Cuddles and Bubbles

Enjoy springtime

2018-05-22T14:40:00.001+02:00

After a long and grey winter, spent inside home, waiting for sunny days, finally spring has arrived.

I love to see flowers in bloom everywhere, trees get green again, the temperature gets warm and we can start living outside.

Spring is an explosion of colours and this brings happiness in anyone.

In this lovely season, I like spending my spare time in my small garden. It's time to renew the garden, planting new flowers and herbs. It's time to clean kids garden house and toys. It's time to involve my kids in it.

In particular, my little one told me she would like to run her personal little vegetable garden.

We talked about what we could grow in our garden because of the size and sunlight. Then she decided to grow salad, some herbs and... a small container of violets. She told me she would like to use her herbs to cook and to make delicious dishes.

Well, our garden adventure started with a trip to the nearest shop where we get:

a new pair of gloves
small tools for her to work in the garden safely
some new containers that she could manage easily
soil
seeds

I usually grow herbs in the garden, but this time I helped her to plant her personal herbs in containers to distinguish hers from mine.

We planted basil and rosemary that are very easy to find and easy to grow, and also very useful in the kitchen! We bought little plants of these two herbs, so it would be easier to grow them.

About the salad, we looked for seeds of a variety that could be easily grow in a container and, after some research, we found a cut-and-come-again green salad, that was perfect for a kids that can grow and regrow their personal salad.

In a very sunny afternoon, she got all her tools, containers, soil, seed and plants and started work at her project. It took about all the afternoon to finish the work, but it was her first time working on a vegetable garden she had lots of questions about almost everything.

Actually, I have to congratulate with her because she took this vegetable garden very seriously.

She watered her containers (and mine also) regularly and after some days her salad started to grow. Basil and rosemary are growing very well too.

Everyday, before dinner, she harvests her salad, getting just the big leaves and make a green salad for us. When I need basil or rosemary in the kitchen she goes outside to get some for me.

She is very proud of her vegetable garden and I think it's important for her to know that she could do something useful and eat something she grows by herself.

My garden is not very big, but I've always found out space for herbs and some berries. I usually grow strawberries, that are my favourite, and my kids have the good habit, when they play in the garden, to get some strawberries or other berries whenever they are hungry.

I think that is why my little one decided to grow her personal garden, she understood the importance to grow her own vegetables and fruits to eat and cook.

That is very important to me, now I know that small habits, that I thought normal, became good habits for my kids.

Rainbow cupcakes

2018-03-05T17:05:00.005+01:00

When I'd been in London I totally felt in love with cupcakes.
Any kind of cupcakes... Big... Small... Any tipe of cupcakes. Vanilla... Chocolate... And above all... any colour of cupcakes.
There were lots of places that sold cupcakes and I really loved to buy some to taste after dinner. I love to buy one of a kind to have as much colours as I could.
Colours were everywhere on the top and inside too. Butter creams had all the shades like a rainbow and on the top of the cream there were lots of coloured sugars. Also inside the cupcakes were coloured. My favorite was red velvet red inside and white on top! So nice and so good!
Backing home I really wanted to find a good recipe to bake all kind of cupcakes in all the shades.
Sure, I know food colouring is not the best thing to eat and I don't like to give to my children and I also had to find a good gluten free recipe to bake my perfect cupcakes.

First of all I started to look for a kind of "natural" food colouring and I found out that there are not only natural food colouring but natural organic food colouring and they could find a good food shops.

I thought I could mix colours to have more shades so I bought just the primary ones: red, blue and yellow.

Then I found a good recipe for cupcakes and butter cream and try my gluten free version of them. Lucky for me that not took my too long. I have gained extensive experience cooking gluten free and that helped me.

So here my version of these lovely cupcakes that would be a very good dessert at the end of Valentine day's dinner.

Cupcakes
Ingredients
125g butter
125g sugar
60 ml mik
2 eggs
115g gluten free flour
baking powder
vanilla extract

Instructions
Use ingredients at room temperature and very soft butter (but not melted) for best results.

Preheat the oven at 170°C and then grease the pan your going to use. You can use 24 sections cupcakes pan or 12 sections muffin pan.
I used to 24 sections small cupcakes.

Mix butter and sugar with food processor until light and fluffy then add 1 egg at a time mixing very well.
Add flour and baking powder mixing until well, when incorporated add milk and vanilla extract and mix.

Divide the batter into the pan.

Bake 12 minutes for 24 sections cupcakes pan and 18 for 12 sections muffin pan.
Let cool the cupcakes 5 minutes inside the oven and then 15 minutes outside the oven.

Buttercream
Ingredients
150g soft butter
300g icing sugar
1 or 2 tablespoon milk
food colouring

Instructions
Powder food colouring must be added to icing sugar before starting to mix it with the butter, the colour of the icing sugar would be lighter than the effective colour at the end of the process, so don't add to much food colouring!
On the other hand, if you are going to use liquid food colouring, just add few drops at the end of the process.

Mix butter and sugar with food processor until creamy.

Put the batter into the pastry bag and start to garnish your cupcakes one by one.

