Carrots, radishes, salad and rocket are best sewn in the full ground (outside). If you don’t have a garden or balcony, you can also easily grow these vegetables on your window sill. Just one word of advice (we keep doing this wrong!) — don’t sew the seeds too close together, or the carrots, radishes etc don’t have room to grow! Plain salad and rocket are also super easy to grow (even in the windowsill), and you can keep cutting their leaves for a long time.

Of course we set the children to work immediately. They love gardening! Obviously the small scale of our vegetable garden-to-be will far from feed our entire family, but it’s a real pleasure to harvest our own grows, little as it may be, and it’s educational for the children. Here are some really fun ideas for gardening with kids:

Sara received this super cute Gardening Giftbox (from French brand Moulin Roty) as a gift and it comes filled with little pots, compost, seeds, a watering can and gardening tools — all packed in an adorable little suitcase. So cool! Sara and her friend spent hours working in the garden, preparing the soil, sewing their seeds, watering the plants, etc.

I got some bags of seeds at the Balcony Gardener. These bags are really pretty and also make gorgeous gifts (I just ordered a few more of them!). They also sell beautiful quality kid’s sized gardening tools which we love.

Finally, if you live in the Netherlands or Belgium (or speak Dutch), this little Moestuinkabouterpakket is such fun and so very, very cute. It comes with seeds, bags to sew them in, labels, a little book about the garden gnomes that will help you to look after the seedlings (provided you make sure their hat and coat is hanging ready for them to wear!).

xxx Esther

Last week I was so caught up with my sewing projects I forgot to write a post for you — so sorry! For my last project I decided to sew up some one-piece pajamas for the kids from some organic cotton I had. The kids and I collaborated — the kids got to choose the fabric color and an animal for the all over print, and then we created a potato stamp together.

As my daughter napped, my son and I got to work; we printed the all over pattern on the pajama fabric and it was so much fun we even stamped on a t-shirt. It was only later I had the idea to add little bow ties with a green sharpie pen.

If you are looking for a potato stamp tutorial, here’s one from one of my favourite blogs — Llevo el Invernio or here is a really easy tutorial by Homemade Serenity which uses cookie cutters. Careful it’s addictive — I had so much fun, and I now want to print everything in my home…

And if you are curious and would like to see what else I put together last week, everything is on my flickr.

-Celina

We all know that choosing family holidays is tricky; you want to relax but the kids need to be entertained, and trying to find somewhere that achieves both can seem impossible. Which is why we’ve done the hard work for you, and selected the best of our Family Collection in Europe! With endless outdoor activities, beautiful beaches and kids’ clubs for all ages, these boutique offerings might just be that nirvana you’ve been searching for…

Ammos Hotel, Crete, Greece:
You’ll find style with a big smile at this chic beachfront hotel. With sheltered, shallow waters, a sandy beach and a kids’ pool, it’s particularly suited to babies and toddlers, and there’s a kids’ room with a climbing frame and drawing equipment. Parents can enjoy delicious food and panoramic views on the gorgeous dining terrace, and each room has a kitchenette so you can whip up meals for little’uns. Best of all, it’s not too expensive.

Monte da Vilarinha, Algarve, Portugal:
Fabulous, family-focused apartments for 2-4, set in 32 hectares of leafy valley near the stunning Costa Vicentina beaches. There’s an adventure playground, mountain bikes and a beautiful pool, plus lawns and toys for toddlers. And thanks to the peace and tasty regional cuisine, grown-ups love it, too.

Elies Hotel, Kardamyli , Greece:
Tucked among gnarled olive trees and a pebble’s throw from Kardamyli’s beach in the southern Peloponnese, these secluded stone cottages are a great place to stay with older, outdoorsy kids. The pebbled beach is safe (no tides or currents), plus there are easy walking trails and sandy beaches in Stoupa (10km). Self-cater in the simple kitchens or eat at the owners’ delicious tavern, one of the best in the region.

Pristava Lepana, Soca Valley, Slovenia:
Clusters of wooden cabins in the stunning Soca Valley, with plenty of space, a small pool, goats to pet and ponies to ride. It doesn’t get much more perfect for active children – the area is ideal for kayaking, rafting, fishing and hiking, and the unspoilt alpine scenery is heavenly. There’s a relaxed restaurant, too, serving hearty fare.

Agro Can Gall, Ibiza, Spain:
A relaxed 9-room finca set in the grounds of a working farm, with a wonderful welcome. The grounds are spacious and perfect for hide and seek, plus there are bikes to ride, a kitten to play with and a beautiful pool. There’s a seasonal kitchen but families can be fed all year, and at all times of the day, with special mealtimes and menus for tots. You’re a short drive from sandy beaches.

