Merry Christmas!

Have a Merry Christmas all of you! And this is a gift from my family to you, it was voted by us as best Christmas card 2006, hehe, we are such a nice , cuddly family :). Enjoy!

Best Christmas Card 2006

Believe

People are often surprised that my 11 year old son still believes in Santa. He made that choice to believe when he was 9 years old. He was getting really suspicious and asked me if Santa really exists or not. And I said: " what do you think?". He came back 5 mns later and told me he chose to believe (his words). And I just said: " ok, then it's true". I think that Robert McCammon summed it up very well and much better than I could:

I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. When I was twelve, the words was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present, and into the future. We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see out destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put in the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we’re told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wilderness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad at what they allowed to whither in themselves. After you get so far away fro it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get all weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theatre, the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm. The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks, and get crippled. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know its happening until one day you feel like you’ve lost something, but you’re not sure what it is.
-Robert McCammon



Image from this site: life classic pictures

Pulp

Thanks to Candy Froggie I have a new addiction ( no you can't have too many ) and this was the song-in-my-head of the day :)




Pulp - Help The Aged

"Don't you let go Mr Frodo"

We watched LOTR " The return of the king" last night but I wasn't paying too much attention except when this sentence came up because it matched my thoughts. I went to my daughter's classroom to help make gingerbread houses yesterday and a little girl told me her mom hits her. I knew about it already because in September, during a field trip, she proceeded to tell in the car how her foster "dad" was beating her, yelling at her and told her she was ugly and dumb every day. Of course I went to see the teacher and the principal and the little girl and her mom are now reunited and are getting a lot of help in every area possible. And I thought she was doing better but it appears she is not, not really...Another year, I was helping a 9 year old girl with her salt dough map when she blurted out that her dad was beating her mom and her real hard sometimes. And another year when I asked a little boy why he was pushing and hitting all the time, he simply told me that was the way it worked in his house. Or this other little boy who was acting out so badly in kindergarten and collapsed in my arms sobbing so hard when instead of scolding him I asked him what was wrong. I can't do much for them, nothing much except the most basic: show kindness, hug and praise. I don't give a damn that their gingerbread house is crooked and that they don't write their name well because everyday they have to make the choice of not letting go. And I know what I'm talking about. It's important to know that you can be better than your parents were. If you don't let go. And that, you have to work at it every single day for the rest of your life. I wish to everybody who feels unloved and abandonned, much love and happiness in their future life. And a hug to boot.

Christmas!

Could it be, could it be? Only 5 more days ;) Elves are scurrying, fairies are busy making fairy dust and Rudolph is being brushed, Santa is checking in the mirror for any black stray hair, by his daughter's order Mark is cleaning the chimney, Thomas is trying every trick in the book so that someone, anyone, will give him a clue regarding his Christmas presents and Laurienna is trying to get tape out of her hair while Piper is trying to make it to the backyard full speed with a huge roll of wrapping paper :):)

All Dressed Up!

Saturday we went to see a Nutcracker performance at the Theater. The daughters of a friend were performing in it and it was very cute and very good. I don't think I had ever seen this ballet in its entirety and I liked it. I miss dancing a bit now. Jennifer wants me to take the adult ballet class at her daughter's ballet school. Huhuhu, I went to check it out: I seriously don't think I could last for more than 5 mns. I had forgotten how much work went into dancing ballet. You use every muscle in your body AND you'd better have a good and quick memory to memorize all the steps and positions. Considering I'm borderline for qualifying as an Alzheimer patient, I don't think that's going to work out. Plus, appearing in public wearing only tights and a leotard, harharhar, do I need to say more?

Bloody Friday

You know it's not going to be a good day
-when you spill 1246 2mm dark beads on a dark wood floor,
-when the milk has turned bad 2 days before the due date,
-when you ordered a gift for Christmas and the company send you an e-mail that starts with " we apologize but... ",
-when you started your period,
-when your mother sends you an e-mail that says you haven't called her for ever and are you mad about something?
-when you step on a sharp lego piece while carrying 1 week's worth of laundry while your daughter is saying that she-just-can't-find-any-socks-and-it-is-7:48am-and-school-starts-in-2-minutes.

That was before 8am.I just want to go back to bed.

