Easter cooking with the children

 We have spent a lovely calm weekend with the children, cooking a lot, talking, reading together, it's been great.  Alain and I managed to run twice (6km and 10km) and with our average pace is above 10km per hour, which for us, was unimaginable for us a couple of months ago.   
Gabrielle and Marie-Kate have been wanting to help more cooking, especially since Alexis went away on school camp.  Saturday night they made some delicious veal cordon bleu's (no photo).  On Sunday they prepared ricotta, strawberry and raspberry trifles.

To finish of the weekend, Alain and Marie-Kate made fresh pasta (dough and all) for their very first time

While they cut more tagliatelle, I made a makeshift rack using a broom stick and tea towels to hang them over and dry a little.  Yes, the lengths vary, but the tagliatelle with mushroom ragu sauce was excellent.  

Three day Easter weekend

Alexis arrived back safely Friday evening, he was tired and feeling nostalgic (still was not quite himself this morning).  He bought back some yummy Saint Nectaire cheese, lots of stones, and presents for everyone apart from Oliver.
Saturday we shopped for Easter eggs and Oliver sat an English exam for the university in Nanterre (fingers crossed  that he gets a place..I think there are only 30 places).

 Sunday morning the younger children were up at the crack of dawn to search the garden for Easter eggs, at the last minute, Charlotte managed to join them too.

 To stop world war three beginning, we divide the garden up into zones and give each children a zone in which they have to find their big Easter egg, once found, they can search anywhere for smaller eggs that they "should" share out a bit, if someone doesn't manage to find many.  Marie-Kate was looking for her chocolate rabbit* on this photo, in the middle garden.

 Alexis found his egg quickly in the top garden.  It was quite cold, only 3°c, but at least it didn't rain.

 Charlotte huffed and puffed because her egg was too well hidden. All she had to do is look up.  Alain had placed it on a beam in our old (still falling down) garage.

Here are all the children, minus Oliver (lazy boy) with all the eggs they found.


*as of this morning, Marie-Kate's rabbit is still entire, she wants to keep it that way for a while because it's "beau"


Poor Gaby, put her egg on the radiator before falling to sleep Sunday night, so you can guess what happened....  

Unplugged Project: Words

The children aren't usually short of words, but they are this week. The weather is unpredictable which elicits their hot tempers and irritability.... We're counting down the days until school breaks up for two weeks. Tomorrow is Wednesday, hence no school, so just 5 days to go ( Easter Monday, no school and no work).

Gabrielle decided like Alexis to do an Easter themed unplugged "word" project. Gabrielle, wrote a poem around her chocolate egg. Sorry, it's written in French, if you can't read it well on the photo, she wrote:

Les oeufs de Pâques?

Les cloches les emmenent.

Mais pas qu'eux!

Des poules, des lapins et bien plus sont bien cachés dans le jardin.

Alexis made a flyer to remind everyone (hmm, no need here) that we will holding our annual Easter Egg Hunt in our garden, Sunday. He thought of some different words that make him think of Easter and wrote them around and inside his egg (I said they were short of words...) .

(Weather permitting)

Six little words that Alexis loves

I bought some pastels for the children today, it was the first time they've tried them out, their pictures smudged a bit.