Bien Joué: Schackenborg In The Snow: A Happy, Blended Family In Villars-Sur-Ollon: Quel Contrast To The Boganborg Cousins Down The Road

Enough love for all the kids!

At 12:30 this afternoon, the Schackenborg tribe gathered at the base of the ski resort at Villars-sur-Ollon, the town in Switzerland where Marie's mother and stepfather have a chalet and where Marie's high school Beau Soleil is located. Beau Soleil is also where the Luxembourg royals sent their children to school. Quel bonheur!

All hail and praise to Prince Joachim and Princess Marie! They have managed what too many people find impossible: blending the children of the first wife with their half-siblings from the second wife and have the results work. Everyone has an important place in the heart of all parents and feels comfortable and loved, not to mention that this session seems well timed between feedings and naps for the best benefit to the children. Right on!

No one can miss the connection between mother and daughter here! Marie is just absolutely in love with little Athena. What a cutie patootie! Wearing what looks to be the same pink snowsuit that Izzy and Josie have both worn in the past, she is one cool cat in her new sunnies and woolen hat (with a regular pom-pon not the tail of a silver fox!). How nice of Mary to offer up the snowsuit to little Athena. Does she just need to purge things that are several seasons old, or too pink? Or did Izzy give it to her cousin?

Henrik has grown into a real little boy now, no longer a baby. What a thrill for him to be with his older brothers, who themselves look really happy to be on holiday in the snow for the first time in two years. Nice of Joachim to take all three boys off to the side for some fun while their little baby sister and her mother take it easy on the sidelines. And it looks like lille Henrik is steady on his skis for the first time. Good thing, because skiing will be a permanent fixture in this family's life - all six will be proficient once Athena is old enough to join them.

Nikolai and Felix seem to live fully in the knowledge that they are loved by their father as much as their younger half-siblings and that the same is true of their step-mother. What a relief for all parties, including Alexandra! Everyone looks relaxed and confident of their role and importance in their parents' lives. Considering that the family is staying with the French- and English-speaking Grassiot clan, the older boys are definitely showing that they are cared for and fully integrated into their Papa's new family - and practising their French, too! Love, strong self-esteem, no jealousy or competition: congratulations Joachim and Marie (and Alex), you've so far achieved the near impossible!

Photo Gallery: Pure People

Photo Gallery: PPE

 

 

Photos: Zimbio via The Image Gate/Getty Images Europe, Bekia

Verbier, Day 1: FAIL: Bogans on Parade: Just as Ridiculous and Ill-Organised As You'd Imagine: Preening Mary and Crying Miracle Twins: Brought To You By LEGO

Psst, Mary, careful, you might pop a stitch with all that facial straining!

This family is so predictable and totally chaotic. What a bloody mess. Isn't the whole point of a scheduled photo session with the royal children so that the photographers present could take photos of the family posing and everyone looking well dressed and cute and standing relatively still so as to project an image of a happy royal family ready for fun later on, out of the gaze of the photographers? Yeah, not from Madam La Comtesse to PR Fails. This session is further proof that for Mary, everyone else in the photos is a prop in The Mary Show.

The babies are crying part of the time and carried nearly the whole time as if to control them, even after the family decides to play on the little plastic sledges they like to use every year. You can't easily control children at this age. Did they not time this session to coincide with their best time of day? Who could imagine how stressful it is to grow up in a home with Mary in it? Mary of course cannot cope with crying babies, nor with being anything but the centre of attention (psst, Mary, be careful - when you look at your children when they are not being perfectly boring blobs of dough, your jowls really come out!). Yrma is of course the child in this gathering of the nuclear family, the members of which who barely know each other. Yrma is the one who plays on the sledge, and Izzy is the one to do the pulling! And further like a child, she mugs for the cameras, with self-consciousness and fake posing with her daughters. Nothing dignified or royal here, folks! Gah! Why for the photo session would she be so clueless and immature to allow for such a scene? What PR/marketing executive? The one who failed at the Apple/Buzzle/Llove campaign with Siimon Reynolds, supposing.

Bring on the Schackenborgs for Wednesday's photo session down the road in Villars-sur-Ollon! Let's see the grown boys, and lille prins Henrik on skis for the first time, and precious little Athena in her snowsuit trying to stand like she seems to be trying to do in her first birthday photos.

Photo Gallery: Pure People

Time Lapsed Video: YouTube - frightening! The whole megillah in speeded up format.

Product placement! This holiday brought to you by the Lego corporation!

 

 

 

Photos: Martin Høien/Billed Bladet, Albert Niepor/Scanpix