March has been busy...and promises to get even busier.
On Saturday, I took Valentine to sign up at the fine arts school in Annemasse. It's her "Plan B" school if things don't work out for the school in Avignon.
I'm sure it will all work out, but it's good to have a backup plan, right?

That afternoon, our pal Max, Alexa and I went to Geneva to do a bit of shopping. I ended up finding an amazing pair of shoes on sale for 60% off! But mostly we wandered around the flea market at Plainpalais. They have one there every Wednesday and Saturday.

Plainpalais is a neighbourhood in central Geneva and here's and interesting fact about it: Historically, it was an area outside the densely populated city of Geneva where they brought the sick to avoid contagion and an epidemic.
Everybody looked pretty healthy there on Saturday, though- so that's good.....
It's such a drag to contract the plague. Amirite?
Something for everyone!

It was a bit cold and windly, so we stopped in a nearby Starbucks for a shockingly overpriced snack. But it was so good!!!!

Original Halloween Cuteness (by Mallory)

It's mid-October now.
School has been well underway for a month and a half now and we're heading into the two-week long "Toussaint" holiday.

But my kids aren't thinking "all saint's"- they're all about Halloween.

It's definitely NOT a French thing.
In fact, many people here are actively Halloween-hostile.
Which is weird.
I think it comes from the multiple attempts that French shops have made at promoting the foreign holiday in order to push merchandise. The efforts were such blatant attempts at culturally invasive money-grubbing that it turned many people off.
And, frankly, France doesn't need Halloween.

My kids and I always have a big party for our friends because we're American and like to enjoy this fun holiday that I grew up with.

But I'd really rather not see French people doing Halloween parties. They try to make you eat pumpkin soup and they don't know what candy corn is.
It's just sad, really....

January 2011 was not so bad, in retrospect.

There was this:

Nice, huh?
That was during a weekend in the Val d'Illiez, Switzerland.
It was all cute and stuff...

And there was this, too:

I has a fun weekend with a girlfriend who works as a translator each year at the big Solothurn Film Festival in Switzerland. It was fun to watch the movies from the booth and get the insider's view of everything...
And Solothurn turned out to be a very cute Swiss town:

Come to think of it, I spent a lot of time in Switzerland this last month....
I guess there's worse places to be.

At any rate, Valentine had no time for gallivanting pointlessly around foreign countries.
She stayed home, working hard:

What a good girl! And so talented! And lovely!

And finally....our cat, Daisy, who spent the entire month of January working assiduously to become even more gloriously porky.

Well done, kitty!

Birthday Girls!

Last Sunday, the twins turned 12 years old. As a friend recently pointed out, this is probably the last "kid" birthday for them. At 12, they still ask for Barbies and Playmobil as gifts.

At 13? Not so much.

Actually, Mallory asked for books. As is often the case, Alexa didn't have any idea of what to ask for. It's funny that Mal has such definite ideas about...everything, while Alexa is much more laid back and vague about things.

And it's been that way since they were born. When she was small, Mallory would grumble and howl to get things just how she liked them- while Alexa laid ( and then sat) around looking serene and generally ok with the world as it was.

So, the zen girl got a video game involving music (she likes music) and a tiny digital photo frame

Then we had our outing. The buffet at the Chinese restaurant was a big success. The food was good and the decor was satisyingly oriental, in that crazy-tacky Chinese restaurant way that is so entertaining.

Afterwards, we went to Geneva:
The Museum of Art and History is rather small, but has some great pieces. Severin enjoyed the swords and armour, while the girls preferred the paintings.

Here's Alexa in front of some gorgeous peonies by Renoir.

And here's Mallory's favorite- a painting depicting a happy family of farmers apparently enjoying a picnic with all of their livestock. That's what I call cruelty-free farming!

That evening, for about 20 minutes, Mallory was 12 years old and Alexa was still only 11. Mal enjoyed it while it lasted, but Al was very happy when the clock finally hit 8:50pm. She could finally say she was really a whole year older!

You all HAVE to go have a look at Valentine's latest art project for school.

The assignment was to use photography or video in conjunction with one other art technique (painting, sculpture, whatever) to make a piece portraying a daily activity in a humorous way.

She ended up using a picture of an old Flemish domestic painting and having some fun with it. She changed it up and incorporated pics of our whole family.

I think she did an amazing job, but you should go see for yourselves.

BTW: It would be nice of you to leave her an encouraging comment, too. She likes that.

A list of stuff ( just because I like lists)

1. Project Runway- I adore Tim Gunn. (Not that I'd ever want to meet him, mind you. I dress so badly that it would probably give him physical pain to look at me.) In case you are some unfortunate creature living under a rock and don't know of him, he's the co-host of a fabulous and "fierce" reality show that pits young clothing designers against each other in various challenging situations, ex: must make an evening gown in just 8 hours, using only materials purchased at a corner grocery store.
Let me add that I usually HATE reality TV. The kind of thing where a bunch of people live in a camera-filled house together and gossip about each other is just...so tacky and dull. But shows where people show a real talent, such as singing or sewing? They're a win, IMHO.

