Feb
8

The best everyday dress

by Sofia   -   in Good things for kids  Shopping

If there is one staple that my girls use every season, every year in a bit different style but never the less pretty much all the time it is a cotton jersey dress from Petit Bateau. For spring and summer season it´s a lighter model with short sleeves and for winter it´s a thicker dress and possibly with long sleeves. It´s such an easy everyday outfit! We wear them for daycare just with a sleeveless undershirt and tights. It´s comfortable, it´s pretty and it´s so easy to maintain. Wash and dry. Besides in my opinion Petit Bateau looks great even after a lot of washing and the darkest navy still looks dark navy after a year of using it. And the girls never complain when I pull out one of their dresses as they really are that soft to wear but nice to twirl in a little. Petit Bateau has come up with plenty of classic but lovely dresses for this summer too. Nothing very new but with a classic who needs anything new. Even the short sleeved models go well year round in pre-school or school with a cardigan. I highly recommend these!

I think either this dress or the next two will be on our shopping list for the spring and summer. Especially this first model would go all year round with a cardigan.

This colour is spot on. Fresh and girly but not too princessy.

Feb
5

Happy thoughts

by Sofia   -   in Random

They are back to stay! I can´t believe it´s been so long since my last happy thoughts post. They are my favourites to compose here. So what has been making you happy lately? I think it´s so important we look back on our lives every so often to see what little or big things, material or not have been making us feel a bit brighter and thankful. My happy thoughts were getting daddy ( the girl´s not mine) back from a long business trip. It´s so nice to have someone to help out with the pre-school run and teeth brushing. And to have someone with warm feet to tuck your toes under in bed. I had to wear socks in bed for a week. Soft cashmere but socks never the less. I prefer it this way.

So on top of that I have been happy about my mom helping me out so so much! I would make a lousy single parent. My mom is the best and as I know she reads my blog… THANK YOU MOM, YOU ARE NOT ONLY THE BEST MOM BUT THE BEST GRANNY TOO! The girls adore my mom ( they adore their other granny too but she was in Cuba last week on a well deserved vacation).

And hey one last happy thought could be that there is more light outside. A lot more than a week ago and next week there will be even more. Watch out because soon I start counting the weeks until island season… and then there were these material happiness makers…

Who dos not love to get something as a souvenir from a trip. I´m picky with my perfume and my lingerie so I like to get something maybe a bit less romantic. Not less romantic in my eyes though. Like a ceramic cake form that just screams ” bake a pretty cake to have with your tea!”. My husband knows that if it comes from William & Sonoma it´s most likely something I will love and use. ( I can literally hear voices in my head going… ooh a zesty lemon cake… wait a lavender infused cake… no lemon! I´ve gone cake crazy!)

Meyer lemon may just be one of my favourite scents in this world. And as I love my kitchen, especially with shiny countertops and smelling nice, this was a particularly romantic gesture to me. Now I need to clean my fridge with this spray to make it smell like Meyer lemons too.

Feb
3

Chores

by Sofia   -   in Good things for kids

Do your kids do chores? Now that mine are 4 and 6 they are well in the age where they are capable of doing things around the house and most often they are eager to help ( except for when it comes to cleaning their own room but I´ll get back to that one). They love to sort out the laundry with me for piles of different colours and materials. And hand washing dishes for some weird reason is very appealing to kids and mine also love to wipe surfaces, especially if there is a spray bottle in use too ( I only give them a natural solution, no hard chemicals). They bring their used clothes to the laundry hamper. They also help me fold towels from the dryer and help to fold ironed napkins, kitchen towels and pillowcases.

They can´t take out the trash yet as we live in a building and the trash boxes are in the courtyard and our staircase has a locked door on that side that is very heavy.  But they do put their trash in the trash bin. And they are supposed to bring their plates in the kitchen after dinner and help me offload the washing machine. They love to set the table and just last week Cotton Candy came asking me for cocktail sticks just before dinner and she had made cute little flags with the sticks and wrapping paper for everyone´s table setting.

Bubble Gum is often asking potatoes for dinner just so she could ” wash off the dirt” as she says. Meal prep is one of their favourites to do I think. I like to give them an easy task while I cook, like tearing up the lettuce for a salad etc.  Cotton Candy can whisk a great omelette now and I really should give her more to do too like chopping things for salads. She has a small children´s knife from Opinel but I saw a bit bigger knife for kids at Tokyokan that I´m considering getting for her. Bubble Gum is not allowed chopping yet as I´m fairly sure she would end up with a band-aid in her finger ( she is mummy´s girl in that sense too…) but she loves to help and just the other night she grated carrots for a salad.

I think what most appeals to them in chores are either doing them with me or in the same room with me. They like to be together and helpful. When it comes to collecting after themselves, say a “lovely little” mess of Sylvanian families in the nursery floor, it´s a whole different story. Then I hear whining and ” I´m too tiiiireed”. But their room must be cleared every night. Not to the standard of perfection but just so that it´s nice and comfortable to sleep in there. So we put on a song and help them out to find correct places for everything.  A long standing favourite is ” a spoonful of sugar” from Mary Poppins but now my girls have their own playlist on Spotify with pop songs too. When we are dancing and cleaning together it´s just so much more fun. They also make their own beds most mornings ( they often remember to fold their pj´s under the pillow too. I sometimes do remake them after they have left out the door ( shh, they don´t see the difference).