We're wrapping up a very, very busy weekend.  Alina's school Christmas program was Friday night.  It was a really cute program.  Alina's class did a sort of skit to music that combined Peter and the Wolf with Little Red Riding Hood.  She was perfect as LRRH's mother.  It finished a bit earlier than last year, meaning that we were actually home a bit before midnight.  Saturday, after sleeping in, we had a Christmas carol sing-along oranized by several churches in the area.  I think a good time was had by all.  We broke with tradition and had frozen pizzas afterward, before sending everyone off to bed.  Today was Sunday school and church, followed by lunch at Thomas's parents'.  Then, we had to make  quick trip through the annual Christmas market here, where we enjoyed free pony rides and face painting!  To cap things off, Alina, as is her custom following anything stressful or emotionally intense, came down with a 39°C fever this evening...

Happy Thankful Day!

We tried to make Thanksgiving a bit special today, even though it was a regular work/school day.  The past few years, we've celebrated on Saturday, inviting friends over, and going all-out for a "real" Thanksgiving meal.  This year, we pared things down to the essentials: stuffing, turkey legs, and pumpking bars.  Yes, by overwhelming majority, pumpkin bars won out over pumpkin pie.  We also took time to write in our Thanksgiving book, about all the things we're thankful for.  Hope you're thankful today, too!

Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!

I'm a little Monkey

I'm a little monkey
Climbing up a ladder
Climbing to the top to
Pick a pink banana.

I'm a little monkey
Climbing down the ladder
Climbing to the ground to
Eat a pink banana.

A train! A train! A train! A train!

Alina turned 7 on Thursday.  As usual, she's been counting the days.  Here she is:

 And here is her cake.  I was rather proud of it.  Especially since it started out just as a double batch of banana bread, which she had requested and for which I had no particular plans in terms of shape.

 Blow hard, Alina!!!!

Mozart

ALINA (Singing Mozart's Alleluia while I was dishing up food)
MAMA: Alina, no Mozart at the table.  (We actually have a no singing at the table rule.)
ALINA: (A few minutes later, humming an aria from "The Marriage of Figaro")
MAMA:  Alina, I said no Mozart at the table!
ALINA:  But, Mama, he's hungry!

Checklist

Baby gym on Monday.  Check.
Music with babies on Tuesday.  Check.
Students playing at the library on Wednesday.  Check.
Birthday cake on Thursday.  Check.
All-morning meeting on Friday.
Concert on Saturday.

Bag

What is this?  It is two things.  It is my latest, completed sewing project.  It is also the sign of a pretty major paradigm shift in our house.  

This is my new teaching bag.  

On the sewing end of, I'm pretty proud of it.  It's made entirely out of pre-loved material.  Two of Thomas's old jeans, a broken shoelace I found in the street, and a button out of Mémé's button box.  The really, really cool thing is, notice the pocket on the front, onto which the button is sewn?  There's one to match it on the back.  They were the back pockets of the jeans.  The front pockets, complete with beltloops, are sewn into the inside, so I have pockets of pencils, metronomes, etc., as well as beltloops to clip keys and my pocketwatch to.  It will be my faithful companion this year as I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays and...well...I'm going to try to negociate out of teaching on Tuesdays, if it isn't already too late.  Y'all can wish me luck on that one.

Twinkle

Fortunately, all those hours of violin practice have not been lost!

New addition

 So this morning, Alina comes upstairs where I was and says, "Mama, there's someone at the door."  I come down and, sure enough, someone at the door.  I sign something, and he leaves us this box:

 

OK, to be honest, I must admit that Alina was not dressed when the box arrived.  Neither was I.  We had, I assure you, accomplished many important things already, like eating breakfast, practicing math and violin, and making double-reed instruments out of drinking straws.  But, we had not actually gotten dressed.  Using the curiousity incited by the box, I insisted that everyone be dressed before we opened it.  Alina, sensing something important, insisted on wearing The Dress for the occasion.  She then suggested that everyone draw a picture of what they thought might be in the box.  Here is her masterpiece:

 She is a good guesser.

This new addition has been dubbed "Princess" and has already participated in an impromptu, home concert involving the imitating of raindrops falling and peals of thunder.  She (because of course a "Princess" is necessarily a "she") has taken up residence in a corner where she will be very happy until we have to put the radiator back in use, at which point, she will have to find a more temperature-neutral abode. 

This afternoon, Alina came to me and said, "Mama, did I really get a harp, or was that just a dream?"  Her huge grin said it all.

Toast and jam, anyone?

I made a batch of plum jam this afternoon.  This evening, I discovered this label on one of my jars:

For those of you who are Franco-challenged, this reads (with some misspellings appropriate to a 6-year-old) "Toad drool jam.  Use before ......"

Zucchini

I took a big step recently.  After nearly 11 years of living in France, I finally bought an electric mixer.  I'd love to tell you about the meringue pies I've made, or the macaroons.  That'll have to wait until my oven gets fixed.  Instead, this evening, I mixed up some batter to fry some (ahem) zucchini.  Boy, it sure makes beating egg whites easy.  The eating of said fried zucchini sparked this conversation:

SYBILLE:  (Indicating her loadad fork)  What's that?

