Proud parenting moments

Aaron drew a picture of the family the other day. It's one of those pay-back moments that I love after all the hard work and sleepless nights. From left to right there's. Isabel, Mom, Papà, Jordan and Aaron. I like that all the proportions of family members is right.

Halloween in Italy

Halloween is just starting to get foot here. Apparently it's just the teenagers that go trick-or-treating around here. So we asked our 2 neighbors and family members that live next to us if we could come knock on their door. Apparently I did't explain trick-or-treating well to neighbors. At the first neighbor's house they gave the boys 2 handfuls of candy each, and the one after that a whole bag of candy each. I was a bit embarassed that I had asked my neighbors to buy a bag of candy for each of my kids. Anyway, they got more candy than they would of at home.

The next day after Halloween we had a halloween party in church that I was in charge of. I only expected 7-10 kids. We ended up having a good turn out! The boys were THRILLED to go dressed up as baseball players!

This is a picture of the kids that came. There were a lot of adults too that aren't in the picture.

Isabel is smiling

This last week this little girl has woken up. She is wanting to see everything that's going on around her. She's also starting smiling and cooing like you wouldn't believe! I never thought that such a cute smile would be a problem, but today for all of her breast feedings, towards the end of the feeding she ends up looking at me and smiling instead of eating. Oh well. I'm in love with that smile. Thanks for being so cute Isabel!

Aaron is convinced that this is his very fashionable hat. I think it's used in collecting grapes from the vineyard at the end of the season, but not quite sure about that. I think he looks like a chinese worker in the rice fields. :)
And here's that great smiling!

Pictures of the house

I've been waiting for my house to be clean, all my things to be put away, for a sunny day to have good lighting to take pictures of my house. Since that's not realistically going to happen all on the same day I decided to take some pictures (some are even out of focus) and post them anyway. So here's the entrance.
If you look to the right you see kitchen/living room.
This is looking at the living room from the kitchen.
And looking at the kitchen from the living room.
From the living room looking at the front door.
This is my bedroom.
This is the bathroom in my bedroom.
Paolo's brother and uncle had it built right before we came. Way nice of them!
This is the other bedroom (for the kids).
This is the main bathroom. The very short film below I tried to video our house but ran out of space on our card.

Sleeping through the night

I hope I'm not cursing myself by posting about this. Isabel has slept through the night for the last 3 nights in a row. I'm hoping that this is a habit that continues. She goes to sleep around 10 p.m. and then I wake up 5-6 a.m. because I'm so full of milk that I can't sleep anymore. I feed her and she goes back to sleep for another 2 hours. My boys have also not gotten up during the night either for the last 3 nights- just up really early in the morning. I can handle that though.

I've had a melancholy 2 days where I'm missing home, family, and friends. I think those kinds of days are normal though.

Rainy Days and Gelato

Peas in a pod. I did rescue Isabel from getting smashed right after taking the picture.
Walking to the park and eating bread. There's a decent park about 1 mile from our house (there is one closer but doesn't have much other than old people who smoke around my kids).
This is my first time ever trying to make a ruffle. It turned out really well. I made a double-sided apron. The great part is that I used it from spare fabric I had, and it turned out much cuter than I thought it would. That always makes you feel good.

Aaron was my model. I didn't take the picture while Paolo was home, just in case he had a heart attack over his son wearing something rather girly.


Yesterday it rained ALL day long. So we stayed in the house all day. To prevent myself from going crazy I decided to do a sewing project. I've been reading a book my friend Kati gave me that has patterns for some adorable girls clothes. I've never done frills and girly stuff and I've been dying to try. We have a friend who is turning 4 next week, so I decided I could experiment on a present for her. Pictures are to follow.

I had my first gelato the other day. I promised my friend Karla that I'd get an extra scoop. I did, and I'm glad I did. My brother-in-law watched the boys while Paolo and I took Isabel and got an ice cream. I got dark chocolate (it was almost too dark and Paolo had to finish it for me), white chocolate, and hazelnut. Yum!

Chocolate, guilt free goodness

So I've been up until 1-3 a.m. with Isabel and not been able to sew (makes too much noise for our tiny place). So I took to browsing my recipes. I found a weight watchers recipe that I modified. It's worth trying and making! I've modified it to fit my ingredients that are available. The recipe makes about 15 cookies, so if you end up eating the whole batch, you don't even need to feel bad about it. Here's the recipe.

• 1 plum grated (1/3 c. prunes pureéd)
• 1 apple grated (1/3 c. applesauce)
• 1/3 cup chestnut puree (i recommend grating another apple or a pear)
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 c. dark chocolate chips (or semi-sweet)
• 1/2 c. flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder

Grate your fruit. I recommend fresh fruit grated but you can substitute. In a microwave container heat the sugar/cocoa/water/vanilla until sugar is melted. Then throw that in the microwave. Heat in 10 second intervals until choc. chips are melted. Mix chocolate goodness into the grated fruit. Then add flour and baking powder. Cook approx. 10 mins at 350 degrees. Makes about 15 cookies. It's very dark chocolate tasting. I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate but really like these. If you need good stress eating food I recommend these. You won't even feel guilty about it!

So we live on a little private street. Here's the gate going into where we live. We live at the end on the right hand side.

Here's the little vineyard of our neighbors as you walk down our street.
Here's the entrance to the house/apartment where we're living now.

When my kids saw this car they said "it's uncle topolino!" (from the movie Cars 2). They wanted their picture taken with him. Disney has definitely got my boys hooked on Cars.
As I was talking to a very dear friend (thank you Karla for knowing that I needed a phone call) my kids were watching TV just before bed. They were (for the first time today) so cute. The boys were caressing Isabel and being so sweet!
I'm grateful for those rare, sweet moments when the best shines through!