Variations
Add chocolate chips to the cupcakes batter before baking.
Make different colour buttercream.
If you use liquid food colouring, add it to the buttercream and don't combine completely to have a marble effect.

Kids can help
Younger children can help putting ingredients into the mixer and dividing the batter into the pan.
Older kids can also use the scale to weight the ingredients and in order to learn units of measurement.
Ask your kids to add decorations on the top. My little one chose withe stars sugar in contrast of the red top buttercream.

Enjoy your cupcakes!!!

Fruit snack

2018-03-05T17:02:00.001+01:00

Like other little children, my little one doesn’t like fruits and vegetables very much. That’s why it’s hard to me to find a good way to give her fruit and vegetable every day.
I have to find different ways sometimes, because she gets tired easily of the same recipe.
On the other hand, this fruit snack is her favorite, she likes it very much and she eats it anytime. It’s easy and fast to prepare and I make it for my children very often.

Ingredients (1 serve):
1 Pear
1 Banana
1/2 glass of milk
1 teaspoon of sugar
Peel the pear and the banana, put them in the mixer with milk and sugar and mix until smooth.
Taste it before serving, you can add more sugar if it’s not sweet enough or milk if it’s not liquid enough.
Serve it in a glass or in a mug with a straw.
If your children, like mine, don’t like to taste new snacks, straws will make the snack more interesting and funny to drink.

Variations:
Bananas, milk and sugar are the basic ingredients for this snack, but pears can be changed and you can use other fruits instead of it: apples, peaches, apricots, strawberries, etc…
You can also try to mix more than one fruit to the basic ingredients, just try and put some creativity in your snack.
Adding some cereals, dried fruits or nuts on the top it will get more tasty and good as dessert after dinner too.

Don’t forget to ask your children to help you to choose the ingredients and preparing the snack.
Be carefully: knives and mixer must be used by adults and not children!
Follow my suggestion for cooking with children, also you will find other tasty and easy recipes to cook with your children.

Focaccia

2018-03-05T17:01:00.002+01:00

A good focaccia is more funny than bread and kids like have good funny meal in special occasion or just as a surprise.

Focaccia is a kind of bread that looks like a pizza without tomato or cheese.

Here my own recipe for a good focaccia. I usually make it with gluten free flour, but it’s good also with white flour.

Ingredients:
200g flour (plain flour or gluten free flour)
3/4 cup of water
1 tsp of Salt
2 tbsp of olive oil
7g dry yeast

Mix well the dry ingredients: flour and yeast. Add the salt and mix well again.
Then add the water and start to mix with your hands, now add 2 tablespoons of good olive oil. If the dough is too much humid and it sticks on the hands add a little bit of flour, just on the top of it.
Put the dough in a pan and add on the top some olive oil and salt.

Cook in the oven at 230°C for about 15-20 minutes.

Serve warm, it's delicious!

Nutella Muffins

2018-03-05T17:00:00.002+01:00

Nutella muffin is one of favorite snack of my family members.
I found a recipe about Nutella brownies on Pinterest.com and it was delicious, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.
We all like muffin style cakes and I was looking for a very fast and easy recipe in order to cook some good muffins very quickly. Making some changes at the Nutella brownies recipe a make my own Nutella muffin very fast and super easy recipe.

Ingredients:
280g of Nutella
60g of plain flour or gluten free flour
2 eggs
6 tbsp of milk
Some almonds or sugar (optional)

Turn on the oven at 180°C and put the waxed paper into the muffin pan.

Put Nutella, flour, eggs and milk in a large bowl.

Mix the ingredients very well.

Divide the dough equally in the muffin pan.

Add some almonds or sugar on the top.
Cook in the oven at 180°c for about 20-25 minutes.

Try to wait until they are warm or cold before taste them.
Enjoy your Nutella muffin!

Friendly snake

2018-03-05T16:59:00.001+01:00

Spring could be a very rainy season and children (and parents too) could get bored of it. When children are tired and bored of the same games in rainy days it’s time to “build” a new friend together to play with.
This project is easy and keeps children very busy for some time during the work and then they will play with it for days.
This funny project is a good one to make with little children too. Little children should be helped more but they will have great time.
Just my last suggestion: if you have more than one child, make a snake for each child. I made just one snake with my two children and when we finished it they started to fight for the snake.

What you need

4 or more rolls of toilet paper
Split pins
Scissors
Crayons
White paper
Glue

I had 6 rolls of toilet paper and I gave three to each of my children to decorate with crayons.
My little one needed lots of time to decorate just one roll because she had no idea and she didn’t know what to do, so I helped a little bit decorating the rolls and giving her ideas on decorations.
Anything is a good decoration: colored circles, hearts, stars, lines, etc.
Anything your children like to draw.

When all the rolls are decorated, cut two small triangles on each side like in the pictures.

In order to join the rolls together, make little holes on each side where you are going to put the split pins. Do not allow your children to do this step because it’s very dangerous!
Then join the rolls with split pins like in the pictures below.

Repeat this step for each roll.

