B-DAY Sophie#2

the next set of gift Sophie received was from MamiePat and GrandPa Rick. Dress, shirts, pans and a very very lovely set of pans! The best gift ever according to Sophie (and Max loves it as well). They played at least a full hour with it making some herbal soups, leak ice-cream (hummm!) and a lot of pizza!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sophie

Today is Sophie's birthday...maybe I should say, the past week was Sophie's birthday since she probably got a gift everyday, thanks to Mamie Pat and GrandPa Rick, Aunt Cathy, Aunt Susie and then my family here in France.
She obviously LOVED all the gifts and I will give you a peek for each of them, everyday starting now.

B-DAY#1
First gift arrived from Aunt Cathy, Uncle Tim, Henry and JamesSwimsuit, stickers and electric toothbrush! She took her first "bath" in the ocean with this swim suit (she fell in the water while she was running).
Max was at the beginning a little bit scared by the toothbrush but now loves it!

Fete de l'ecole....

Today was the end of the school year in France....To celebrate this day, Maeva and Auxanne's school was having a party including a show, some games and food.

Sophie had a lot of fun during this day, first by watching her cousins' show (she was dancing on the side while Maxime was clapping) , playing fisherman (you try to catch some wrapped gifts with a fishing rod - she got a diadem, a bracelet which end up in the trash by (my) mistake, some playing cards and some stickers -) and tasting some "old-fashioned" candies (fraise tagada, frite, crocodile.... brought a lot of memories back!!!).
She also got her face painted and spent a lot of time with her cousins.
What a good day!

Max and the carrousel

2 days ago, Sophie and Max went on the carrousel and as usually they wanted to go on the motos. However, this time Max wanted to go on the frontseat and not behind Sophie....Ok, let's try! well, 30 seconds later, he started checking out his foot, then the lights below him and then thought it was not as fun as he thought and tried to get down!!!
the carrousel had to stop for him - does not happen that often if you listen to the manager (a VERY good friend of Sophie by the way!!!!)
Sophie was pretty happy about the whole story since she thought she had an extra tour

Sophie and Max playing by the water

When the sun is out, it is a lot of fun to play with the water. Mamie Christine dug a small pool for the kids - very exciting to see the water filling it and even more exciting to discover that this water was even warm!

Sophie and Max riding a motocycle

Podium of best vehicules for Sophie to ride on the carrousel :
#1 the spining/flying saucer (picture will come soon)
#2 the motocycle














#3 she is not riding anything else right now...

Max is following Sophie everywhere...except that now Sophie is spining too fast in the saucer, too fast for Max at least (on my scale not on Max's scale).

I have to say that the motocycle is also a little bit scary for me when Sophie is going up and Maxime is trying to touch his foot, saying Hi, kicking Sophie....He is buckled up but still..

A day at the playground

This morning we went to a nice playground a the "parc des dryades". The park is small but very pretty. French playgrounds do not have swing (don't ask me why) but Sophie and Max had a lot of fun on this substitute. You are going up and down and it is also turning around....pretty fun.




cute picture of Max

Maxime is saying "Sophie"!

Maxime is kind of lazy when talking is involved....list of the words he knows : Maman, mamie, bye, coucou (Hi), regarde (look), no, encore (more), Zeus , this, veux (want), beurre (butter...Maxime LOVES butter).
Today we heard 2 new words, gateaux (cookie) and SOPHIE! Unfortunately Sophie was not there when he said it and he did not want to repeat it for her....

downloading a video...part II

I am following Steve's advice and here is the video of Sophie wishing to Mamie Pat a Happy Birthday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xog8zrCwkyo

Thanks Steve!

a day on the beach (from the past week)

some pictures of Max and Sophie playing on the beach













They just love mixing water and sand.

everything Sophie is doing, I'm doing!

The sun is still not there so we went playing in a park. Sophie watched people playing petanque for at least 30 minutes....and would have stayed longer if she could have (I admit that after this time I got bored of it!).

Lately Maxime is mimicking everything Sophie is doing....sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous, sometimes loud (even very loud), sometimes quiet .....hum, no never quiet.

sometimes nothing is working....

yesterday was Mamie Pat's birthday and I wanted to post a video of Sophie wishing her a happy birthday (Sophie was VERY excited about it). Unfortunately it did not work out. I remember Nathan was having a hard time posting video on his blog (something to do with the fact that we are working with a mac) but he was able to do so , so I am probably missing something here...any input about it is welcome!
Then I wanted to post some pictures of Sophie and Max from the past WE when the sun was passing by... but even that does not seem to work tonight!

hopefully I will be luckier tomorrow....

french passports on the way

3 days to get Maxime birth certificate and still waiting for Sophie's....until somebody told me that the one from 2007 would work ...usually they are good for only 3 months but sometimes people are nice and very understanding.
Both of them were pretty excited to get their fingerprints taken. The passports should arrive in 3 weeks...cross your fingers

a multilingual school for Sophie....

long and exciting day for Sophie today.....

We took the train to Nantes where there is so much to deal with : learning everything about people sitting around you, having your ticket stamped by the train conductor, checking out the cows in the fields and the last but not the least speaking/laughing/making faces to her reflection in the window.

We visited her future school, Sainte Madeleine. It is a multilingual school where she is going to have "courses" in french, english...and, probably the most useful for her, Breton (the language spoken in Brittany)! Here is the picture of the school.



To end the day, a small excursion to the beach when she met her first new friend Thomas....same time same place tomorrow!

a Hellman without a bike is not a Hellman....

Some pictures which I am sure will please Grandpa Rick....Maxime and Sophie biking.






Sophie loves her "big girl"'s bike and especially the ring coming with it!






Maxime is having a hard time understanding that biking does not mean resting on the bike while somebody is pushing you...