Christmas spirit

Or not. I just came back from Christmas shopping and if I hear Silent night one more time, I swear I will, I will aaaaarrrrrrrgh

Next day edit : I made the big mistake of complaining about Christmas songs galore to my dear little family. Now every time I enter the room my son and husband sing Jingle Bells rather loudly.
Funny. I think some people are going to lose their bells before Christmas.

Posting

When I thought about having a blog, I thought I'd leisurely update it every day or even, let's be crazy, several times a day. Haha. There is just too much stuff happening all the time and it is definitly not that easy to write about any given subject. So that's my excuse and since it's way passed by now I'll do a post about last week, condensed.
- 2 parent-teacher conferences.
My children are wonderful, smart and they talk and giggle and make everybody else giggle too much.
Oh really? What a surprise :):)
- My daughter's dance recital at school: very cute. She is always happy and full
of energy so she loves that kind of stuff!



-lots of orders for jewelry. Thank you very much everybody! It's very much appreciated. I've started to work on new collections that I'll put up after Christmas.
-I don't think I've mentionned that before but much of my life in between the months of august and december is spent on a soccer field since my son and my husband both love the game. I don't particularly. In fact I was telling someone that since the age of 3 I must have spent an astronomical amount of hours watching and playing soccer. In between my dad, my cousins, my boyfriends, me playing and now my son and husband pffffff. Plus I've a tendency to want to throttle 11 years old that are trying to be too violent towards my son or his teammates. Mmph. And I can't stand hysterical parents ever. I didn't say I was hysterical..I just think about it. I'm a model of serenity on the field. And the first one who calls me a soccer mom is going to lose their teeth.
So, anyway, last week-end was the end of soccer season. Sleeping late on Saturday morning is back :):). Last saturday they had a soccer tournament and on Sunday the team party. With a game in between the parents and the children...always hilarious ;)





I also did too much christmas shopping, enjoyed time passed with a friend that I see too little of, went to the dentist, slept too little, drank too much coffee and ate too many sweets, found a black widow in the house, cooked irish food which is a good enough excuse to drink irish beer too. There, you know everything or mostly. Maybe one day I'll post on something that actually happened that day ;)

Crèpes

I was going to write a another post about my fascinating life but instead my family lobbied for crèpes :) I'm going to put the recipe in this post but first I'd like to apologize to all the people who have tried to unsuccessfully post on this blog. I haven't have time yet to check where the problem could be coming from, but I'm hopping to be able to check that out tomorrow.
And now, let's have a crèpe party:

-in between 250-300g of flour ( 1 1/4 cup )
- 4 eggs
- 1 l. milk ( 4 cups )

That's it. Mix it and let it sit 2 hours if you can, otherwise you can use it immediatly.

This is my little sister's recipe and she makes the best crèpes in the world ;)

Back from There

We are now in California going up and up and inevitably the first flurries start falling. Did I mention I don't like snow? :). And I especially don't like it here because people in big cars think they are invincible and who cares that it is snowing I-am-not-slowing-down. And so inevitably also, some idiots managed to have an accident due to the snow on a barely damp road with clear visibility. And they closed the road and everybody stood to a standstill for an hour and a half in Truckee.



The ambiance in the car is divided. On the kid and dog side it looks like that:



In short: Cool! It's snowing! Let's roll down the window and stick our tongue out!!
Husband side: total calm and serenity, let's listen to the music kind of thing.
Laurienna's side: well I'm afraid Laurienna is muttering about stupid people driving like idiots. But the kids and the dog succeeded in making her smile and take more pics because at that point what else is there to do?
And after 1h30 mns we were able to resume the trip at the awesome pace of 10 miles per hour in weather that definitly got worse and worse until we got to 5 miles per hour.







But we did make it ... in 7,5 hours. Well at least we made it back on the same day which is not always garanteed. Being stuck in the snow has happened to us many times since we have moved here. And most of the time it's no big deal but I have to say that was one of the worst blizzard I saw. Several more feet fell over 2 more days and the " ski people " like I call them are rejoicing.
That's right, I'm not one of them ;)

Home, Sweet Home

Now where was I? It's now Saturday and Laurienna has started to reach the limit of her patience but she is still being a very good girl according to herself. My husband voted for a " somewhat " before the good girl but then that's his problem isn'it? Hehe. And of course, 1h30 mns before a long decided departure time my daughter starts to be sick. Like stomach flu sick if you see what I mean. Yes, I know, you are so happy you are reading that post now, aren't you? So, of course I sacrificed my sanity on the Altar of Motherhood and I did not drag my precious child in below freezing temperatures in the high Sierra. Except that we knew a big blizzard was building up and we knew we had to leave very early on Sunday or stay stuck in Reno until the next Wednesday.
So we left Sunday morning at 10:45 sharp.






