Abigail's 3rd Birthday

Cheerios. Of all the things Abigail could've eaten for breakfast on her birthday, she wanted Cheerios. Luckily, General Mills and Nestle are "cereal partners"--it says on the box--here in France, and Abigail's birthday started off with several bowls of Cheerios.
Next we rode the Metro--we let Abigail sit in a seat instead of the stroller and run around in the huge elevator since we were alone--to the Cite des Enfants, our favorite children's museum. Avery really liked balancing on these round stands; it was fun to follow her around and see what she was attracted to.
Afterwards, we picked up some food--pizza, hamburger and Merguez frites sandwich--and picnicked in the park surrounding the museum. Andy and the kids all raced eachother in the grass. Warren loves to race; he really thinks he is pretty much the fastest and best at anything.
In the Park de la Villette, there are several themed gardens. Unfortunately, most of the really interesting ones were closed for repair, but there were still a few neat ones. This one, for example, is a forest with mirrors all over it. We played hide-and-go-seek for a while in it. I was surprised by how well Abigail and counted when it was her turn.
After the ride home, we stopped off by Arnaud Montel, our favorite upscale bakery, and Abigail chose her birthday dessert. She wanted a pink one.
At home, we had a birthday tea party with herbal tea, grape juice, chocolate cake, cherry sorbet and of course, Abigial's dessert. We opened her presents first.
It was so fun that Abigail requested a tea party b-day party, because I had already bought her this darling wooden tea set a few weeks ago. She and I have already had a tea party with it; it is so funny how she tries to make polite conversation while we pretend. She says funny things, like, "Hannah is doing well." Who is Hannah? She calls me "friend" and I call her "tea lady." She also received 2 French children's books: Un Lion a Paris and Piou Piou. We read them tonight for bedtime stories. Hopefully all her gifts will be life-long reminders of her time here in France. It is kind of neat to note that I spent my 3rd birthday in Mexico City while my dad was there for work, and now Abigail has her 3rd birthday in Paris while her dad is here for school.
The weather turned chilly, and ice cream just adds to the sensation, hence the addition of the coat. I think Abigail's face says it all here.
This video is long, but it is so cute to hear Abigail sing, "Happy Birthday to Me," that it's worth it.

Luxembourg Gardens

Within the Jardin du Luxembourg there is a children's playground that you pay to play within. We were at Luxembourg about 1.5 weeks ago, but it was almost closing time, so we didn't go in. Today we took a picnic lunch and then played and played and played. Warren played on the zipline--no, they don't have those in American parks--for at least an hour. This one was really long, too. There were lots of helpful adults, and nannies, that helped him pull the rope up the platform each time, it was too heavy for him.

We all liked the spinning things; here is Abigail on one of them, at the bottom is a video of all of us on another one. Today in her morning prayers, Abigail prayed, "Help me to be a potty train." We're working on that. When she "goes" 3 times in the proper place, we are going to be ice-cream, and not from the store, but from the people who sell it everywhere. Abigail wants purple ice-cream tha we saw this week.

This is the palace or whatever it is for which the park is named. Usually you can rent toy sail boats to sail on this fountain pool, but since rain was threatening, they weren't out. Maybe another time. We ate dinner very near here by an amazing fountain. Andy bought pitas from a place near his school and then walked to this park, which is very close by, to meet us.

Avery has taken to spontaneouly snuggling with Andy on the Metro ride home yesterday and today. It think it is her way of saying, "I'm glad we're together again." It is the sweetest moment of every day. By the way, today I didn't know where my keys were and Avery noticed, so she pointed them out to me hanging on the wall. Although she doesn't talk much, she is very aware of what is happening around her.

It Was Supposed to Rain Today

Yesterday's steps:11,401
Today's: 10,565
word: choc: shock; toit: roof
I took the kids to the Palais de la decouverte, a children's science museum. The first half of our visit was pretty stressful because we weren't in the best exhibit area for them and I was trying to do it without the stroller. So at lunch, we started over. We got some help to take the stroller up the steps to a different exhibit level and with full tummies and Avery asleep in the stroller, the museum was much more fun. Warren especially likes learning about earthquakes and all the exhibits that went along with that. Tonight, he was telling Abigail, "Abigail, all the continents used to be one continent, but then the tectonic plates that are under the land moved and made all the continents break apart." He was so animated telling her about it, he didn't seem to notice she was crying because she'd hit her head.
Afterwards, we rode the Metro home and when we got off at our stop the elevators were out of service! Thankfully, the first of several people to volunteer were a mother and tween-age daughter who carried Avery and our bag up the 112 stairs, while I carried the folded-down stroller. Other people behind us picked up objects that fell out of our stroller basket as I carried it. About 2/3 of the way up another nice woman picked up Abigail and carried her.
We hurried home to meet our friend who we know from the French ward here. She gave us blueberry muffins she made one week, so I asked her if she like to cook. She said yes, so I asked her to teach me something French. Today she came over and brought all the ingredients to make quiche and a little recipe book I could use to make all kinds of tarts. Unfortunately, my gas tank, which we just filled up again this morning, wasn't working to light my oven. So she explained how to do it and I wrote it all down. She is a great teacher because dinner was great. My kids really liked it too, which is a good indicator. Warren and Abigail are not picky eaters, but they are distracted eaters; staying focused on food at dinner is hard, but not tonight. Avery, of course, ate second helpings, no problem :)
Besides learning from her, it was so nice to have someone in our home. Sure it was messy, sure Warren pulled out his pipe from the flea market and I had some explaining to do, sure my kids were even a little bit more crazy than usual, but she was so friendly and a joy to visit with. I asked about how people do food storage here; she, for example, has a place smaller than ours. Yet, she has food storage. I smiled as I thought about all the people around the world, living the gospel in their own countries. I'm so blessed that I can be here in Paris and already have a built-in community of friends because of the gospel. I look forward to her next visit; we must not have scared her off because she said, "Next time I come I'll bring my camera!" (The comment was prompted by Abigail's face after just finishing a slice of bread with Nutella.)

