Vidoes of Luka and Axel

Here are some videos of Luka and Axel (in French for their grandparents):

Luka playing Hark the Herald Angels Sing



Camping Car Video 1


Camping Car Video 2


Camping Car Video 3

Luka and Axel Jumping on Mommy - woooeeee!

Axel Jumping on Mommy (9 seconds)



Luka and Axel Jumping on Mommy (10 seconds)

Axel's Artwork

Axel has also been doing some interesting artwork at the Pre-K level. He is very exacting and perfectionist as far as lines go. He is also focused on color. Here are some of his recent items.

Trees Axel colored for Mommy - 4 years old


Gingerbread man with cinnamon made at summer rec center program - just too cute - and smelled good too


"Mommy, Axel, Luka, Jean Claude and Annick - Daddy wasn't home yet"


The Ax man riding his bike - go, Ax!

Luka's Artwork

Luka has produced some really interesting art work at The Studio School using various media and techniques, in 1st grade and in kindergarten. Some examples of what he has done are below; hold your mouse over the image for more information about a particular piece.


Sunflower - by Luka in 1st Grade


Rain Forest - 1st Grade


Snowman - by Luka in 1st Grade


Mardi Gras Mask made in French class - Kindergarten


Owl - by Luka in Kindergarten


Fish - by Luka in 1st Grade


Butterflies - Kindergarten


Butterflies Again - Kindergarten


Abstract by Luka - 1st Grade


Abstract Again by Luka - 1st Grade

Postcard from Edith

We received this postcard from Edith earlier this year. I thought it was neat. Click on it to make it bigger and find five rabbits hidden in the picture. The company who makes this and other cool cards is: www.correspondances.com in France.

To get the solution as to where the rabbits are, click on this image:

Luka's Recital

Here is the program and photos from Luka's first piano recital in November.

Santa Came Early

Since we will be out of town for Christmas day, Santa must have known. He visited our house early (last night, Dec 22) for the boys to open their Santa gifts on Dec 23rd. We will be on a backcountry hut trip with the boys and friends for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The boys received Star Wars toys, board games, a finger skateboard ramp, Jungle Book toys and a talking globe. Going to sleep tonight, Luka said his favorite toy was the globe and all the games it has. Axel didn't say, but surely it was the Star Wars toys.

Recipe: Lemon Artichoke Chicken

2 TBS butter
1 - 3 cloves crushed garlic, to taste
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half thin or pounded out (I had the butcher do it)
flour

1 can artichoke hearts in water, drained
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 TBS capers
1/3 cup white wine
juice of 1 lemon
salt & pepper to taste

Cook garlic in melted butter. Dredge chicken breast halves in flour seasoned with black pepper. Brown in butter mixture until golden, turn over and continue cooking chicken until golden in color, then remove chicken.

Add to pan drippings: chicken broth, white wine, lemon juice, capers, and artichokes--cut into small pieces (I chopped the artichokes till creamy in a food processor). Cook sauce until it has drained and thickened and reduced somewhat. Add chicken and heat through.

Serve chicken over noodles with a green vegetable.

FREEZING NOTES: If you are planning to freeze this for future use, make the sauce to freeze: put broth, wine, lemon juice and pureed artichokes in a quart-sized freezer bag (omit capers and use them from bottle at cooking time). Freeze flat. Thaw when ready to use, and pour into pan after cooking chicken, as directed above.

Nancy's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

My friend Nancy gave me this recipe years ago. It is very rich and very bad for you, I am sure, but they are sooooo good!

1 (10 oz.) bag mini peanut butter cups
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour

Doubles well.

Mini muffin pan required.

Instructions:

Prep mini peanut butter cup by unwrapping them and placing on a plate, set aside. (You need them as soon as the cookies come out of the oven.)

Cream together butter, peanut butter and all sugars. Then, beat in egg and vanilla. Stir flour, salt and baking soda together. Add flour mixture to the cream mixture and mix well. Make 1 inch balls and place in ungreased mini muffin pan. Bake for ~8 minutes at 375 degrees.

