Gabrielle's 12th Birthday

Gaby's lemon curd sponge cake covered with a white chocolate frosting

I'm a bit late uploading photos onto my computer but now it's done and I can cross another job off my to do list.  

Gaby turned twelve on Thursday, twelve, amazing.  Since going back to school in September, this year in  5eme, she has matured a lot.  She's calmer, she's more organized (work wise...but lets not talk about her bedroom!) she loves school, and most of her subjects, especially Math, French, English, German and Latin....  Latin, interesting, as she only started it this school year,  and it's an introductory year where she gets to choose if to continue or not for the rest of her time at college and maybe (hopefully) Lycee. she said at the beginning of the year she'd only do it for one year but guess what( she might not admit it)? She likes Latin and hasn't said anything about stopping, here's keeping my fingers crossed
Gaby is still shy but is very popular and has a best friend since starting college "Marjolaine", she doesn't do Latin, she chose Drama instead and hates it...

 Here are a couple of the presents she received.  She has been very busy using her new camera.

 For her Ipod and her cd's and for an alarm that she doesn't need because she's always awake at the crack of dawn.

And no, I didn't buy this present, Granny did. It's a giant make-up case. I never wear make-up, much to my mother's disappointment, so she's compensating and she's happy to have three grand daughters, two of which, who are actually happy to receive presents like this...

Oh yes, the cake was good, Gaby loves lemon curd, so I made a sponge cake, filled in with lemon curd and covered it with a very calorific white chocolate frosting.  

No more birthday's for over a month (thankfully) because with cakes like this you need time to work off the kilos.

Alexis' TEN today Part I

 Alexis had a bad night with two of his sisters who didn't stop coughing all night long, hence his face on the photo.   
Ten years old yet it seems like just it was yesterday.  

 Alexis cheered up when he opened a couple of his presents.  He'll open a couple more at lunchtime (with his Papa  unable to be there) and the rest tonight.

From Alain and I, Alexis has his first chemistry set (since opening it, he has being dissolving egg shells using lemon juice, vinegar and citric acid).  Some lego too.

When Alexis was small he wanted to be a marine biologist but in the last couple of years he has showed an interest in Architecture and thinks he'd like to be any architect one day. 
This is the present he liked the most (so far) and he built it fast.

So if you ever need to know what to buy Alexis for Christmas or whenever, you can't go wrong with Lego Architecture.

 Marie Kate helped me with the first of Alexis' birthday cakes, this one is a nutella and pear roulade (supposed to have been chocolate but someone has taken the 200g bar from the kitchen between last night and this morning...I wonder who)

 And finally a present from Granny in the UK, after the lego this wasn't what it had hoped for, but it will keep him warm when is -16°c like yesterday.

9 Years Old

Alexis came home from school and read two more mangas while waiting for everyone to get home for his party night, especially opening all of his presents.

To eat, he asked for jacket potatoes, his favourite and I made a chocolate brownie cake

He had lots of great presents, from dinosaurs to construction games, a pop-up goal, books, a vintage bus and a remote-controlled car

It took ages to unscrew the car from its box (yes, Alain had to go in the basement and find a screwdriver), Alexis, MK and even Gabrielle waited patiently and guess what? Once out of the box it needed charging for 4 hours..poor Alexis

So Alexis played in the garden with his new goal. I am going to move the goal later today to the big garden, as in the gravel courtyard it's just not going to work, far too noisy.