Holiday Magic: Cookies, Cocoa & Crafts

I love hosting a party, and kids parties are my favorite.  So when Kenzie & Lexi asked me if they could have a holiday party for a few of their girlfriends from school, I was more than happy to oblige.  I found a cute invitation on the new Minted online invitation site, and we invited 8 friends for cookies, cocoa & crafts.  When I found gingerbread house kits at Ikea, which perfectly matched the theme of the invitation, I couldn't pass them up, so we ended up decorating gingerbread houses as well (although I was questioning my sanity when I was assembling 10 gingerbread houses after midnight the night before the party ;))  But seeing ten five year olds giggling and happily decorating the houses made it all worthwhile.  Holiday magic as seen through a child's eyes ...

We played a couple of games.  We attempted the "Night before Christmas" Right/Left passing game, but perhaps it is better for slightly older children as the girls never really got the hang of it and were really just interested in opening the Christmas Crackers (a British holiday tradition) :).

Pin the nose on Rudolph was a bit more straight forward, but honestly I think the girls had the most fun playing freeze dance & hide and seek.

The hot cocoa bar was a big hit!

By the time we got to the craft part of the party, I was too busy to actually capture any photos.  I really should have taken some "after" photos as these pictures all look so civilized, but when you get ten five year old girls together things can tend to get a little crazy ... at one point all ten of them were doing headstands and cartwheels in the foyer :)  It really was too cute, and I am kicking myself for not capturing it.

Such a fun afternoon with ten sweet girls.  I love how even though Kenzie & Lexi are in different classes, all of the girls know one another from the playground or after school activities and all play so nicely together.  Merry, merry!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... Holiday Home Tour

I promised a few friends back in the US that I would publish a post with pictures of our apartment in Geneva some time ago.  I never got around to it, and now that our place is all decorated for Christmas I thought the time was as good as any.  So enjoy this virtual tour of our apartment, all dressed up for the holidays.

If you know me, you know that I love interior design and decorating.  Creating a place that feels like home in Geneva has been important to me.  It is one of my "love languages."  The first step in creating our new home, was selecting the place itself.  When Randall and I came to Geneva back in April for our house hunting trip we saw tons of different places - lots of apartments (some much bigger than the one we ended up with), a few houses, some in the city center (where we now live) and some further out.  Our apartment, was actually the first one that we saw, and right after we saw it I had a feeling that it would be the one.  It just felt right, like this was a place that could be our home.  Even though it is an apartment that is over 100 years old, and our house in Cincinnati was a brand new 3 story home, there are a surprising number of similarities that made it "the one."  It has tall ceilings and crown molding, a neutral gray and white color palette as the base, an open kitchen & dining room (at least relative to other places that we saw), and a laundry room that had enough room for a craft space for the girls.  When we visited we quickly took measurements so that we could decide which furniture to bring from the US and what to put into storage.  I am actually amazed at how well everything fits into our apartment, and how little we had to buy (with the exception of light fixtures ... don't even get me started on light fixtures as that story could be an entirely separate post.  For those who have not lived in Geneva, when you move into an apartment or house you are greeted by bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling).

So without further ado, welcome to our home in Geneva ...

The entry room/office:  The entry is huge and at first I was worried that it would be wasted space.  However, it doubles nicely as an office and our large Restoration Hardware desk fit perfectly on the wall below the mirror that was already in place.  This room also serves as a gymnastics space and soccer field for the girls ;)

The Living Room:  The living/family room is spacious and I love the ceiling detail.  Our furniture from home works well in here.  The only thing I don't love is the fact that that the TV is off to the left and there isn't a feeling of symmetry.  If I find a pair of shelves that I really love, this may be something we invest in.

The large painting was done by our Cincinnati neighbor and very talented artist, Jamie VanLanduyt.  We commissioned it for our family room in Cincinnati and I love it equally much in this space.

