We are off

bright and early tomorrow, heading for the mountains, where we'll spend the week, and then on down to Montpellier for Frédéric's training. Since we'll most likely be disconnected all week (unless I can find an unprotected wireless network up there, which I sort of doubt), I'll leave you with a few Christmas pictures to hold you over until we get back to the land of internet connections.

We started letting the boys open one present per night on Sunday. What can I say, I'm impatient! As it turned out, I think I prefer that method. They got more time to appreciate each gift that way rather than tossing it aside to open the next one right away. Maybe we should start a 12 days of Christmas tradition - or however-many-presents-they-have days of Christmas.

Here is Benjamin with one of his presents (look familiar, Alex?)

His work of art - he says it is "a monkey and a man in a yellow hat". Any guesses as to what we've been reading lately?

Noah and Benjamin opening their Thomas books from Uncle Ryan, Aunt Christine & Alex

Noah's favorite part of Christmas, the wrapping paper

Noah and his stocking stuffers

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I'll let you know when we make it to Montpellier!

Please don't report us

for breaking child labor laws. But this is what Benjamin has been up to the past couple of days:

Helping make the yule log for the company we had over last night.

(yes, he is tasting, and yes, we changed spatulas after this picture.)

Helping Frederic prepare his skis.

Helping put on the snow tires.

I should also mention in passing that Noah is totally back to normal now, eating, laughing, and playing like he was before he was sick. I had no idea it could take 3 weeks to get over a 2-day stomach bug!

O Christmas Tree

Well, at D-7 'til Christmas, I finally bit the bullet. I wasn't going to put up a tree at all this year, but we are having company over Saturday night and I felt kind of bad not having one up. So Benjamin and I put up the little 3-foot tree in the dining room. This is now the full extent of our Christmas decorating this year.


At least it gives us a place to put the gifts. Maybe I'll be less of a Scrooge next year, if we aren't leaving home for 3+ months three days after Christmas.

Christmas Party in the village

Today was the annual village Christmas party for the kids. Every year they read a story, have a snack, and then the Père Noël comes to give the kids their presents. Since yesterday, Benjamin has been telling us "want some presents!" (sounds more like "peasants") and when we got to the building, he sounded like a broken record! He definitely knew what we were there for.

So after semi-patiently waiting through the story and the snack, he got to go get his present.

And Noah went to get his present.

This was Benjamin last year.... do you see a resemblance to Noah?

Benjamin opening his (very large) present.

Noah chewing on part of his present.

Noah (and others) playing with his present.

The loot! Benjamin got a farm set, and Noah got a musical activity toy. They give really nice gifts!

This does not happen everywhere in France - it's an advantage to living in a small village as opposed to a big city. The budget stretches much further.

And it is COLD outside! (Not as cold as it was when we left Chicago (16-17°F) but it was 28° out when we got home tonight (-2°C for you European-types) and it started sleeting and then snowing, so the ground looks like this again now.

Hope we will be able to get out to church tomorrow! Our village gets plowed out pretty quickly, but I'm not sure that they go all the way into the forest, though, so while we might be able to get out of our village, we might end up stuck further along.

Quick update on the sickies

Noah gained 3 oz back in the 3 days he was on the special formula, so that is good news. He still lacks 2-3 oz being up to what he weighed at 8 months, so we are still trying to get him to gain, but he's still not terribly enthusiastic about anything on a spoon. He apparently had some type of infection but it must have cleared itself up, because it showed up in his blood work but by the time we got back to the doctor 2 days later, he no longer had a fever at all and was eating better and acting like he felt better. So we hope he is finally on the mend.

Benjamin has a lingering cold & cough so we took him to the doctor also. He's lost weight too, because he's not been wanting to eat much lately either. What is it with these kids?! His last "official" weight check was about 9 months ago, and he has gained since then, but not much. So he is on cough syrup and sore throat syrup (I did not even know that existed!) for a few days.

And both boys got doses of vitamin D - ah, the joy of living in the gray northern regions!