Rocking

More Malo Turns One

Thursday night, we continued to celebrate Malo's birthday with Lucie and Greg's parents. Malo got to blow out more birthday candles.

 

Why blow out the candle when you can put it out with your hand?

 

He also opened more birthday presents.

 

He got lots of nice gifts.

 

Wait. Does this noisy toy from Pop-pop and Grammy seriously not have an on/off switch? Awesome!

Malo Turns One

On March 1, we celebrated Malo's first birthday. Technically because this is a leap year, we could have celebrated it the day before, but we stuck to the date he was born on.

 

Seven of his anglophone baby friends from the neighborhood came over in the morning to help us celebrate and eat banana muffin cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

 

We have a group photo of the all the babies, but I don't know the moms well enough to post it here. Here is Malo with his good friend Sacha! (Sacha's mommy reads the blog.)

Malo opening his birthday present from Sacha. It was lots of boxes inside boxes to unwrap and finally KIWIS! and CHICKPEAS! Malo's favorites!! Malo says, whow!

 

Greg snuck home during his lunch to help Malo blow out his candle.

Malo eating his first cupcake.

 Our little birthday boy looking a little stunned by all the attention.

Random pictures

Bath time is often playtime as well. This time, Malo ended up with a Shapey turtle shell as a hat. It fits him perfectly.

Giving a bottle to your little brother is very serious business indeed.

It's not exactly clear what Malo can see by looking out the window, what with the small balcony blocking his view, but that won't stop him from standing on his tip-toes. Ridiculously cool pants are courtesy of aunt Morgane.

"You'll never believe the things I see out there!"

Summer oldie

Last summer, Lucie and her friend Charles got to ride ponies in Bretagne. I just found this photo on my phone, so here it is for you enjoyment.

This being France, we didn't sign any liability papers and just were told to head "over there" into the back paths between the fields. (Yes, that's right they gave two ponies to the dads and kids and NO ONE came with them!) It was fun, but I have to admit I don't know the first thing about horses, and these little ponies were strong and it's not entirely sure that this was a very safe outing... but nobody got hurt and the kids got to wear cool riding hats.

Bringing up Bébé

What with all of the hoopla in the US over the "Bringing Up Bébé" book, we thought we'd show off how well-raised our French children are.

This particular French technique is called the tip-and-lick, and it's a prerequisite for attending school, along with potty-training. As you can see Malo's way ahead of the curve.

Try it the next time you're out at a fancy French place, it's sure to make you an instant star.

PS: You should know that the English title of the book is "French children don't throw food". Ha!

The park on a cold winter day

It's finally warmed up in Paris, but we headed to the park last Sunday for a cold 1/2 hour of play (-6°C). We couldn't really stay much longer, but it was a good time.

Malo about to plunge head first down the kiddie-slide.

 Michele managed to convince him to go feet first.

That was cool!

Let's go again!

He's already a bad boy who wants to climb back up the slide, but with a snow suit on, it's basically mission impossible.

Lucie and Malo playing together. They've been having a lot of fun, both inside and outside.

Lucie loves making faces, and she's good at it too!

Bilbao

Michele's Christmas gift this year was a weekend for 2 in Bilbao, where the Guggenheim has a museum designed by Frank Gehry. We had a great time, looking at art and stuffing our faces with tapas and other good foods.

It's rather an impressive building, sheathed as it is in titanium.

 It glows in the sun, which is pretty cool.

 Inside, there was a large installation by Richard Serra.

We took some photos before getting busted by the photo-Nazis. No photos allowed anywhere in these any museums, even without flash. Guess they really want you to buy those postcards, but it does seem petty.

No art-filled weekend is complete without a tour of a church with a nice hell scene.

Baby walker

As we're not able to head out much, Malo's found a solution to his plight and makes do with the toys he has at home. This one happens to be a stool from Ikea.

We're taking bets as to when he actually starts walking. I'm guessing as soon as he feels that he has a reason. And as always with Malo, it ends with big smiles...

A quick visit to the park

Shortly after returning from  Xmas break, I took the kids to the park for a cold runaround. Malo was very happy to have a first try at the baby slide and to cruise around the play area. Since then, the weather has turned bitterly cold (for Paris) with an entire week of freezing temperatures, and lows as cold as -8C. We'll head back to the cold when we're no longer at risk of losing fingers or toes to frostbite.

 You know Dad, I outgrew this hat a few months ago...

Lucie got to work out some of her bountiful energy (better here than on our sofa).

Malo considered what that shinny thing could be, and more importantly: how to grab it so he could taste it.