The Dining Room:  We are actually using our outdoor concrete top dining table from Cincinnati, here in Geneva.  Since we don't have an eat in kitchen, our dining table here gets used for 3 meals a day and we were afraid that our nice dining table and cream colored upholstered chairs would not hold up to that kind of use.  So they went into storage in Cincinnati and our outdoor table moved indoors.  I did purchase the French bistro dining chairs from Serena & Lily before moving to Geneva as I had been eyeing them and thought they would work well in our European apartment and the bonus is that they are also easy to clean.  

The dining table all decked out for one of our holiday parties.

The Kitchen:  I love that they opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining room as this makes the galley kitchen feel much larger and really opens up the whole space between kitchen, dining room and living room.

The Master Bedroom:  I love the calm feel of our bedroom.  I also love having both a fireplace and balcony in our bedroom.

The painting in our bedroom is the first piece that we purchased from Jamie.  I just love the colors and motion in this piece.  

The Girls' Room:  Kenzie & Lexi's room might be my favorite room in our apartment.  I love the big window, the light, and the fact that Pop Pop built a custom window bench which fits the space perfectly (based on very quick measurements taken during our house hunting trip).

The Guest Bedroom:

The Playroom/Extra Guest Bedroom:  This room also gets a lot of use as it houses all of the girls' toys & their beloved dollhouse that Pop Pop made for them (modeled after our house in Cincinnati).

The Laundry/Craft Room:  The girls use this space constantly.  For the holidays I am displaying our annual Christmas photo cards on their art wall behind the craft table... where did my babies go?

Happy Holidays from our home to yours!

Thankful

Being an expat can be most difficult for Americans on Thanksgiving.  Back in the U.S. this is a day filled with family and friends, of food and thanksgiving.  When living abroad, the last Thursday of November is just like any other day.  Randall had to work, Kenzie & Lexi had school, and our oven is not even large enough to cook a turkey.  But that didn't stop us from celebrating Thanksgiving in Geneva and giving thanks for all of the blessings in our life.

On Thanksgiving itself, I got to go into Lexi's classroom at school along with a new friend and fellow American mom, Nicole.  We taught the class what Thanksgiving is really about and then baked pumpkin pie and made a Thankful tree with the class.

I was so thankful to be able to share this time with Lexi and her classmates!

Then on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, we celebrating Friendsgiving with a wonderful group of American (+1 Canadian family) friends in Geneva.  The hosts made a 17 lb turkey plus two turkey breasts and everyone brought a dish or two and we of course had way too much food ... which is just the way it should be on Thanksgiving.  There were 25 of us, and the 13 kids had a blast jumping on the bouncy castle, playing on the swing set and even put on a Thanksgiving production in the basement.   It was such a fun afternoon/evening with new friends!

I am so thankful for the girls' school and for our new friends in Geneva.  While I wish that we could have been back in the States with our family on Thanksgiving, it was great to get to celebrate here in Geneva!

Zermatt: A Swiss Wonderland

This past weekend we ventured to Zermatt, the home of the Matterhorn - the mountain of mountains.  This was one of our favorite places in Switzerland from our last stint here, and it was so fun to introduce Kenzie & Lexi to this Swiss wonderland.  This was our first visit to Zermatt in the fall, so we weren't quite sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a gorgeous weekend and the perfect time for a visit.  Our goal was to hike, relax & enjoy the Swiss mountain air - and we did just that.

This is truly off-season in Zermatt so many hotels (and some restaurants & the Glacier Paradise) were closed, but what it meant for us was that we got a great rate on a fabulous hotel and were able to explore without the crowds.  We spoke to one shop owner who said that it was the nicest November weekend that she has seen in 35 years, so I think we truly lucked out.  There was not a cloud in the sky which meant that we got to enjoy unobstructed views of the majestic Matterhorn all weekend.

