Sunday Visit

Sunday afternoon we said goodbye to our baby swing and I have to say, it was a bit emotional. The end of an era. We would have liked to keep it but we don't have storage space and Emilia hasn't used it in months. Sadly, it had to go. Thankfully, we were able to find a good home for it. One of Rob's colleagues has just given birth so she will be using it for her lovely baby boy. As we don't have a car, Rumana, another of Rob's colleagues and friend, offered to come and picked it up and then she will take it to its new home. Rumana hadn't seen Emilia since she was just a few months old, so, of course, she was also excited to come and play with her. She brought her teenage daughter along and Emilia was fascinated by her. As the weather was once again beautiful, we decided to go out and waited for Rumana in the street. I was very impressed at how Emilia behaved when she saw them; not only did she have a big smile on her face but when Rumana took her and held her, she didn't even seem to realise that she was no longer in her daddy's arms. I am proud of her for being so social. We strolled around for a bit and Emilia was so cute reaching for her new friend's hand. 

We then went back home where we had a tea with vanilla cupcakes that I had previously baked and chatted, gossiped, and played with bubbles. Emilia was super happy to have friends over. 

When it was time for them to leave, Emilia gave a last glance at the swing and then graciously said bye bye. Time is going by very fast. I have bags and bags of Emilia's clothes that no longer fit; some toys are starting to be too babyish for her and she is more and more interested in daily activities and what us, adults, do. She is only eighteen months old and I already miss her baby days...

International Women's Day

Saturday 8th we celebrated Women's Day. Back when I was in Italy, my girlfriends and I used to organise something special for the day, usually a nice dinner out followed by dancing; and I always received bunches of mimosa. Also, my parents have a wonderful mimosa tree in the garden, so around that time of the year the house was always full of those beautiful, yellow flowers. And the smell was divine. Here in the UK they don't really celebrate Women's Day, although they are getting more and more aware of it. This year, I celebrated my day by meeting with a girlfriend and going together to my hairstylist's for a new look. I am now blonder and without the fringe. We all need a change every now and then, life is too short to be boring! 

Back home, Emilia and I were given nice flowers, Rob picked white roses for Emilia and orange tulips for me. And then we all went to the Design Museum to meet sir Paul Smith who was signing his books at the last day of his "Hello, my name is Paul Smith" exhibition. The weather was so beautiful and the little park at the Tower Bridge was packed with people and kids. A taste of Summer!

 

 

A Little Clown

Since the very first months of life Emilia showed a big personality. One thing that was clear since the beginning is that the girl is an entertainer. She is a little clown. She is funny and enjoys making people laugh. She has the gift of turning even the most boring and toughest moments into fun. 

Give her a spoon and she will make your day!

 

 

People usually tell me that Emilia has a wonderful smile, and I love that compliment more than anything else. I don't even have to tell her, you know like: say thank you, say hi, say bye... she just smiles, naturally. Oh well, keep smiling, my child, and laugh as hard as you can!

Selfies

Selfie was voted word of 2013 by the Oxford Dictionary. We are well into 2014 and selfies are still going strong. I am obsessed, I don't mind telling you; I take selfies everywhere, and now Rob and Emilia are also affected by the same syndrome. We are a family of selfies :)

 

 

 

Have I mentioned how much I love you, London??

It is no secret that I love London. And I love strolling around the city, especially on a sunny day.

There are several advantages of living in the city centre, one of them being that you can walk to many places. Rob walks to his office and it's a ten minute walk (at most!). Luckily, I can also walk to my office and during my fifty-minute walk I get to enjoy some of the most beautiful views of London. Today is a beautiful day and when I left the flat in the morning there was absolutely no doubt I was going to walk to the office.

 

 

If, and I say IF, one day I will have to leave this city, I will be heartbroken! It's a priviledge to be in a city you love. Ten years ago I made the choice to be here. Together with its beauty and charm, this city has also given me my husband, my doctorate and job, and my adorable daughter. I love you, London!

Double Celebration

As a three-nationality family, we embrace every celebration from Italy, the US and the UK (and sometimes even more!). And today is a double celebration for us: it's Carnevale in Italy and Pancake Day in England.

We started the morning with a rich and colourful breakfast; for the occasion we made yellow, pink and blue pancakes and we added blueberries in the batter of the yellow ones for extra fun. 

 

 

 

Even Emilia was allowed to have some and she loved them. In fact, she was in such a cheerful mood that she even grabbed her Union Jack and started humming the national anthem! Cute. 

 

After breakfast, we dressed and walked with daddy to his office. I didn't buy a proper Carnival mask/outfit for Emilia but I still wanted to put something Carnivalesque on. So, here she is, queen for a day. A very modern, rock-chick version of the Queen. 

 

 

Buon Carnevale, Happy Pancake Day or whatever you are celebrating in whichever part of the world you are. I hope you all have a fabulous day!

