Friday, August 21, 2009

Happy SIX months old my little love.

It's amazing how time just flew by. Loïc is SIX months old! And he has grown so much in the last 6 months.

Things he can or loves to do now:-

1) He loves to blow raspberries or play with his saliva sending spit all over me sometimes.

2) He babbles so much. It's funny how he seems to be talking. I love it!

3) He tries really hard to sit upright, so much so that once he fell face first into the water while he was in the bathtub having a bath. He was quite nonchalant about it.

4) He enjoys solids, especially carrots and spinach. Fruits are not quite his thing yet (I tried apples, peaches and bananas).

5) He discovered his voice and love to put it to good use by screeching away. I hate that!

6) He is sleeping through the night from about 9pm to 8am with one milk feed at 6am. And in the day, he usually take two to three naps.

7) He laughs and smiles a lot.

8) He could turn himself from belly to back or back to belly in all directions now.

9) He is getting mobile, a kind of reverse commando crawl.

10) He has a lot of strength in is legs and could hold himself up when supported.

And here are the obligatory photos of my little love.

Few days old
A month later
Two months later
Three months later
Four months later
Five months later (Getting ready for solids)
Six months later (Sitting upright by himself, supported in the front by the safety strap).

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Loïc's first train ride and first visit to Carqueiranne.

We spent the last week at my in laws and this is Loïc's very first visit and the first time he went on the train. The little boy is so well behaved on the train. He slept for a good 3 1/2 hours out of the 4. Laetitia was also a darling on the ride. Although she did not sleep, she was easy to handle and did not give us any problems at all.

Loïc had a wonderful time in the south. We took him out for some walks along the port, had breakfast together in the balcony overlooking the sea etc. He spent some great moments playing with his cousin, Alexandre, and his grandparents.

Here is the little one on the train (one with mummy!).

And here he is enjoying a little sea breeze.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Laetitia and her playmate

The daycare is closed during the month of August and in September, Laetitia will be going into pre-school. The public school system starts at the age of three in France and my little girl will be going to maternelle. She leaves behind some friends in the daycare and since there are a few that she plays well with, I invited one of them over to our place for a little playdate.

Here's the two little girls playing dress up.

Laetitia and Ashley.

Monday, August 3, 2009

First visit to Normandy (Viller sur Mer)

Over the weekend, we drove the car and went to Normandy for a little weekend. The church organised a little outing for Sunday and we decided that instead of following the coach that they have booked, we will drive there ourselves a day earlier and take the opportunity to do a little sightseeing.

We quickly realised that the day we want to drive is supposedly one of the worst weekend for driving in France. In anticipation of the difficulties with traffic and the drive, we actually bought a new GPS. So, we took off on Saturday morning at about 10.30am after taking about 20 mins to get ready (loading the stuff and kids into the car). The traffic was actually rather smooth and it took us 2 1/2 hrs to get into Honfleur, the first town we were visiting.

We had a wonderful lunch in Honfleur but left right after as it started to rain. We decided to go check into our hotel, L'Amirauté near Deauville. The hotel is lovely and I asked about an upgrade from our standard to a luxury room (of course paying the difference) since when I booked for the hotel, there was none available. Luckily for us, there was just ONE room left which I quickly snapped up. The room and hotel was lovely. The room had a direct swimming pool view. Laetitia just about loved it and kept asking to go into the pool although it was a cold 20 degrees outside. We eventually relented and this little fish actually went splashing in the pool in the drizzling cold.

We had a rather eventful evening (got into a little accident when a motorbike rear-ended us. We had to wait for the firemen, the police etc in the rain. Well, poor Etienne did, the kids and I stayed in the car. Eventually when it was all done, instead of driving into Deauville for dinner as planned, we just drove into the MacDonalds that was 2 mins away.

Sunday was a much better day. We met the rest of the church people in a little town called Viller sur Mer, had a little lunch together before going off to spend the afternoon by the beach. It was a very cool 20 degrees again but with the sun, at times it can be nice. Laetitia had a good time playing in the sand while Loïc relaxed in his carseat. I also managed to enjoy a little plate of oysters and mussels in a restaurant before leaving.

So, here's some pictures of the trip.

Having lunch in L'Ostréa in Honfleur. They serve wonderful seafood.

On the beach in Viller sur mer. Etienne taking a video of Laetitia playing.

Loïc relaxing in his car seat.

Enjoying an ice-cream cone on the beach.

Some photos of the town.