New Shoes for Avery

Today I ventured into no-man's land: shopping in kids' clothing and book stores with three children. It was a very succesful experience. Here's how it went: Avery needed new shoes so I packed play-doh, crayons and paper, and W's favorite magazine and walked down the street with all three kids in the stroller to D'un mome a l'autre, "From One Kid to the Other," a kids resale place. I told the kids that I had suckers for kids who stayed in the stroller the whole time. I lifted the stroller up the huge step into the store--we took up half of the open space with our mobile home, as I like to call it--and saw the cute shoes you can see Avery wearing and holding in this picture. A few minutes and 6 euros later--a fabulous price for kids shoes here or anywhere--we were off to a bookstore/toyshop by a nearby park. For Abigail's birthday, I wanted to get her some French children's books, and this store looked promising. We walked the short distance and went in the store, no step this time, and the kids stayed happily in the stroller sucking their suckers--thank you G-ma Lindy!--while I perused the large assortment of books and then coveted all the cute toys, too. My French isn't good enough to understand the entire book of any book I looked at, so we played at the park until Andy met us there after work and we went back to the store together. This time it had begun to rain, and the store was busier, so I left the stroller outside and took the kids in without it. We did okay, but I was glad to go. Luckily, it had stopped raining.
Now the kids are asleep and Andy is working. I just walked up to Sacre-Coeur and back; there was a light rain, the lights were reflecting in the streets, people were eating dinner in their apartments, the windows were open, couples were snuggling under umbrellas..it was picturesque. I saw the Eiffel Tower lit up for the first time. Sacre-Coeur, too. Paris is so beautiful at night.

Life is a bag full of cherries...

"Mom, take a picture of the cherries!" That is what Abigail requested, I decided her presence improved the picture, you can be the judge. After picking up Andy from school, we were re-tracing our steps of our walk earlier, and we decided to buy a big bag of cherries to go with our pizza and mergeuz frites sandwich.

We stopped and ate at the park at some church near Andy's school. Then we let the kids play for a while on the toys. It was our 3rd park of the day.

This was the fruit rouges tart that we ate for a mid-morning/put-off-lunch snack. Whenever I purchase food, Avery knows. If I don't immediatley bust out a piece for her, she starts grunting. This time was no different. It helped a little, that I tool the picture with the food on her tray.

The first park we stopped at was the Arenes de Lutice. It is an ancient arena from the 3rd century, when this was a Gallo-Roman stronghold, long before Paris was Paris. The arena was discovered over 100 years ago when they were digging a metro line. Now it's a park. The arena was cool, and there was a nice-sized park adjoining it. We ate lunch on one of the staircases befire heading to the park. For lunch, we hunted down a boulangerie I read about on the internet that was also on the walk I had planned today. We had the yummiest dessert bread--escargot canelle: cinnamon snails (think cinnamon rolls). They were made with croissant dough and filled with a creamy cinnamon filling....Needless to say, we went back with Andy tonight to buy more and eat for dessert once we got home. The other breads we bought, also on the reccomendation of the article I read, were excellent. I love French bread of all kinds!
We met the nicest American couple and their cute 14 month old son, Harry, there. We had a great time swapping sites and stories. I really enjoyed the time we spent together and we may even meet up this weekend at the kids museum we like so much here. They loaned us sunblock, we told them some great parks to go to, it was a great exchange. It was fun to share why were in Paris and how well everything has worked out in answer to our prayers.

Other fun moments of the day: our walk started off near this church, St. Etienne. We went in and among all the other cool things, saw a beautiful sculpture of Christ being placed in the tomb by His friends. I was reminded of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's conference talk a few years ago, "Sunday Will Come." It was all about how there are "Fridays" in all of our lives, but there is also the beautiful promise of "Sunday," just as Christ was resurrected on that day, to the astonishment of all. http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-646-11,00.html
We passed this beautiful courtyard and I thought of Lindy and wished she were there to see it. It looked just like something she would paint if she could get the right picture. I put my camera through the gate, but as we left, a lady who lived there went in, and I bet we could've followed after and taken pictures.At the second park we were at, again, at some church, Warren discovered this toy. You sit in it and your body weight pretty much just keeps you going, and going, and going...
We passed this shoe store and I stopped to look in the display windows. Avery was so excited. She was pointing and making all sorts of sounds about the shoes. She really likes shoes, and she needs new ones, since she has worn holes in the ones she has on here, and on Sunday threw one from her other set down somewhere while we walked home from church. She does that a lot, but usually she would immediately cry or grunt frantically to let us know. Or some nice passerby would notice and bring it to us. It happened at least 50 times, so I suppose I can't be shocked we lost it. I'll let you all know how buying shoes here goes once we do it...tomorrow.
Total steps today: 17,936
French word: monter (verb): to come up, to get on, to ascend, to climb, to mount