Bios

After living 3 years in New York City (where she got engaged), 1 year in Brussels (where she got married) and 3 years in London (where she got a couple of children and met the co-writers of this blog), Esther moved back to her home country to live in the real sin-city: Amsterdam. Trained as an architect, she likes things to be organized, functional and good-looking. As a mother of two (♀ & ♂), that seems hard to achieve, but at least her husband makes an effort. She loves cooking and having her friends over, who in return, love to spend time on her couch. She is fond of little creative projects (drawing, sewing, baking) and has a weakness for shopping and ‘finding the best deal’ – she’s Dutch, after all.

Courtney is an American-turned-Brit who was raised on a tulip farm north of Seattle. She now lives in London with her husband and three kids, aged 4 and younger — it’s busy in their home! Despite having lived in London for nearly 7 years, she still complains about the winters (a stint in sunny Los Angeles has spoiled them for life). But rainy days aside, she really loves living in London and can be found marching her family up to Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath nearly every weekend. Courtney is an unrelenting neat-freak who loves her dustbuster. She also loves dark chocolate, strong coffee, nice bedding, and flip-flops. She is currently touring Australia (avoiding a winter) with her family for three months.

Michela is an academic economist, born and raised in Milan. She moved to London after graduation to do a PhD, and ended up staying 8 years! There she met the man who became her husband (and who thankfully decided to leave academic life for investment banking)! They now live in Milan with their two children, a boy and a girl. Of the 4 girls, she is the least obsessed with fashion; she doesn’t do heels, and she’ll never wear skinny jeans… but she does have a soft spot for designer bags! Michela loves to eat and cook, but the latter activity has suffered since motherhood while the former is constantly challenged by her desire to shed those last 2 kilos! She loves to read, and she cannot live without internet connection. But, she’ll drop anything for a good chat with friends, whether in front of a cup of tea, or a bottle of chardonnay!

Emilie is a freelance animation producer in proud possession of a French and an Irish passport… but it’s actually not that simple. She grew up in Germany and in the States, and then finally landed in London. Having lived there for 10 years, (in which time she managed to get married to a Kiwi and give birth to a Brit), she moved over to Paris two years ago. Paris has not been without its trials, but the whole family has gotten used to fresh croissants in the morning, and dog poop on the pavement all day long! She has now had baby number 2 and is getting used to the lack of sleep and the multi-tasking all over again.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Our advertising specialist

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Sarah lives in central London where she and her husband (along with Hank the Labradoodle) moved for their careers in digital media. When their first baby arrived, Sarah shifted gears from the 10-year career she loved to the baby she was falling in love with. When naptime comes, she can be found seamlessly clearing out her inbox, sampling a new recipe, and going to the end of the Internet and back to track down a unique find. She can be found with a Blackberry in one hand, while pushing her darling baby, followed by her gigantic, Muppet-like Doodle through Regents Park.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Natalie is still never entirely sure whether to call herself English or Australian as she has lived half her life in each country, but given she has married an Australian man (5 years ago) and has an Australian baby (5 months ago), the land of blue skies and barbies is winning out. What has remained constant is her love of words. From a degree in English Literature at the University of Sydney to finance reporting (hey, she had to get her start somewhere!) to becoming deputy editor of an Australian interiors magazine, Natalie has always loved to communicate. She’s also been working on a novel for five years – must be her lucky number – and recently started a book on motherhood. Yep, that’s a lot of words… so don’t even get her started on how important style is to her – from creating a home from the heart to never, ever wearing tracksuit pants in public other than to exercise.

Rebecca is an Art Therapist by training and an expert shopper by passion. Founder of the Chic Shopping Paris shopping service (and book with the same title), she is a writer and a blogger as well. After grad school in DC, she met a Frenchman who later became her husband. The couple moved to Paris, where they lived for 7 years, and added two daughters to their family. After weathering an international move with a 6-week-old baby and an almost 4-year-old “big girl,” the family returned to Washington, DC earlier this year. Rebecca’s love for shopping followed her back across the ocean, where she scours her old-new hometown for bargains while reconnecting with old friends and playing dress-up with the girls. Dreaming of the day that the baby will start sleeping through the night, Rebecca prays that both girls will continue to be good nappers, at least for a few more months! While she longs for an inexpensive glass of rosé at her old Parisian neighborhood café, she is reveling in becoming an American again and is glad that her family has had the chance to live on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sara is a typical Melbourne Mum. Trolling the city’s café’s for the best weak soy late, meeting girlfriends in the park with her two kids and, she loathes to admit, making more reservations than gourmet hot dinners. (Ok, perhaps the last bit isn’t typical of a Melbourne Mum!) A trained Lawyer with a specialty in Intellectual Property Law, Sara’s true passion lies in home-making or ‘nesting’ as she likes to call it. This includes an obsession with order and cleanliness (which strangely her charming English husband seems to compromise more than the kids), a passion for collecting beautiful homewares and art and decorating – constantly indulging her creative drive. Clearly however this does not extend to cooking. In fact Sara has always maintained that she would prefer an in-house chef over home-cleaning help any day. This baffles all her cooking obsessed girlfriends. Nevertheless she is a health food devotee and you can be sure anything coming out of her kitchen is organically sound and nutritionally uncompromised. After having traveled the world she realised that there really is ‘no place like home’. (Oh, other than ‘Harvey Nichols’ in London where she was a regular during her 4 year London stint in early 2000. She felt very at home there. Did we mention that she loves to shop?)

Dina is a native New Yorker and one of the few from her generation who came back to live there after college. Graduating with a degree in English Literature she made the very obvious next step and built a long career working on Wall Street — doing everything from trading bonds to eventually running corporate communications programs…. oh the sacrifices we make to pay the rent! She also co-authored New York City’s first bar, club and lounge guidebook and now….post-kids….finds it nothing short of a miracle if she can stay up past 10pm. She now lives in lower Manhattan with her husband (also a native) and 3-year-old twin girls and thinks the city is better than ever for raising children. A city girl through and through, she rarely – if ever – sits still for more than five minutes and longs for the day when she has less then five thousand items on her to-do list.

Mo is an English girl through and through, not only determined by her lineage (everyone is English except for her Grandfather who is Dutch) but also by her insane love of tea, scones and Marmite. She grew up in a farming village in the middle of England and studied up North in Liverpool, where she met and fell in love with her future husband — a nice Berlin boy. She has worked in film and fashion but the last 7 years she has worked in advertising. She married that Berlin boy on Bonfire Night in 2005 and he took her Dutch surname. They had a baby boy in 2007 and a baby girl in 2008 — phew! For more space and good schools they moved south of London 18 months ago. Mo is known as ‘arts and crafts Mo’ as she can’t resist a bit of paint, glue and sticky-back plastic. She adores vintage toys and children’s books and loves cooking but her husband is better at it (note – that is tough for her to admit). She tends to show up to things half an hour late with messy hair (the only way she likes it), a Nikon in one hand and a child in the other.