Youpi, maman Rachel revient dans 2 dodos !

Lily just got off the phone speaking with her mommy in Mexico and is starting to believe that "soon" means "soon". She has been very good so far, living her life without that most important being around her. If anything, she seems to have an easier time dealing with everything when the one person who can really understand her little daily traumas is not around to get them off her chest. But one senses that this momentary suspension of her kid angst is only going to last for a short while. We are cruising along on borrowed time, as it were...

Un beau bricolage à trois

Alice enfile patiemment les petites perles de bois sur les bâtonnets une par une pour créer cette belle forêt de totems, avec l'aide de Lily qui choisit les perles de couleur et papa qui s'assure que personne ne se fait mal... (et Gabriela qui prend les photos, merci Gabi !)

Alice la minutieuse

Is it just me being the "gaga" father again, or is my little Alice really impressive for her age? She handled all these tiny little wooden beads one by one to fill the plastic compartments; first with her fingers, then with a spoon, then with her whole hand and finally with the full plate... and she hardly spilled any beads !

Moi, j'aimerais avoir deux mamans !

Comme ça il en resterait une à la maison quand l'autre est en tournée au Mexique...!

Petit poussin s'éveille le matin

This little chick wakes up every morning around 7:09 and starts chirping for her daddy or mommy to come and fetch her out of her snuggy nest. She is always happy, rain or shine, to be alive and kicking. Every day is full of promise and adventure and fun.

From listening to Lily waking up half an hour later on the other side of that wall, I guess existential questions arise only later in life, around 2 or 2 1/2...

A splendor and a half

The lovely tulips that Carolyn brought for our belated Easter supper with Doco and uncle Owen are starting to fade but boy that Lily girl sure looks great in that satin dress Meo gave her on her pre-Easter visit! The trouble now is how to get her out of it...! (she insists on going to bed with it, playing in the sandbox in it, drinking grape juice while dancing in it, aah...)

Tackling those stairs

At last, my parents let me walk up and down the stairs! These stairs that lead to the yard are perfect because I can hold on to a low railing... I've been praticing for hours, up and down and up and down, and now I have total confidence in myself! (I always did, really, but who could tell, with these parents never letting me a chance to prove it on the indoors stairs?!)

Youpi c'est le printemps!

First day of real sun, and all my earthy girls are out in the garden!(the other two, somewhat less earthy, are probably still sleeping... ;-)

Big spoonfuls

Alice sometimes eats with an enormous appetite, these days, swallowing big mouthfuls in rapid succession. The fact that she now has mastered the handling of the spoon certainly helps. And the fact that we're having rice for supper really fires her up her appetite as well.

Chocolate eyes but no chocolate tongue

Mummy, I don't really like chocolate... but can I still hunt for Easter eggs?

Du bon stock pas cher, man!

Tiens, goûte à ça et donne-moi z'en des nouvelles, mon homme!

Souper de Pâques chez Taitai et Papi

Louis avait des grandes choses à nous raconter et Flor en a toujours aussi beaucoup à dire... :-)

Matin de Pâques

Les cocottes de Pâques ouvrent leurs cocos de Pâques...

Easter bunny

Le petit lapin de Pâques arbore fièrement les belles oreilles que lui a fabriquées sa grande soeur Flor et dévore goulûment ses carottes... et ses boulettes de viande!!

Quiet sculptor

Daddy showed me how to do trees and snakes with playdough, today... and everything is quiet in the house because Lily is not there... I prefer it when my sister Lily is home because everything becomes very excited and exciting, but I do get to play a little longer with things when she's at her daycare...

Sérieux bricolage à la chaîne

Tout le monde est très concentré, très à son affaire: une qui découpe, une qui colle, une qui dessine... et une qui remet les capuchons sur les crayons feutre.

Pouquinettes en liberté...

... avec leur chère Meo bien-aimée (et, bien sûr, leur maman vénérée qui tient l'appareil photo) au Jardin Botanique lors de l'événement "Papillons en liberté".

As soon as Meo arrives...

... a flurry of gifts is showered on the Lily princess and her attendants... (Look at the satin dress on this lady! and smell the toffee and chocolate aroma tempting the photographer ;-)

Mommy and Lily are off to the train station!

"Pensez-vous vraiment que vous allez partir sans moi!?"

Hèè... kécéssa??

Four Sunday morning girls enjoying a nice new photographic book on marine life that Rachel won in a contest (yes, these things do happen once in a lifetime!)...