2. The Birthday of the Twins- The Dynamic Duo turn 12 this Sunday, which is kind of scary for their mom. My babies are nearly teenagers? Gah!
But it's all good, right?
The girls have opted to celebrate with lunch at a chinese restaurant and a vist to the Museum of Art and History in Geneva. (I'm so lucky to have such cool kids!)
Then, when the school holiday is over, they'll hand out invitations and we'll have a little party with their friends here at home.

3. Pumpkin Soup with Cumin and Coriander: This is a family favorite that is appearing on the table fairly often these days:
Sauté one chopped onion and 2tsp of cumin in two tablespoons of olive oil. Steam or boil about four cups of chopped pumpkin until soft. (If you boil it, drain it well afterwards). Purée the cooked onion and pumpkin til smooth, slowly adding three to four cups of chicken or vegetable bouillion. Wash and chop up a small bunch of coriander leaves? garnish each bowl with coriander, a tsp of creme fraiche (or sour cream)and homemade croutons.
Easy, yet kind of fancy, and very tasty...

4. Skeptic's Guide to the Universe: This podcast is my new "escape to reality" these days. It's about an hour and a half of discussion and debunking : urban myths, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and paranormal crud get taken on. I especially enjoy it when they go after anti-vaccine whackos and homeopathy.

5. Dingue, Dingue, Dingue- Here's some French pop for you. It's the song stuck in my head this week. Sadly, the only lyrics I know are three words to the chorus...and they're all the same word. The kids are possibly a bit tired of me singing the word "dingue" (crazy) over and over and over again...but it's a cute song! (Here's the lyrics in French and in English, if you're interested)

Halloween is nearly here, but in France, it's not that evident. Very few shops sell any holiday items and there's certainly no mention in the media.
And that's just fine.
I am perfectly happy for Halloween to be an American specialty and I'm very glad that I have this fun cultural tradition to share with my kids.
We've been planning a party this week-not a huge one, but plenty big.
We got our jack-o-lanterns carved yesterday:

On Sunday, we made a simple, but reasonably cute, Halloween "tree" with painted branches:

The kids made all the little treat bags and had fun decorating each one differently:
I've also been downloading stuff off the internet. One site had some really nifty retro Halloween artwork that I just loved- for example:

I've also downloaded plenty of Halloween music for the party. I tried some of it out on the kids today in the car. They had never heard 'The Monster Mash' before and I told them it was a song you HAVE to know if you are a US citizen.

It's the law.

Some people claim that Marie Antoinette once said " Let them eat cake".
In fact, what she said was "Let them see cake" The doomed queen hoped that viewing attractively decorated confectionary treats would soothe the violently rebellious spirits of the thousands of unhappy peasants milling around the palace.
It didn't work.
But I'll show you my cakes anyway.

Throughout my stay in Ouagadougou, I honed my cake-making skills. It was often quite challenging, as few good materials were available locally. The powdered sugar, for example, was dry, lumpy stuff from Lebanon that had to be pounded through a sieve before I could use it. Butter was available only sporadically, so I had to stock up, despite limited fridge space and power outages that could spoil everything.

But I persevered.

This next cake is one of the first character cakes I attempted. I probably should have made Pikachu larger, but I was just grateful that he turned out recognisable. Nothing's worse than making a character cake and having it misidentified by your eating public.

A remark like "So... that's...Big Bird?" would have killed me. (Yes, I do invest emotionally in my cakes. Thank you for asking.)

(The colors on the above cake were actually ok, btw. It's just a bad photo.)

Now, here's Santa. He's a bit square, but cute enough...

Here's another character cake from a cartoon. The film "Spirit" was a favorite of Valentine's at the time, so I made this:
This next one is also my own design. By the time I made it, I'd already done quite a few horse cakes. So, when one of the twins asked for a horse, I talked her into a seahorse- which she loved.
(I I love the expression on his little face.)

This is probably the most difficult character cake that I ever made. SpongeBob may be a big yellow rectangle, but he's a complicated big yellow rectangle. I'm pretty proud of him, as these cakes can go very, very wrong.

That's it for today. The kids are on school holiday now and I'm very busy keeping them busy. we're planning a big Hallowen party, so there's plenty to do. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow so that you can see what we've been up to...

I'm still down with a rotten cold and not up for much blogging. So, today you get to see my son's art project. He was assigned to create a piece of art to convey the idea of a "nuit blanche" (sleepless night). He came up with this idea of a box, painted black outside. The interior is white and through the window cut in the box, you can see the tiny figure of a sad little clay man sitting on his bed. The interior is lit with a strong light.
My photos isn't the best, as it was kind of hard to get the view and lighting right, but it gives an idea.
I think it is really expressive and his teacher agreed, as it was given the best grade in the class. (Would I like a side of brag with that boast? Why yes, thank you!)


Besides that, my cat needs a hernia operation and we STILL have no furniture in the living room. Like hippies forgotten by time, we squat on the floor on brightly colored cushions. If this goes on much longer, we're going to be putting on sitar music and experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs.
I guess I haven't mentioned that I had the rattan living room furniture sent away for some slight repairs and revarnishing. It all went off about a week ago and it's still not done!