{Video} Joyeux Anniversaire, Sophie et Juliette!

Salut mes amis,

Here is a short video of select photos from our birthday party!

~Sophie

Le 22 août: La fête de l'anniversaire!

Salut mes amis,

Since I was traveling on our actual 14th birthday (August 9th), Juliette and I decided to celebrate our special day on a later date. It was important to us to have a party together with all of our friends from school. We decided to hold the event on Wednesday, August 22nd from 2-4 pm in the Fair Hollow recreational room. Do you like our party invitation? We picked a set of them up earlier this summer!

This is what Juliette and I decided to wear for the day. I'm on the left, while Juliette is on the right:

Our first party guest to arrive was Chiara Martini, a fellow foreign exchange friend of mine. She is from a small town outside of Florence, Italy! 

Juliette's friend Jessica McConnell arrived next:

Maura Cassidy, another good friend of Juliette's, struggled in next, her arms full with two rather large boxes:

Finally, our last party guest arrived - my very best friend, Nathalie Thibodeau! Nathalie's another foreign exchange acquaintance; she's from Montréal, Québec, Canada:

Now that Chiara, Jessica, Maura, and Nathalie had all arrived, the party could finally begin. We decided to start off with a classic party game: Musical Chairs! Juliette and our friends got into place around a group of chairs, while I prepared to turn on the music:

When I turned the music on (Fifty Sixty by Alizée), the girls moved around the group of chairs, some even dancing to the music while doing so. When I turned the music off, they all quickly scrambled to secure a chair. The problem was that there were five girls and only four chairs. One girl was going to be chair-less and, therefore, out of the game. That was Chiara! 

The game continued. Jessica was out next, then Maura. Finally, only Juliette and Nathalie were left with one chair to walk around. Who would secure the chair and be the winner?

 When I stopped the music, both Juliette and Nathalie dashed over to the chair. There was such a ruckus being made that I wasn't sure who had won at first. Juliette was clearly sitting on the chair, but . . . wait! Did I see legs sticking out from underneath her? I sure did! Both Nathalie and Juliette were trying to claim the chair, but Juliette was barely hanging on. She soon found herself on the floor beside the chair, which means that she was out of the game.

. . . so Nathalie was declared the winner! As a competitive figure skater, she takes winning very seriously, even winning a little party game! She screamed with delight and called herself the "Champion of the Chairs" for the rest of the afternoon. Silly Nathalie! 

After playing Musical Chairs, we decided that it was cake time. After our teacher lit the candles, our friends sang Happy Birthday to us - in French and in English!

The French version goes like this:

  

Joyeux anniversaire à vous,
Joyeux anniversaire à vous,
Joyeux anniversaire Sophie et Juliette,
Joyeux anniversaire à vous!

We decided to have cupcakes instead of an actual cake. We ordered them in a variety of colors and flavors, so that everyone could pick their favorite:

When the singing stopped, Juliette and I made our wishes (nope, I'm not telling you what we wished for!), and then we blew out our candles:

We all must have been hungry! For several minutes, there wasn't much talking as we dug into our cupcakes, tortilla chips, and juice (or milk): 

Juliette and I both opted for cupcakes with chocolate icing - yum! In addition, I had chocolate milk. Juliette was more sensible and chose plain white milk:

When we finished eating, it was time for PRESENTS! I won't bore you and post them all here (though you'll be able to see them on my Facebook page in a few days), but we got some fantastic things . . .

. . . including our very own camping tent! This was a gift from our teacher:

My friend Marsali sent us a tin of French candy. Thank you, Marsali, the candy was delicious! 

Our fellow twin friends Quinn and Trinity sent us a lovely card and a bag full of presents, including . . .

. . . pink hair extensions and princess wands! Thank you, Quinn and Trinity! We loved everything.

Maya and Katherine, the friends I met at the Natick American Girl store, sent us . . . 