And it started well enough. But suddenly Home Sweet Home started to look so so so far away...

To Be Continued And Hopefully Finished Tomorrow!

Still There 4

Still There 3

Still There 2

Still There

Friday was uneventful: got up late again, went to the park, played board games, ate some more unbelievably! Atmosphere starts to go down a bit...
On Saturday though we had fun going to a cafe downtown that has been Mark's favorite hang out when he was a teenager. Why? Well he sums it up nicely: " it was open all night!". Good food and drinks, relaxed atmosphere, fun people..we all like it. And it is closing :( We talked to the owner and he just said he wanted to move on to other things...it has been 22 years. We took the kids this time and had chocolate fraps!







And apparently I can't post more than 5 pics in a post so I'll make several for that day since I took way too many pics again ;)

There

After staying up for most of the night catching up with my sister-in-law, Amy, and her fiancee, Matt,we staggered out of bed at 10 am. And after a nice breakfast of strong coffee and Pannettone from a Portland (where Amy and Matt are from) bakery, we set to work. Actually Matt loves to cook and he had decided on the menu and did most of the cooking. We feasted on :
-turkey
-vegetarian and non-veg gravy
-garlic mashed potatoes
-cranberry-orange gravy
-veg and non-veg stuffing
-green bean casserole
-brussels sprouts
-pumpkin pie, apple pie, berry pie ( half of them without sugar)

It was good and way too much but then that's the point of Thanksgiving isn't it? Matt is also an american football fan so we watched a game while cooking. I got all the rules and commentaries. Most of the time I couldn't see the ball hehe. Man, I don't know how these guys survive. That's really a brutal game. We drank a lot of wine and again stayed up way too late ;).
And I told you that house is brown!

The way there

I looooove road trips. I get to do nothin' since I hate to drive, except taking pictures, reading and occasional munching :)
The sierra looked lovely on highway 80 as usual with brilliant fall colors.



The summit is at Donner pass and just before you get a really nice overview.



The fog is coming but we are almost there!



There it is: Reno, NV, The biggest little city in the world! Stomachs are rumbling and the kids are on hypervolt mode.



The trip took 2h15 mns. Now, I know it doesn't sound important but in the fourth (!) Thanksgiving installment (!) you'll see how important it actually is.

Brrrrrrrr

We are back! A day late and in the middle of a blizzard. I think my toes are permanently frozen. Pics and everything-that-happenned tomorrow. Now where is that cat with the thick winter coat?

T -o

We are still not gone since I'm still dragging this on and on. I just talked to my sister for 45 mns and I was telling her that we watched Armaggedon last night. We agreed it was a sign hahahahaha. Ahem. "shuffling feet toward the suitcase"

Mmmmph

Well, I guess the day has come. Leaving fo my in-laws today for Thanksgiving. Ha, Thanksgiving, I'll not start on this topic. Curiously I have a big headache. We are supposed to leave in 2 hours and I'm in my pj's and nothing is packed. And of course on the days we are leaving and coming back there is going to be snow because otherwise it would not be fun enough right? We are going to Reno which is 2 hours 15 mns away. Just after you cross the high mountains. One time we got stuck for the night on the road beacause of snow. Did I mention I hate snow and cold?? Man, I'm in a bad mood. If only I can shut my big mouth there should not be the beginning of world war 3 this week-end. How likely is that?
Ah, yes did I mention that my in laws live in a world of brown: from the carpet to euh everything is brown. I'm not kidding. In my house every room is a different vibrant color and it's warm and hum pffffff. I need to go pack I guess.

Flicka

Since I'm at it with movies :) We went to see Flicka. You know: girl loves horse, horse loves girl. Perfect for pre-teens who love horses. A bit too much for my 7 year old daughter who was crying her heart out when she thought the horse would die. The only thing I really liked about it: the scenery. I love the Wyoming/ Montana part of the States and I'd really like to go back to the cabins we rented with Mark's family around the Yellowstone area. We had a great time! Cowboys tipping their hats, the best breakfasts ever, listenin' to the coyotes ( could be wolves actually other there!) howling at night on the porch, greeting the foal in the corral in the morning... Yellowstone is magnificent. Geysers, bears, buffalos... But maybe you'd like a few pictures?

