Le Baptême

Today Matt was baptized. He is now officially a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am so proud of him and his decision to do this. He was so happy and was smiling bigger than I had seen him do in a long time. There was a wonderful spirit there.
There were a couple missionaries that gave talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost. One of the missionaries made an analogy between the Holy Ghost and the force. Matt really paid attention during that talk. It was so nice that they made a reference to Star Wars. It certainly made Matt happy.

Here are all the kids checking out the baptism font before things happened.

Before...

After. With big hugs and smiles.

Matt mentioned that the water was really warm, like bath water. He was proud of the fact that he had been practicing going under water during his swim class at school.

Later we had an open house party for him and 25 people that were at the baptism. It was nice to have friends over and hang out. We made a video slide show of pictures of Matt's life so far and everyone enjoyed watching that. We gave Matt his own set of scriptures and a journal. We asked our visitors to write down their testimonies and we would put them in his new journal. Hopefully he'll actually use it to write down his memories of this day.

Joyeux anniversaire Matt!

Happy Birthday Matt! Today he is eight years old! Wow. Eight years ago I became a mom. And now my baby is a big boy getting ready to be baptized. Sometimes I am amazed at how easily he picks up on new things he learns at school. He loves reading and practically every week he comes home to tell me he's advanced to the next level reading group at school. He gets excited about new concepts he's learning at school (like communities, or matter, or dinosaurs...) He really enjoys learning new words in his french class and will tell you that he is the best one in his french class. He is always wanting to try out french conversations and I am amazed at how quickly he's picking it up. Who knows where he will be a couple years from now. I know he can handle an entire afternoon playdate in french. He is still great at math and brings home math tests with perfect scores all the time. Matt has made a couple really good friends (one is a fellow Star Wars guru). I have actually set up an after school playdate with one of the moms for every Friday after school. Matt's friend is also new to Paris and the two of them love being together. Matt has really gotten into Lego's. He loves building new Star Wars sets and after he's built them, he takes them apart to build new things. It's nice to see his patience with his Lego's. Matt can be very helpful and likes to help with dishes and laundry. He loves helping Timmy and teaching him new things. We love Matt and his love of learning. Matt requested a Star Wars Lego birthday party. I was all prepared to make his cake look like Legos and then put Lego guys on it. However, the day I was making his cake, I didn't feel well and had a horrible headache and achy yucky. So I "made" a Death Star and put it on a dark cake like in space. (I actually originally tried to make a giant cake ball (Like Bakerella), but I think I added too much frosting and it sank into an oval mess.) So, I coated a plastic basketball toy with frosting instead. I don't really like decorating a cake with just toys, but considering my health, it turned out ok. Matt liked it and that's what counts.

La musique

Matt started taking piano lessons last September. He has been doing a great job. It helps that he has been learning the recorder in his class at school. He goes to a local lady that lives about a 15 minute walk from our house. She is American so he is learning the "ABC's" instead of "Do, re, mi" like they do in France. Originally Matt told me that he only wanted to learn to play piano so he could learn how to play Star Wars music. I told this to his teacher, so she is in turn transposing some harder Star Wars music into easier music for Matt. Then she uses it as an incentive for him to learn new things. As soon as he masters eighth notes, he will start learning Darth Vader's theme song. I also love the music books that he has. They are easy note books of course and as a result they can sound kind of boring to those just learning. But, it also has a teacher's accompaniment to go along with the easy pieces so when played together, it sounds great. I love being able to play duets with Matt. I am so proud of him. Here are some of his favorite pieces.

une nouvelle dent

Today Matt lost his first tooth! He was so excited. For the past couple of years he's been worried that he was the only kid in his class that hasn't lost a tooth. I mentioned it to the dentist before we left and she wasn't concerned. In fact, there is a direct correlation to when you first got teeth as a baby to when you start loosing them. Matt was 11 months before he got his first baby tooth, so it makes sense that he lost one later than others.

Matt was so excited to hide his tooth under his pillow. Do you know how hard it is for the tooth fairy to search under a pillow for a tiny tooth without waking up the person sleeping on it...all while up 6 feet in the air on a bunk bed? The next morning Matt woke up early to find that the tooth fairy brought him 2 euros. (the equivalent of $2.60). Then he turned around and gave me the 2 euros and said, "Here mom, you can use this to go get me some new gloves." (I had told him previously that he needed to earn the money to get new gloves because he keeps loosing them at school and I'm tired of buying new ones). I'll let him think that I'll use it for gloves. It adds to him being responsible, but I'm sure that a fresh eclair from the Patisserie will show up soon.