From the look on some of their faces, one guesses they must have shot some pretty awesome creatures down there... :-)

Déjà vu

Quel déjà vu! Alice passe exactement dans les pas de Lily, en apprenant elle aussi, au même âge, à faire la vaisselle... et elle passe aussi dans les mêmes vêtements... ;-)
la photo de droite fut prise le 29 octobre 2005, quand Lily avait 22 mois]

Pianiste auto-didacte

Hey, pourquoi Gabriela et Flor ont des leçons de piano les samedis matins et pas moi? qu'à cela ne tienne, je me prends en main... pas de temps à perdre, j'ai déjà attendu presque 1 an et demi!

Snowy Saturday morning at Parc Lafontaine

Everyone is very active at building a big snowman: John, Jane Anna, Benjamin, Zachary, Lily, Rachel (momentarily behind the camera)... everyone except possibly Alice, who's asleep in the stroller behing Jane Anna, and maybe... er... me (where was I? hmm soccer I suppose)

Captive audience

— Lily: "Viens, petite soeur, je vais te lire un livre... Aïe! reste assise, j'ai dit! Tu vas écouter mon histoire, oui ou non?! Il était une fois..."



— Alice: "Ha! Même pas capable de tourner les pages!"

Le chiard et le charriot

Quelle embardée hivernale, chaque matin, pour amener Lily à la garderie...!

Z.. in Montreal

Zed Poinpoin on his 3-day visit at Fabre Street... youpi, we have a new Zed painting on our walls!

A joker and a fighter

... just give me another five or six months and this big sister of mine won't be laughing at me so loud anymore!

Petite fille prête pour sa sieste

Oh que je me suis bien amusée chez Maya, Martin et ma chère Roza! Mais mon heure de sieste est largement dépassée et je sens l'appel de mon lit tout d'un coup...

Essayage de chapeaux dans un sous-sol aux mille trésors

C'est fou ce que Maya arrive à sortir de toutes les boîtes entreposées dans son sous-sol!

Un penchant pour la salade...

Here's Lily eyeing Maya's delicious looking spinach and mandarine salad... with a hungry determination.

Happy Birthday, dear Maya !

... and happy pregnancy, too !

Preparations are going swimmingly for this delightful Sunday brunch, with everyone feeling healthy and very much alive, including babies in and out of bellies.

Yé, une visite chez Maya !

Cette chère amie de Rachel est enceinte, Martin son chum est adorable, leur petit duplex de Verdun est plein de belles couleurs et de soleil... et notre chère Roza adorée habite juste au-dessus !

Chaque visite qu'on fait chez eux est une belle fête; en particulier celle-ci car c'est l'anniversaire de Maya. On va bien s'amuser !

Lily's birthday party #4

Gabriela's idea of birthday fun...
Une n-ième glissade de matelas dans l'escalier de l'appartement pour divertir petits et grande (!)...

Lily's birthday party #3

Noah eyes his share of Lily's birthday cake as the cook serves on...

Speed

Alice on her new fangled red-hot roadster... What's the occasion for this gift, you ask ? Christmas of course, even if we're January 28; the toy was too heavy for air travel to Vancouver, you see. Oops, I think I got it wrong... Alice's gift was the wooden rocking horse; this hot rod is clearly a Lily gift... ahem, if I remember well.

Eric and his four daughters

J'ai rêvé de beaucoup de choses dans ma vie, surtout quand j'étais jeune. Des choses que je n'ai pour la plupart jamais réalisées. Et me voilà dans la quarantaine, moi qui n'ai jamais rêvé d'avoir des enfants, me voilà pourtant entouré de quatre merveilleuses filles qui m'appellent papa! Un non-rêve qui m'apporte une satisfaction profonde que bien des rêves ne m'eussent jamais apporter...

Trois coquettes à l'anniversaire de Flor

L'art de bien se vêtir et se décorer de bijoux s'apprend à trois ans et même avant - chez Lily en tous cas. Et ça aide d'avoir une cousine comme Camille, une soeur comme Flor et un orfèvre de cousin comme Raphaël!!

That intriguing male anatomy...

"Mommy let's go look for more penises", says Lily, interested in furthering her understanding of the male anatomy after an eye-opening bath with cousin Griffin the day before...

Little squaw and totem

We had a lovely visit at the Museum of Anthropology with Meo and Doco that warm afternoon. Lily and Alice had a great time with the rocks and the totems and the "pretend" river.

Le bonheur est dans le moment présent

There are 387 steps to these glorious stairs that lead from the UBC campus down to the sea... good thing little Alice agreed to go back up when we were only partway down! One day soon she'll go the full distance. It would also help speed things up if she could learn to become less interested in every dead leaf she finds on every step!

Petits yeux bleus, gros yeux noirs

Ma petite Alice toute sereine dans l'ombre d'un menaçant totem à la bouche et au regard énormes.