Réunion de famille à Sutton

Lily, Flor and Mr Westhover | Two powerful friends (merci Paul-Antoine pour les photos)
Les trois familles de Paul-Antoine et Paula, Louis et Louise, et Éric et Rachel se sont donné rendez-vous le 29 et le 30 décembre chez Papi et Taïtaï pour une belle grosse réunion de famille pleine de bouffe, de jeux et de neige. Le voisin, éleveur de chevaux de trait, a eu la gentillesse de nous faire faire un beau tour de traineau dans les champs enneigés du terrain de golf avoisinant. Ce fut une très belle rencontre pour tous les enfants, parents et grand-parents aussi je crois :-).

On se m'arrache













Camille et Alice | Charlotte et Alice | Paula et Alice
Dans le confort du salon, la petite Alice s'est beaucoup "entretenue" avec ses cousines et ses tantes!

Lily's Birthday

Morning chuckle with Taïtaï over fun family photographs...














Afternoon game of twister, with Lily holding the instructions for Roza who was calling the moves...















Evening birthday cake with Lily bringing great anticipation and excitement to her long-awaited blowing of the candles, and everybody finding great delight in eating Taïtaï's signature walnut-and-pineapple reversed cake with whipped cream!

Souper de Noël

Ah j'adore ces soupers où se trouvent réunis autour d'une table des gens que j'aime depuis que je suis né - ma mère, mon père - et d'autres que j'aime depuis des années et encore d'autres que je ne connaissais pas jusque-là mais que j'aime découvrir. Et quelle merveilleuse formule que de laisser les invités les plus doués pour la cuisine se charger d'apporter le cipâte (merci Marc) et le plum pudding (merci Carolyn) !

The cat, the Christmas tree and the perfect Lily gift

Homey Christmas morning in company of Rachel, Lily, Alice and Luna. The big sensation for Lily's first conscious gift-opening experience was her transparent backpack loaded with a complete tea and table service.

Owen's traditional gingerbread house workshop

Pour la troisième année consécutive, notre cher cousin Owen organise son atelier de maisons et bonhommes en pain d'épices du temps des Fêtes. Une assemblée de joyeux drilles se retrouvent ou font connaissance pour la première fois dans l'atelier de costumes de Marc et tous laissent aller leur créativité d'architectes-colleurs de bonbons au gré de ce qu'ils trouvent sur la table !

Sweater swap

What's more in fashion nowadays? An overlarge sweater borrowed from your big sister whose sleeves you roll up half the way and whose turtle-neck folds two or three times around your neck, or an oversmall sweater borrowed from your 2-year old baby sister when you're an 11-year old pre-teen schoolgirl?

Christmas right, left and centre

Signs of an approaching Christmas are sprouting up right, left and centre at the Harris-Taillefer abode of Fabre Street. On the right is a partially (or was it totally?) decorated fir tree, on the left over the piano top are some acquisitions from the now traditional yuletide art sale of Annie's and Céline's works, and center is a book of Christmas carrols (placed there a year ago, I must confess) that Gabriela is unfortunately not interpreting at the piano (she's hacking away at one of Amélie Poulain's tunes). Nice holiday spirit, nonetheless. Greatly helped by the fact that I'm now on vacation as of today... hehe.

La main dans le sac...

Incriminating photograph taken right at the time of the crime. The culprit was seen actually wearing the jewelry of her bigger sisters, with her hand clearly in the forbidden drawer.
La coquetterie frappe les fillettes de plus en plus jeunes!

Subversive activities with big sister Flor

When Fofo is home she sometimes listens to this noisy box that daddy and mommy don't like, and so I climb up the stairs and I sit with her on the sofa and we watch together.
Lily est installée dans le boudoir en haut et regarde L'École des fans avec sa soeur Flor qui aime écouter chanter les enfants... comme le faisait ma chère gangan, leur arrière grand-mère, dans son boudoir d'Outremont il y a vingt ans...

My new haircut

Daddy thinks it was to avoid lice, Mommy thinks it was to avoid tangles, but my new haircut is really just to better reflect my new 2-year-old's temper: short.














Une première expérience très agréable pour Lily sur la chaise du coiffeur, en compagnie de Rachel, Alice, Flor et gnon-gnon (cousin Émile).

Yo man, gotta protect those lips !

Lily a guéri elle-même ses gerçures de lèvres à grands renforts quotidiens de pommade et de break dance.

Buckle up, sister Alice...

