Quote of the Day

Nicco put a scarf (one from school that we use for "juggling" and with music) on his head and said "I'm not a princess, but I can't be a cowboy because there aren't any horses here." I asked if there were any other choices besides princesses and cowboys, to which he responded "Have you ever been to Texas?" I guess I'll take that as a no.

...And it's over.

(To borrow a phrase from Nicco) We sent Papi and Mamie on their way on Thursday afternoon. We had a nice visit. We are glad that they decided to spend the whole month, rather than the two-three weeks they had previously discussed. It was important for Nicco to get to spend quality time with them building a real relationship (as opposed to the un-real web-cam relationship they had before.) We had some small adventures together, but most important was for us to be together as a family, especially considering it has been 2 years since our last visit. It is always a little difficult to be a guest and a host for an extended period of time, but I think it went well for all of us. Nicco was excited (surprise) to go to the airport to see them off. When we went to check the computer to see if Papi and Mamie were online this morning, he said "I don't think they are there. They are still in the airplane." It is a long flight from Denver to Bordeaux, but not THAT long! They arrived home safely with all their bodies and belongings intact, and now we hope it will not be so long until we can see them again.

Oodles of Noodles

Every so often, the Italian side of Patrice's mom makes an appearance and she spends an afternoon (or more) making fresh pasta. We borrowed the neighbor's pasta machine and Mamie, Papi, and Nicco spent a day making noodles. Nicco was a big help, of course.

There is nothing that quite compares to fresh pasta, especially on chilly days when all you want is to sit by the fire and eat some kind of comfort food. Then again, there is Patrice's fresh green chili he made and froze earlier this fall. Oh yeah...and also the homemade tomato soup to go with grilled cheese sandwiches...

The Jet Center

At the Centennial Airport, there is a restaurant and lodgy type place for pilots of small/private planes to rest and relax while they refuel and prepare their planes for the next trip. You can go to "The Perfect Landing" resaurant and watch the planes land, load, and take off. We thought that would be a great place to take Nicco with Papi and Mamie. Nicco was very excited when we got out of the car because he could hear the airplanes flying.
Nicco showed his small airplane the bigger airplanes on the runway.

Watching a plane take off with Daddy

Walking to a hangar where a jet was getting ready to take off with Papi and Daddy.

Nicco at the restaurant. It was so cool for him to sit right by the window and watch the airplanes. I think he could have stayed all day. After we ate our brunch, Patrice drove us around the airport so Nicco could see the airplanes up close. It was a little bit of heaven for him, I think.

Independence Day

Apparently, today is the day that Nicco feels independent and big enough to stay home alone. He wet his bed this morning (only his second bed-time accidentl) and he took his wet jammies off by himself and told us it was "just an accident, no big deal. I will just get some fresh jammies." Then he told me he didn't want to go to school today. I told him it is not a choice. He said he wanted to stay home and snuggle daddy and when I told him that daddy had to go to work too, he said "Okay mom, you go to school, daddy can go to work and I can stay here by myself." I asked what he would do by himself and he answered "Watch Sponge." Et voila. There you have it. He did go to school after all.

Quote of the Day

Yesterday I tried setting up my sewing machine so that my mother-in-law could do a little sewing while my father-in-law and Patrice worked on some other projects. I have two machines at my house, one that I can't get to wind the bobbin, the other that I can't get to load the bobbin properly. The one that doesn't wind but does load the bobbin was only making zig-zag stitches. I thought my brain was going to explode. Nicco, ever present and happy to help, expressed his own frustration with the machines saying "I just can't figure this out. It isn't working! This is a mystery, indeed." Then when I reached the point where I had to just shut it down for the night, Nicco made up his own combination of "This is killing me" and another expression of frustration and irritation:

"This is killing me off."

Happy New Year

We wanted to celebrate the New Year with friends, but we didn't want to go anywhere. We invited 13 people thinking that not everyone would be able to come (hoping they would, of course) and we ended up with 18 at our table. We put the food on our dining room table, which Patrice made festive with our Nativity sets and poinsettia.

