Happy Newyear!
 It’s the last day of the year already. So much has happend! Fortunately a lot of fun things and as a cherry on top, the birth of our son in April. Hip & Hot has grown a lot, the amount of visitors have doubled compared to December last year and we have a lot of new plans. The Hip & Hot iPhone app will probably be available in the app store at the begin of January (in English!), we have plans for an iPad app and a magazine, so enough of fun things planned! Right now we would like to thank everyone that have read, advertised, sponsored win-competions or supported us in another way this year. A special thank you to Webzovoort, who is responsable for the technical part of Hip & Hot and is always there for me, Suzanne of Studio Sterk who translates all our blogs in English and Wendy, who worked with me on our Hip & Hot magazine the passed 6 months. We hope to see you again in 2011 and wish you all a pleasant 2011.
In my work as ambulantory companion I regularly work with reward systems. I wanted to introduce it at home. Fortunately it’s not necessary that often, but when I hear I am grumbling all day, it’s good to give a positive twist to it. With reward systems you can turn something negative into something positive. Just think about it, it’s always nice to get a compliment, but it’s even better to earn one. Think about a bonus at work, a competition you win,  a tip or something extra from a customer. It works just the same with children. Sometimes a reward system can change trying to get negative attention into positive. The reward system will have to be temporary, let’s say a couple of weeks, otherwise children will start to depend on it. At 
Are you also preparing for New Years Eve? The best place to get your oliebollen this year is in Spijkenisse and they say it’s worth visiting. I normally only eat oliebollen on New Years Eve. It is a tradition, but I don’t really like them actually. But there is no New Years Eve without oliebollen, is there? I am not going to drive all the way to Spijkenisse, it’s just a little too far away. Fortunately we have good oliebollen in Den Haag as well.  In case you’re not able to get your own oliebollen or appelbeignets, I can recommend you the 
I was a fan of 
New Years Eve. Coming up. This year we will be celebrating New Years Eve at home. Maybe with some neighbours, before or after twelve, we’re not sure yet. It’s the first time that we take it easy, even after our daughter was born, we would go out for New Years’. And we always had fun. But this year we deliberatly chose to take it easy. Not driving far to meet friends, no taking care of enough snacks and drinks because we have people coming over, just nice and quiet at home. The only thing I regret about this decision is that I found something really nice to give to our friends. I always like the idea of giving the people you celebrate New Years’ with a little something.  Like a token or good-luck-charm to start the new year with. You can buy 
 
In Australia, my favorite country, I found a website with extremely cute paper musthaves for Christmas. And on the 2nd day of Christmas, while everyone is sleeping in and visiting family, I want to share my latest discovery with you. To get in (or stay in) the Christmas mood and to be full of new ideas for Christmas next year.  Because they will probably have other extremely cute christmas decoration again at 
Of course, you can get your christmas decoration at Bijenkorf or V&D, but I really like getting my hands on something special. So I start my search on the best websites to find exclusive stuff, like Etsy and Dawanda. Sometimes you have to look good, but you will find your treasures! And so I found 
Do you already know 
It’s the 23rd already. Time flies! Only 7 days to go and a new year appears before us. A year full of surprises, we don’t know what it’s going to bring us (that might be a good thing). Looking back on 2010 I can say it has been a good year. Our lives had been quite a rollercoaster in 2008 and 2009, a lot of people standing close to us had health issues.  That caused a lot of stress. It’s good to know life really goes through ups and downs and it’s safe to say 2010 has been a good year. We welcomed our baby boy in april, it feld like a miracle after a couple of miscarriages. We enjoyed having him near the rest of the year. Business wise we where fortunate, we worked hard and we’ve seen Hip & Hot grow! This is how we where able to develop a serious iPhone app, we expect that it will be available in the app store at the beginning of January. We hope that we can count our blessings at the end of 2011. For now we are looking for a nice 
I love childrens books. Thank god my kids too. They are easy going, can read for hours and hours on the couch with their mummy. I started reading with my kids at the age of 3 months. Mostly because I enjoy reading myself, but they also learn to talk early because of the reading I think. I love the book with the wallpaper animals: 
We use a Baby Monitor which is very handy, because the one we have reaches very far. Often neighbours call us if they can use it, because their Baby Monitor doesn’t reach that far. So we are very happy with it. But, when I saw the new 
Not everyone shares the same opinion about dry nursing, ok, but about what don’t they agree? It doesn’t have to work for every baby, but in Russia it’s the best thing to do. We also used it on Sterre. She would always wake herself up turning, so it calmed her down. At first, later on it turned around again. Anyway, dry nursing can be usefull. If your baby has trouble sleeping or lays restless in bed, dry nursing is worth trying. But it’s not that easy. I used to do it with 2 hydrophile diapers, like our maternity nurse taught us.  But it never really stayed put and it wasn’t easy with our constantly moving baby. Other ways of dry nursing came, but where pretty boring. Nowadays it’s different, dry nusing can be retro and hip with the drynurse sacs by 
According to me a lot of jewellery is being sold in these days. They have to go under the christmas tree. Woman can always use a beautiful necklace or hip bracelet. Well, at least I do. Something matching my cute christmas dress maybe. I like the jewellery at 
With this kind of cold weather I always have such cold feet. And legs. Don’t like it. The solution is within reach, because 