... we're about to take off ! Our super-muscular G engine will soon propel us to the Moon and beyond ! Oh... and also Mommy will occasionally take us grocery shopping, too... [thank you Meo for this wonderful 2-seat red space shuttle!]

Yummy chocolate cake at Émile's birthday party

Toujours bien entourée, Lily ne manque rien du dessert préparé par tio Paul ni du déchirement des emballages-cadeaux par cousin Émile, qui a eu 8 ans hier.

Fête de Noël pour enfants chez Voir

Three members of the Taillefer-Harris bunch enjoying (?) the show put on by Gomme-Balloune the clown at the Christmas children party at dady's office.

Happy sleeper

Alice is becoming a very good sleeper... twice now she has slept right through the night, and her naps are generally long and peaceful. The nuk is proving useful of late, as a new trick to initiate sleep.
(Fashion credits: thanks to Sue and Steve for the woollen blanket, to Doug and Candy for the colourful ensemble, and to Meo and Doco for the sheepskin.)

Whine before you dine

Lily the actress in one of her heartbraking I'm-hungry-and-food-is-not-ready scenes.

There's some on my boots!

You expect me to walk in this??
La première véritable neige qui est tombée sur Montréal a rendu Lily perplexe... vais-je salir mes bottes blanches et mon nouveau snowsuit de chez M.E.C.?

L'insaisissable nature de Alice T.

I swear it exists... Rachel and I have seen it! In a rare occurence, truer than a UFO sighting, we've spotted the fleeting passage of a real smile on Alice's face. I'm afraid our Canon PowerShot A70 is yet too slow to catch it, but it's there :-)
The best opportunities tend to present themselves when she's done filling her tummy and her potty... the moment then arises where for a second or two she has nothing to do or to worry about (and neither do we, believe or not) — and there it is: that wee smile, that ever so soft "areu" laughter provoked by the "gaga" faces of her mother and father leaning over her!

Learning, learning...

I sit and I push these coloured beads along
Putting on the socks Taitai made
Comme elles apprennent, ces petites créatures humaines hautes comme trois pommes! On a presque rien à leur montrer; elles observent et répètent les gestes des grandes personnes, ou bien découvrent l'univers carrément par elles-mêmes. Lily veut tout faire et fait tout. Tous les jeux l'intéressent, tous les livres aussi... s'habiller, se déshabiller, faire la vaisselle, le ménage... prononcer tous les mots dans les deux langues... chanter toutes les chansons et les danser aussi... Souvent elle s'étonne elle-même de ce qu'elle réussit à faire. Par exemple, aujourd'hui elle a fait un gros pipi pour la première fois dans le petit pot, et pourtant elle faisait juste semblant comme d'habitude.

Youpi, Roza est de retour !

"Go away mommy," said Lily, as she often does when she feels parental interference might ruin a nice situation. Roza, our dearest babysitter and good friend, is back from Israel where she had been for many weeks staying at her sister's place. And Rachel can leave home with utmost piece of mind, with Lily — and now Alice too! — in such good care.
[Thank you, Paula and Émile, for the great jungle armchair!]

Quand le papa est parti...

... il faut ménager la maman ! Mes deux petites dernières ont l'air de faire bonne compagnie en ce vendredi soir alors que Rachel est seule avec la marmaille pendant que je suis en comité de direction à l'hôtel Sacacomie à discuter de l'avenir d'une autre compagnie.

Serious helmet

Check this out. This is my brand new bicycle helmet. It's a safari-type model from Louis Garneau and I just got it from the M.E.C. store on Saturday. I wore it for the first time on a bicycle trip this morning, but I had been wearing it quite a lot inside the house before. Just in case I bang my head against the kitchen counter, you know...

My dad took me on his bicycle to Roche, papier, ciseaux - my bigger daycare hangout. The kids are all my age and we're twenty altogether and I have lunch and a nap in the afternoon when I go there. My other daycare digs is Pirouette, twice a week but only until noon. Mom or Dad pick me up for lunch, so I eat at home and I have my nap in my own bed on those days.

Anyway, life is cool. And my helmet is red and green.