Take out baked peanut butter balls and immediately push in peanut butter cups to the bottom. Let cool 15 minutes. Always good, but divine when still warm.

School Celebrations

Axel had his Christmas presentation at school today and did a great job. His class of Pre-K students sang three songs: Santa Clause is Coming to Town, a funny version of The Twelve Days of Christmas and "Happy Holidays to the tune of Happy Birthday.

He loved learning the songs and was an enthusiastic performer.

The words to the funny version of the Twelve Days of Christmas, that his teacher wrote, are:

On the Twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
12 I.O.U's
11 candy bars
10 purple stars
9 froggies leaping
8 fishies sleeping
7 useless car parts
6 one-dollar gift cards
5 strands of lights (shouted: all tangled!)
4 Christmas cards
3 pet rocks
2 different socks
and a chicken in a pear tree

Axel had two (different) socks that he got to hold up each time the "2 different socks" part came around. After the classes finished their presentations, each of the children got to visit with Santa. Axel was very excited and "not afraid of Santa this year" and asked for lots of animals to go with the boys' Jungle Book play set (that is neat, but lacks animals) - this he is getting, a new light saber (to this, mommy says, "no way") and a second garbage truck toy (he loves the first one Santa brought him and for some reason, they ask for a second one every year -- to share? -- but it ain't happening). Santa will bring various Star Wars toys and that should keep them happy. ;)

Luka had his Winter Festival tonight at The Studio School, the arts integration elementary school he attends in our district. It was fantastic! 200 kids singing and dancing. They did the first and the last numbers all together; 200 kids on stage singing together was pretty impressive. Then, each grade (two classes) did numbers separately. Luka's class did a cool African drumming number called Shiko and also a fun dance number called the Great Kapok Animal Dance.

Santa was not at Luka's celebration but he has been saying he hopes that Santa will bring him a "real telescope" that he can look at the sky with. Auntie Laura will fulfill that dream with the Brunton Monocular. He also wants Madagascar II (but it getting Monsters Inc which they both will love) and other cool stuff. He also wants Star Wars toys - that is indeed on Santa's list.

Make a Blog into a Book

This is so cool! I am very excited about this as I have a lot of stories about the kids in the blog and would also like to preserve them on paper. Check out Blog2Print at: http://blog2print.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/index.html

Hangman

One of Luka's favorite games right now is Hangman. Here is a hangman game to print out. Have fun!He also loves Uno and Axel is learning to play that card game too. Ax gets how the colors and numbers work and loves it when he wins. ;)

Photos from Moab

Here are photos from our Thanksgiving trip to Moab and others. Check out our Flickr account (see "Fall 2009" photo album/set) to see more Moab photos and some others from the fall.

Thanksgiving Week Off

Moab was fun for Thanksgiving week. Tgiving dinner at rented condo. Hot tub. Arches Natl Park. Wilson Arch & Needles overlook. Sunny days in November.

Birthday Reminiscing

We were discussing past birthday parties this evening at dinner. So, Luka and I are here to make a list of what we did for past birthday parties.

Luka
1st birthday: train cake at home
2nd: Whinnie the Pooh at home
3rd: Fire fighters museum with friends (and pumpkin cake at home)
4th: Monkey theme at Gymboree with friends
5th: Pump it Up - Zarkan theme with all class friends from Academy Kindergarten
6th: Spiderman theme at Rec Center with Connor
7th: Eiffel Tower Theme at home with school friends

Axel
1st birthday: Winnie the Pooh at home
2nd: Doudou - as in T'Choupi et Doudou at Lakeside Amusement Park
3rd: Bob the Builder with neighborhood friends at home after returning from France
4th: Monkey party in Leadville with Henry family

New look for the blog!

I have not posted lately, but still think about our blog! I just updated this blog's look with a free background.

I've been busy working on other things such as my podcast, my bilingual blog, my twitter account about raising kids to be bilingual, my twitter account about translation, and sending updates on Facebook. It is hard to keep up with all this and real life too!

Hope to be back soon, at least with some new recipes!

