college drawings

 When Alexis drew and shaded his picture above, his teacher didn't believe him at first that he did it (looks better in reality)  but he did.  He spent hours on it too.  Apparently , the other drawings  in the class were so bad, she assumed he had help (he finished it off at home, like all his classmates). He did do it and has proved it since. He got a 19 for this dog.  Alexis loves drawing portraits and now can drawing great noses which he is happy about.

When Gaby was in 6eme, she had a similar topic to do, but she only had the half of the picture to complete, she did it on her own too and got a 17.
Gaby's speciality is drawing mangas.

Back...Catching up from Easter

I'm really trying to juggle family, work, the house and very occasionally a blog post, but it's not easy.  Alain came back from Congo weeks ago and was supposed to leave weeks ago to Angola.  He's still waiting though, as he has a visa issue, that should be resolved next week.  If he leaves too late, it would mean that we'd have to cancel our long weekend in Amsterdam, four night on a canal boat:(

For the first time, this Easter, only Gaby, Alexis and Marie-Kate hunted for Easter eggs, Oliver and Charlotte chose their comfortable beds and 15 euros each.

 The weather was good and the eggs were fairly easy to fine as our garden was still in mode "winter".

This year, Gaby remembered no to put her big Easter egg on top of her radiator, and got to devour this one in record time.

13

Gaby turned thirteen on Friday.  

Friday, I had to supervise our office move and her papa was and still is in Congo, so this year wasn't quite like the others before. However Gaby, mature as ever has taken it all in her stride and we have had an excellent weekend.  Friday we ate her favorite food, Chinese.

Saturday we spent a lot of time in the garden as the weather was quite exceptional (unlike today).

 She never had a cake till today, so it had to be good, and as she's crazy for Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, we made a Baked Alaska

 Alexis and Marie-Kate decorated it and it looked and tasted great.

Gaby hasn't had all of her birthday presents yet, we are waiting for her papa to return (sometime) but she did get to open her beautiful charm bracelet...that incidentally now to scared to wear just in-case she were to lose it.

Checking in

Still here, just busy, end of school year hectic.  Oliver has his bac, didn't work much if at all this year for it, but still got it, no "mention" quite rightly.  He is happy because he passed some competitive entrance exams for Sesame at came out in the top ten in the country for all for schools (second for Rouen and seventh for Essec), go figure! He's going to Essec in Cergy, happy for him, but not so proud because he just moved his butt for these exams and I worry that he will have problems in September to get down and work with method and some rigor.
Charlotte's going to a new lycee, she's going into STL, which really will suit her, just fingers crossed that she'll think about studying more and certain friends less....complicated to bring up teenagers, small children small problems, big children, big problems, enormous ones when it comes to one of ours in particular.   Charlotte is off for three weeks to America'a West Coast, she'll be visiting Los Angeles, two national parks, a couple of lakes and canyons and San Francisco too, lucky her, hopefully this holiday will help Charlotte break out of the downward spiral she's in.

Gaby finished her year on a high with very high praise from all her teachers.  Proud of her, she deserves to switch off a little, and she has, she's even played a football game on Oliver's X box and this very moment

She had friends to stay over the weekend, went to the cinema, swimming et cetera and had a whale of a time.  Gaby's off to Corsica for two weeks next week, she's less shy now and has grown in maturity and confidence, so she hopefully won't get too homesick this time.

Alexis finished his year like Gaby, with a glowing report, straight A's and he was sad to finish school and said he's going to miss Mr B, who has been awesome, but apparently Mr L is a brilliant teacher too, so I'm not worried in the least.

Alexis found Charlotte's old pyrography pen, this is becoming his new summertime passion. The above sign, for their tree platform is the first thing he did with it.


Hate to repeat myself, but MK did it again, perfect school year, need I say more.  
We are getting set to go to the Auvergne region to trek with a donkey for a week..more later, I have lunch to make.

Teenager's who can't tidy even on Friday's...Allowance day on Saturday

I have been warning Oliver and Charlotte for days ( like every week) that on Friday their beds need to be made BEFORE going to school and their rooms need to be reasonably tidy too, i.e clothes hung or folded and no major mess.  Normally I end up docking a euro or two from their allowance, but this Friday, just after they left for school, I went and checked and I nearly died, holy cow, they obviously have some form of slovenly bedroom syndrome sickness. Their rooms were awful. Be warned, there are a lot of scary "before" and much better after photos.

Welcome to Oliver's world, the first thing I saw upon entering, looks promising

Turn to the right and what a sight to behold. Lucky for Oliver that he wasn't there, especially after seeing the wrappers from those aperitif cheesy cubes (see evidence below)

I found spoons, forks, one plate and several empty compote pots, but that's nothing new.

