Gingerbread house

This is the gingerbread house that we made from scratch. Quite impressive,  don't you think??!!!

Olivia and Mathilde decorated it. Well Olivia decorated and Mathilde kept dipping her finger in the pretty patterns. Then she started on the m&m's.
Olivia asked if I'd ever made these before with my mama, so I told her no. I said to her that from now on, every year, we'll make one then when she's older and if she has kiddies, she can show them.   I warned her that her kiddies would proberly also want to eat all the icing. So she answered that she would not let them, but she would squirt some on their fingers for them to taste!!

Now that that build is over.... lets go to another . Our house in France.

                                                                                      We started our search about  3 and a half years ago. We had just purchased 6 hectars of land with an old ruin and hoped to fix it up. But after a year of trying to get permission to have electricity taken to our land and lots of other factors, we gave up , well for now that is!!
During this time we were still searching for an old farm house or old character building to take on. But after numerous visits we soon realised we would never have exactly what we wanted. 
And the speech about  how it was renovated in 1970 along with the price tag of 400 000 euros before renovation was so not working for us!!
So we decided to look for some land close to our land, now 12 ha and build our HOME!! A few weeks after we'd changed our minds and set the ball rolling in the land + house direction, we found 2000m² in the same village. So we jumped at the chance. My hubbys parents went to visit ,as we were in south africa at the time. They phoned back and told us it was lovely. Quiet and full of oak trees.
So we'd made plans to visit land asap to see for ourselves  and  yes, it was amazing and we were so lucky that its just 2 minutes away  from our 12 ha.

Now that we have the land , time to decide on the house.

We've always loved the provençale style houses. So we went for a Mas style. Chose really good building materials to be as energy efficient as possible. And set that ball rolling.
So After being granted permission to build, finding a builder  and then getting the price down within our budget we were finally ready to start.
Now the upstairs floor has been poured and they are waiting for it to set, which is also their holiday time so nothing much going on. I'm amazed at how quick it went up and still can't believe that when we go back for our summer holidays, we'll be going to our own place.
Finally we'll be able to unpack all of our things that we've accumulated over the past 15 years. I'm sure they'll be quite a few things to get rid of, but its going to be like a long walk down memory lane!!
We bought our first place in Toulouse in 2002which we rent out. Now this new place is our home and I can't wait to start to move in. Hubby is worried that once we get settled that I'll spend most of my time in france like so many of the expat wives. Well I've assured him that no, I'll be there where ever he is. I need to see him and the girls need to see  him. Besides I've seen so many hubbies go astray while away from their wives but then again I've seen them go astray when their wives are there. But this is a topic for another post.

I want my girls to start to have their own memories in their own house.
I want them to know every inch of their garden, to be able to pick fruit from the trees and veggies from their garden. 
To be able to go back and find their room with all their things inside exactly how they left it.

And mostly just to be 'chez nous'