Jeux de Neige

We took my sled and to Bend we went.
The snow came down and I thanked the sky.
Snowsuit and boots, gloves and a hat
It kept me warm on the slippery slopes.

It was a fun way to end the year
And I am happy to share the joy
With a bilingual production:
An English video followed by French commented pics

Happy New Year to all,
Noah

PS: Maman and I are practicing our Mother Goose rhymes; you will hear that she is not doing that great

Christmas Morning 2009

I don't know which way Santa came in but he ate the cookie and had his milk too. I still doubt that it was through the chimney. I told Maman that he probably used the door.
This said, he left me a pile of presents! My head was spinning from tearing the paper to trying to play with all the new stuff at the same time. I think I was spoiled, again. I love all of it, although I must confess to mainly wanting to play with my new trains and making up stories all day, using a variety of voice tones. Fun!
I also went on a bike ride with Papa. It was quite cold out there and I seemed to be the only kid out. I was ready for my nearly 3 hour nap after that!
When I woke up, Papa, Maman and I watched "The Polar Express". My first ever movie and I can tell you that I LOVED it. I was enthralled and my entire body was living the movie. From the drooling to my eyes watering because I would not close them at all, to my reactions to what was happening ( clapping, saying "oh, no"), it was really worth watching me too! Really great movie and that train, boy I want to ride it next Christmas!
Today we are packing to go the mountain with my new luge. Yippie!
Enjoy the video and hear me sing too!

Christmas Wishes

What? I have not regaled you with a new video for over a month? I must say that I have been busy being the King of the house. Well, I have been trying at least. My subjects have strong opinions and I have a hard time getting them to see the world through my lenses. I mean, really, are all those rules necessary? At least I have a strong ally in Calvin ( from C.alvin & H.obbes). The kid cracks me up.

Now, I have been told about a bearded guy called Santa who is supposed to come through the chimney to give me presents. I have explored our fire place a few times and I can tell you that there is no way the guy can do it. A few weeks ago, I still wrote a letter though, you never know. I am into trains this year so Maman helped me write down some of my favorites*. All of them if you ask me, but she said I had to "share". That's right, "share". Another weird concept the parents came up with.

Since we are not seeing most of my family during the Holiday season, I am using the video medium to send wishes to all of you. Oh boy was I silly when we were doing the shoot. But hey, that's who I am! This morning I woke up, announced that I was a goofball and exploded in laughter. ( thanks Papa for teaching me the word!)
So, I don't know what your wishes are for the Holidays but I am pretty sure that my parents are hoping for a book on "how to keep your patience when you have a 2 year old king in your house".
Hugs and Kisses to all and enjoy the video,
Noah

*just so that you know, the letter was not re-read since it was written two weeks ago.

Silly swimmer

Three and a half months have gone by since the last swim class video so we thought that we would show you how I was doing now.
Maman chose the Monday after Halloween to do that and even though I did not get any candy to eat, I might have inhaled the sugar in the air as I was acting a little bit wild during the whole class.
But really, aside from the goofiness, I also swim in this video. Take a look.

Halloween 2009

I am sad to report that Halloween is over. I had fun though.
I wanted to be a knight, then a King, then a knight/king. I mainly wanted a sword.
Maman looked around in the house and she made everything from scratch: the hat was already mine, then came the thin cardboard paper for the crown and a left over gold paint from another project. The tunique is made out of old curtains left by the previous owners of the house and the decorative part is made out of a left over fleece blanket that Maman made.
The sword is cardboard, a piece of wood, aluminum foil and transparent tape and voilà.

I was ready to conquer back the castle as you can see on the flickr slide show below ( to see it full size, go directly to flickr and select the slide show in the Halloween folder).
I did not get to trick but I got to treat a lot of people with candy. I don't know, but it only seems fair that I get to do that too no? Apparently the parents were not yet ready to let me eat my weight in candy. Hopefully, next year, they won't find another trick to get me away from that sugar wonderland.

Fall day with Tina

Yesterday I went to see Tina and we had a lot of fun.
We read my favorite book of the moment, a Thomas the train book of course, and then we went to the park. We sure had fun; first we played on the play structure and then we took my bike for a ride. I was trying to catch Tina and she made me laugh by sticking her tongue at me. We stopped for a game of hide and seek and I was screaming and laughing really hard. Although I want to play hide and seek I am always trying to get the person to stop because I am always scared that they might actually disappear.
The most fun we had was when we went back to the playground and Tina showed me how to make the best splashes in ankle deep water puddle. Let's say that it's good Maman had brought an extra pair of pants for me!
All this exercise got us hungry and we enjoyed a good meal and also met Steve who is Tina's very nice boyfriend.
If you want to see my day, look at the slide show below.