We had to move our family room couches into the living room and outside to accomodate the two long tables we set, and we had to borrow chairs from the neighbors.

While we were setting up and getting ready, Nicco passed out under the tree. After a two hour nap at 5:00, Nicco was all rested and ready to go!

He made friends with Colin (again...they really hit it off every time we get together. What a kind and understanding boy Colin is, to put up with a 3 year old buddy!) The two of them conspired together to sneak several sodas. Nicco kept calling him Braxton for some reason...I guess he somehow resembled Braxton in Nicco's little head, even though we don't see him often, or even see picures of him much. (ahem, Sheila) They were really quite adorable together and very well behaved. Not pesky at all!

Here are the two boys, ringing in the New Year with a little horn. Nicco tried to grab it every time Colin blew it. They giggled and giggled. I was amazed at how much energy Nicco had at midnight, even with his late nap. When we all made noise though, it pushed his button and he passed out roughly 3 seconds after I put him in bed.

Between us and our guests 2009 is going to be an exciting year. We have a couple of friends who got engaged at Christmas, a couple who are expecting a baby in June, and Patrice starts a new job in Denver at the end of the month. We hope and pray that all 3 of those big events turn out to be blessings for all of us.

Happy 2009!

The Airplane Museum Part II

The other day we had a small adventure. We want to make sure that Papi and Mamie enjoy their visit and get to see some fun things while they are here. Luckily, they (like us) are mostly content to stay home and visit, play games, watch movies, and watch Nicco. It is nice to get out once in a while though, so we took our French relatives to a French restaurant for lunch (Le Central) and they were not disappointed...a good review, I'd say, from people who regularly consume fantasitc authentic French food. After lunch, we went to the airplane museum. The second visit was much more interesting for Nicco than his first.

Here are Papi and Mamie eating mussels at our American French restaurant.
Here is Nicco saying "cheese" in front of one of about 8 little airplanes in a row. He went down the row, stopped in front of each one and smiled his "cheesy" smile for me.

Every time Nicco sees an airplane he exclaims "Oh my gosh look! Airplane!"

He was also fascinated by the electricity ball.

All in all, a good day!

My Library

This post is just for me. It will be boring snoring for anyone who doesn't care about books in general, my books specifically. I put up pictures to liven it up a bit, but again, this is just for me.

I had so much fun making my stacks of books! They were all stored in Nicco's closet until just the other day, so whenever I went up and came back down with an armful of books, Nicco did the same. He has just about as many books as I do.
I moved different books to different stacks as I tried to decide how to organize them. Patrice asked if I was going to organize by size at one point. No no no! That would never suit my needs!

So far, on the top two left hand shelves I have my adolescent literature and my non-favorites. Books I don't necessarily need easy access to, or they aren't especially display books. On the top right I have reference books. On the left again, I have pretty books...Shakespeare, Monet's Garden, Mini Masterpieces, things like that. The next two shelves will eventually have to be my Pulitzer books, I may even need another shelf for those. Then I have my series...Harry Potter, Unfortunate Events, The Dark is Rising, and The Lord of the Rings. I will need to move those because two of the HP books are paperback, and I have not yet bought #7 and five of my Unfortunate Events are missing. I am pretty sure I know where they are, and also pretty sure I will just replace them. On the right hand side, I have my all time favorites and classics. That section already needs to be reorganized. Yay! Organizing and reorganizing! The middle section has more pretty books...gilt edged leather bound, and otherwise beautiful books. This will be a continuously fun thing for me to have! Yay again! Merry Christmas to me!

Merry Christmas!

I was a little paranoid about Nicco waking up first on Christmas morning, so I finally got out of bed at 7:30. I was the first one up and cleaned up a bit from the night before, made coffee and hot cocoa, ate a little breakfast, then waited and waited. Dad was the next one to make an appearance at about 8:20 and the others followed shortly. We did not hear from Nicco until about 9:00. We need to relish this, because I'm guessing it might be the last Christmas morning for a long time that we get to sleep in. When I went in to help Nicco get himself and his lot of things out of bed to see if Santa came while he was sleeping, he said let's check on him real quick, meaning let's check the Norad Santa tracker. We finally made it downstairs to the empty plate of donuts with a thank you note from the man himself and the toy airport left for Nicco.
Here is Nicco playing with his magnetic fish puzzle with Mamie.