One thing that really shocked me though, yes more than this awful mess, was the fact that he had stolen Alexis' brand new fountain pen that Gaby had bought for his homecoming today!!! Now there I blew a fuse, péter les plombs (I like this expression in French) and I texted him and told him how upset and angry I was.  He knew it was for Alexis too.

His desk, no comment. Oh hum, better not dwell on that for the moment, now lets look at the "after" photos.

 Wardrobe tidy. I have to note here, that Oliver only wears  fancy labelled clothes like Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Finch et cetera... You'd think he'd take more care of his clothes, really!

Bookcase tidy minus the cheese wrappers

Desk tidy

Bed changed and MADE, windows open (and they'll be staying open all day)

Last look.  I started to tidy this room at 8:30 and finshed it in one hour and ten minutes, I didn't stop, not for a minute and the room is  only about 11m2
Ready for Charlotte's room?

Welcome to "chez Charlotte", nice isn't it?

 This is supposed to be a desk, you know a place to study, but Charlotte uses it for her make-up et cetera.
Now I took Charlotte's before photos before those of Oliver's, so there are just these two above, this is where the majority of the mess and disorder was.  Now for the after photos?

 I swapped the computer a round onto the other end of the desk and put her school workbooks  onto the other end, maybe she feel inspired to work more!

Other end of her desk, near to the window. 

Tidy wardrobe. I put at lease one bag of clothes into storage, stuff she doesn't wear.

Bed made, the room looks more welcoming now, for now!!!

This room took five minutes longer than Oliver's to tidy, but she has more clothes and I had to move all of her make-up over from her desk to her vanity table and boy she has so much make-up it's scary ( I have none)

The last bedroom on this floor is ours, I didn't think it was worth taking before photos because I like to keep our bedroom as uncluttered as possible

The view from where I'm sitting while typing this blog entry.

The view looking towards my Eames chair (where I'm sitting now). I took maxi fifteen minutes to pick up some clothes, clean the floor then hoover and dust, easy peasy.

I am publishing these before and after photos to hopefully shame our messy teenagers  and also, so my mum can see how messy they really are, because I think she feels I exaggerate a lot.

I have got some before photos of Gaby's , MK's and Alexis' room to add later, but they weren't anything as bad as Oliver's and Charlotte's bedrooms and I haven't tidied them yet, nor have I eaten and it's one o'clock already. I have to eat, finish upstairs, pick up Gaby at 3 and grab a little shopping (another fountain pen for Alexis before Gaby knows), the Mk will be back at 16:30 and then hopefully Alexis should be back after about 5, so I have to be ready to pick him up from the bottom of our village.   Oliver and Charlotte will be back at 18h15, hopefully feeling bad about the mess they left and Alain comes back from Monaco late this evening.
I'm ready for a relaxing Easter weekend, and I'm twenty euros richer because there's no allowance for those messy teenagers this week.

Breakfast chez nous

 Breakfast most days starts around 5:30, I wake up first and without an alarm, it's been like this for ages. Alain wakes a little later. We enjoy this time of the day, the house is quiet, we can talk without being interrupted in mid-sentence by one of the children. 
If I'm lucky, Alain will happily prepare a soft boiled egg with soldiers (very Proustian moment for me). He did just that. After, I thought I'd make some Welsh Griddle Cakes that I'd been dreaming about trying for some time (Hairy Bikers cook book...I like these guys)

 Really easy to make and light in texture. Alexis was first up (he always is), he never speaks before he has eaten something, he isn't difficult at breakfast...no, the problem starts after, because Alexis wants to go to school so he spends his time checking the time and that means a lot of checking as he's up about two hours before school starts, it's quite an obsession. 
After it's Gaby, pancake crazy girl, who also liked these little cakes and had three in the end. Gaby is by far the easiest child to please.
Charlotte's next (7:15..bus leaves here at 7;40), sixteen, can't prepare her breakfast herself, eat lots, but not these, not today, after eating her cereal, banana, and bread, she had to have (otherwise she'd throw a hissy fit) a protein chocolate bar (bought my me for me for after a run).
Last but one, nearly always Oliver, never down before he has spent time combing his hair perfectly, sometimes down with minutes to spare, but today he graced me with his company at 7:25, here's another one who's crazy for my protein bars that I actually don't like. He doesn't like breakfast, well he didn't,  not before these bars that is, and won't once they're all gone, but for this week at least, he'll eat some bread just to get one of these...he preferred to eat a bar than eat a yummy Welsh Griddle cake...I won't forget that next time I make some more, which I reckon will be very soon.

Welsh Griddle Cakes with raisons and cranberries

Marie-Kate, the youngest, is always up the last*, she can't live without her daily bowl of cereal and rarely eats anything that's new to her, i.e these cakes, in the morning, so today wasn't any exception, she had a banana instead.  

