Noah's First Written Recipe

Noah whipped up these tasty chocolate chip muffins without ANY adult input. He decided on all the ingredients (and we're thankful he decided that 2 tablespoons of salt would be a little too much), and chose his oven temperature.

Frédéric and Noah brought some to one of our neighbors, who couldn't believe he had made them all by himself. But he did, he did.

And this time, we finally wrote down the recipe! (Well, as best as he and Frédéric could remember, anyway...) So maybe they can be replicated at some point.

If he can do this at 5 1/2, does that mean we'll see him on Master Chef in a few years?

Chocolate Dirt

No one has ever said Noah's mind works just like that of everyone else.

During our Thanksgiving trip, he licked one of the picnic tables in front of the dining hall. It was covered in dirt. I didn't witness this, but someone else did, and told me about it.

Later, I asked him about it...

Me: Why did you do that?
Noah: Because I thought it was chocolate cake.
Me: Was that a disappointment to you?
Noah: No, because it was very delicious!!

Christmas: Better late than never

Since the boys weren't home for Christmas, and I wasn't with them, we waited until after they got home to open presents.

Since they were skiing Christmas day, they didn't mind too much. They got lots of fun things: Legos, games, a cash register for Noah, and books, books, and more books.

We tried out their new game Zooreka later the same day and it was a hit.

Ski vacation

I got smart this year, plus I had already paid my dues with my 2 1/2 week trip home with the boys and without Frédéric. So I let him take the boys skiing Christmas week, and Gala and I stayed home and enjoyed the peace and quiet! It was wonderful!

Oh, and the boys had a good time skiing, too. We had to put them in ski school morning and afternoon, since Frédéric can't ski right now with his injured knee. We hope he will be back to normal by next year; the boys were sad he didn't ski with them.

Benjamin was pretty excited he got to (finally!) start using his poles this year.

Here they are with their newly acquired ski level medals, flocon (snowflake) for Noah and première étoile (first star) for Benjamin.

Christmas scarves

Noah, in his continuing quest to learn how to crochet, insisted that Grandma crochet him a scarf. He chose the colors. Not to be left out, Benjamin decided he needed one, too. They weren't finished before we left the US, but getting a package in the mail is much more exciting, anyway. So here they are in their new Christmas scarves.