His big and huge airplane from Tante Zouzou. (She wins the prize for favorite present this year...she even outdid Santa Claus.)

Nicco loving his big airplane in his Christmas jammies.

Nicco and mommy flying his "cute little" airplane. (Imagine a soft squeaky Nicco voice saying cute and little.)

It was an airplane Christmas this year. Nicco got:

The big airplane from Tante Zouzou

The airport from Santa Claus

A Little People airplane

A book about how people learned to fly

A paper airplane book and kit

An airplane placemat and an airplane pillow from Grandma

An airplane ornament

The rest of us have quite a stash of chocolate.

After opening our gifts, Patrice made crepes with our leftovers. Mmmm Mmmm good!

We had a wonderful day and we are all thankful for Christmas and what it means in our lives, and we were especially happy to have spent it together with all of Nicco's grandparents.

Making Donuts

This was Nicco's first year making our traditional Christmas donuts. He can be a bit meticulous, and the sugar on his hands bugged him at first. It ceased to bother him after the first time he licked it off.

After sugaring a few donuts, Nicco decided to do some quality control taste testing. He dipped, took a bite, dipped again, took another bite, dipped again, etc. until he finished a donut. He did the same thing with several donut holes.

Here he is getting sugar lessons from Grandma.

And this is how the process went.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas Eve. Mom and Dad joined us in the afternoon and we ate snacks, watched Nicco watching Christmas specials, and got had a very festive Christmas dinner. The first course included different kinds of cheese, shrimp and homemade mayonnaise, pate, smoked salmon on cucumbers, smoked salmon on avocado and toast, fresh guacamole, and fresh ahi tuna sashimi. We were stuffed for quite some time after that, so while we let that settle, Nicco made donuts with grandpa and grandma and tracked Santa on Norad's radar. A while later, we had Patrice's awesome scalloped potatoes and stuffed pork roast for our main course. Yummy! We also had a delicious cake, but it was too late and we were too stuffed so we saved it for Christmas.

Here is my Christmas dinner place setting.

The whole table.
Nicco passing time until Santa's arrival playing with Mamie.

Nicco tracking Santa with Grandma.

Nicco was very excited to see Santa getting closer and closer and went to bed like a good boy after setting a plate of donuts for Santa's stop at our house. He made sure we knew the donuts were for Santa and not for us to eat. We tucked mom and dad in around midnight, we stayed up a while longer playing games, then Patrice's parents tucked us in. I think they would have stayed up all night!

Encore!

Nicco made up a new game the other day. He has someone wrap him and SpongeBob like a burrito in his soft blankie then swing him to the couch. This is his airplane game. The swinging is flying, and the couch is where he lands. He puts his things on the floor and hollers "flap it!" to whoever is nearby and willing to play this game. We do it over and over and over again, and when one "pilot" gets tired, Nicco knows it is time to hire a new one. In playing this game, Nicco learned a new French word.

He jumps up and down, points his two fingers and says:

ENCORE!

Tamara's Fantasy

The last few times Patrice asked me what I want for Christmas or my birthday I answered "a bookshelf." Except for this year...I told him I am just happy to have our families together, which is true. Also,when times are tough, you don't ask for something big and expensive. So I guess the trick to getting what you want is not asking for it. Here are some pictures of the work in progress... Nicco wanted to help.

The "big and huge" wall in the framing phase of the project.

My custom shelf all cut and put together, before staining.

The finished product: stained, installed, lights accenting our beach photos of Nicco...Now the fun REALLY begins. I get to look at, touch, sort, and organize all my books! My parents, husband and in-laws asked if I will need help putting up my books. The answer is a resounding NO. That is half the fun of my fantasy being realized. I get to touch, look at, sort and organize my books!Ahhh.....

Getting to Know You...