Scary Halloween

As is evident from the picture, excitement was at an all-time high a few minutes before the great Halloween "trick or treat" ritual. While Flor and Gabriela were off running the streets in NDG with Annie and her gang, Alice and Lily stayed at home with Rachel and I to give away buckets of candies and chocolates.
Lily, dressed as a tree fairy covered with leaves from head to toe ;-), was in charge of handing out the goodies, and she did an excellent job of it. With one candy in each hand she awaited every new wave of kids running up our stairs with their costumes and big open bags. One-two for you, one-two for you... Lily was refuelling as fast as she could and kept everyone happy. Until the fearful moment when she came face to face with a true monster! Some teenage kid had dressed up with a long black cape and a hideous gray gooey rubber mask with hollow eyes and gaping mouth. Lily screamed and cried and sobbed and shuddered and could no longer function for a long while.
I tried to reassure her later on by asking another teenager dressed as a squeleton to remove his mask and show Lily his face, but she never quite recovered the same abandon and fluidity in her giveaway function.
A week later, she still re-enacts at least once a day the "monster face off" gesture. Alice, on the other hand, retained her composure through the whole Halloween affair, much as she does on the picture :-)

Exercices de bedaine

Like a little turtle, Alice attempts to plough adead with all fours as soon as we place her on her belly. No actual "moving" is going on yet, but faint grunts point to some significant effort.

Note: this looks like any other picture, but it's actually a video!

Growth spurt...?

Lily is eating as much as four adults these days, asking for "more chicken, please", "more potatoes, please", "more noodles, please", etc, etc. Rachel and I are hoping this is just a passing phase... due to some momentary growth spurt.

La main à l'ouvrage

En espérant que les bonnes initiatives de Lily-la-propre perdurent jusque dans l'adolescence — n'est-ce pas Flor ? :-)

Potty training for a 1-month old

The eager potty-trainee candidate being coached by her awesome potty-trainer! pooh-pooh... ooh-ooh...

Petite fée des bois...

Getting ready for the Pirouette Halloween party!

Hello, dear cousin Eva !

Papa and me | Blue eyes... for now | 36cm head circumference

"Little Eva is born and she looks healthy and full of beans already. Congratulations to uncle Philippe and aunt Alysha! I am so looking forward to meeting this young person whom I feel will be connected to me in a very special way some day" — Alice.

La Vita è bella

The first smiles have started, not quite sincere perhaps but evocative of interior blisses blossoming out of cosmic farnientes.

Encore un peu jeune pour choisir entre le ballon de soccer et la poupée qui fait pipi, en voilà une qui se la coule douce et savoure ses quatre semaines d'existence sur notre boule.

My five women | Mes cinq femmes

Je ne saurais imaginer meilleur entourage le dimanche matin pour prendre un croissant au petit déjeûner! On dirait presque que tout ce beau monde vient à peine de se réveiller d'une longue nuit de sommeil, sauf que Rachel continue de dormir par morceaux de 2-3 heures à cause de la petite créature posée sur le plancher, et moi je me suis levé à 6h30 à cause de la créature blonde à rayures assise à sa droite pour aller hurler des ordres et des encouragements à son équipe de soccer pour leur premier match de la saison d'hiver...

I love these five women, who fill all my days with joy, giggles and... a whole lot of running!

Homework

Gabriela and Flor do homework almost every day of the week... this picture was taken on a Saturday. As far as Lily is concerned, drawing is always fun and nobody can ever touch a piece of paper with a pen or pencil in our house without Lily having to join in.

Cause for rejoicing | Une grande première

Unlike Alice who is well on her way to being toilet-trained by the time she's 2 months old, Lily has never really fancied that potty we keep around the bathroom at all times. But recently, she's made some attempts at (at least) sitting on the thing, thanks to Flor's playful coaching with the "baisser le pantalon" routine. On this picture, we witness a celebration dance after Lily's finally (accidentally?) deposited one drop of pipi into the container! Yey!

Visites familiales | From East and West

The morning news | Louise reconnecting with babyhood | Cole examining babyhood
Cole est arrivé hier soir de Vancouver et a fait la connaissance d'Alice et renoué avec Lily qui n'a pas lâché son "Doco" d'une semelle depuis qu'il a franchi la porte. Belle coïncidence: Louise, Louis, Raphaël et Charlotte se sont joints à Papi et Taïtaï pour un lunch dominical à douze! Les chouettes jasettes ont fusé autour de la bonne soupe de Rachel...

How nice to have Doco with us for a couple of days on a visit from out West; and what luck to have Louis and Louise and kids over for lunch along with Andrée and Laurent, all coming from the East!

Première visite chez tío Paul et tía Paula

Bien sûr c'est ma grande soeur Lily qui a encore une fois volé la vedette lors de ma première visite chez mon oncle Paul-Antoine et ma tante Paula et ma cousine Camille et mon cousin Émile. Mais ça ne m'a pas empêché d'avoir de bons moments dans les bras de tout le monde. J'ai une belle famille !