Sad day for trees

Parents are interesting creatures. Take mine for example. They get all bent out of shape if I get too much paper out of the roll when I am on the toilet. Granted, I love unrolling that stuff and making a mess out of it but still. I always get the big lecture about how paper is made out of trees and how I am not supposed to waste paper because, get that, we don't want to kill too many trees and blah, blah, blah...
So this morning, imagine my surprise when Maman excitedly extracted me from the comfort of my bed to tell me that today is tree cutting day. Yes, that's right. We are not talking about a few sheets of toilet paper here, we are talking 3 full grown trees on the side of the house.
Sure it was exciting to see the guys climb those trees ( I think I got some great ideas) and the crashing and grinding of branches and all was fun for sure. But really, I am getting mixed messages here.
Now, I am just waiting for my next opportunity to unroll that toilet paper: I am ready with my speech if they even attempt to tell me about killing trees.

Note from the Maman: hum, yeah, ok, well, humm. See, those trees were really hugging the house a little too much and clogging the gutters and all and... we will plant some more, 'kay?

Fall Bike Ride

I got my strider bike in late June and I really like it. At first I was not so sure but now I can go pretty fast. Maman has to run to keep up with me. Well that is when I don't stop to pick up a stick or read a sign or even talk to the frog that we had the chance to meet on our last nature trail trip.
Anyway, Calvin ( that's the name I give to my bike) and I are having a lot of fun and I am very close to balancing. I already put both feet up. Downhill is the most fun although I was glad to have a helmet a few weeks ago when I tumbled down.
So follow me through the wood on a very rainy, windy Fall day.

Reading with Papa

My first language is French but for those of you who were beginning to doubt it, here is a little video that shows that English is a close second.
I am into trains right now. Big time. I am trying to get the parents to buy me some but it does not seem to work. As a matter of fact, here is a discussion I had with Maman after reviewing my Thomas the train booklet for the 15th time ( translated from French):
- Maman, I want to buy all the trains in the brochure.
- Oh, really.
- Yes. Ok, let's go to the store.
- We need money to buy all those though; do you have money?
Goes to his toy cash register and comes back:
- I want to buy all the trains.
- Well, I don't have the money. To get money you need to work.
Looking at me as I am cleaning dishes:
- Maman is working.
- Yes, but that's the kind of work where you don't get money. Papa gets money when he works and I do too when I go to school.
- Maman, I want a job to have money.

Well, I did not find a job so I'll have to be happy with just two engines and some tracks, and all the stories and books I can get about trains. The one that Papa is reading is from the library and this is the second time I borrow it. You will see that I have had Papa read it to me quite a bit.
It is not the entire story; Maman made some cut, otherwise it would have been an 11 minute video. Oh and, if you think I speak funny, that's because the video was taken yesterday and my nose is still quite plugged from my cold.
Enjoy!

PS: maman thinks that I have quite an accent in English. What do you think?

Creative painter

This week, I had my first cold of the season and I was nice enough to share with Maman. So, even though the weather was really beautiful out there, we did some activities inside. If it was me, I would paint everyday, twice a day even. I love it. Maman would do without the set up and clean up involved, but she can see that I enjoy it. She sometimes try to be sneaky when she suggests activities we could do: "Noah, would you like to play with play-dough, glue, cut, paint,draw with crayons...". Ha, I still heard "paint" in there.

Anyway. I have been painting since I was 1 and you would think that by now I would be making masterpieces. Not quite yet. Master messes for sure, those are fun. I can easily spend 30 minutes on a project and by the end of the 30 minutes it looks like nothing at all but a big blob of colors smeared on paper. If you just look at the finish product you might wonder how I could have had fun producing it. Well, Maman recorded my latest 30 minutes session this week and tried to condense it so that you would not snooze by the end of it.

Here it is, the truth behind my Art.

Our Crater Lake Camping adventure

Summer has been crazy busy with tons of activities for me. So many fun things and already too little day light to do them.
We are back from our week of camping. I LOVED IT. ALL of it. My parents on the other hand seem a little tired and Maman seems to like rustic life only for a little while.
But the outdoors are so much fun to explore and you would think that the sky is the limit right? Well no, out there too the parents had to set up a whole bunch of rules. They did give up on preventing me to dig in the dirt and I was a filthy mess by the end of each day.
Sleeping in the tent: great fun. Especially waking up at 7:00am and talking non stop until the parents finally opened their eyes. But really, I slept every night in my sleeping bag, not even trying to crawl out of it.
We also explored Crater Lake and Maman explained to me all about it. Every day I chanted "Let's go to the Lac du Crater, the volcanic volcano". Yes, chanting; it's a pretty knew thing but I like to sing and make up all kind of songs.
There are only pictures of this trip because Maman brought the video camera but, silly her, she forgot to charge the battery. I told her to use the one from one of my now favorite thing, a flashlight ( or lamplight as I call it), but it wouldn't do.