Flying Boat Club, Scilly Isles:
A clutch of stylish beach houses with direct beach access, a spa and a restaurant. Say hello to freedom! With no cars and plenty of places to explore, this is heaven for kids. Hire children’s bikes and helmets from the bike shop and let them go. Older kids can join the sailing club and island hop in small yachts, and if it’s raining, the heated indoor pool is ideal. Each sleeps 6-10.

Polurrian Bay Hotel, Cornwall:
A spectacularly sited Cornish coastal hotel, reinvented as a boutique family haven, with great facilities including a cinema, huge gardens, a playground and a games room. The Den is a fabulous Ofsted-registered creche for children aged from 3 months to 8 years, and a 2-hour session per day is included in your room rate. Frazzled mums will love the spa; dads can go surfing.

The Cove, Cornwall, England:
These contemporary apartments near Penzance share a heated swimming pool, a restaurant and offer organised free activities during school holidays. The well-kitted kitchens and living rooms give you the best of both worlds: the facilities of a hotel and the space and flexibility of your own apartment. Our founder Nikki is a regular, along with her husband and young daughter.

Hotel Barcelo La Bobadilla, Andalucía, Spain:
This fancy country estate runs a free kids’ club each morning and evening in summer, so parents can have a lazy brunch, spa treatments or a child-free dinner. It’s set in 1,000 acres of private land, so choose your mode of transport – foot, horse, bicycle, quad – and explore the many tracks and trails at your disposal. Kids will also love the tennis courts, games room, pool and playground.

Villas Martinhal, near Sagres, Portugal:
These chic, resort-based villas for 2-8 are a dream come true for families, with kit to borrow, a crèche and a kids’ club, even screenings of cartoons in the village square on summer evenings. Overlooking a vast, sandy beach, everything a family could need is within easy reach, and it has the most comprehensive range of kids’ activities we’ve ever seen, including tennis and football academies. There are 2 family friendly restaurants, and the kitchens are well kitted out for self catering.

PS- If you’re interested in even more options, visit i-escape for loads more. With their clever search function, the site allows users to browse by location, family size and type of property (B&B, hotel, hotel with self-catering, villa). There are also useful suggestions of where’s best for babies, toddlers, kids aged 4-12 and teenagers, plus options for budget breaks, adventure holidays and villas with pools.

I was first introduced to Elizabeth Antonia when I discovered her blog about a year ago (perhaps you remember this blog post, which was inspired by a post she wrote!). I have since become enamoured with her life in LA, her relationship with her gorgeous daughter, the traveling she does, and the refreshing take on life she has.

I am extremely excited to say that she will now be our newest contributor, writing from LA and sharing a bit of her life with us! Hooray, hooray! Stay tuned for her first post today…

x Courtney

(Bottom image taken by Lou Mora)

A friend of mine recently referred to the way my 3-year-old daughter speaks as Creole. It a great way of describing it: she speaks an absolute mixture of French and English. Phrases like “Can you s’il te please tirer my culotte” (please pull up my undies) are very normal in our household and it is so cute I don’t want it to change! But it won’t last; she is quickly learning to differentiate her two languages.

In our household I try to only speak English at home and the children are exposed to French at school and with their friends. I myself grew up with a French mother, and an Irish father but spent my childhood in Germany, so I grew up speaking English, French and German. I actually now have a bit of an accent in every language I speak! As a child I really did not enjoy coming from a multi-lingual family as I felt I was different from my friends. My girls have the great advantage of going to an inner-city Paris school where a huge amount of the kids speak at least two languages, if not more.

So now that I am trying to bring up my kids bi-lingually myself, I have done a bit of research. I am not an expect in anyway, but here are some of the facts I thought were interesting:

• Being bi-lingual or tri-lingual has nothing to do with intelligence, people of different levels of intelligence are multi-lingual.
• Children start differentiating between languages around the ages of 2-3.
• Bi-lingual children do not usually learn to speak later because of learning different languages, as previously thought.
• One of the simplest approaches towards having bilingual children seems to be the one-parent/one-language approach. It is easier for a child to differentiate a language if one person speaks one language consistently to them.

Voila! I am really interested to hear if anyone else has tips and ideas on how to bring up kids with several languages!

- Emilie

Are you familiar with Gilt?! It is THE place to go for great daily bargains and discounts on top designer brands and products. Their Baby & Kids section offers fab discounts on children’s fashion, accessories, toys, and other really cool things you suddenly want to buy the minute you spot them. It’s absolutely addictive and exciting, this bargain hunting (especially for children’s products!) — I could easily spend hours on that site just snatching up deal after deal!

