Orange juice

What you can do when kids get bored, you have 2 kg oranges and want to do some jam ?
But it's simple ! ORANGE JUICE !!!!!!!!! And you'll get an afternoon of fun, vitamines and happy kids :)
Here the evidence ;)



Seba and Gaia at work


Leo and Milla working at the ice crusher


Milla and Leo taking their turn sqeezing oranges


Mom ! Look at me !


Mom ! Look what i have grown !



Mom! Look what i have grown too ! ( ok the boy is still slightly confused ... )


Whatever big sis has, i have too ( even if i don't have a clue what we're talking about ... )


What a big eyes you have !


Look mom ! (i'm always more confused :DD )


And here my effort ! This will be my mother's Christmas present :)
If someone is interested in the recipe just drop me a note.

Gaia's new hair cut

Gaia, Milla and I have quite long hair. Actually Milla has the longest, we never gave her an haircut so far, anyways Gaia's hair needed a professional hand at this point, so i took her to the hairdresser.
She only had just a couple of cm off but she asked for a fringe. She looks great now :)
Here a couple of pics ..


Close up


Pony tail

Karaoke night

Sometimes on saturday we join the karaoke night one of my brothers in law holds. We never sing, but it's a nice occasion to eat someone else's -good- cooking ( it's in a little restaurant ), chat with someone, let the kids play with the other kids and occasionally listen to some good music. Anyways last saturday i took my faithful camera with me to shot some pic of Uncle Max at work and of course some of the kids.
Join us in the Karaoke night :)

Milla and her pizza


Leo and Seba and their pizza :)


Milla's and PapaF's hands, playing on the table. Isn't it cute ?


Milla drinking. I don't know why, but i find a child who drinks one of the sweetest sight ever


Leo is tired, 5 minutes later he was sleeping on that same chair :))

Storm

On tuesday the Rome area ( we're approximately 20 km away from Rome, on the coast ) has been hit by an almighty storm. It probably arrived from the sea, since it hit our place around 4:00 pm (16:00 ) and arrived in Rome half an hour later.
We started noticing the sky getting dark and lighting starting around 3:00 and then all of a sudden an incredible wind started blowing taking heavy rain and hail. Electricity went on and off all the afternoon to arrive a complete black-out at 7:00 pm that lasted until 2:00 am. Luckily we din't suffer any damage but some small branches of a tree in our yard, but our neighbour got her roof damaged, in Roma a boy died and people have been stuck in their cars for about 7 hours waiting for the rescue teams to cut the trees fell over the high-ways.
Anyways, it turned out being some kind of funny and interesting experience, the storm was so powerful we just stared at the sky outside the windows for long time, fascinated by the light effects the lightnings gifted us with and when the power went off for good it was fun to lit our candles and oil lamps and tell the kids it was like in the old days or like the Amish people ( I love Amish life and have plenty of books and picture books i like to show the kids ). Following some pics.

This was taken at 4:00 pm, as you see it was dark it seemed night, the rain was pouring and wind blowing, this has been the moment the storm passed us over.

Our oil lamp. Such a warm kind of light, such a peaceful feeling.

Here one of the candle latern, this one was in our bedroom.

This is the 'useless' lamp in our bedroom. I don't know how it came out the red light, instead those lights on the ceiling are the reflections of the candle lantern from the previous pic.

One thing me and papaF noticed was the peculiar silence coming from the lack of electricity. We're so used to the humming and buzzing of fridge, computers and radio that you notice their noise only when you can't hear them.

Halloween

Trick or treat
Smell my feet
Give me something
Good to eat !

Halloween has never been an Italian tradition, here usually the holiday is today, all Saints day, but with nothing fun related to it. In the last 10ish years or so things started changing and now Halloween can be both lived as a commercial galore or as we do, a fun day, with lots and lots of previous crafting and funny cooking and house decors for the whole family, and a little walk around gathering some goods from the kids living nearby and waiting for them doing the same here. Here some memories from yesterday ....

The cake, with spiderweb frosting and green inside !

Watch out ! There's a snake on the table ! (marzipan, liquorice and silver candies )

A spider ! ( again marzipan, chocolate, liquorice and silver candies )

Leo styled for the fun !

Milla being silly waiting her turn for styling

Gaia working on Seba's make-up

Seba is ready !

Scary Gaia

Milla and Leo

Leo pretending he has double piercing on his tongue

Green slime !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seba fully styled (thanks Gaia ! )

One of the lanterns, you can play wanders with empty jars and some paper ...

Another lantern

The table is ready for the afternoon snack

The kids are ready to go. I sewed the punmpikin masks out of some felt in the morning, yes, kinda busy morning between decorating cooking and sewing, but the kids were delighted

And for dinner .... BLOODY FINGERS AND EYEBALLS !!!!! ( aka sausages with almonds as fingernails, ketchup, mini mozzarellas and black olive on top )

Close up on fingers.

Building memories for the future, happy memories, that's it. What else is worth to have, to work for and to give as gift to your dear ones ....