Recipe: Pumpkin Hummus

1 14 oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 clove garlic
1-1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1/4 cup tahini (or one small packet almond butter)
cayenne to taste
1 tsp cumin
2 TBS olive oil
3 TBS lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/3 cup plain yogurt

Puree all in food processor. Garnish with fresh parsley, ground cumin or paprika, as desired.

New Pics - Summer 2009

Check out our Flickr account for more photos of our summer.

Reynald and Luka called me from the top of Quandry Peak earlier today. Luka is 6 years old and he just summited one of Colorado's peaks over 14,000 feet. Go, Luka! (He said he was getting high-fives from people passing by.)

French Funnies Online

Tetesaclaques.tv - check it out if you speak French. Our "French girl" for the summer introduced me to it. French Canadian. Weird and funny videos. If you aren't fluent in Quebecois, I'd suggest using the SOUS-TITRES button - it sub-titles it in "international French" - translating some of the more obscure "regionalisms" for those of us who learned our French in France. Worth checking out.

Update: also (newly) in English at www.tac.tv. Very funny!

Reynald's Almost There...

Send Reynald good vibes! He just called from France and is going down for the night, getting up at 6 a.m. to start his crazy triathlon: 1.5 mile swim, 115K bike (~70 miles) in the Alps, 22k running (~half-marathon/~13 miles). See the "Long Course" here for the gory details: http://www.alpetriathlon.com/

Reynald Getting Ready for Alpe d’Huez Triathlon

Arriving in France, unpacking his bike and getting ready for the big Tri in Alpe d'Huez.

Alaska Summer 2009 Trip

Axel, Luka and Eve just got back from a three-week trip to Anchorage. We had a fun time with Grandma, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends. Here are some of our photos.

For more photos from our trip, check out our Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bodeux/sets/ and click on Alaska Summer 2009 or other photo sets.

Pictures from Moab on Mem Day and Reynald's 40th Birthday

Pictures below from Reynald's 40th Birthday (!!!) and our recent Memorial Day trip to Moab. If you want to see more pics, go to our Flickr account and click "Reynald's 40th Bday" or "Moab 2009".

My Other Blog - New: Bilingualism

Wanted to post a quick note about Eve's new blog on bilingualism. Discussions for parents and others interested in encouraging bilingualism in kids. See bloggingonbilingualism.com. Thanks for your support!

Chocolat Rôti

Axel and Luka received new stuff animals / teddies (no, not that kind!) / nounours / doudous at Easter.

Axel received a bunny he named Chocolat rôti. So, in his little head, does that mean roasted chocolate (sounds kind of good), or just chocolate - roasted, or chocolate followed by thoughts of roast pork or chicken (ick). Axel is an imp, so I vote for the last one.

He also had a darling little curly sheep from Easter Bunny (that would be Nat) that he named Mouton Volant (flying sheep). Maybe he is trying to count sheep at night? With Axel, I don['t think so ("No, not tired!") Don't know where he comes up with this stuff.

Luka's first bunny: Fraise (we were eating strawberries at the time). His second one--from Easter Bunny Nat (cuter than the old one I dug out of the closet, I must say), he is still thinking about. Ah, what a thoughtful little man.

Easter and Skiing

We had a very fun Easter weekend with our friends Nat, Jeff and Max. We had raclette on Sunday night at our pad in Leadville, and then yummy crepes at theirs Sunday morning.

The boys had lots of excitement discovering what the Easter Bunny had brought them. (Now that we have curtains installed at the condo, Eve had to wake them up at 8:30 a.m. and tell them we'd had a "vistor." Previous weekends [sans curtains] Axel was happily waking us up at 5 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings - argh!)

They also had tons of fun with the egg hunt that Easter Bunny (that would be Nat and her mother-in-law) hid for them outside in the snow. Max (our 8-month old buddy) waited patiently inside for his pals while they located their loot.

Good skiing at Copper Mountain. Luka did five (count 'em!) black runs with Reynald, Nat and Jeff. Axel did awesome right and left turns and snow plow on the bunny hill (look Ma, no teather!) with Eve. He chased Mommy while she ran down the hill - go, Ax!