Anyway, we’ve teamed up with the fantastic US-based children’s shopping portal, Tada! Shop, and Gilt to offer a $1,000 shopping spree at Gilt Kids. That’s $1,000 to spend on already discounted products. Just imagine how far that money will go!! Enter to win here. Good luck!

A web camera observing polar bears was set up on the edge of the Hudson Bay, close to the town of Churchhill, in a spot where polar bears are waiting for the ice to form on the Hudson Bay so that they can travel further North. The Polar Bear Cam delivers a live feed and is being watched in schools all over Canada and by anyone who wants to watch.

My mind can’t  quite get round the fact that, while I am drinking my cup of tea in Paris… half a dozen polar bears in the tundra of the far North of Canada are hanging out and playing with each other, and I am watching it live!

- Emilie

We were recently asked by Caos Magazine to create a list of tips for decorating children’s rooms… and while we certainly aren’t experts, we felt we had a few good ideas up our sleeves. Check out our ten tips here. And please feel free to leave us comments with any other good tips we may have forgotten!

(Image is from Esther’s daughter’s bedroom. Tip #6 — use your child’s clothing as decoration!)

-Courtney

A friend recently told me about this amazing feature of video blogs on Redbook called “The Truth About Trying“.  I thought it was a fantastic way to personalize and put a face to the issues that many women silently face.  Whether you have ten children, one child, or in the midst of trying for your first  – the struggle to conceive is a difficult and emotionally taxing journey when it does not work out as planned.  Thought I would pass along and give praise to Redbook for helping to bring light to an often closely guarded subject.

-Dina

(Image from Redbook)

How fun to look back at the past year of posts! It always reminds me how much I really do love our blog. As usual, it was really difficult to narrow down a list… but here are five of my favourites from the past year:

• Three children is perfect (for us) because I share the feeling completely, and because Esther so eloquently writes about a sentiment every mother must feel, no matter how many children they have.
• Cabbage and Flea – nicknames for children because it’s so funny to hear all the names we call our children!
• Made by Joel it aint because it reminds us to stop trying to be perfect and that craft projects should be fun for the kids to do, rather than perfect for adults to admire (and I love that Brooke Reynolds left a comment making us all feel better about her reputation as being ‘perfect’).
• Nettle Quiche because HOW COOL that you can eat stinging nettles! (And we made this dish for Easter this year and it was DELICIOUS!)
• La Parisienne because Emilie gave me that book for my birthday, and I have since bought about ten copies as gifts for other girlfriends. It’s the perfect little ‘bible’ of all things chic.

My mother died of breast cancer. Emilie’s mother died of breast cancer. Steph’s mother died of breast cancer. I have a friend, a mum of 2 small children, who’s fighting breast cancer. The stories of breast cancer that surround us are raw and real. One in eight women will get breast cancer — some stories end happily, some end sadly. Breast cancer gives us scars — if not on our bodies, then in our lives.

What can we do? First of all — we all know that early detection is the best protection. So make sure you check yourself regularly. Next to that, be supportive of friends and relatives who are diagnosed with breast cancer, and their friends and family. Also: donate. There is still a lot to learn about breast cancer and how to cure it. Money is needed for research and awareness, and much needed support. You’ve probably heard of Pink Ribbon: you can donate from their website here using PayPal. It’s easy and 100% safe.  October is Breast Cancer Awareness month — donate NOW! I just did.

xxx Esther

P.S. And of course this weeks Top Ten is perfectly pink for the occasion!

Did you know that every month we have a whole host of great shops offering exclusive deals to Babyccino Kids readers?! So many cute items at 15 to 25% off… like the alphabet poster from L’Affiche Moderne, the adorable knitted dolls from Dents de Loup, the new baby alpaca hoodie from Waddler, the little wooden Holztiger animals from ACME Party Box Company, the Love Pillow from Sisters Guild and a ton of cute animal cuddles from Hektik Boutique!

Take a peek at our Special Deals page for all the shop listings. And be sure to sign up to our monthly newsletter to receive announcements about new and exciting deals!

Want to know what I thought about the London Eye? You can read my review on Gogobot here.

Gogobot is a newly launched social travel site which offers personalised travel tips and recommendations via your social network. It works like this: you sign up and then add all your Facebook and Twitter pals to join your network, and then you can share and read travel tips from all your friends… which means that you’ll get the kind of advice and reviews you can trust, rather than something written by a stranger far, far away. Not only is it a great way to get travel tips and plan your next journey, it’s also an easy way to keep a log of your travels so you remember where to go the next time you visit. We’ve already signed up and written more than 80 reviews on more than 25 cities!

Check out our profile here. And if you sign up to Gogobot by Friday, October 7th, and start following us, you’ll be entered into a sweepstakes to win £150! Just sign up and start following us (that’s it!)… and you could be the lucky winner!

