himself? - ok, not the frame, but the engine and all that)

Christmas is coming!

The kids with Santa. There's a great Christmas village by Abbesses. You'll notice that Santa's not wearing the exact same outfit as in the US, he's got a hood and a cloak. The Christmas village is organized every year by a neighborhood charity, and so it's the same Santa every year.

They organize a face-painting workshop, and Lucie got her face painted.

 Of course, she chose Hello Kitty and here's her reaction to seeing her face in a window.  Is Hello Kitty the cat's pajamas to four year old girls everywhere?

 

Organ grinder at the Christmas village. Along with the music and Santa, there are lots of stands selling presents and food. Because it's France there's even hot wine for the big people.

We brought our tree home, put it on the floor, looked at Malo, and said SHIT! Luckily it fit on this table where Malo spends most his time trying to pull the ornaments off the bottom branches while Lucie keeps hanging them back up.

Here is an example of the extremes a big sister has to go to to keep her little brother from destroying her Lego house. BTW Santa left his hat for Lucie last year. I'd like to say she's getting into the holiday spirit but honestly she's worn it year round.

Who me? I would never try to topple the Christmas tree.

Spaghetti

Over the past month or so, we've been encouraging Malo to feed himself.

They say you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and it does seem that a kid can't feed himself without making a joyous mess.

Musée Rodin

We recently took the kids the Musée Rodin. We quickly went through the museum and then spent time in the beautiful garden that surrounds the museum and is filled with Rodin's statues. 

 We collected leaves for Lucie to take to school. She was particularly proud of this giant leaf that she found.

 

She also really enjoyed running around the park. Greg caught this great shot where if you look carefully both her feet are actually off the ground. This pretty much sums up Lucie in action.

She's mostly a blur...

 

Greg used some trick photography here where it looks like she's walking. Trust me it's only an illusion.

 

I have to add a note here about the flower on Lucie's coat. I bought this coat secondhand for 10EU last year. It's Jacadi and a wool and cashmere mix. I have been very, very proud of this great deal I got. I asked Lucie to put on her winter coat a week or so ago and she absolutely refused. She argued that the gray was too sad and boring. Her and I eventually reached an agreement that if I added this flower to the coat it wouldn't be so sad and she would wear it.  Whew!

Fossils, Legos and a Bottle

What have we been up to lately?

Here's  Lucie with her super tall Lego tower.

Here's Malo sitting with his bottle.

 

And Lucie (dressed of course as a princess) and Greg dissecting a rock for fossils.

 

Malo has started cruising. He's been standing since late October, and has really become a menace around the house over the last few weeks.

 

And Lucie has started planning all the trouble they're going to get into once he can walk. Uhhmmm...

Lost pictures of Brussels

Here are a few pictures that didn't make the first cut.

Malo enjoying a swing and smiling (what else does he do?)

Lucie very focused on the pasta manufacturing enterprise.

Lucie getting a lesson in swinging by herself (not mastered yet)

 

Happy Birthday Bertrand

It was Bertrand's birthday while we were there. The only candle he had in the house was this rather large square one. Whatever! We stuck it on his birthday tart and sang to him anyway.

 

We didn't bring many toys with us, but it was no problem for Malo. He easily occupied himself with a roll of masking tape.

 

He also got lots of hugs and kisses from his uncle, which more than made up from the lack of toys. 

Lucie helped out with making pasta.

On our last day in Belgium, Bertrand said to Lucie, you're not a real princess and I'm going to take your castle just to prove it!

 

She responded by quickly scaling the castle and yelling, I am a real princess! And you'll never conquer my castle.

 

Hey Sinatra

What do you think about these blue eyes?

Swinging in Brussels

After the Halloween party, we took the train to Brussels where we spent the rest of the long weekend visiting with friends and Greg's brother. 

The leaves in the park were beautiful.

 

Extra hug beautiful!

Lucie pushed Malo in the swing.

Greg and I kept saying, Gently! Gently! Not too high!!!

For the most part, they both ignored us.

 

And Malo LOVED it!

Spooky Antwerp

Our good friends invited Lucie (and of course the rest of us) to an American-style Halloween party in Antwerp. Since we already had train tickets to go to Belgium for the weekend, why not go! 

The party was hosted by a not very scary vampire named Vanessa.

 

And her very sweet little vampire. (Who is just as beautiful as when we first met her but look at how much she's grown-up from the first time we went to visit her!) 

 

Malo went to the party as a pumpkin.

And Lucie as what else, a PRINCESS!

There were about nine kids at the party and Vanessa had organized lots of fun crafts for them to do. While all but one of the kids only spoke Dutch, this didn't seem to bother Lucie.

And of course there was lots of candy, cake, and even a homemade pumpkin pie. Hey Lucie! What's the Dutch word for gummy worm?