Kids & art; Glyptoteket in Copenhagen

We’re slowly settling in at home after two months of vacation in our summer house in Denmark. Most days of our vacation were spent in our garden, at the beach and the nearby forest, while other days called for a change of scenery.

One of my eldest and dearest friends works at an amazing museum in Copenhagen and because of this, my daughters and I have been visiting the Glyptoteket museum on a regular basis ever since they were babies. We come here to sit in the beautiful Winter Garden, to participate in children’s events, and to enjoy the rooftop view and experience some spectacular exhibitions.

Some people might think it would be easier to take two small kids to see a modern art exhibition with only a few paintings on the wall, out of reach of curious little hands, instead of a place full of marble statues. And on a practical level that might be true, because who would like to see their 3-year-old knock over an irreplaceable marble statue, let alone be hit by it if it falls? But practicalities aside, which kid wouldn’t love to look a the huge white marble sculptures of bodies and busts and wonder who they are and what they are thinking?

On one of the last Fridays of our vacation, my daughters and I went back to Glyptoteket. We looked at the large golden fish in the Winter Garden (or the Jungle as Alma has named it), found a hippo and a butterfly and sat under a palm leave and pretended we were lost somewhere in a deep magical rainforest. We observed marble statues and came up with stories about the lives they lived many years ago. We saw paintings of girls playing in a forest, a statue of a girl holding a dead bird, a painting of a dead bird and a sad woman sitting next to her husband’s bed. We played chess in the hallway, and saw a beautiful Man Ray exhibition, which later inspired Alma to do some drawings of a little wooden manikin.

And at our summer-house we now have a small old glass with a golden edge filled with 9 tiny pieces of the most exquisite white marble, that our friend gave us just before we walked out through the big doors and left the magic of this amazing museum behind.

Should you ever find yourself in Copenhagen, be sure to pay Glyptoteket a visit.

Abouth motherhood and the month of August

It’s with a heavy heart we say our goodbyes to the month of August. To a month of Danish countryside living, to days full of sandy beaches, cold dips in the sea, summer rain and walks in the forest. To bright Scandinavian nights, barbecue-dinners, hours of talking with good friends and beautiful bouquets of homegrown grapes.

For me, August is one of my favorite month, mainly because this is the month where my second daughter was born. Celebrating her birthday always make me think back, and this year I have spent days wondering about motherhood and sisterhood, how my two daughters ended up being as different as they are and how I sometimes feel the necessity to change my life around to be able to see what’s really important.

Most women will tell you, how their life was turned upside down the day they became mothers for the first time. For me, it was with the birth of my second daughter, that everything changed. My first child was (and still is) the easiest kid you can ever imagine. It’s in her nature to be good, caring and to follow rules.

My youngest daughter, on the other hand, was a rascal from the moment she was delivered with and urgent C-section, and she continues to challenge me every day. She’s funny and loving and has a temper like 10 wild horses. She loves to be busy and amongst a lot of people and has a big need for a calm, safe and relaxing environment. She’s one of the good reasons why I chose to leave a good job in the fashion industry, and become a home-working mother in New York. Now every time the calendar says august the 1st., I’m reminded how different two sisters can be, the importance of sisterhood and motherhood, how a tiny person can end up changing your life and how you need to create the life you want for yourself and your children instead of just letting things happen around you.

And so, I spend this last evening of August looking back at all the good memories my family and I created together this August. September, I hope you’ll be just as amazing.

Morning scenes and a top knot

If I could decide, mornings would be a combination of blissful quietness, bright sunlight, large cups of coffee, space to let my thoughts and imagination wander off and with no more than a few words uttered.

But with two young girls and a husband who works in both Copenhagen and New York, (he wakes up to a full inbox of work related mails during the week because the Danes are 6 hours ahead), this is pretty far from my own reality. Feeding my family, getting the girls ready and dressed, packing lunch boxes and backpacks and making sure that I look halfway decent before leaving the house doesn’t leave time for much else than a quick coffee in-front of the bathroom mirror.

Though I have accepted that our mornings won’t be quiet and blissful before the day my daughters move away from home (and knowing myself and my husband, probably not even then) I’ll do whatever I can to try and minimize conflicts, stress and morning tantrums. And after thinking about it, I realized that this is probably why the messy top knot is the number 1. hairstyle in our house.

