THERE'S DEFINITELY SOME MOM SHOPPING GOING ON HERE

July 11, 2012

Sales season has arrived! And one the best places to go for good shopping is in the near city of Annecy in France. It's just 30 minutes from Geneva and besides of the good brands and bargains you can get in here, it's absolutely a gorgeous city.
People have been asking me which are my favorite French brands for children clothes. Here there are some:
Tartine et Chocolat (preppy and french elegance)
Cyrillus (very chic and preppy)
Grain de Blé (cheap and chic)
Petit Bateau (comfy and stylish)
Interdit de me gronder (stylish... love their tennis collection)
Catimini (not really a fan though, too colorful for my taste)
After a exhausting shopping day we took the children for some ice-cream and playtime... btw André has really with luck with girls  ;)

SOUNDS OF THE SUMMER

July 10, 2012

André started several courses this summer: piano, tennis, equitation and English classes in Gymboree.  He's excited with all the new friends he's making, and so do I!

To celebrate the end of his first week in piano lessons, we went to have some ice cream in the Yacht Club de Genève. He's having every afternoon, five days per week for a couple of hours, a musical course with emphasis in piano, and he seems to like it. I'm crossing my fingers for this trend to continue. His teacher is Greek and has a lot of patience and talent.

I always try to boost music in the life of my children, as it's proved that music has amazing effects in children. My baby Adrien was having music classes and baby disco in Gymboree when he was 5 until 7 months old. My older daughter Aimée was several years in the conservatory learning piano, as well as ballet, rhythmic gymnastics and dance courses.

The International Foundation of Music Research has published several researches about the benefits of music on early brain development. These studies have shown that children that had music education got higher SAT in intelligence scores. They say that music "benefit cognitive abilities, higher reasoning and motor skills, and higher achievements in language and math". Isn't wonderful what music can do for those little brains?

WHITE WEEKEND

June 30, 2012

Good friends invited us over for a White Weekend Party in Marseille, France, to celebrate their 10 years of marriage. There were several events during the weekend and all of them had as dress code the white color. It seems that Adrien loved the theme so much that he started for the first time to walk alone and didn't even want that we touch him. It was so funny!
We're very thankful for such a great weekend with wonderful company, good music and excellent food. OMG I love the South of France!

CATCH A WAVE

June 20, 2012

School is over!! To celebrate, we took André for a bath in Aquaparc. But before, we had lunch in a charming Zen restaurant around the lake. André's favorite place in Aquaparc is the waves pool. I have almost to force him to try the other places. I think he really believes he's a surfer in his Gymboree Surfer swim outfit!

BUCKLE UP EVERYONE!

June 17, 2012

This Father's Day weekend we decided to go away with Adrien for a short trip to Berlin!
The first day of our arrival, we took a boat tour across the multitude of Berlin's rivers and canals. Did you know that Berlin has more bridges than Venice? Around 1700 bridges. We finished with a traditional German dinner.
The second day we took the risk of get a walking tour around Berlin. The weather was not the best, as the whole day we had a few rain showers. However, Adrien never complained and he even seemed to enjoy the tour so we finished it successfully. We visited most of the main sights in the city, included the Berlin Wall, Hitler's Bunker, SS and Gestapo Headquarters, the Parlament, etc, etc. Of course we were deeply moved for Berlin's touching history. But we finish with a happy end as we met great new friends in our tour! I wanna say many thanks to our superb guide!
We had an incredible dinner that night to celebrate Father's Day.
Last day, we had a short walk and then headed to the airport. We arrived just to Geneva just in time to have dessert with my in-laws for Father's Day family meeting. Congratulations to my hubby, my father and all dads! Remember that the best thing you can do for your children is love their mothers  ;)

SCHOOL MATTERS

June 11, 2012

André is finishing school next week! To celebrate this year's memories, challenges and accomplishments, he and his classmates had an end of school trip to the Vivarium of Geneva.
We're so looking forward to start the vacations soon!
The region around Geneva is world famous for the finest private schools that for decades attracted the children of kings, celebrities, diplomats and presidents. Geneva has 289 private schools, that means the highest number of international schools per inhabitant of Europe!
However, Geneva's public school are also exceptional and among the highest level in the world. Probably, this is because of the high quality of the private schools that set the bar high for the whole educative system. Whether public or private, all Geneva's schools have a multicultural level for the high percentage of foreigners in the city.
Public schools in Geneva are free, and are pretty small, compared to schools elsewhere. The children have a lunch break to go to take it at home, as it is Swiss tradition, but in some schools is possible to take it at the school at reasonable prices (as André does).

HEAD-TO-TOE

June 8, 2012

It's so nice to have good weather so we can take the children for short trips in charming French and Swiss towns. This time we went to Thonon-les-Bains in the Haute Savoie region of France, less than one hour away from Geneva. This city has an interesting history for its past as a French Dukedom and one of the most impressive and breathtaking views to the Léman Lake.
We had a nice walk with the children, a delicious French lunch and some shopping, where André got a two-heads dragon, which he doesn't separate now.