You will still get the spirit of the trip if you look at the slide show. Since Daddy was not home when we worked on the video, I narrated in French again.
Enjoy!

Camp Lolo 2009

Last week was Camp Lolo at my house. My French friends Etan and Juliette came for a week and we had a lot of fun together. Ok, I was a tad possessive with my toys and with Maman, but overall, we got along. We visited 3 different parks and even had a picnic.
We spent a little bit of time in the car, long enough that we all made up a song that we ended up singing every day. It's in French of course and it has a lot of rhymes.

Don't wait anymore and watch for yourself: hear me sing the song, narrate the slide show ( I know, it's in French- next time I'll do an English narration) and tell my first knock-knock joke ( in English this time).

Maman did not take her camera all the time so it's only a small part of our busy week.
Enjoy!

Deux Ans

I am two
J'ai deux ans!

My birthday was on July 28. And you know what? Birthdays should happen more than once a year. I got to have a special dessert, my first ever ice cream dessert with wheels that Maman made just for me!
And then came all the presents: I was really spoiled but let me tell you: I LOVE all my presents. Merci friends and family for making my day very special!

At two, I get to whine, a lot, when things don't go my way and, although I love to eat, eating time has become a time for experiments: pouring milk on plate, squishing food in my hands, banging my fork very loud on the plate. I am the only one that seems to think that all those things are fun. Parents can be so boring sometimes.

I talk non stop now and I go from French to English in a second, telling my Daddy "Parle en français"( Speak French) when I don't want to answer in English. Or sometimes I speak in English to Maman; she makes believe that she cannot understand me but, come on, I know she can. I read books aloud to myself or to my parents when they are done reading me the same story 10 times in a row, and I like to make up stories too.

Aside from books, my favorite things of the moment are trains, and basically any type of truck or anything with wheels. I am still a huge fan of puzzles and I got a new 35 piece Thomas the train puzzle and with Maman sitting next to me, I have no problem doing it.
I have tons more to explore in the coming months and years. Growing up sure gets more exciting every single day!
Enjoy!

Bits and Pieces

Bonjour,

Summer is a really fun time. So many things to do outside.
So follow me as I get to:
- climb
- slide
- swing
- observe
- mow the lawn
- lead a game of loto in French; and yes, I did the 24 cards all by myself; granted the cards are all about things that go and, well, they are so cool, right?
- ride my strider bike; 3 weeks into it and I am getting better already, even trying some off road to impress the skateboard dudes that just passed by me.

Enjoy!
PS: the captions are in English at the top and in French at the bottom, in case you were wondering.

Swim Lesson

Bonjour!
Since my old pool closed, we had to find a new one. After a few weeks at the new pool I moved to a new type of class: me, alone in the water with 3 other kids. The class is for 30-36 month old kids and my 3 other classmates are 2 1/2 and 3 years old. So yeah, at 23 months, I do look small in there but I am not too bad at listening to what Molly, my teacher, asks me to do.
As you will see though, once it's my turn, I am not too kin on going back on the wall once I am in the water.. and tiny little things tend to distract me a little: like Megan holding a fish in front of my face or Anthony removing his googles.
I also decided that removing my ear plugs and throwing them in the water was fun... Maybe not so for Molly who had to get them at the bottom
But I have definitely made some progress and, the most important part, I still LOVE being in the water.
Enjoy!

PS: Again, Maman has to remind you that extremely poor video quality is due to heavy compression on the part of youtube. Our original looks tons better.

Papi et Mamie en Oregon

My Papi and Mamie came all the way from France to spend time with us. We explored all the parks in Portland, went for walks, went to the beach and just had fun being home and playing. I had two more person to read books to me so I was happy camper.

They have been gone for 4 days now but I still ask where they are : "Où es tu Papi? Où es tu Mamie?" I sure miss them.
So here is a little video recap about their 3 week stay.

Week-end in Bend

In the middle of May, Daddy took part in the Pole Pedal Paddle relay race in Bend. His team won in their age group and they had fun.
I had a lot of fun too, but not a the race. Our friends' house is like a toy store and I could not stop running from one thing to the other.
Now, I can also say that I have crush on Keely. So what if she is 6 years older than me. We had fun together and she was very nice with me. I now need to say goodnight to her picture every night; I sense that Maman is using this little crush as her advantage because when I don't want to eat something or do something, she says "I bet Keely would do this", and sure enough, I fall for it and eat whatever is on my plate or do whatever she wants me to do.
So here is for Keely, a little video of our week-end!