Both my girls have quite long and thick hair for their age, and though my eldest is getting good at brushing her own hair every morning, my youngest freaks out every time I try to brush out her messy and tangled locks. Getting the right hairbrush and using soft fabric hairbands has made my life a lot easier, but most times, brushing Alma’s hair out will still end up with me trying to catch a screaming child before she runs off and hides in her cupboard.

So I’ve stopped fighting with her. The days she feels like having her hair loose, she’ll let me brush it out, and the rest, I’ll just gather it all on the top of her head in a really messy top knot.

If anyone knows of any amazing tricks or kids friendly products for detangling long and thick hair, please let me know. Until then, I’ll choose my battles and accept that my youngest has a top knot on every single picture I take of her.

Our favorite Danish nature spots

Though it’s small, extremely flat and most of the land has been cultivated by farmers, there are still plenty of amazing nature areas left in Denmark. Some of my fondest childhood memories have taken place at beautiful Danish nature spots such as the Wadden Sea, Mols Bjerge National Park and Raabjerg Mile.
When staying at our summerhouse, we have a few local and favourite nature spots nearby that we make sure to visit. One of our absolute favorites is Heatherhill, situated 6 kilometers down the road from our little summerhouse.
Heatherhill is an open, undulating nature reserve with broad heather-covered slopes rolling right down to the Kattegat Sea near the small town Rågeleje. The larger part of Heatherhill is swathed in beautiful heathland flora and purple heather.
We enjoy taking long walks here, studying the fauna, enjoying the expansive view over the Kattegat Sea, chatting with the sheep and going to the wild and beautiful beach for a swim and a picnic. If you ever end up in the northern part of Zealand, don’t miss out on this amazing area.

Here’s a short list of all my favorite Danish nature areas I still have a few places left to show my kids, but since some of them require quite a lot of walking in hilly areas that are not accessible with a pram we might wait a few year before visiting the best ones.
Be sure to visit one or two, should you ever stop by Denmark. It’s so worth the trip and is a great contrast to Copenhagen.

Moens klint
The Wadden Sea
Mols Bjerge National Park
Heatherhill
Anholt
Northern part of Bornholm
Rubjerg Knude
Raabjerg Mile

Birthday celebration for a 3-year-old

A few days ago, my youngest daughter turned 3 years old, and I suddenly realized that I’m no longer the mother of a little baby, but a little girl. This realization combined with recently meeting one of my best friends’ beautiful baby girl for the first time (her third child) has planted a tiny seed of curiosity in my mind.

Alma turned three, and even though my husband couldn’t join us, we managed to turn the day into a nice and low-key birthday celebration that both my daughters really enjoyed. When you’re 3 years old, the concept of birthday celebration seems to include the following; presents, birthday song(s), cake including guests to eat the cake, playtime and getting to wear your favorite dress the whole day long. But going through this standard birthday concept, I realized that I needed to make a few changes to make it fit my birthday girl and my family.

First of all, our guests ended up arriving in the morning, and leaving right after lunch. Secondly, Alma doesn’t like cake, ice-cream, sweets or chocolate. Thirdly all presents have to be easily transported back to New York in our already over-stuffed suitcases and last but not least, trying to scale down the amount of presents that our children get (most of the stuff just ends up in a box somewhere anyway).

The day started with a lovely brunch with pancakes (you can check out our favorite recipe right here) scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages which are Alma’s absolute favorite. We started out by opening a few presents before eating brunch, played a little, ate, sang some birthday songs, then opened up a few more presents and sang a few more songs.

After a trip to the playground we baked some simple and traditional danish sweet biscuits that I knew Alma would like. Since there was no cake to decorate, we ended up serving the biscuits with candles and pink flamingos. The sweet biscuits, called Vanilje kranse in Danish (roughly translated as vanilla circles), are normally eaten at christmas, but it turns out that they taste delicious in August as well, and they’re really easy to make. I’ll give you the recipe at the end of the post.

As for the presents, I had decided to let our family know, not to buy any big toys or plastic things, and instead go for things that are of good quality and that I knew Alma would actually love and use. A week before her birthday I decided to make her a Waldorf-inspired doll, and so I spent most evenings for a whole week sewing, stuffing and crocheting. I am very happy with the result, and it definitely won’t be the last Waldorf inspired doll that I’ll make (Eleanor has already ordered one).

Other great gifts were a little pink backpack and a pink lunchbox from a gorgeous Norwegian brand called Blafre (they are worth checking out), a cube puzzle with the Moomins, an anatomy puzzle in 5 layers showing a human’s muscles, skin, bones etc. and the pink tutu dress that her eldest sister picked out all by herself. She loved and played with every single present.

