Famille Summerbelle

Easter Decorations with Famille Summerbelle

On Wednesdays, Ophelia (10 years old) and Lucien (7) finish school at midday so I often plan creative activities to do together. Last Wednesday we decided prepare for Easter with a fun egg decorating afternoon.
That same morning I went to the market with Téo (2) to buy a selection of branches to display on our kitchen table. To give it an Easter touch we added onto it the decorated eggs and some tiny yellow fluffy cheeks that I got from Hema.

While Téo was having a nap we started by blowing up the content of the eggs in a bowl (we saved it for dinner to make a big omelette). Ophelia decided to decorate her eggs with cute little faces so this is all the things you'll need to do something similar. It's super easy and fun to make:

As a special offer in the lead up to the Easter weekend, Famille Summerbelle is offering a FREE 'Ludo Lapin' tea towel with every basket that exceeds €60 | £55 | $65.

Nothing to do at checkout, we'll just send you the tea towel in your parcel.

!Offer ends Sunday 23rd April 2017!

Ludo the bunny, birch wood tray.

The Performers fine bone China mug.
This is our small Easter selection...
Click here to discover more!

Making masks with children

Designing masks with children is always so much fun and so easy to make. Just get some cardboard, paint, glue, feathers and beads and let your imagination do the rest.
This time we got inspired by the masks we saw at the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico City. We visited the museum back in November and were blown away by their mask collection.

Téo,2 years old already!

On 1st March we celebrated Téo's birthday. 'Deux' as he likes to say! Because 2 is better than one, especially when he asks for biscuits!

Poor little boy he had a nasty fall on his scooter the day before his birthday, but this didn't bother him to blow his 2 candles!
Funky party hats and garland by Engel.

Voorlinden Museum

Last Sunday we all woke up early and drove half an hour out of Amsterdam to Wassenaar to visit the newly built Voorlinden Museum. Upon our arrival kids were playing ice hockey on the frozen lake. It was a very cold yet beautiful sunny morning.

Voorlinden Museum is a private museum of contemporary and modern art. The art collection is owned by the Dutch industrialist Joop van Caldenborgh and it is one of the largest private art collection in the Netherlands. The museum opened its doors only few months ago, on September 2016.

The museum building was designed by Dutch architect Dirk Jan Postel. I love the huge floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the fields and garden designed by the renown Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf. The design of the museum was inspired by that of the Danish Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the Swiss Fondation Beyeler.

The vast art collection of Joop van Caldenborgh known as the Caldic Collection was built over 40 years.
The collection on display consists of a permanent collection with impressive sculptures by Richard Serra, Roni Horn, Ron Mueck, James Turrell and the walk in Swimming Pool by Leandro Erlich. This was a big hit for the children. Also walking inside the Open Ended large scale sculpture by Richard Serra was an incredible experience.

Leandro Erlich, Swimming Pool.

Ron Mueck, Couple under an umbrella.

Richard Serra, Open Ended.

Also on display from the permanent Caldic collection was Full Moon, an introduction to little more than 40 artworks from various periods, movements and styles.

Esther Tielemans, The Performance 2011:

Tom Friedman, Untitled (Apples) 2012.

The other part of the building is a temporary exhibition by Martin Creed SAY CHEESE. As you enter the museum the first room you see is filled with blow up balloons. Our little Téo who LOVES playing with balloons of all sorts was over excited to 'swim' in this sea of blue balloons!

Oh and we ended up our visit with a delicious and typical Dutch lunch with cheeses and charcuterie!

A little sunshine in 2016!

So, this is the last post of 2016. I thought it might be a good moment to share something I wanted to show you a little earlier but couldn't find the right moment.

Here's some images from a wonderful trip we took en famille at the end of October. We were invited to Mexico to celebrate the wedding of my step brother and his Mexican fiancée. We spent 10 beautiful days in the stunning Yukatan with my family before flying to Mexico City (where the wedding took place) and where we were joined by more members of the family.