It has been so fun to watch Nicco interact with his French grandparents. In spite of the language barrier, they have been connecting and having quite a bit of fun together. Nicco likes to read books with his Mamie and enjoy other comfortable and cozy activities with her.
His Papi on the other hand, is great at what grandpas do best:

I have to say, so far (day 3) the visit has exceeded my expectations.

Festival of Lights

We had Hanukkah parties in our classes on Thursday and Friday last week. I was really happy that Papi, Mamie, and Patrice came to visit Nicco, meet his teachers, and participate in a little sample of his day. They made a little craft together, ate some latkes, and the kids sang a song for the visiting parents and other relations. Ms. Georgia said that Nicco sang very loudly and I would have been proud. He is quite a bit more bold this year than he was last year. Here he is with his daddy and grandparents at the little party.

Nicco's Invention

The other day at school I peeked my head out the door to make sure one of my students got down the hallway to the bathroom and back safely, and who did I see coming down the stairs? Nicco's class. His teacher Miss Kim gestured for me to get back into my room quickly. I knew some kind of trouble was brewing. The Bumblebees (Nicco's class) came to my room to demonstrate how well Nicco taught them to use his new invention. Apparently, the kids were playing with playdough using various tools for constructing their playdough creations, including straws and Q-tips. The other little ones were innocently playing and building and Nicco came up with this:

I'm so proud!

Papi and Mamie Arrive

Papi and Mamie arrived at 2:00 in the morning on Tuesday. They were supposed to land around 10:00-ish Monday night, but had delays in both Paris and New York. We wanted Nicco to be able to greet them at the airport for many reasons, his obsession for all things relating to airplanes among them, but mostly for the special moment of seeing Papi and Mamie again after 2 years. Landing at 10:00 was already pushing the bed time limits even for my little night owl, but I am happy to make exceptions for certain occasions. I was less enthused when I found out about the delays, but when we realized they wouldn't land until 12:30 a.m. I nixed Nicco's airport excursion altogether. On the way home from school I told him he should get ready to give Papi and Mamie lots of hugs when we get home. He said "Silly Mommy, hugs don't belong in the computer!" (We talk to Patrice's parents every week via the web-cam.) When I told him that Papi and Mamie arrived while we were sleeping, he said "NO!!! We DON'T see Papi and Mamie at home. We have to see them at the AIRPORT!!" It took some talking to convince him they were waiting for us at home. We were a little nervous about how he would react to them, he has a tendency to be a bit grouchy at times...ahem...but Papi is no dummy. He brought chocolate and a brand new airplane and they were best friends from the start. Here is a little video of the first few moments they spent getting reacquainted.

Naughty or Nice?

This morning, Nicco was not being nice to his daddy and I reminded him that Santa Claus will only visit little boys who are nice. Since then, Nicco has been obsessed with making sure S.C. knows he is nice. We went shopping for an ornament for his cousin at St. Nick's where the Big and Huge Santa waves from the rooftop. When we went in and when we left, Nicco made me holler up to the jolly old elf that he was being nice. "Tell him, mommy! Tell him I'm nice!" I said to Santa "Nicco is being nice." He made me repeat it loud enough that Santa could hear me. We got a couple of giggles in the parking lot. I also had to stop a few times in Target when we passed some large-ish Santa Claus decorations to share the news of Nicco's niceness. When we got home, I was replacing the tree skirt and Nicco gathered all the Santa Claus ornaments and lined them up so I could tell each one that he is being nice. I wonder how many times I will have to repeat this ritual before Nicco feels confident that he is on the nice list.

Elf Yourself

My friend Steph made a Christmas JibJab video and as you may have guessed, Nicco loves it. He tells me "I want to watch the Dancin' Guys." so we watch the elf video over and over. Her youngest has his tongue sticking out and the first several times we watched the video Nicco said "Look at that guy. He's silly" every time Trevor was in the shot. Apparently, the JibJab guys at the beginning of the video are scary...Anyway, here is Nicco watching the Dancin' Guys for about the 50th time today. Thanks Steph! Merry Christmas!