Sewing day !

I'm very happy to say that this morning i could do a lot of things. Beside all the housechores for today and cooking a rather complicated meal for lunch i spent a couple of hours sewing intensively. Today i could finish 1 shirt for Gaia, 1 dress for Milla and a pair of trousers for Leo. With the bag i sewed yesterday evening this makes quite a lot of stuff done and i'm way happy and thanksful.
In the follwoing pics there are also Gaia's dress and Milla's shirt i sewed some days ago.



A birthday present i sewed yesterday


Milla's dress and shirt


Gaia's dress and shirt


Leo is happy of the new trousers ( he wanted to wear them right away ! Made my day !!)

I love sewing ! I'm so happy i could do all this !!!

Siblings

As an unhappy only child i think that having the privilege to witness the precious relationship beetween my kids is something that strikes me deeply. There is a dull pain buried deep ( or not-so-deep ) inside this fatherless lonely only child that i am that still hurts and in a way watching them love each other, and fight each other, and play each other, beside making me happier then words can describe, someway put salt on my wounds since i can fully realize how much i have lost for choices someone else did for me. Anyways. Siblings ....





While Leo is playing with an old Game Boy ( the only kind of video game we have here is this game boy that me and PapaF bought around 15 years ago ... )Milla keeps caressing him and tickling him sweetly

Gaia plays horse with Milla

Family is the most precious thing ever. And in my family i include of course my closer and most dear friends.

MamaF

Bubble Bath or Boys will be Boys

Today Leo and Seba took a bubble bath. They are a really handfull in this period, two almost seven years old can do many silly and irritating things, but also very fun ones....

Leo

Seba

I love them to pieces. I look at them and they're growing so much. I feel like they're slipping through my hands like sand. But still i'm happy to say they're so naive and 'childish' compared to the other kids their age, and i'm so thankful for this. Most probably no TV allowed did the trick in keeping them (relatively :) ) innocent.

Kitchen Garden

This morning Gaia's been home. So we spent some time outside planting our kitchen garden. We have planted the seeds in the little vases, then we'll put the little plants in the ground later on. We found out that this is the best way to defend the seeds from ants. I thought this year to give up the kitchen garden since the house is on sell, but then i thought again and realized that even if ( God willing ) tomorrow someone might out an offer we'll end up spending here all the summer at least so ... last year we had plenty of vegetables and some of the canned goodies are still in my pantry. Anyways, we planted different kinds of salads, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, onions, peppers, chili peppers, eggplants, basil, sage. Hopefully also this summer we'll be provided of fresh healthy vegetables.
The kitchen garden is completed also by 4 trees ( apple tree :) , apricot, peach, cherry ) but we're keeping them in big vases because we want to move them with us ( hopefully soon ! ).

MamaF

8 marzo 2009

Today is my mother's 68th birthday. She was born in the Women's day and always joked that the cebration has been put today to let the whole world celebrate her :)

As long as i don't get along at all with her ( unfortunately ) and she can't accept at all my ideas and my ways and my beliefs, still she is my mother and today still is for me mom's birthday.

In the afternoon we'll go to her place for a little celebration, i sewed for her a present, a bag for her grocery and a small purse. I was suppose to crochet something but the past week has been way hectic so i'll finish that project for another moment.

Happy Birthday Mom i wish we could be closer then we are i really do. But i can't change and you can't either. Let's put everything away for today and just have a beautiful day ....

Then there is another news, on friday, when Fabio was away in Florence to get another jukebox

(http://www.jukeboxtubeamp.com/ ) Leo lost his second tooth ! He was washing his hands and all of a sudden he rushed back ' Mom the time has come pull my tooth ! ' And boy was he right the tooth came out with no problem ! How could he know ! We have a long tradition of losing teeth during moving ( Gaia started it and usually Fabio misses the 'event' )and having the house on sell we hope to keep up with the tradition ....

On the homeschool front thursday we gave the principal of the elementary school another more detailed official request to take the kids off from school. She is so surprised, as i said before in Italy there is only a handful of families homeschooling and is an unheard practice that most of people think it's even illegal ( but it is not ) and i really believe she doesn't know how to menage this situation. Anyways we gave her some more time and already set another meeting on 31 march, so in case we might take them off after Easter holidays. Please keep us in your prayer and thoughts for this new path we are just about to begin, i'm so excited and scared at the same time, but so willing to begin and keep my children close to me in their learning and growing and to pass them other then knowledge an whole way of thinking, living and mostly believing.

'The education of children is a creative task, more like art then science' (Bruno Bettelheim)

'School is that exile where adults keep the children until they can live in adults' world without bothering them' ( Maria Montessori )

Have an amazing new week !

MamaF

Reflections

My path to spirituality seems to be much more clear nowadays. I can see a thread connecting so many different side of my own life and existence that sometime i'm left speechless in amazment.

Every night before sleeping i read some Bible. I found out that i can find both encouraging words and very clear directive for me to faithfully follow in this moment of my life. Sometime it seems that what i read has been written just for me.

Then i've started reading ( thanks to mr OldfashionEd ) Paulo Coelho as well, and in his writings imbued of searching and spirituality could give me encouragement in my walk as well.

If i look back, the last 4 or 5 years have meant so much for me. I'm such a different person then i was. Yes i was considered a much more successful person back in the days, working outside, having the 'modern' attitude with children, but i was so empty. Frozen food, day care formula and let them cry. But i felt something was badly wrong. life can't be so few. Life's centre can't be on things. Can't be on a job.Can't be in a pub, to a gig . So i started to give up. Give up the ideas that shaped me in my childhood ' housewives are just lazy women'. Give up my training ' women have to work and be economically indipendent so they don't have to get married'. Give up the ' kindergarten should be open also in the night attitude'. Not easy. Leaving behind an whole life. Accepting that you don't accept how you grew up. And then after the darkness .... a new light. I simply opened my heart at some point. And things started moving. Little miracles started happening. I tried, with humble heart and found myself enjoying unknown pleasures in life so fullfilling that no carrer could compete. Baking bread. And cakes. Making jam and canning. Sewing, and decorating and preserving and using a woodstove, making my own clothes and curtains and quilts and blankets, and carnival dresses. And now a step ahead again. One more. Once again opening my heart and accepting. Homeschooling the kids. Fear. Again. Let go. Some more. But now i feel this is the real life. The full life. The right life.

( Carnival dress for Leo, Crocheted and sewed curtains, a dress, doll'sdress, window star )

''And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful

of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful

to Abraham and his descendants forever,

even as he said to our fathers

(Luke 1:46-56)


MamaF

Milla's birthday - 23\02\09

On 23 february Milla celebrated her fifth birthday. My little girl is already 5 and it seems just yesterday when she was just a tiny yellow newborn. And now she is my fairy. She wakes up in the morning smiling big and sweet and greet me with a hug and a kiss. She calls me in the night ( not everynight :) ! ) and when i arrive quite grumpy i find her - yes you got it - smiling big and sweet ' Mom, could you please hug me and kiss me ? ' and of course i do, and melt away, and think that a moment like this is worth few sleepless time. I dearly love her, as i dearly love and tresure all of my kids, of course. Some pics from her birthday 'party'

Milla's cake. I did it with the decorations she chose ( we went grocery shopping together for all the stuff :) )

Leo, Milla and Gaia ( Seba was angry or something like that and went away ... )

Milla blowing the candle

A new bike !! ( Actually her first new bike since she always had an old one from older sibling )

Talking with gramma on the phone. I think her very first phone call :)

We had great time !

MamaF