If she's good, she can have one at lunchtime, there's four left...if not, tomorrow at 5:30, I know what I'll be eating...yummy, can't wait.


*apart from at weekends and during school breaks, now there, Mr 17.5 and Miss 16 can stay under their covers till their stomachs scream out with hunger, so lets say Oliver holds the record, getting up at 12:30!

An Ikea gingerbread house failure and my first attempt at curtain making

We went to Ikea yesterday and came back with all we needed and more.

Gaby and Marie Kate found a reduced priced gingerbread house that they just had to have (see above)

I bought some fabric to make curtains and a ds case for Marie Kate, and we sourced out which bathroom sink we're going to buy...yes, we are doing the second floor shower room in March (photos of it as it is coming soon).

Anyhow today,  while I got on with my sewing, the children worked on assembling their gingerbread house, which was fine by me.

Before

And I measured, cut and sewed a curtain for this window (first floor landing).

 I even lined the curtain.  The birds on the fabric are really cute and I just love this colour blue and cheap costing 4.99 euros per meter.

 

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to do more things with my sewing machine...but not now, just this took about four hours to finish

 Last photo on the way down to see how the children's house was looking.

 Ok no great, they didn't follow the instructions and their sugar glue didn't work so they called this heap of gingerbread, icing, and sweets an earthquake house...it tasted good though and I just love those raspberry and blackberry jelly sweets...yummy

Thursday in the mudroom...found a bench

I've been thinking about making a bench, no let me rephrase that, I thought about making a bench....but considering the amount of time it has taken me to cut wood for one wall (and a bit) in  our mudroom, as well as a shelf and little bits and pieces like that, I gave up on that idea yesterday.  Since then I have been debating between a vintage bench or a modern one like above(Atlas).  I didn't think I'd find a vintage one, so I was getting ready to tell Alain that 280euros wasn't so expensive for a mudroom bench.... (he's back for Korea tonight last I heard)

Then today after picking Gaby up from school, I decided to pop into my local thrift shop, this place is amazing, especially since Christmas, I just keep finding things, even today I found an amazing bridge chair (photos to come) for 12 euros (Gaby has since, taken it and it's now her desk chair, this wasn't the plan, but she can keep it. I'm in a good mood because I found the ideal bench, and it will fit perfectly into the mudroom once finished.

 A 1960's vintage school bench and it was a steal,  priced like the chair( 12 euros).

I'm not going to paint it, just leave it as it is, minus the chewing gum still stuck underneath.

Center Parcs

For the last holiday weekend in August we went to Center Parks which is a about one hour and a half's drives from here. I have to say, I was surprised how good it was. The kids loves Aqua Mundo, tree trekking and just having the freedom to do as the wished in a safe environment .

I forgot to pack the charger for my camera so I haven't got many photos (however Charlotte has) so this is all for now.

Gaby took a couple of nice photos of ducks that were just outside our cottage.

And Alain turned 37 and we couldn't bake a cake because I can't work with microwaves, so Charlotte made some pancakes

Ok she didn't manage to toss this one perfectly, but she got there in the end and after our awful meal in a center parks restaurant, I much prefer to eat one of her pancakes any day.

Cassis and Gaby

Gaby is camera shy, so she's not on many photos, this is the best on I've found. She's not the girl in blue, Gaby is behind in pink. we haven't had much news via the blog which is a shame, especially as she's only 11. I just hope she's having fun.

Sunshine and Showers Fête de l'école

on the way down to the school fair

After months of blistering heat, the weather has returned to normal, not hot, just warm, and lots of well needed rain.

Saturday was a typical sunshine and showers day and also the annual Fête de l'école.

Alain and I helped set up the stands and we returned later with the children who were performing with their classes.

Marie-Kate's class have been working on Africa during this term, so what better way to end the year, but by an African dance. Marie-Kate who is very shy, forgot she was, and really had great fun with her class, in-front of at least 100 people!

A little later Alexis' class performed two dances, one from Portugal and the other from Vendée. Alexis remained serious throughout. He had been showing us the moves for weeks before, and it was really great to see him dancing with his partner.

After the children had fun playing fair games (it did take ages to get MK to stop being shy and have fun)

This is the first time I have seen this game, it's called tire à la ficelle. There are lots of strings attached to donated cuddly toys, and the children have to put on a string and on the other end, up and through the pipe, one cuddly toy will get pulled up, for them to take home. This was MK's favourite game by far, she bought home at least 5 new cuddly friends.

Back at home, I tried twice to get a nice shot of Alexis in his nice clean white shirt, but I didn't manage...maybe next time.