We had planned to end the day with homemade pizzas but since turning 3 makes you very tired, Alma fell asleep long before dinnertime, and we postponed pizzas for the following night.

If you feel like baking the sweet biscuits called Vanilje Kranse, this is the recipe that we used;

500 gram (1,2 lb) of plain flour

1 egg

350 gram (0.8 lb) of butter

250 gram (0,55 lb) of sugar

1 pod of vanilla (or 1 tablespoon of vanilla powder)

250 gram of (0,55 lb) almonds

Toast the almonds in the oven, chop them into fine pieces and let them cool of. Mix all the ingredients and form the dough into one long roll. Cut the dough into small pieces, roll them individually into small rolls and form into circles. Make sure that the hole in the middle of the circle is rather big, as the biscuits will run out a bit when baked.

Bake the biscuits at 180 degrees celsius (350 degrees fahrenheit) for 15-20 minutes or until lightly brown.

Looking back at July in pictures and words

On this, the second day of August, I’m looking back at a joyful July that brought us heartwarming reunions with family, good times with old friends, early morning sunshine and a long visit back to our beloved home country. July, we loved you because you were the month where…

… we realized that living in New York doesn’t only mean great cultural experiences, it also means living close to a lot of great beaches.

… we ate sweet cherries for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

… we spent days climbing rocks in Central Park.

… we visited Brooklyn Museum (read about it here), and Eleanor fell in love with ancient Egyptian art.

… I took a trip down memory lane and revisited the year I spent in India all because of a little fruit I saw in our local vegetable market.

… we made crispy kale chips (see our favorite recipe right here).

… we spent a night on a plane that took us back to our home country for a long holiday vacation.

… we blew bubbles and barbecued in the evening sun.

… we picked petals from rose hip flowers and made our own kids friendly perfume (see how right here).

… we went to Lego Land and spent a whole day flying in Lego airplanes, driving in Lego cars and sailing in Lego boats.

… we picked flowers in our summer house garden and made plant studies on our wall.

… we visited old acquaintances in the countryside, and Eleanor fell in love with a huge horse and 3 tiny dogs.

… we visited the most amazing green houses and got inspired to do some indoor gardening when we return to NYC (you can read more about it right here).

… we celebrated Alma turning 3-years-old.

… I made Alma a Waldorf inspired doll for her birthday, and realized that making things with my hands is one of the things that makes me most happy.

… we tried to make friends with the Danish deers, snails and ducks.

… we picked lavender and wild strawberries in my grandmother’s garden, and enjoyed seeing a 3-year-old girl and her 83 year-old great-grandmother in conversation over a beautiful rose.

Indoor Gardening with kids

We’ve now been in Denmark for exactly 2 weeks, and even though the weather is far from great (we’re talking 18 degrees and rain showers most days) we’ve been spending as much time outside as possible. Both me and the kids have a great love for flowers and plants and no matter where this trip takes us, it seems like we run into the most amazing greenhouses and gardens.

I love living and bringing up my children in a big city, and we all enjoy the many possibilities this kind of life brings us, but how amazing would it be, to have a garden with a little greenhouse? Built out of recycled windows and filled with green plants, colorful flowers and homegrown vegetables.

As long as we live in New York, this will stay on my list of dreams, but I have decided that when we return home, it’s time take up some inside gardening with my girls.

Here’s a small list of inside gardening ideas we have come up or found:

Grow herbs (Before we left for Denmark, we had an amazing basil plant, and we’ll definitely expand our collection upon return)

plant and grow bean sprouts and alfalfa sprouts (These take absolutely no time to grow, which is really fun for the kids)

Grow plants from food we have in our kitchen. (We found some inspiration right here)

Grow a garlic plant (See how to do it right here)

Grow flower plants (We normally fill up our living room with cut flowers, but I’d love to keep whole plants)

Make a Mason Jar Terrarium (Find some inspiration right here)

Keep a journal of our inside gardening (Because it Eleanor loves to keep track and write down everything)

Kids and art

When I was a child, it was a common belief amongst most grown-ups, that enjoying art was for adults only. Luckily for me, my parents didn’t share this belief, and many of my childhood sunday’s or vacations were spent visiting museums and small galleries. I remember visiting The Louvre for the first time when I was 8. I was introduced to the Mona Lisa and one of Degas’s ballerinas, which I have loved ever since. I remember the first time I saw a Jackson Pollock hanging at a museum in Los Angeles and my dad introducing me to one of his favourite art movements, American pop-art.

