Ming Ming and Kaius

Kaius was doing his homework at our house, Ming Ming, who has no homework from Akiba, was very eager in helping Kaius. Here they are trying to figure out which one is an even number. Ming Ming, before I took my camera, was explaining to Kaius that if everyone got a partner, then it was an even number.

videos

Ming Ming disciplining her baby, named Sister after "The Berenstain Bears", threatening her not to take her to the hairdresser's if she does not walk on her own... Ming Ming the martial artist, after watching some sort of martial arts film during movie night.. I asked her to do her martial art slower, and it became a dance piece.

End of Year Recital

Liz and Mike arranged a Saturday recital for the commune. We finally got to witness the musical growth of three of our young members over the past year: Nourit on piano, Oscar on cello, and both Nourit and Avi on violin. Ming Ming can't wait to start violin, but it demands a lot of parental involvement and I am not sure that I got the time this year. 

quite an audience! 

Nourit's piano recital

me and Zazie, the youngest of the Lacroix girls.

After a delicious lunch cooked by chef Mike, the commune proceeded to the Mandel Hall to watch the annual Nutcracker by the Hyde Park School of Dance. Ming Ming was part of the preballet dance show.

dancers getting ready

backstage

they showed the little dancers' pics during the preballet show.

Ming Ming on stage

see if you can find her.. (tip: the tallest!)

 

 

 

Ballet class

I have not been MM's ballet class at all this fall. Today I can't help but go there for a peep as it is the special Halloween dress up day.

MM seems to be dancing more elegantly than last year. 

circle time

pose for parents

 

watching their friends dance..
 
and then it is MM's turn..

Ming Ming turns four today!

No, not five yet! but Ming Ming turns four today!
Thank you for everyone who have called to wish MM happy birthday: mamie and papou (from France), papa Antoine (from Germany), popo (from Hong Kong), Tatan Nana and tonton Andre (from France), Selina Yiyi (from Belgium), Tata sylvie, tonton Nico and petit Alex (from Canada), and German Yiyi (from facebook)!! 

MM's family is so far away, but luckily her friends are close by! We celebrated her birthday with the Big Guys on the Go summer camp Class at Akiba.
Started by making some cupcakes together. main Chef: Ting, Sous Chef: Ming Ming, Anya, Jeffy, and many other kids.

these guys are busy! they helped me make cupcakes, and then attended a show titled "Tales and Scales" at school, a lot of animals apparently. I did not got a chance to see it, it was much longer to cook with kids, I ended up alone in their classroom making cupcakes for more than an hour (which was not so much fun for me). 

luckily they came back! eating some fruit before getting their cupcakes.

here they are: 24 Owl cupcakes!

Birthday song in a school ritual. They started by singing what they put in a birthday cake, then asked the birthday person's name and age, and then "today is Ming Ming's birthday, she is four year old", followed by the birthday song in English and Hebrew. 

When we got home, Ming Ming told me, "I did not sing because it is my birthday. if I sing then people would not know whose birthday it is." That is right!

Avi and Nourit brought down a bag of presents for Ming Ming when we got home! Sweet neighbors!

 

In the afternoon MM stitched a felt monkey face with mama (the body had to wait), danced ballet, watered Jacob's vegetable garden (which is entrusted to me for a month), played outside with Lucas and Lily, eaten dinner with Xiaohu, had a dessert brought to her by Helen and Oscar. The evening ended with an impromptu concert!    

 

 

Xiaohu, age 6 1/2, has been learning for a year and a half; Oscar, three months short of turning six, just started ten weeks ago.
Ming Ming was pretty contented except reiterating her desire to start learning Violin at Suzuki. In the concert we suggested that she sang instead but she did not want to, she wanted to play an instrument. Papa should we reconsider?

video update

Video memory: from the last trip in Saugatuck.
The bath scene is the funniest!




Video Memory:  Papou and Mamie's two week stay in Chicago

Ming Ming recounting the Exodus story

Ming Ming singing and telling story of Moses and the Jewish people's exodus from Egypt.

belated video update

from our last ice skating session back in Feb this year.


Also a video taken in February, Ming Ming chanting songs taught by Popo, and then reading from her chinese class textbook.

Ming Ming and Guitar

Canadian Holiday - video

January

Ming Ming tells a story

Once upon a time, there is a little girl name Snow White and she has a big king and she thought(?) she can have another one but her king said “you should never live in a forest, there might be dangerous animals.” So she did not live in a forest, never never, and she came back in a house and it is all dark. Maybe I can look outside and … but actually there is a fox. And she .. “this is my house, my king.. and I thought the loup (wolf in french) was coming to eat me so I came with you fox.” “That is not real(?),” said the fox. So he ran away to see his king. The end.

This was at bedtime. Ming Ming put her baby to bed and told him or her a story from a piece of paper. It is some sort of combination of Snow White and Goldilocks (never go to the forest) and Three Little Pigs (the wolf). I don't know the source of the fox. There are all stock characters in her stories lately.

singing a silly song with Oscar

MM teaching Papa Chinese

This video was taken on July 11 (a week before our trip to France), we were still in Charlottesville Virginia, busy with all the packing. MM was teaching Antoine Chinese.

MM telling "Frog and Toad" stories

This was in Paris, in Yiyi's apartment. MM woke me up pretty early (eps when we considered that she slept around 11pm here every night), I told her I was going back to sleep, she put her binky in my month and started telling me the Frog and the Toad stories. It is a book that we had read often lately. I was very astonished that she remembered so much of them, with some long sentences memorized and recited accurately; when she did not remember the exact sentences, she made up her own as she knew the stories pretty well. The first two stories was even better, but it was until the third one that I grabbed my camera to film it. It was not all filmed here, but she finished the whole book.

return to Bourg

summer day in Bourg, mamie prepared a sandbox for MM

and a small pool

this time papa can't swim with MM

明明也喜歡啃骨頭..

went to fish some trouts in a fishery in the afternoon

there was a cornfield just opposite the fishery, MM went in trying to escape from Sher Khan (papa)..

visited an old church on the way home, this is an old farm just opposite the church.

graffiti from the middle ages on the church wall

visited a fortress on the way

a small stream under the fortress

at papou and mamie's garden, some cherry tomato waiting to be picked.

exercise after dinner

watering plants

and salads