-Courtney

Hello from Haarlem… Where??? I’m just down the road from Amsterdam. I’m so excited about becoming a member of the Babyccino Kids team.  I have a very hard act to follow though — it’s a bit daunting joining the girls!  I have been reading Babyccino daily ever since its debut back in 2007 and love the mix of things they passionately write about.

Currently, I’m in countdown mode for our big move back down under to New Zealand at the end of 2011.  We’re down to less than one hundred days left — eeek! I’m looking forward to sharing all the great things Auckland, New Zealand has to offer, and in the meantime I hope I can share some cool things about life in Haarlem.

Steph xo

xxx Esther

Brooke Reynolds, mother extraordinaire from the much-loved Inchmark blog, recently offered up her rules for family dinner over at Dinner A Love Story, and I was so inspired by her rules and her reasonings.

I don’t know about you, but dinner in our house usually goes something like this…  ’Quin, take another bite…Ivy, eat your food……Easton, use your napkin, not your sleeve!….Ivy, scooch your chair in….Quin, eat your dinner!…Easton, clear your plate… etc.’ Dinner in our house is hardly a peaceful family time. In fact, I recently told my husband that it was my least favourite part of the day! I always feel like a broken record, saying the same thing over and over, constantly on edge and unable to enjoy that we’re all sitting around the table together.

After reading Brooke’s Ten Rules, I’m feeling inspired to make an effort. I love Rule No. 2 that ‘The Table is a Safe Place’ where only nice things are said (siblings don’t bicker, parents don’t lecture). I also like rule No. 8 to ‘Play High and Low’ where everyone tells the high and low point of their day. When I was growing up we did something similar: we all had to say one thing we did that day and one thing we learned. It made for interesting conversation! And lastly, I like rule No. 3 of ‘No Distractions’. Do you allow toys at the table? I need to be more strict about this — I find that toys are so distracting and give kids an excuse to zone out into ‘play time’ rather than family eating time.

Anyway, I’m feeling inspired. I’m going to try to make dinner a happy, more peaceful time in our house (fingers crossed!). What about you? Do you find dinner to be stressful? Do you have any other tips for making it more enjoyable? I would love to know!

-Courtney

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If you aren’t already familiar with LMNOP Magazine (and their great website and blog!), then now is the perfect time to check it out. Their latest issue is devoted to the world of children’s books, a subject so many of us are passionate about. They’ve compiled a well-edited list of must-read books for children under five, as well as their top picks of new releases.  I love their book-themed fashion section with children dressed as book characters! Find Iggy Peck (my son is going to flip when he sees that he can actually dress like Iggy!), Freckleface Strawberry, Eloise, and others… Also check out their ‘Paper Dahls’ section by artist, Jayme McGowan, with beautiful paper doll figures of some of Rhoald Dahl’s famous characters. So cool!

-Courtney

Have you seen?! We’re on Daily Candy Kids today! Such an enormous thrill for us to be included on their site. Check it out here, and find a selection of picks to get you window shopping! Thank you Daily Candy for featuring us.

It’s been a week since we launched our new shopping portal, and we’re only just starting to breathe again! After many months and months of hard work, we were really sweating the launch, like we had thousands of ants in our pants. But thankfully it all went well (and we didn’t lose 3 years of content or something scary like that)!  A few words of thanks are in place we feel.

First of all, a big thank you to the great boutiques who trusted us enough to dive in deep before the launch. We know the whole concept was hard to grasp before we went live and we are so thankful to the one hundred shops who had the faith in us.

Thank you Petite Alma for the beautiful designs, and for helping us structure the idea. Thank you Kat, thank you Kirby. And thank you Sergiu Baluta for the fool-proof programming. You rock!

Thank you, dear blog friends, for the great articles:

@ Design Mom: we love red shoes too. Thank you.

@ Bloesem: so glad you’re taking part with Kids Wear Neon. Thanks for the sweet post!

@ KLT works: Thanks for the great write-up! We’re thrilled to have you there too!

@ Coosandahhs: Thank you for that great selection. We want more, please!

@ Urbanmums: You really said it so perfectly well!

@ BozAround: We love how you call it ‘the future of online shopping’. Wish we had thought of that!

@ enfantmoderne: Merci!

@ babble (and Jordan Ferney): thanks for the mention — Jordan we love your new design! Gorgeous!

@ The Mother Huddle: Thanks, Destri!!! Hope to speak soon!

Lastly, but not leastly, we would like to thank you, dear readers, for putting up with these changes, and for supporting us throughout.

Love,

Courtney, Emilie, and Esther

(Cute ‘Thanks’ card is from Egg Press)