DON'T STOP THE MUSIC

June 7, 2012

"Music washes away from the soul the dusty of everyday life" said Auerbach.  We can't help but agree while we were dancing with the Putumayo Kids  new cd's that we got for Adrien's Carousel Party. They are great!  But if you don't believe me, check here all the awards they have won over the last years, including the "Best of the Year" lists in the best educational and parenting magazines.
Putumayo Kids are CD's collections with children music from all around the world that introduce children to other cultures. They have child-friendly music with African, Asian, European, American and Latin songs in several languages.
My favorites collections, which I played during Adrien's first birthday party, are (you can click on the links to listen a portion of each song):

• Animal Playground, animal songs from around the world. It's my favorite and a percentage of the sale of this album is donated to preservate the famous Bronx Zoo.
• Sing Along with Putumayo, a selection of classic blues and folks.
• Sesame Street Playground, multilingual songs from Sesame Street.
• World Playground, songs from all around the world.
• Latin Playground, Latin songs. My favorite is a Guantanamera version, sung by children.
• African Playground, African songs.
• French Playground, famous French songs.
• Jazz Playground, cool jazz songs.

And there are a lot more collections...

DINOROOM

June 5, 2012

How to decorate a boy's room and not die trying? In Switzerland we don't have a lot of options for a fun and innovative children's room decoration. I guess because everything is too expensive. I have more limitations as well. First, I didn't want to buy just hackneyed Ikea children's furniture. Second André wanted a Dinoroom because he's still obsessed with dinosaurs. Not as easy as a cars theme. And third, I didn't have enough budget to change the existent blue walls and furniture. So I decided to buy online thematic deco objects at Jojo's site, paste removable stickers to the furniture and add murals on the walls.
This is the result! Andrésaurus and his Tyrannosaurus are happy and my pocket too. I'm looking forward to improve it little by little with some DIY craft work.

CHILDREN'S DAY MBA

June 1, 2012

Children's Day is different almost in each country. Unicef has a different day also for the International Children's Day. World Children's Day is on November 20th to protect children for working in bad conditions.  Anyway in our family, we celebrate Children's Day (Día del Niño) on June 1st, ant this year we took advantage that we had a wonderful weather.
We started the day with brunch in a cowboy & indians restaurant. Then, we bought for the kids an inflatable pool so they spent the afternoon splashing and laughing. In the meanwhile, my hubby started to build his next project for the children: an amazing wood playground that I'll show later.
In this important day, we all adults should try to impersonate our children, as they have valuable lessons to teach us. My children probably don't know how to behave properly yet, but they're so freaking happy!  We should be watching our kids, not just for proper parental supervision, but to learn how to be as happy. It's actually wise to try to catch some of their self-esteem and confidence, their ability to make friends quickly without worries to be rejected, their honesty to tell what they think, their curiosity to learn about almost everything, their desire to do things just for pleasure and don't for hidden purposes, their indifference for prices and brands, their disinhibition as they're not at all afraid to show their feelings. They do fight, but when it's over, it's over, they don't keep resentments or stay mad for months or even gossip about their friends.  They, our little kids, can see the best in people!

CAROUSEL PARTY

May 21, 2012

We threw a Carousel Party for the first birthday of Adrien. Most of the decoration and food was hand made by me.  I'll explain in detail below each one of the elements we had.

In addition, we had a real carousel as the main attraction for the children. It was a blast!!

It was also a windy day, so I couldn't take the best pictures. But we were so lucky that in a week full or raindrops, we had the whole day a bright and shiny sun. Thanks God!

FROGS, BUGS AND PUPPETS

May 17, 2012

We took the children for a puppet show about racism and prejudices which I found with great content and message!

I found great as well their Gymboree clothes. I bought for them several matching outfits that I'll be posting asap. The best part of Adrien's outfit? Its green frogs match with the children bathroom. What could be more fun than a fizzy amphibian with big green lips all around bath time?  ;)

GERMAN CRUSADE

April 12, 2012

Spring break is a great time for family bonding. We went to the south of Germany with the children, and despite the cold weather, we enjoyed this spring break getaway and even did some shopping.  I'm starting to realize that any country in the world is cheaper than Switzerland.

SERIOUSLY HANDSOME

December 30, 2011

Adrien is getting bigger and these two last months have been so overwhelming, surreal and extremely exiting!!  Here there are some pics of November and December...

BUNDLE OF JOY

All this time we were wondering and wondering... who is this person coming/growing/turning/floating/swimming deep, deep inside. I felt like everything was growing rounder and wider and weider, and I was in the middle of it all wondering who in the world he will turn out to be. And now the secret is out! 

Welcome Adrien Daniel!

Here there are some pictures of his first week of life. André has turned out to be the sweetest big brother ever. He loves his little bro and is not at all jealous of him... what a blessing!