Creating memories

Create a Holiday Tradition– Just for your Au Pair

by cv harquail December 10, 2014

You were wondering when I’d start the holiday posts … and here’s the first one! When new people enter our families, a great way to welcome them is to include them explicitly in our family holiday celebrations. Efforts like: Creating a Christmas stocking for your au pair to hang along with the kids’, Getting an additional […]

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When Your New and Old Au Pairs Get Jealous of Each Other

by cv harquail July 6, 2014

How hard is it to see the incoming au pair making connections with the kids, settling into the AuPair room, learning to drive in the USA, and talking about all she’s going to do in her year of adventure? If you’re the host mom, it’s not hard at all– you *want* to see this. But if […]

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Fun for the 4th: Bake a Flag Cake

by cv harquail July 1, 2014

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Does your Au Pair like to bake? Do your kids? If you’ve ever made a checkerboard cake, a heart-shaped cake, or a cake-like thing that looked vaguely like Thomas The Tank Engine, you have all the skills and equipment you need to make this very American beauty. The flag-making process and recipe come from the […]

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Micro-Affirmations: Tiny, Powerful Ways to Motivate & Thank Your Au Pair

by cv harquail June 10, 2014

For work completely unrelated to AuPairMom, I’ve been researching the concept of “micro-affirmations”, which are the opposite of “micro-aggressions”. These are small, almost imperceptible behaviors towards one another than can either affirm or threaten another person. In organizations, they are the behavioral building blocks of an inclusive welcoming culture, or a dominating, oppressive one. Often […]

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Photographing Host Children: What’s appropriate to shoot, and what’s appropriate to share?

by cv harquail April 7, 2014

All children are beautiful. When we, our au pairs, our families, and our friends see our beautiful child, it’s oh-so-tempting to try to hold that image of beauty still, to want to preserve it as a memory forever. When we adore these children, when we are proud of them, when we love them, we want […]

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Create A Bucket List for Au Pair Adventures

by cv harquail March 24, 2014

If you could create a ‘bucket’ list for any Au Pair coming to the USA, to help him or her make sure to take FULL advantage of the Au Pair adventure, what would you recommend? Writes TexasHM: This morning I had a random idea – what if I created for my AP a list like this […]

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Celebrating Your Au Pair By Creating Experiences

by cv harquail February 15, 2014

Often when we want to celebrate a milestone with our au pair, our thoughts turn to gifts of things. We don’t feel embarrassed turning to gift cards and cash, because we know that our au pairs are often saving money for travel or for some special item at Urban Outfitters. We tend to recommend […]

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Announcing Au Pair Appreciation Week 2014

by cv harquail January 11, 2014

The 6th Annual International Au Pair Appreciation Week February 1 – 7, 2014 Host Parents, start your appreciation engines.…! For details on how celebrate your au pair or another au pair you know, click ahead…..

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On Valentine’s Day, Give Your Au Pair a Heart Attack

by cv harquail February 12, 2013

What are you doing to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your Au Pair? My girls just finished decorating our kitchen for Valentine’s Day-– some shiny hearts, a glittery “I Love You” sign, and a few foil garlands. Tomorrow I’ll put up the heart-shaped wreath with the tiny lights, then the special valentine that Petal made […]

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Au Pair Gifts To Kids: Katrin’s Book-a-Day Advent Calendar

by cv harquail December 6, 2012

Host Mom Sandra tells us about a creative, low cost holiday gift idea that combines a clever physical gift with an enduring gift of spirit: I just wanted to send a quick note about my au pair, Katrin Schwingenschlogl from Austria. For the Christmas holiday, she developed her own Advent calendar for my children. She […]

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