This trip was the highlight of our year. Hope it brings you a little cheer. We wish you all the very best for 2017.

The Mayan temple of Tulum overlooking the turquoise sea:

Xpu-ha beach on the Riviera Maya:

Swimming with tortoise at Xcaret:

A watercolour sketch I did on the 1st November during the day of the deads:

Walking the leafy streets of Mexico City:

and eating colourful ice cream cones and delicious churros!

At the Museo National de Antropologica with the children.

The wedding was held in a 16th century hacienda in the South of Mexico City. We were all dressed up with touches of colours for the occasion!

Lucien is 7 years old!

I can't tell you how much I love taking these age portraits every year. Seeing our Lucien changing physically makes me smile and laugh so much! He blew his 7 candles the day we left Mexico but we've been celebrating for over a week with family, friends and more friends! Happy birthday one more time Lulu! XXXX

Nice to be home

That nice feeling of coming home after a long happy Summer... displaying the garlic braid on the kitchen shelf, watching Lucien draw endless airplanes, watering the -dry- plants after a hot Summer and sitting at my desk with a cup of tea. Simple pleasures.

Bye bye July, hello August!

What a wonderful and busy month we had! We celebrated Ophelia's 10th birthday on 14th July. It was the highlight of the month, watching our little girl blowing her 10 candles with a big smile on her face!
Just after, the 5 of us drove all the way from Amsterdam to the French Alps to spend time with family and watch the cyclists of the Tour de France going up and down the mountains. For her birthday Ophelia received the most wonderful gift from her Grandma Manou, a hot air balloon journey above the beautiful Alps!
Then we headed West to the Atlantic coast to spend time with friends, swimming and eating the most delicious ice creams...
To follow our Summer adventure check my Instagram images!

Make a headband pom-pom with Ophelia

You will need: a ball or two of thick wool, a small sheet of cardboard for the circles, a compass to make perfect circles and a pair of scissors to cut the cardboard.

Cut tow large cardboard circles (about 12cm diameter). Cut a small round hole (about 8cm) in the middle of each circle. Lay the circles together.
Wind the yarn around and around the circles, keeping the winding even without leaving gaps.
Continue until the inner circle on covered completely.

Insert the point of the scissors in between the two pieces of cardboards and cut open the yarn.

Draw a long thread of yarn in between the two circles and make a tight knot.

Cut and pull the cardboard. You may need to cut the top yarn with scissors to give a round shape to your pom-pom.

Place your pom-pom on top of the headband and make a tight knot.
Et voilà!

Ophelia proudly wore her headband with the red and white pom-poms to my sister Coralie wedding last weekend. Here we are the Famille Summerbelle all dressed up for the occasion!

Happy New Year

Happy New year everyone! I hope you all had a nice break over the holidays with your friends and family.
After 3 months of renovation we moved to our new flat in Amsterdam a couple of days before Christmas. This move was particularly busy with our 3 children around and A LOT of boxes to unpack!
We drove to France the day after the move to spend few days with our family in Normandie which was super nice.
We are now very happy and excited to start the new year in this beautiful apartment overlooking the canal and the boats passing by...

Looking up

We are back home after a relaxing week in the Alps with the children. We were lucky to enjoy a beautiful weather to go for long walks up in the mountain with Téo happily sleeping in the baby carrier on Simon's back. The colours of the trees were so stunning. It looked like the mountain was on fire with so many hues of red, yellow and brown.

6 months old!

Téo blew half a candle today! Please don't grow too fast, we love you just as you are XXXX

Happy birthday Ophelia!

Ophelia turned 9 yesterday. We always try to celebrate her birthday in France as it is Bastille Day on 14th July with amazing fireworks in the evening! Ophelia has a passion for Japan (last year I made her a kimono for the Japanese theme birthday party she had at home with her friends). My friend Coco who lives in Tokyo kindly sent me a box full of girly Japanese little presents for her birthday (origami book, hair clips, pink rabbit mirror and other very cute little things). Ophelia was the happiest when she opened it all!