. . . the Weekend Fun outfit! I've been wanting this outfit so badly. Thank you, Maya and Katherine! This will get a lot of use: 

Our friends Susie and Tessa had some gifts for us as well, both of which they wrapped in American Girl catalogue pages (how thrifty!):

I received a stuffed otter whom I named Oliver, and Juliette received her very first UglyDoll: a pink one named Wippy! Thank you, Susie and Tessa! We love our new stuffed animal friends:

Maman and Papa sent Juliette a new LL Bean purse; isn't it cute?

For me, Maman and Papa sent a brand new backpack, notebook, and water bottle:

When we finished opening presents, we decided to take some fun group shots with our friends. From left to right, we have Chiara, Maura, me, Juliette, Nathalie and Jessica: 

Here we have Chiara and Maura posing for a picture and then Nathalie and Jessica posing for a picture:

And, finally, the birthday girls: 

What was your last birthday like? What kind of presents did you receive? Did you have a birthday party?

~Sophie

McKenna movie-viewing party!

Salut, mes amis! 

As I'm sure you all know by now, yesterday marked the television premiere of McKenna Shoots for the Stars (which, coincidentally, fell on Bastille Day, a national holiday in France). McKenna is the second Girl of the Year movie to be released; the last was An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong in 2009. The McKenna movie reveals how difficult it can be for kids to balance school and recreational activities. McKenna has a passion for gymnastics, which often surpasses her desire to do schoolwork. (That sounds familiar, doesn't it, Juliette?!) 

To celebrate the movie premiere, Juliette and I each invited two friends to a movie-viewing party. I invited Chiara and Nathalie, my two best friends, while Juliette invited Jessica and Maura. We all dressed in our coolest pajamas and snacked on pepperoni pizza, fruit, and soda during the duration of the film.                   

 We were all pretty enthralled with McKenna. We are huge fans of Nia Vardalos, so we loved her as McKenna's mother. We also loved Josie, but wished that she'd been the central character as it'd be nice for American Girl to feature a character who is disabled. We also wished that Sierra had been featured more, and we felt that her character development was a little bit lacking.

Our favorite scene was probably Josie fulfilling her dream of riding horses. We love Kerris Dorsey (the actress who plays Josie) anyhow, so that really comes as no surprise! That being said, the scene where Toulane spies on McKenna and Josie in the library was a great one. Jessica, in particular, loved it as Toulane reminded her of a younger version of Nikita Mears (of The CW's Nikita, her favorite television show).

None of us are huge fans of gymnastics, but we were all enthralled with the rhythmic gymnastics sequences. We loved how closely related to dance rhythmic gymnastics seems to be! We all agreed that it would be fun to try. Who knows, maybe Fair Hollow School for Girls will add rhythmic gymnastics to their course list? Do any of you do rhythmic gymnastics?

Did any of you watch the McKenna movie last night? What was your favorite scene? What do you think could've been improved on?

~Sophie

Making an Egg Carrier!

Salut, tout le monde!

Recently, my good friend Inky decided to hold an egg carrier design contest for Easter. Juliette and I decided to work on an entry together, just for fun. Although we aren't the best artists in the world, we decided to decorate our egg carrier with red panda faces and paw prints. After all, we both know how much Inky loves her red pandas!

This is how our egg carrier looked after we were finished decorating it:

Juliette had the job of assembling the egg carrier. She also added several eggs that we'd colored earlier in the week:

We decided to give our completed egg carrier to Juliette's new friend, Maura. From a small beach town in Virginia, Maura is a new student at Fair Hollow. She is quite the artist, from what Juliette tells me. I was a little worried that she'd laugh at our silly little drawings, but she smiled and appeared quite thrilled to be the recipient of our egg carrier:

Here is Maura with her Easter egg carrier:

Did everyone have a good Easter? Juliette and I attended an early church service and then walked around the city for awhile, looking at pretty Easter flowers and lots of dogs dressed up in their Easter finery.

-Sophie