Archive | December, 2011

Albero di Natale

6 Dec

After the kids arrived home from school today we put on a nice cozy fire, put on some Sinatra Christmas music, set out some chips and dip and got busy decorating our Christmas tree.   Here’s a little compilation of the photos we took during the decorating.

My hands are still stinging from all the needle pricks that I got trying to hang the ornaments.

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Passeggiata

4 Dec

Another beautiful day along the lake.  Sunny but chilly.  Perfect for a morning passeggiata (stroll).

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Sorpresa

4 Dec

Yesterday we surprised our kids and my in-laws with tickets to see Serena and Venus Williams play an exhibition tennis match against Schiavone and Pennetta in Milan.  It was the first real tennis match that we’ve seen live and we all loved it.  Those Williams sisters are STRONG.  When Schiavone was playing against Venus Nico kept asking if the girl or the boy was winning (sorry Schiavone).  

Bad quality photo but check out this tennis dress!

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Adventing

2 Dec

For some reason I decided to make an advent calendar for my girls this year.  In the almost 10 years of their life I have never even contemplated making advent calendars.  It could have something to do with the fact I was offline for 4 days this past week and I was wandering around the house with nothing to do one evening.  Being sans internet will do that to you.  I found some tiny boxes and a stack of beautiful paper.  Then I found a frame from an old painting in the attic.  And this is what resulted.  It took me ages to find all the miniature presents to put in all the boxes – dollar stores don’t exist in Italy.  I attached all the little boxes with velcro so the kids can take them off and put them back on.  In some boxes I wrote coupons for an evening of popcorn and boardgames, in some I wrote some Christmas jokes and in some I wrote bad poetry telling my girls how awesome they are.

They were very happy when they saw it this morning (yes it was a day late).  My son received a Lego Star Wars advent calendar so anyone who has a 7 year old son can understand  how happy that little guy is.  Sinterklaas is coming tonight so the excitement in our house is at an all time high.

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Therapy

1 Dec

It’s time to start thinking of some ideas for cookie decorating for the holiday season.  Once I sit down with my royal icing and blank cookies I go into some sort of trance.  A few hours will pass before I snap out of it and find a table full of cookies like the ones below.  I just find it so therapeutic.  Every year I give a little bag of these cookies to the local bakery and they always look quite dubious.  When I ask a few weeks later if they liked them they always respond with “Ma signora…sono troppe belle per mangiare!” (” Signora, they are too beautiful to actually eat!”).  I’m sure they have a dusty box full of these little sacks from years past.

I love the poppy seed eyes on the little wee chicks.  These were for my daughter’s spring birthday party…

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