This is a sponsored post

My son turned 1 year-old on Sunday! Which coincided with Mother’s Day! Time to party, don’t you think? But as I have been job-less since last November and have been spending a good chunk of hubby’s salary to do our garden, I decided to look for party sponsors. Thank goodness that being a blogger, I’m surrounded by an excellent network of party suppliers, and all of them are mommies themselves

For the theme of the party, I chose “Sock Monkey”, as I hand-made a sock monkey as a present for my son. The first thing I did was to look for custom invites and party kit, which I finally purchased from Designing for Peanuts (the Etsy shop).

For decoration, I used the red and light blue from the welcome sign above. I contacted Estelle from Confetti Box, whom has been one of the most loyal and longest supporters of Lausanne Mom.

Estelle was super generous and sent many adorable deco items — balloons, buntings, paper lanterns, drinking straws, pinata, and goodies that I put inside the pinata. The pinata was awesome as it was possible to break it by beating as well as by pulling the threads under it. But we chose to let the kids beat it and it was a blast!

What is a party without cupcakes? Dina and Yasmin of Poppin’s jumped in. They made 2 different kinds of cupcakes, a custom banana-based (monkey – banana, got it?) with vanilla butter cream and their infamous black velvet. The cakes turned out incredibly lovely. I tortured the kids by displaying the cupcakes since the beginning of the party and not allowing them to eat them before everybody finished lunch and my son blew the candle

For the goodie bags, I filled each with a pocket-size activity book, an inexpensive bubble, a cookie and a healthy snack. The activity books were bought from amazon.co.uk. The bubbles were bought from Coop (only CHF0.80 each!) and I wrapped them with the bottle wrapper that came with the printable party kit. For the cookies, I already knew whom to turn to. To tell you the truth, I had been looking for an excuse to order cookies from a good friend, Nikki of Toute Sweet. She did not disappoint, of course! She took the sock monkey image from the party kit and baked the most adorable and tasty cookies.  As a bonus point the cookies also made a good conversation topic during the party.

The choice for a healthy snack was also easy. I am so happy that Katherine of Goodness Gracious agreed to sponsor, as her bio-organic fruit pouches are as healthy as they are tasty. I knew that with these pouches, none of the moms would complain that I gave the kids too much sugar during the party FYI, GG pouches can be bought at Manor Food and specialty food stores.

As it was also Mother’s Day, I prepared goodie bags for the moms. Inside there were traditional body scrub and bath salt (that I brought from my recent trip to Indonesia), a cookie also made by Nikki of Toute Sweet, and lovely bookmark and tag sponsored by Liz of Forget-Me-Not. The Happy Mother’s Day tag was printed from this free printable file.

And, one of the birthday presents. I had been eye-ing this red plane (also below) to be used as a decoration in my son’s room. Susanne from dilookids was so kind to grant my wish! I’m so thrilled, and my son seems to like it, too, although he’s not supposed to play with it (yet). If you are looking for the perfect gift, or something special to decorate your children’s room, I can truly recommend the offers on dilookids!

We really had a great time and the boys really enjoyed themselves and keep talking about it!

- Gwen, one of the mom guests -

I heartily thank all the sponsors and vendors for their kind help creating a memorable 1st birthday party for my son. I look forward for more collaborations with all of you mom entrepreneurs! And for the readers, please do check all the links as I’m sure you would like to know them!

XX

If you haven’t been there, don’t forget the Tulip Festival in Morges. This is an annual event, this year starting already on 31st March and will last until mid May. The festival is located at Parc de l’Indépendance, directly on the lake side. It’s about 800m from the train station Morges. Or, if the weather is good, it could be even better if you take the boat there.

Entrance to the park is free and there will be special program this weekend (Market: 80 potters in the tulips) and it’s also a good place to spend Mother’s day (this Sunday!). There is also selling of the tulip bulbs on May 16 (from 11:30am, CHF5/bag). Download the complete program here.

Here’s a pic of hubby and daughter enjoying the park last year.

Lovely!

Guest post by Marilyn Stelzner (also cross-posted in various Yahoo! Groups)

International Link, part of the CVCI (Vaud Chamber of Commerce) sponsored a talk last night by Anne-Catherine Lyon, the head of Vaud public schools, and I found her to be amazingly open and positive. Did anyone else on this list go? If so, I’d love to hear your reactions. Or please correct me if I am misquoting her.