I made this number 9 cake for her few weeks ago when she threw a party with her school friends at home. The theme for the party was COLOURS so I decorated the cake with m&m's!

Mountain Love

First holidays up high for our little Téo who turned 2 months old few days ago. We're enjoying few days relaxing in the French Alps.

Ophelia & Lucien's creative corner

The best thing we did in the kids bedroom is to have a long desk with a chest of drawers on both ends for their little belongings and enough desk space to draw, cut, make collages and other things. Ophelia and Lucien love spending hours on their desk after their come back from school.
The desk and chest of drawers are both from Ikea.
The star garland from Engelpunt
Rabbit print and House box from Famille Summerbelle :-)

Baby Téo

This is a belated announcement on the blog (sorry my dear blog followers!), we had a new addition to our family at the beginning of March: a little baby boy named Téo!
We are so happy and excited to finally meet him, especially Ophelia and Lucien who were very eager to see him after this long 9 months wait...
Téo was born in Amsterdam, not at home which is very common here, but in a very nice birth center, in a room with a large bath. I was able to relax in warm water during the whole labour. It's wonderful how the warmth of the water can ease the pain of contractions. My amazing midwife Paloma who was there Lucien's birth 5 years ago came especially from Paris to Amsterdam for the birth of Téo. This made a huge difference as I was so relaxed to have her with me.

Téo was born at 1am and I was back home in my bed by 4pm. This is the Dutch way! If you have a natural birth (with no epidural, cesarian or any complications) you don't stay in hospital, you go straight home after the birth. I was actually really pleased to go home. I felt good after the birth and I just wanted to go home to sleep in my own bed.

The amazing thing here in the Netherlands is the care after birth. The day after you give birth, a nurse - called a kraamzorg - comes to your house for 8 days to look after you and the baby. She will assist you with breastfeeding, look after the children, make you lunch. She will make sure you get enough rest. You stay in bed with your baby while she looks after the house. I had a lovely lady looking after me.
This was the best recovery I had so far after the birth of my children (Ophelia was born in London and Lucien in Paris).

Téo is doing very well. He is feeding a lot and keeps me awake most nights so far but surprisingly I feel very good! Here are some photos I wanted to share with you...

Have a nice weekend!

The children are in the French Alps with their grandparents while I'm patiently waiting for baby number 3 to arrive next week...maybe!
Have a nice weekend!

Our Christmas tree

I love the excitement we all have every year when the time comes of choosing and buying the Christmas tree; bringing it home and getting the boxes from the basement with all the Christmas decorations nicely folded in tissue paper from the previous year!
This is what we did this weekend.
It was so cold outside (below zero) here in Amsterdam that the only thing we wanted is to put the fire on, sit by the Christmas tree while watching Miracle on 34th Street!

A couple of years ago I made these stars to decorate our tree.
They are very simple to make and it is a nice activity to do with the children (Lucien painted the stars while Ophelia did the glitter).
Buy some clay (the one I used was just plain/normal clay), cut about 20 shaped stars, let them dry.
Paint the stars with a paint primer to protect the clay (ie:Gesso) and then use your favourite colour (acrylic paint) and lots of glitter!

Lucien, 5 years old!

We celebrated our boy 5th birthday over the weekend with his friends and a home made chocolate pirate ship!
Like every year, I take a picture of Lucien with his age written on top. I can't believe how much he has changed in 5 years. He looks like a real grown up boy now (with a cheeky smile)!

Holidays

Sorry for the lack of blog posts over the past weeks. We have been away in the South West of France, in Cahors where we go every Summer in August to spend time with my family. We don't have internet connection in our country house and I have to say it is really nice to be disconnected! Twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays the most amazing food market is taking place in front of the Cathedral in Cahors. I love going there to buy saucisson, garlic, olives, Cabécou (the local fresh goat cheese) and large juicy tomatoes that taste so good! I wish we could have this kind of fresh and tasty food all year round!