Social Sunday

When we checked the weather forecast for Sunday, sadly we didn't see anything good on the horizon. Grey, cold and rain throughout the whole day. We therefore decided to relax at home. However, we still managed to have a quite busy and social Sunday. Right after breakfast we Skyped with our friends in Italy Ilaria, Cristian and baby Tommaso. Both kids were in such a cheerful mood and kept smiling and "talking" to each other. It was a very sweet way to start the day. Then, Rob and Emilia got ready to run their regular Sunday activities: take the rubbish down, go to the local store to buy the Sunday paper and pay a visit to the robot in Shad Thames! That's baby and papa's time, mummy stays home; I only have the job to dress Emilia.

 

 

 

 

The afternoon was a flurry of conversations. First we received a Facetime call by Emilia's godparents, Lorenzo and Federica and Federica's brother, Marco. The call couldn't happen at a better time since Emilia was being quite difficult and naughty and seeing them on the phone distracted her from all the rest. Lory and Fede are coming to visit us in just one week and we can't wait to spend some good time with them. We hang up and Rich, Rob's brother, called. And while Rob was still on the phone, the door bell rang, it was Ryan, Rob's friend from Baltimore who is in town for a few days and popped by to say hi. Emilia met Ryan last Summer when he was in London with his family for over two months. I didn't know whether she would recognise him or not but she was certainly happy to hang out with a fellow Americano! 

Ryan left around 19.30 which is the time we usually put Emilia to bed. However, she was having such a good time with us that we waited for Ryan to leave before we even started cooking her dinner. So, I started cooking rice and salmon for Emilia while Rob changed her as soon as Ryan left. And guessed what happened while Rob was in the bathroom changing Emilia? We received another Facetime call!! This time from MaryJo, Rob's aunt, who wanted to see if Emilia was up for a chat with her and great grandmum Mary. Well, of course she was! In fact, she was super euphoric. She smiled, she talked, and she showed them how she can walk. It was a long day and she went to bed at 21.00, way after her bed time. But no big deal. It was a very full and nice day, with lots of chats and lots of love. We are far from most of our friends and family but we feel very loved. Thank you!

Baking and Laughing

If you read my previous post, you must be wondering what we ended up baking!? During the week, I selected a few Nutella recipes on Pinterest and then together with Rob we chose the Peanut butter and Nutella bread for our little weekend baking project. Rob introduced me to peanut butter about ten years ago; it is not very common in Italy - in fact, it's considered junk food. But hey, it's so good, I was definitely not going to pass on it. And it is particularly good with chocolate (Reeses, anyone??!)! And who doesn't love Nutella?!? So, this recipe is hopefully a win win for both of us. I say hopefully because even if we are done baking, we haven't tried it yet, can you believe it? It has been sitting on our kitchen table for over two hours and we haven't touched it! We are saving it for after dinner. 

 

 

Anyway, we baked the cake. I baked and Emilia and Rob watched me. Emilia in particular, followed all the steps very carefully. And once we put the cake into the oven, at first we patiently waited, occasionally looking inside the oven to see the cake rise. 

But then we got a bit bored, so we played on the floor with mummy's craft tools and everything on hand.

 

 

 

And then, since Emilia was getting out of control, we had to take her away from all that treasure and tried to relax in bed. And when I say relax, I mean hysterical laughs! Emilia is VERY ticklish and we love playing with/torturing her! Evil parents :)

Anyway, I will let you know if the cake is good and worth making it over and over and over again! 

Unicorn Theatre

The weekend has started and so our family activities have kicked off. Today we visited the Unicorn Theatre, the UK's leading professional theatre designed for a young audience. Luckily for us, the Unicorn Theatre is in our area and just a ten minute walk from our flat. We have been meaning to go for quite some time, however, most activities are for 2+ years old kids. Recently, however, we spotted smaller toddlers getting into the theatre so when we checked the programme again, we noticed that they had introduced "UP", a soft play session with other activities such as cookies decorating and rocket building aimed at 0-4 years old children, held on most Saturdays from 12.00 to 13.30 in the theatre's foyer. It was time to pay the Unicorn a visit. 

 

 

We arrived at 12.07 and the foyer was already packed. On one side the soft play session, on the other side, next to the cafe', the craft area. We parked our buggy and looked for a table in the craft area as the soft play area was full. Today it was all about creating and decorating carnival masks. In Italy we celebrate Carnevale on Tuesday, so this activity was particularly welcomed! As I said before, Emilia absolutely loves crafting so she felt at home immediately. The organiser of the craft area was such a sweet girl who helped us getting settled and even gave us a pack of new masks to decorate at home when she heard I was Italian and that we celebrate Carnevale in just a few days. How nice! 

 

 

 

 

We made two masks. I will admit, they are not the most beautiful and creative ones, some parents really let all their creativity out, but we will practice some more on Tuesday for the actual holiday.  We then moved to the soft play area that in the meantime had become much less crowded. Needless to say, Emilia loved it and didn't want to leave! 

 

 

But it was time to leave eventually. It was time to go back home to eat, take a long nap and get ready for our next weekend activity: baking! This weekend we are going to experiment with recipes with the so much loved Nutella. Also, the cafe' at the Unicorn had some colourful chocolate cookies that I may use as inspiration for our next weekend's baking project! Don't they look cute? 

The Unicorn experience was overall very nice. A little while ago we bought tickets for Sensacional, a sensory show for toddlers; we will go at the end of April when my parents will also be in town and I can't wait to see how Emilia will react! It's going to be super fun.