Flushed Away

All right, I wasn't too excited to go see this one but it turned out to be really funny. The kids giggled the whole time and we had a good laugh.My husband thinks that maybe the french people won't like this one too much because of the frogs...

School

Very busy these days...not only with the usual children, work and house stuff but we also have to make an important decision. Our son is in the Rapid Learner Program and we have to decide where he is going to go next year for school. He'll be 12 and the choices are:
-International Baccalaureat which is considered the best of the best. It focuses a lot on languages and art. Big drawback: you don't have a life in there. It's work and a lot of it. They focus a lot on test scores and there is no time for sport, music or whatever else you are interested in.
-High Achiever program. Available in most middle-schools the classe are more challenging and they go beyond in their way of looking at a problem.
-Staying in his school for 6th grade in the same program. I love that program and would love for him to stay but the school is not sure they will have enough students for a classroom next year.

I find it very difficult to choose a "path" for my son's life when he is only 11. Will he be mad at us later if we don't put him in this international baccalaureat program that would for sure put him in a wonderful position when universities will be recruiting? I don't want to commit him to a life of all work no play. A lot of the children in his classroom are going though... He wants to stay in his present school that he loves and he certainly doesn't want more homework and he wants time to play soccer.
I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up and he said: " I want to make video games."
Me: " Euh, ok...Nothing else? Really? Nothing?"
Him: "Nope."

Shoppin' at the Mall

Now, I'm quite happy that I don't look like most of the mothers of 2 children at my kids' school. Or that people look surprised when I tell them my age. And that they laugh histerically when I say that I like to knit ( not well or often but still, it counts!). However when I find myself shopping for pyjamas and underwear at Victoria's secret in the midst of 14 year olds, chatting on cell phones and with their friends and chewing gum at the same time I do ask myself questions. When these same 14 years old are buying push up bras for what looks more like mosquito bites than real breasts, I laugh. When I'm standing in line at the cash register and that I see them buy for more than a hundred bucks worth of stuff I think it's unfair ;). Well at least I don't have mosquito bites ha!

Pumpkin Soup

A favorite all winter long! This recipe is quick, delicious, beautiful and makes everybody feel warm and cozy :)

1 lb ( 500 g.) piece of peeled pumpkin
1/4 (50 g.) cup butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
31/2 cup ( 800 ml) chicken stock
2 cups (500 ml) milk
pinch of grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
1 1/2 oz spaghetti, broken into small pieces ( 1/4 d'un paquet de 500g )
6 tbsp grated parmesan

1- Chop the piece of pumpkin into 1 inch cubes.
2- Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the onion, and cook over moderate heat until it softens, 6-8 minutes. Stir in the pumpkin, and cook for 2-3 minutes more.
3- Add stock and cook until pumpkin is soft, about 15 mns. Remove from heat.
4- Puree the soup and return to pan. Add milk, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Bring the soup back to a boil.
5- Stir the broken spaghetti into the soup and cook until pasta is done. Stir in the parmesan.

The french quantities are approximate, which is always how we do it anyway. If you are cooking the soup in advance, cook the pasta in it at the last minute so that it doesn't absorb all the water.

Bon Appetit!

Marie-Antoinette

We saw Coppola's Marie-Antoinette a few days ago and I loved it. Visually stunning of course, but I also thought the acting was very good. I had never seen Kirsten Duntz in a movie and I was surprised how much I liked her. She really conveyed very well the boredom, isolation and superficiality of Marie-Antoinette's life. There are many angles you could choose to portray Marie-Antoinette's life and I loved that sophia Coppola chose to show the life of a teenager (she was 14 when she arrived in France) and what she faced arriving in another country. The modern music, which apparently upsetted so many french people, enhanced the movie really well . Very well done and highly recommended! My only grudge: the ending...

On Halloween

Light all the pumpkins
And let their weird gleam
Call witches and goblins
To keep Halloween.

Happy Samhain everyone! My little witch and my not so little knight anymore are off to do their tricks. I have a fire, a bin full of candy and the cat. I feel at peace and I'll think about my grandparents who are not with us anymore and that I miss. Someone is knocking... careful, the witch is in ;)
Have a great, magical night everyone!

Wanna come over?

The witch is making dinner :)