For our outing this afternoon, I thought it would be fun to take Jake to the Louvre. And it was! I love art museums and the Louvre is such an inspiring place for me. I took a bunch of photos to immortalize Jake's first visit to the world's most famous museum. Looking over them now, I am cracking up: he has the exact same expression in all of them.
Whatevs, Mom.
Pyramid? Yeah, I see it.
And?
Italian sculpture. You don't say.
Yawn.
Mona who?
Lisa what?
It's a pyramid. I get it.
Baby pyramid. Cute, Mom. Not.
(And the whole time I thought he was enjoying all the hustle and bustle, shapes and forms and colors. Silly me!)
I can't get over the snow in Paris! It's simply magical. Just look at the view from our windows.
I just love seeing snow on the trees in our courtyard.
Wanting to see more snowy trees, I packed up myself and Jake and headed towards the Luxembourg Gardens.
Here's what we saw along the way.
Isn't that lovely?
We also saw some young kids making funny little snowmen on top of a car:
And Jake was all, "Wut?"
Then we passed an adorable Christmas window display.
(Merlin would love this toy store window. He thinks toy stores are for pups.)
We got to the Gardens just before closing time, when the gendarmes trot around the park purposefully whistling their whistles and announcing, "Messieurs dames, fermeture du jardin, fermeture" to get everyone out before sundown.
I was glad to get this on video because it's become such a quintessential part of our Parisian experience.
Don't the Gardens look beautiful in the snow?
Outside the gate, I snapped a photo and happened to catch a couple kissing. There are always couples kissing in Paris.
Then Jake and I headed to Café Le Rostand where we met Karim for grog and mulled wine. (Jake had some Evian, naturally.)
Here's Karim being appropriate.
Here's Karim being inappropriate. (I wanted to get video of the snow falling at night outside the café. Didn't expect it turn out PG-13.)
And Jake was all, "Wut?"
Well, actually, he seemed to find Karim hilarious. Which is fine for now, but pretty soon he's going to start talking and we're going to have to watch it.
Know what I mean?
As we finished our drinks, Jake got a bit restless so we headed home. The little guy took a short nap in his stroller and then woke up for a last bit of playtime and bath time and his bottle, and then went to bed. He had quite a nice evening, don't you think?
Paris is beautiful at Christmas time. Well, it's beautiful all the time, of course, but it does the holidays especially well. It's not too over-the-top with decorations and there's not any awful muzak versions of Christmas tunes bombarding you everywhere you go.
Our neighborhood is very, very pretty right now.
Just a few minutes walk from our apartment you'll find one of the quaintest little squares in Paris, la place Contrescarpe. (Hemingway lived around the corner for a couple of years.)
Heading down the rue Mouffetard from there, there are plenty of goodies to be had.
(The cheese shop and wine shop are right next door to each other. It's quite convenient.)
Last week, we stopped at a restaurant for drinks and dinner at the end of an evening walk with Jake. We ordered a peach kir for me, a chestnut kir for Colin, a platter of charcuterie and a couple of bowls of french onion soup. Yum!
Someone looks very happy! (Someone is always happy when food and drink are on the agenda.)
Someone else is happy too, in her funny pink birthday hat. (Not to be confused with her birthday suit, ahem.)
The littlest someone slept through most of the meal, and then woke up happy and alert towards the very end.
It's an exciting time to be in Paris, for little ones and big ones alike.