In my mind, kids and art make the perfect combination, and I never hesitate bringing my kids to a museum. I believe that exposure to art in all ways can expand children’s awareness of the world and the society we live in, and open up their minds to a more creative way of thinking and seeing things. Visiting a museum might not be the same experience when you have to watch out that little greasy hands don’t touch the paintings, but I don’t mind, as long as it means that I get to hear Eleanor’s literal interpretations of even the most abstract paintings or Alma’s outbursts of enjoyment when she sees a piece that really speaks to her. I always make sure to visit a museum when my kids are well-rested and have had a good lunch, we never stay more than two hours and if the museum has a children’s department this is where we’ll end our visit. Some museums even have a children’s tour program, and if they do, we’ll always go for that.

Here’s a list of some of our favorite museums (and a few we have been recommended, but still haven’t had the chance to visit ourselves) :

Museum of Modern art, New York (Don’t miss out of the small but fun children’s play area)

Louisiana, Humlebæk, Denmark (this museum has a wonderful children’s department where kids can get creative themselves)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (take a look at their amazing family program to plan your visit)

Tate Modern, London (Prepare you child by visiting Tate Kids together)

Arken, Ishøj, Denmark (Every Sunday is Family Sunday with a lot of activities and an open creative workshop)

The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (join in on a family tour or visit the Family Lab)

Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (Remember to book online in advance, if you want to take part in one of their fun youngster activities)

Statens Museum for Kunst; Copenhagen, Denmark (The Children’s Museum of Art is open every weekend. Read more here)

Do you know of any kids-friendly museums we should add to our list? We would love to know…

…And if you like the combo of kids and art as much as me, then check out this Instagram profile @rockthatmuseumkids, which shares great pictures of tiny art-watchers from all over the world.

Pretty dresses and princess dreams

Like most other young girls, my daughters love to dress up in pretty dresses. And, like so many other mothers that I know, I really don’t like all the synthetic and uncomfortable princess dresses that most girls (mine included) have a good selection of hanging in their wardrobe. Both my daughters love to put them on, but after just a few minutes they’ll get so annoyed with them itching and scratching their skin, that they’ll want them off.
When we moved to New York I decided to leave all the synthetic princess dresses behind, and let the girls have two new pretty dresses instead, but this time we would go for the well made and comfortable kind, that would actually end up being used more than just a few minutes a month.
A few days before we left for our summer vacation in Denmark, a package arrived from the American brand Flora and Henri. Flora and Henri is one of my favourite brands (I have spent way to many hours looking at their inspiring Pinterest page) and obviously I’m not the only one who has fallen in love with the classic kidswear and womenswear. When Gwyneth Paltrow selected which brands should join her at the Goop Pop up-shop in Chicago a few month back, Flora and Henri was amongst the exclusive crowd.
When we decided which dresses to go for, it turned out, Eleanor would rather go for a vintage inspired wrap dress (she’s kind of over her princess stage) while Alma fell in love with a peach and white hand embroidered beauty, which because it’s a fully lined skirt, gives the maximum joy of a twirl.
Hand embroidered cotton and lined skirts aren’t cheap, but after being part of my daughters wardrobe for less than 2 weeks, the new pretty dresses have already been used more than any of our princess dresses ever have, and when Eleanor asked if we could take some pictures wearing them in front of a flower wall she was planning to make, I saw a good opportunity to tell you all a bit about our new investments.

Summer holiday day 1

We’re finally back in Denmark, and even though the first day of our summer holiday has been affected by a good amount of jet lag, we managed to visit our favourite beach spot, have a lovely picnic, play in the sandbox, eat wild strawberries that we found in our garden and make our own kids friendly ” perfume “.

It was something I used to do every summer holiday when I was a kid, and seeing the many rose hip flowers on our trip to the beach, I decided it was time to pass it on to Eleanor. It’s really simple, and actually smells great (my 65-year-old dad was sure we could sell it).

All you have to do is to pick a lot of petals from the rose hip flowers, and soak them in water for a few hours. We added the juice from two slices of organic lemon to give it an extra edge. Eleanor spent a lot of time pouring the water from one bowl to the other, stirring the petals around and ripping the petals into a hundred little pieces…. Simply put, you just need to add water to the petals.
Dress by Christina Rohde

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