Ms. Lyon is apparently willing to change things in some situations and go to bat for families with their local school in other situations. Her formal presentation was fairly standard, with the diagrams showing the type of schooling by age group, but she took questions during the talk. I wish I had taken better notes, but some things I wrote down:

• 33% of the 82,000 students in Canton Vaud public schools do not speak French when they enter the system.
• Communes own the buildings, offer lunch programs, provide transportation. Teachers work for the canton, which also provides all the equipment in the classrooms. The confederation sets standards. Every change to how things are done needs to be negotiated.
• 20% of schools in the canton have lunch programs, which she said is high compared to other cantons.
• Lots of changes as of August ’13 as part of harmonization with the rest of CH
1. English classes starting at grade 5
2. Compulsory education will start at age 4, and the cut-off birth date is changing a bit (sorry, I missed the date.) Someone asked a question about the possibility of making an exception if a child has a late birthday and might do better waiting but she said that after August ’15, there will be no exceptions.
3. Primary school will end at age 12 at the end of the CYT (Cycle of Transition)
4. After the CYT, there will then be 2 tracks in upper secondary school -VSB and VSG. She said that the advantage of this plan is that students will be able to change between the tracks each of the years. She also noted that in Canton Valais, which has one of the best rankings for their education system, secondary school is “totally open” and that is what she had been aiming for. However, 2/3 of the parliament would not go along with that.

• There were several questions about the best time to integrate and she said that for non-French speakers it was easiest for students if they start before age 8 when they start taking German. Otherwise they have to catch up German at the same time they are still learning French, though German can be postponed a bit for adjustment.
• The cities, and she specifically sited Lausanne, Morges, and Vevey, are better organized in terms of ecole enfantine and day care than the villages.
• Someone from a relocation company said that she was never able to make arrangements to take parents who were relocating on visits of schools, and that a lot of expat parents are really uncomfortable with not being able to visit schools before deciding to send their children there. Ms. Lyon clarified that students have to attend the school that is where they live, but she also said she agreed that it should be possible for parents to visit one or two schools ahead of time. She said this is a change that could be made quickly.
• Students who complete the Ecole de maturité receive two pieces of paper: a Baccalaureat from the canton and a Federal Maturité, which however, she clarified is not the same as the federal maturité awarded to private school students who take the federal exam. I am especially interested in issues with the recognition of the cantonal maturité outside of Switzerland and followed up with two points related to that:
1. I told her that from my research I had learned that some universities in the UK do not recognize the maturite awarded by the canton. She said that they had been told that and were going to do some investigation of the situation.
2. I said that several of the German speaking cantons offered the possibility of getting both a matura and an International Baccalaureate diploma specifically to help with the issues of recognition of their diplomas outside of Switzerland, and asked if canton Vaud had or would consider offering such a program. She conferred with one of her staff members who also attended and said they were not aware of this but would look into it.
• Someone asked how long she would be in her role since there seemed to be lots of changes in the system and if there were a new head that might mean even more changes. Ms. Lyon said she had just been re-elected to another 5 year term, so she’ll be there awhile.

Although there were very few changes that she actually committed to, her openness to the possibility was certainly refreshing.

Best regards,
Marilyn Stelzner
www.GlobalUniversityChoices.com

• LLL Lausanne Breastfeeding Group Meeting is on Tuesday, 8 May 2012 (RSVP on facebook)
• Also on Tuesday, Charity Event Craft in Vevey
• Take those little hands off the iPads (for a while at least), and encourage using them to create (an initiative of AVEAC, until Saturday 12 May, free entry)
• Let’s dance! (next weekend, 12-13 May)
• Celebrate nature on the weekend
• La Caravane des Quartiers in Montelly (11-13 May)
• (Swiss) Mother’s Day is next Sunday, May 13
• For your princesses and ballerinas (Boutique Signorelli is currently a sponsor of LausanneMom)
• A couple of years ago I made this post about Sonja Henauer’s Dessert-Santé in Cully. Nicola’s recent blog post remind me of it. Still have to try this place!

• On personal side, I recently made this sock monkey for my son’s 1st birthday present. I still have 3 pairs of socks from the sock set (with different patterns), so that I’m thinking of making more sock monkeys. Anyone interested to get one (or three)? Drop me an email for more info: info(AT)lausannemom(DOT)com.

The newest sponsor of Lausanne Mom, Key English School has recently taken over another language school in Lausanne (formerly Young English School). During the school year they provide English courses to children in many classes throughout Vaud and Geneva. They also offer YLE Cambridge exams, interactive white boards, themed work-shops, and private lessons.

