mamie and papou in Chicago - day 3

another play date with Anya

 

 

 

papou and I drove to Ikea, as part of my driving training; I also bought a whole Ikea store, according to papou who was very patient with me!
 
Ming Ming taking advantage of the all the wrapping materials ...

Mamie and papou day 2 in Chicago

the morning starts with Ming Ming going to Mamie's bed and doing a series of "devinette"

walking to campus to have lunch with me.

 

lunch at the university

 

 

Papou and Mamie arrived!

When Ming Ming was a baby, I often worried how she would perceive the sudden appearance and equally abrupt disappearance of her grandparents. Now that she is much older, she starts to anticipate their arrival. She counted the days a week before: "seven days is a long time right?" "three days is really quick."
Yesterday, we were just walking Anya home after our play date when papou and mamie called to let's know that they were already in a taxi heading for hyde park (almost two hours earlier than anticipated), Ming Ming's response was "let's go home immediately! we have to wait for papou and mamie!" 

breakfast the next morning

walking around the neighborhood, heading to the lake shore.

 

 

 

having lunch in pizza capri..

passover holiday

Ming Ming's school has very long passover break (almost two weeks). For the first week, she had school for two days, I arranged play dates and traded childcare with some parents from her class. She ended up spending more than a day at Claire's house with Claire's grandma (who is Chinese). The two girls began talking to each other in English, and soon changed to Chinese once the grandma got involved.

Today she had a play date with Anya and Avi. 

the two girls having blueberry pancakes for lunch in my newly decorated back porch.

 

Easter Sunday - Brunch and Egg Hunt

I spent two hours at the Lacroix Kitchen on Saturday evening, observing Chef Mike at work and trying to help prepare some veges as he was single-handedly putting together a gourmet Easter Sunday brunch for the whole commune. At the same time Liz was putting together an exquisite Easter breakfast table for her girls, with beautiful baskets filled with new and old toys (they can't tell that they have been receiving the same things for three years now, according to Mike). I improvised a similar basket for Ming Ming when I got home, filled with only old toys. But... 

she was just as happy the next morning when she saw the breakfast table!

hanging out with Emily after their Chinese class

As Keven, I decided to copy Mike's email here to "immortalize" it. I don't think that I will have another Easter brunch like this in the years to come.

Dear Neighbors,

On the (hastily, but tastily, put together) menu for tomorrow’s
brunch/lunch at the Rubyhofer’s:

savory crêpes filled w/ ham & cheese
French lentils w/ asparagus
new potato/sunchoke salad w/ lemon vinaigrette
slow roasted lamb shoulder w/ onion/fennel confit
cream puffs for dessert

There will be lots of food, but if you’ve got a favorite family dish, or if you feel like cooking, please feel free to add to the above.

Anne says their place will be open at 10am–food won’t be ready until 11:30, but, I guess we can still call it brunch

Mike

here is the youngest member of the Bohnenkims, Hugo at month 7.

the kids ate first

adults had no access to the table and could thus only chat.

our turn! my plate!

these poor crepes filled with cheese and ham were forgotten in the oven. still the best crepes that I have eaten!

After a delicious brunch, here the egg hunt started. Kids listening to Anne's instructions.

ready to go!!

the instruction was that they should try to find as many eggs as they could, but have to brought every egg to the table. the eggs were all labelled with each kid's name, so an equal distribution at the end of the egg hunt was easy. No tear, no complaint.

a big THANK YOU for Mike and Liz for two wonderful meals!  we basically regrouped for dinner and finished the rest of the food.

After the imposed Easter socialism from their parents, the kids started by lining up their treasures and doing trades.

Fair trade quickly turned into looting. they started picking from Diane's basket. 

the crime was caught by camera.

while Oscar tried to escape with his loot, Ming Ming explained that they did not just take Diane's stuffs,  they have actually asked nicely and Diane consented to their looting.

Easter Saturday - coloring eggs and gardening

We started the Easter weekend by coloring some eggs in the courtyard

 

 

ran out of eggs, so we colored some rocks

I went with Anna to home depot to get some seeds, soil, and plants; and Anne started gardening with the kids in late afternoon.

 

 

The Rubyhofers have wonderful, and for once, timely, entries for this weekend. After stealing pictures from their blog, I also ask you to click here and here.

明明在跟婆婆講電話

Ming Ming in a phone conversation with Popo!
婆婆和我們住了六個月. 走了以後明明很是想念, 總是說婆婆回來的時候她就不用作"rest time kid" (下午留校的小孩), 可以中午就跟婆婆回家了. 婆婆一打電話來, 她和婆婆很多話講. 還老是吵著要和婆婆在電腦上說話.

Passover celebration at school

Ming Ming at her favorite sandbox

Seder- Passover meal

They made a scene of Egypt on the backboard with a hot sun and many pyramids.

papa worked from home today and Ming Ming was happy to work right next to him.