Christmas: Better late than never

Since the boys weren't home for Christmas, and I wasn't with them, we waited until after they got home to open presents.

Since they were skiing Christmas day, they didn't mind too much. They got lots of fun things: Legos, games, a cash register for Noah, and books, books, and more books.

We tried out their new game Zooreka later the same day and it was a hit.

Ski vacation

I got smart this year, plus I had already paid my dues with my 2 1/2 week trip home with the boys and without Frédéric. So I let him take the boys skiing Christmas week, and Gala and I stayed home and enjoyed the peace and quiet! It was wonderful!

Oh, and the boys had a good time skiing, too. We had to put them in ski school morning and afternoon, since Frédéric can't ski right now with his injured knee. We hope he will be back to normal by next year; the boys were sad he didn't ski with them.

Benjamin was pretty excited he got to (finally!) start using his poles this year.

Here they are with their newly acquired ski level medals, flocon (snowflake) for Noah and première étoile (first star) for Benjamin.

Christmas scarves

Noah, in his continuing quest to learn how to crochet, insisted that Grandma crochet him a scarf. He chose the colors. Not to be left out, Benjamin decided he needed one, too. They weren't finished before we left the US, but getting a package in the mail is much more exciting, anyway. So here they are in their new Christmas scarves.

 

 

Benjamin is 8!

Benjamin turned 8 this year, and we celebrated by letting him invite a friend over to go to the movies and have dinner and cake with us afterwards.

Frédéric took them to see "Frozen" ("La Reine des Neiges" in French), and they all enjoyed it.

Frédéric made the cake and outlined the dinosaur, and I finished frosting it while they were at the movie.

Home Again

Our last few days in the US were spent in St Louis, shopping and catching up with friends. Then the boys and I spent hours and hours and hour in the Atlanta airport, (which desperately needs a playground), before we caught our plane back to France.

The weekend after we returned, Benjamin had his first swim meet of the year. He did the 50m backstroke and came in first in his age group. (He might have been the only one in his age group, but that's irrelevant.)

Immediately after the swim meet, we rushed back home to the village Christmas party, where the boys were spoiled, like every year since we've been here. Noah got a new Transformer, and Benjamin got a remote-controlled Meccano robot.