MAMA:  (Honestly unsure whether she was indicating the zucchini or the breading)  That's some yumminess.

SYBILLE:  (Whiny, with mouth full)  I don't like yumminess.

Tassia's Trumpet Tryout

Have been way too busy to blog for awhile.  I'll try and play catch-up a bit in the near future.  Several weeks ago, our church had the privilege of hosting a portion of the All Soul's Orchestra of London.  They graced us with their musical presence for a Sunday morning service, we spent the afternoon with them, and then they played a concert in Melle the following Tuesday.  Tassia has been talking about wanting to play the trumpet for some time now, and she was able to try one.  She loved it!  (And, yes, Alina's reaction in the picture IS indicative of the kind of sounds she produced!)

Little gem

While sifting through some old pictures, I found this little gem.  Hope everyone's having a great summer!

mix

Alina hypothesized the other day that the gold in the suitcase that Ephraim Longstocking gave to his daugher Pippi was the same gold that Smaug stole from the dwarves.  I'm just waiting to know where a black stallion comes into it.

Black

ALINA: (to me while getting off of her new bike)  Henry, I'm going to go put the Black in the stable for the night.
 
I love her imagination.

Hair-B-Gone

I finally gave in to Tassia's request for shorter hair.  Or was it too many time of trying to comb out toothpaste, soup, and ice cream from little girls' hair?  Either way, this is the result:

And Alina?  She wants to grow her hair down to her bottom.

"Sortie nature"

THE DRESS!!!!

One morning about 2 months ago, as I was getting Sybille ready for the day, Alina called to me from her bed.  There was that little something in her voice that said, "This is urgent," so I arrived promptly, expecting that she was sick or in dire need of assistance.  To my surprise, she quite excitedly related to me a sudden, now-found desire for a dress.  Not just any dress.  A red dress with white polka-dots.  She launched into great detail as to the width of the straps, the number of ruffles, etc.  So when my Parisian friend asked me if I wanted her to bring me any material, I knew what to ask for.  I've been turning this project over in my head ever since, contemplating the best way to make Alina's dream dress, and fearing lest my realization not live up to her idea.   I finally launched into the project yesterday.  Cutting the material, I decided to err on the side of big, figuring I could always take in seams and make huge hems, but if I cut the pieces to small...  And anyway, if I was going to go to this much trouble, I wanted her to be able to wear it for a good, long time.

I got the top together, and pinned on the top skirt layer.  I had Alina try it on, immediately judging that the skirt was too far down, I should pin it higher, and that it was too long I would have to take a big hem.  Alina, however, took one look at herself in the mirror, got a big grin on her face and said, "Mama, you should leave it just like that."  "But, you wanted a double skirt."  "No, I only want one."  "But you wanted it shorter."   "I want it just like this."

My immediate thought was relief.  "You mean I'm almost done?"  But then there was a bit of a letdown.  "What do you mean you don't want the double-skirt ruffle I've been puzzling over for two months?"  But I figured it would be best to leave well enough alone.  The good thing is, she loves it.  Oh, and that she'll definitely wear it out or get sick of it before she outgrows it.

Here it is:

 A bit of a back view:

 It also has good twirling action:



And as if the dress wasn't good enough, this just rocked her world:

I don't think I've made a hair scrunchy since middle school.  But I figured now was a good time.  Apparently, I was right, because Alina said to me, "Mama, how did you know that was exactly what I wanted?"  How did I know that was exactly what you wanted when YOU didn't even know it was exactly what you wanted until you saw it?  Well, Alina, I guess that's what Mamas are for.

Sew crazy

 I've been doing quite a bit of sewing recently.  A friend of ours brought me some new material, and I let each of the girls pick out their favorite material and their favorite project.  Here is Tassia's again:

 The pattern that I used called it the Twirly Skirt, because it's good for doing this:

 And here is Sybille's.  I actually took just as many pictures of Sybille as Tassia, but somehow they mostly came out looking the same, so here's one:

 and another.

You'll notice this just screams "Sundress!"  Well, with long sleeves and sweatpants, it was almost appropriate for today.  Both these projects were in a way warm-ups for the dress of Alina's dreams.  Which I hopefully will be posting pictures of shortly.

Zoo, zoo, zoo

 A week or so ago, we went to the zoo.  As you can see, Alina got a little lazy after awhile, so Sybille helped her out.  Tassia played king of the mountain

 and everybody posed so Mama could take a picture.

 This picture is especially for MY mom:

Sybille Says (III)

Yesterday, walking home from school:
 
SYBILLE:  Something poke me.  Something poke my hand.  (Shakes head, corrects herself)  No, my foot.  (Points to her shoe.)
 
MAMA: Oh, something in your shoe?  What is it?
 
SYBILLE:  A hedgehog.
 
(A few steps later)
 
SYBILLE:  The hedgehog flew away.

Easter eggs and such