In addition, there will be a 3-week summer camp in Cheseaux during school holiday in July this year. Mon-Fri day camps for children (4-12 years).  Activities include cooking, gardening, sport, acting and crafts.

All their activities are adapted to French and/or English speaking children.

For more information, registration and contact: http://www.key-english-school.ch/

What a nice weekend! Have you got a nice tan? I had so much fun in the garden and the kids enjoyed their paddling pool. I’m sure you had fun too!

Here’s my round up for the next week:

• Current offfer from Boutique Signorelli: 15% discount off all orders and free shipping for orders over CHF 50. Enter code 5588 4433 7652 (valid 1-31 May 2012)
• The schedule for Starbuck’s M&M2B meetings for May: 1st, 15th, 29th May. (Venue: Starbucks, St. Laurent, Lausanne, 10am to around 13pm)
• Why is there a park called Désert in Lausanne? This is a free family event, including treasure hunt (designed for children from 5 years, accompanied by an adult). In French.
• Panathlon Family Games 2012 (13 May, Stade de Coubertin, Vidy)

Moms, mark your calendar! For the 33rd year, the infamous Passeport Vacances will be on sale soon! Designed for children in the 3rd to 9th grade, this is a passport that offers many interesting activities to do during the school vacation as well as unlimited travel on most public transport, three tickets to the cinemas and free entrance to swimming pools and museums in the region. This passport is available in two versions, the “traditional” one (CHF45 for first child, CHF40 for the other children from the same family) or the “lazy” one (CHF25). The passport will be on sale on 2 specific days on the first week of May and must be bought in the commune where the children live. For the children living inside Lausanne, the passport will be sold under the arch of Grand Pont, in Place de l’Europe Flon on Wednesday, 2 May 2012 and Saturday, 5 May 2012. I couldn’t find the information on the opening hours, but last year was from 10am to 6pm. Don’t forget to bring a passport photo!

For more info, check the official page here.

Bureau du Passeport vacances
Tel. 021 315 68 25 / Fax 021 315 60 02
passvac(AT)apvrl(DOT)ch

*Photograph courtesy of poolie, used under Creative Commons

The annual EPFL Robot Festival is coming soon (5 May 2012). So exciting! We have been going there the last few years and always had such fun checking out the bots. My personal favorites were the tiny bots made of toothbrushes . I can highly recommend this event, there is something for everyone. There are also many workshops for young children (from 4 years of age). I just saw that workshops are fully booked for pre-registration, but it’s still possible to register on the same day! Complete programs, registration to the workshops and other info can be found on their official website here.

**Image courtesy of EPFL

I bet many of you are glad that the kids are finally back to school! Oh my goodness, two weeks of holiday with rain EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. had me pulled my hair, trying to find interesting activities to occupy my 3.5-y.o. whom missed her pre-school and the playground too much. Finally this morning I had a 2.5-hour of quite time with only the baby (who kindly slept for 1.5h during that time). Phew!

Btw, spring, would you mind coming back?

• The biking race La Tour de Romandie is coming to Lausanne tomorrow (Tuesday, 24 April 2012). It will last until 29 April. For those of you living outside Lausanne, you can check if they will pass by your area and the schedule here (They will pass by my commune – Lucens – on Friday!)
• The 20km de Lausanne is happening this Saturday (28 April 2012). If you want to go cheer the runners, it’s perhaps better to park the car and use the metro, or check which buses will still run around the race area.
• The Tractor Pull annual event is coming end of next week! I’ve heard parents raved about this.
• Robeez is recalling their infant shoes sold between April 1, 2011 and April 13, 2012.

One more week of Easter holiday! How are you doing? Are you already struggling to keep the children busy in this rainy weather? The first thing on the list below could perhaps help! I think it would supply your energy to last the day, no? And the second one can give you ideas for fun activities!

• Breakfast/brunch at Poppin’s during this Easter holiday. From 9am to noon, until 21st April. Menu: hot drink (tea/coffee/chocolate) + granola yoghurt + bread with jam & lemon curd + mini cupcake (for 9.90 CHF)
• 50 things to do before you’re 11 3/4!
• There will be a Coffee Morning meet-up  for all english speaking moms and kids on April 18 (10am-12pm) at Starbucks at Place Saint-François. Sign up for it or just stop by on Wednesday.
• World Radio Switzerland needs support to retain its funding from Swiss government. If you care, you can sign the petition here.
• There will be CPR for Babies & Children course by Dr. Michelle Wright (in Nyon) on April 24