Girly Girl

Lucy would not leave the house yesterday without the following:

 1. Her Lightning McQueen lunchbox (filled with Spiderman fruit snacks and Kung Fu Panda Fruit Roll Ups to share with her friends).

2. Her official Cars book, highlighting each character, its make and model. From both movies.

Perhaps it's the overabundance of men in her life. In addition to being Ben's shadow, every Friday she gets together with these three handsome guys for a little playgroup. Needless to say, she fits in well with all the talk of trucks and trains.

One of the boys was wearing a hat, so the others wanted to put theirs on as well. We couldn't quite find ones that pleased Stephen. For some crazy reason he didn't want to wear Lucy's pink pom pom beanie. I died when I saw the Angry Birds hat. Not only is it awesome, but also befits its wearer, who at the tender age of two, is apparently quite the Angry Birds expert.

I squatted down to take a picture and they all followed suit. They look like a bunch of young toughs getting ready to rumble. Or like a crew itching to bust out their breakdancing moves. Which they soon did...

We had a dance party for the last 20 minutes of our playgroup. Not only did they rock out to the Cars theme song, but their moves to Lady Gaga brought down the house.

J'adore Paris

I can't believe we've been back from Paris for almost two months now. It almost feels like it was all a dream. I loved every second of our trip and have been negligent in posting pictures because Blogger takes 50 million years to upload photos. But here are the shots you've been clamoring for (okay, not really). But it will help me remember since the City of Lights is now the happy place in my head. Andy teases about the fact that I took almost 500 pictures during our ten days. But I prefer to collect memories, not souvenirs. So the posts will be broken up into small bits, so as to not overwhelm me from the enormity of the task or you from trip overkill.

To begin with, we owe major thanks to both sets of parents. This trip wouldn't have been possible without Andy's parents turning 60 and his mom deciding to celebrate the momentous occasion by renting a flat on the I'le St. Louis for the month of October. Thanks to her gracious hospitality, we crashed with her for most of our stay. The location made the trip particularly magical since we were on one of the two islands in the middle of the Seine, within spitting distance of Notre Dame and easy walking distance to everything else. We walked our little feet off and got to see the city so much more since we didn't have to spend much of our time on the Metro.

I love this picture of Annette, as we're crossing one of the bridges from the I'le St. Louis to the Left Bank. It captures not only her European flair (love the scarf), but her exuberance for the adventure.

The trip also wouldn't have been possible without the magnanimous help of my mom, Grandma Lori, who watched Ben and Lucy while we were gone. Or Grandpa Jeff, who kindly parted with her for almost two weeks without complaint. The kids had a wonderful time and we were able to enjoy ourselves all the more since we knew they were in such good hands. That's code for: Andy was surprised that we didn't miss them all that much; I wasn't.

On our way to the airport: Ben showing us the prize he got for selling Mumkins at school. I should have skipped buying the overpriced Mumkins and just bought him some Peeps. He would have been just as happy. Lesson learned. He was a champion helper for Grandma while we were gone.

Stoic Lucy wouldn't look at us the whole way there once she figured out we were leaving. Thankfully my mom arrived a day early so Lucy could ease into the transition.

Flying with no kids: can you sense the giddyness? Even though our plane from Columbus to Toronto left late, which left us running through the Toronto airport to catch our connecting flight to Paris, it was heaven to just be able to sit back, relax, watch the shows, sleep a little, and not have to entertain little bodies.

Paris, here we come!

Culture Vulture

We had a big stretch of time open on Sunday afternoon so I thought it would be the perfect time to do some baking. I've been wanting to use our Eiffel Tower cookie cutter and even bought some Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix to stay true to my lazy-woman's version of channeling Martha Stewart.

Things didn't quite turn out how I envisioned. The first sign of trouble came when Andy (a sugar cookie aficionado) tasted the dough and said that there were wierd little chunks in it. Huh? I'd followed the directions to the letter, obediently adding the softened stick of butter and mixing. Sure enough, upon examination, I found rice-sized bits of something, but figured that it was nothing that a bit more vigorous mixing and a good blast of heat from the oven coulldn't fix. But it turned out that the batter wasn't the biggest problem.

This is how they turned out: They cookies looked like either the Eiffel Tower with hip dysplasia or bottom-heavy giraffes. You decide. So much for my visions of decorating them with black frosting and sparkles to emulate the tower shining at night.

Despite their Quasimodo-like apperance, apparently they weren't totally inedible since the cookies all disappeared by the end of the night.

Last weekend we also watched one of my favorite movies of all time. We've seen it five or six times and I'm always hooked by the excellent acting and compelling story. Gotta love the Brits. Dame Helen deserved her Oscar.

Finally, last Friday night Andy and I took Ben out for a date night - his first concert. I'd bought the tickets as a gift for a friend, but she ended up not being able to go, so we thought it would be fun for Ben since he loves music and dancing. We saw Cherish the Ladies, a traditional Irish music band. Little did we know they are an internationally renowned, award-winning group and the concert did not disappoint. Ben clapped along with the music and I loved the Irish step dancers (reminds me of my clogging days). He stayed up four hours past his bedtime and was late for school on Monday due to oversleeping, but it was worth it.