Yes I did sleep through most of my first visit to my uncle Paul-Antoine's house on Thanksgiving, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying greatly the many hugs I received from all the adults and pre-adults and kids present!

Two weeks old...

Alice's eyes are starting to open up, her skin isn't so red anymore, and even her daddy sometimes thinks she's cute. Alice is two weeks old and must weigh more than ten pounds by now. She loves to nurse and drinks her mother's milk with great gulping sounds.














If you think this is another picture of Alice, I've fooled you. It's a photo of Lily, taken when she was one day old. Pretty close sisters, hey?

The Pumpkin Man has come...

Merci TaïTaï et Papi pour la merveilleuse cargaison de citrouilles! Mon premier Halloween sera d'une belle couleur orange :-)

I think the colour orange, especially that deep orange from my grandparents' first crop of pumpkins, may be my favorite colour — just like my mother...

Pourquoi un blogue? | Why a blog?

J'ai envie d'expérimenter avec cet outil qui me fascine depuis quelques années, mais mon besoin plus immédiat est celui-ci: je veux une façon simple de publier sur le web les photos de ma nouvelle petite fille, Alice. Afin que les membres de la famille éparpillés aux quatre coins de la planète puissent les voir sans passer par la frustration des pièces jointes à un courriel qui ne s'ouvrent pas toujours pour tout le monde...

I have wanted to experiment with this fascinating tool for a few years, but my immediate need is this: to find a simple way of posting on the Web some photos of my newborn daughter, Alice. So that the members of our extended family may be able to see them without the trouble of opening e-mail attachments that don't always behave the way they should...

[note 24 oct: vous remarquerez que j'ajoute aussi des photos de Lily, car elles sont beaucoup plus nombreuses et intéressantes, du moins tant que ma chère Alice continuera de dormir vingt heures par jour :-)]

A l'ombre d'un bouquet en fleurs

Merci à la gang de chez Voir pour les belles fleurs...

The great milk debacle...

Les choses progressent à un bon rythme entre Rachel et Alice. Nous venons d'entrer dans la phase excitante de la montée de lait, alias "the great milk debacle". Ci-joint une photo de Rachel bien préparée et d'Alice qui ne se doute pas de ce qui l'attend... :-)

Things are hopping along on the Rachel-and-Alice front. We've just entered the exciting phase known in French as the "montée de lait", a.k.a. the great milk debacle. Attached is a picture of a well prepared Rachel and of an unsuspecting Alice...

Meanwhile, princess Lily...

Lily shares in the pleasure of hooing and haaing over little Alice, but let's face it: most of her time is still devoted to her own personal interests. One of which is frequently painting, these days.

Petite dormeuse | Little sleeper

À trois jours d'âge on dort beaucoup, et cela est bien pour les parents... mais ce sommeil se découpe en petits blocs de 1-2 heures, et cela est un peu moins bien... :-)

At three days of age, one sleeps a lot, and this is a good thing for the parents... but all this spleep is chopped up in 1 or 2 hour chunks, and that is somewhat less ideal... :-)

Youpi une petite fille | A baby girl

Alice à la naissance | Mother and daughter united | World, here I come!
Alice est née sans problème à 5h37 ce matin. Elle pèse 9 livres et 3 onces et mesure 21 1/2 pouces, elle est donc une once plus lourde et un demi-pouce plus longue que sa "grande" soeur Lily ne l'était à sa naissance...

Rachel va bien. Ce deuxième accouchement s'est déroulé plus rapidement que le premier, et la bébé a fait irruption après à peine 2 poussées intenses... comme un bouchon de champagne. Les sages-femmes et aide-natales de la Maison de naissance ont été admirables une fois de plus!

Alice was born this morning at 5:37, after nine months and ten days of a wonderful pregnancy and twelve hours of equally wonderful contractions (speaking from my standpoint, of course). Rachel is well (see picture with the smile) and fast recovering and Alice is plump and daunting (see picture with the frown). She weighs 9 pounds and 3 ounces and has a healthy appetite for her mommy's milk.

Our experience with the midwives in the "Maison de naissance" (birthing house) has proved once more to be immeasurably satisfying. While Lily was born there during a snow storm two Christmases ago, little Alice chose to emerge during a rain storm. Thankfully, Rachel's own storm inside the room came to a quick end soon after the waters broke, and Alice appeared after only two major tsunami pushes.

All three of her sisters - Flor, Gabriela and, mercifully, princess Lily - are delighted to see Alice arrive into our family, which family I will be trying to keep happy by staying at home full-time for the coming month, and by generally dedicating myself to all these women for the rest of my life ! (haha)