Noah l'explorateur

Zion Canyon National Park was our destination for this vacation. It is an amazing park! Here is my top 10 things about the park:

• 10- Sleeping in the backpack on Daddy's back and missing 80% of the views on the hikes.
• 9- Holding caterpillars in my hand... mostly gently... especially after Maman held me like I was holding the caterpillar and it did not feel so good.
• 8- Throwing rocks in water.
• 7- Just throwing rocks. For some reason the Parents did not seem to like that one.
• 6- Climbing
  
• 5- Seeing the shuttle buses on the road
• 4- Waving to the shuttle buses
• 3- Waiting at the shuttle bus stop.
• 1- Standing in the shuttle bus.
• 1- Screaming "Bus, bus" at the top of my lungs every time I saw a shuttle bus.

Enjoy the video!

I love water

We left rainy Portland to arrive in hot and sunny Saint George, Utah. With daytime temperature in the high 80s or middle 90s, we all liked being close to the water.
So, from learning how to throw rocks in the water without throwing myself in it at the same time, to standing under a waterfall and walking in a cold stream, I got my self plenty of splish-splashing time. Add to that the daily plunge in the blue pool water and I was doing great.
I actually woke up every morning saying "Piscine", which is pool in French. On our way back, the hotel also had a pool and my first day back home, I went for a swimming class. So basically, for 7 days in a row, I got to do my favorite thing: jump in the water.
Imagine my surprise then the past two days: even though I quite loudly and politely say "piscine, S'il te plaît", we are not getting near any water hole. Although if this rains keep pouring down, there will be a big enough puddle in the yard soon...
Enjoy the video,

Voyage en voiture

Coucou,
My parents had the crazy idea to go to southern Utah using a car as our main transportation. We were gone 10 days and drove a grand total of 2800 miles. I did amazingly well. I had my personal entertainer sitting next to me and she did a good job reading and reading and reading all the books I was asking her to read.
Here are 5 minutes out of the 45 or so hours I spent in that darned car.
Maman and I spoke a lot and I know more and more words. I also know right from left and can point in the right direction or show my right or left hand.
I also learned that screaming in a car was fun and I was excited pretty much every time I saw a truck go by... which, as you can imagine, was a lot!
Enjoy,

Noah at the pool

I keep having a lot of fun at the pool.
My teacher Johnathan is trying hard to teach me how to kick with my legs but I'd rather to the breaststroke.
I also have a lot of fun jumping in the water and I do a good job at putting my feet right next to the edge like I have been told.
Johnathan was proud of me because I am finally able to stay on the bench and wait for my turn... well, sort of!
Oh, and I still love to climb so I had to do it at the pool too. Not quite gracefully yet...
Listen carefully at the very end, while Daddy is holding me, I say "Encore Papa, climb"! I climbed and jumped about 15 times. It is so much fun!

Enjoy

Le grimpeur bavard

I have been trying out as many new words as I can lately. I think that some are funny and worth repeating 10 times in a row. I do it in French or in English, but mainly French as Maman seems to understand that one better.
She took me to the park yesterday: I am afraid I am not quite the acrobat yet but I am all into climbing right now, and talking while doing it.
Because it's in French, here is a little list of what I am saying for the non-French speaking crowd: bâton ( stick), petit ( small), grimpe ( climb), pieds ( feet), bateau ( boat), sur l'eau ( on the water), haut ( high), petit ( small), grand ( big), escaliers ( stairs), mouillés escaliers ( wet stairs), descend ( go down), il crie "avion" ( he screams "plane"as one is passing overhead), saute( jump), trop grand ( too big), moulin ( windmill).

You will also get to see me sing a song, dance and , of course, run back to my puzzles as soon as it's over.

Bragging time

Maman cannot help it. She has to brag about me. Just a little she says. Well, it's a lot. I guess it's a nice change from all her whining about me not listening very well and opening the stove for the 1000th time. What's wrong with me wanting to see what's cooking?
So in the video, you'll see that I like colors and shapes. Maman pulled out this new shape game just for the video and I had no problem recognizing the shapes. We have seen a lot of those in books and I like to point out to all the things round in the house. In the video, I am also using signs to name colors.
I also love puzzles and especially a 12 piece puzzle that I got for Christmas: the best part is being able to break it again as soon as I am done. Maman sped up the video to avoid boredom for our faithful viewers!
Enjoy!