We picked the girls up early from school on Friday afternoon and drove from Geneva to Taesch, and then took the train into Zermatt (since it is a car free village).  We were picked up at the train station by The Omnia's cute blue electric car and whisked to the hotel, where we were greeted with welcome drinks - champagne for Randall and me and hot chocolate (the size of their heads) for Kenzie and Lexi.  We got settled in our room just in time to catch the sunset from our balcony, then explored the village a bit, before heading to the hotel's gourmet restaurant for dinner.  Quite a treat!

The next morning after breakfast we boarded the mountain train up to Gornergrat.  As you get further up into the mountains the views of the Matterhorn and surrounding mountains just become more and more impressive, but nothing compares to the view from the top of Gornergrat (and pictures do not do it justice).  The girls were a bit disappointed that the St. Bernard dogs that we had told them about were not at the top of the mountain (probably due to low season), but they quickly recovered by building a "baby snowman."

We then started our hike back down the mountain.  The terrain was a bit rougher than we were expecting, since it was a combination of snow, ice and mud but the girls were troopers and we made it all the way to the Riffelsee.  The Riffelsee is one of our favorite spots on Earth - it is stunningly beautiful with the reflection of the Matterhorn in the water - and it was amazing to get to bring our girls there.  We then hiked another 45 minutes down to the Riffelalp train stop and caught the train back down to Zermatt, as everyone was getting tired and hungry at this point.

After a late lunch we made our way back to the hotel, took a little rest, and then went for a swim.  The sun set as we were swimming and it was pretty amazing to sit in the hot tub with the Matterhorn illuminated by the moonlight behind us.  That evening we went to a very traditional Swiss restaurant for dinner and had fondue - because you have to have it at least once when staying in the Swiss Alps.

On Sunday morning everyone was ready for some more hiking, but we decided to stay below the snow line for some drier (less slippery) terrain.  We took the lift up to Furi and then hiked from there. We have found that hiking down the mountain is the way to go with kids, especially at altitude ... it makes for far less complaining.  Kenzie was actually snapping while hiking and the girls were both singing made up songs, in a addition to Sound of Music classics :)

There were so many moments this weekend where I was just in awe of all of the beauty that surrounded us.  Switzerland truly is a beautiful country and we are so blessed to get to live here and share these amazing experiences with our girls.

Trick or Treat

We had a successful first Halloween in Geneva.  When we lived here 10 years ago, I honestly don't remember seeing anything Halloween related in the 3 years we were here.  I was a bit worried that Kenzie & Lexi would be disappointed, since they declared that Halloween is their third favorite day of the year (after Christmas and their birthday).  But to my pleasant surprise, Halloween has certainly taken a rise in Geneva over the past decade, and we had not only a fun Halloween night, but also a festive month leading up to the big day.

Randall brought back costumes for the girls from his trip to New York at the beginning of October (a ninja per Kenzie's request and a cozy bat for Lexi, as the snow owl she wanted was sold out) and the day after he got back there was a Halloween event at Chateau de Chillon in Montreax, which is about an hour from Geneva.  Who can pass up the opportunity to go to a haunted house in a real castle?  We couldn't.  The girls were too young for the actual haunted house part of the event (which is probably a good thing), but we had fun watching knights sword fight, eating shepards pie, listening to live music and touring the beautiful castle.  Definitely a fun setting for a spooky Halloween celebration!

During the month of October we also visited an apple orchard, and picked out our pumpkins while we were there.  The girls and I had fun carving them last Wednesday afternoon after school.

On Halloween itself, we had a wonderful evening celebrating with American and Canadian friends from school.  One of Lexi's classmates hosted us for dinner and fun Halloween games before heading out for trick-or-treating.  

Trick-or-treating itself proved to be somewhat interesting.  We were in Veyrier and started out in a neighborhood that we had heard about that has lot of expats and therefore many houses that participate in trick or treat.  I think the kids hit about 8 houses there and then we walked about a mile towards another classmates house, finding a couple of additional houses along the way.  The kids had a blast and didn't complain at all about all of the walking and even though they ended up with far less loot than they would have in the US, they were content and happy.

A great Halloween and beautiful fall so far in Geneva!