On a white paper, draw two funny eyes and a long red tongue with crayons and cut them out.
Remember to help little children during this step and please do not allow your little ones to cut with scissors.

Stick the eyes and the tongue on the very first roll.

And here your Friendly Snake!

Don’t forget to give it a funny name!

The great duckling

2018-03-05T15:23:00.001+01:00

One of my jobs, as a mom, is to help my children to learn what is dangerous and what is not in their life.
Little children have to learn lots of things during the day at home. Just the daily life at home must be very stressful for them. They have to learn how to live in a house, how to behave, what is right or wrong, etc.

Often they haven’t the ability to understand those things immediately, so parents have to talk and try different ways if talking is not enough.
Lots children’s fears start from that: the child is uncomfortable, starts to cry and hasn’t the ability (or words) to describe what’s wrong. On the other hand, the parent could not understand, and if doesn’t find a good way to talk, has to imagine what it could be. But sometimes it’s so difficult to understand that parents must try different ways to help the child.
And that’s exactly what happened to my little child and me!
She has always been a joyful girl with no fears, just new things to be careful of.
I’ve always known she doesn’t like to wash her hair very much but nothing more than that. She’s usually had her bath or shower without any problems since last year.
From that time, anytime I washed her hair she started crying and shouting and she didn’t want to wash her hair. I understood she didn’t like water in her eyes.
Personally, I didn’t experienced that annoyance and my older child never told me she was annoyed by water in her eyes. So that’s my first time I faced this problem.
I asked her what was wrong but probably she hadn’t the right words to explain. She told me the water was burning her eyes, so I thought it was too hot for her.
It wasn’t the temperature!
Could it be the shampoo???
I told her I would be more carefully with the shampoo. She told me it was just the water
So, if the water in the eyes was the problem, I told her to “look at the ceiling” when I washed the hair.
Bad idea!
When she looked at the ceiling she saw the water coming down and she started shouting and trying to come out the bath.
I tried to wash more gently, and using a container for some warm water in order to be more carefully of the direction of the water.
Nothing!
Reading a book I saw a little boy who covered his eyes with a towel.
Ok! Lets try!
Nothing again!
Months went by and I wasn’t able to find a solution. Meanwhile, having bath was getting more and more difficult for both of us.

Then I found a towel with a lovely duckling stitched on it.

It was a gift that was stuck in the pile of towels, I used it sometimes but without a special meaning. It was just one of her towels like any other.

I had an idea!

Dumbo can fly with a feather! The duckling would be our feather!

We started our bath time as always, and as I’d thought she didn’t want to. I put her in the warm water with all her water toys. I left her some time to play with water toys.

Then I told her it was time to wash her hair but I had a surprise: The Great Duckling would send the water away from her eyes.

I folded the towel and I put it on her face and I told her to stay calm and look at the ceiling.

It worked!!!!!

I was more than surprised!!!

I washed her hair while she sat in the water, completely calm and relaxed, with her face under the towel. She asked me about the duckling and I told her it was there, sending the water far from her eyes.

Nothing more than that!!!

Since that day we’ve used The Great Duckling any bath time and she’s never cried or shouted because of water in her eyes.

At the end of the bath, the towel is always soaked and her eyes full of water but she feels good because The Great Duckling was there to send the water away from her eyes, and now she is more calm and cooperative during the bath.

Thanks to The Great Ducking I learnt a lesson about children: I can’t do all the job by myself, I need someone who helps me. It doesn’t matter if it’s a real person or a stitched duckling on a towel. With a little bit of creativity a normal towel is now a good friend who helps us to bring joy and happiness in our home.

One day she will understand that water is not so dangerous and we all will laugh about it!

Sweet hearts

2018-03-05T15:16:00.006+01:00

Some days ago, I had to cook some cookies but I was very late to bake them. I had no time: I spent my afternoon playing with my children and then I realize there wasn’t enough time to bake cookies.

Well, I found out that frozen puff pastry and some jam would be good enough to bake cookies.

Sure, they would have been different from classic cookies but easy and quick to bake.

This is a very very easy recipe to bake quickly lots of delicious cookies. I made it with gluten free puff pastry, but it’s good with any puff pastry.

I suggest quantities and jam flavor, but changing quantities you’ll have less or more cookies and jam flavor has to be the one you like. You can also make different cookies with different jam flavors.

Ingredients:

250g frozen gluten free puff pastry (or any puff pastry if you don’t need gluten free one)
Strawberry jam

Preheat the oven at 180°C.

Defrost the frozen puff pastry. Microwave oven would be perfect.

Then flatten the puff pastry with the rolling pin on a board. Don’t forget to put some gluten free flour on and under the puff pastry (on the board) and some on the rolling pin or your puff pastry will stick on the board and on the rolling pin.

Cut out heart shaped cookies from the puff pastry with shapes that should be normally used to cut out cookies. I used a heart shape but any shape is good for this recipe, it can use any kind of shape: stars, animals, and so on… or cut out different shapes, in order to have different cookies.

Cover a pan with waxed paper and lay all the cookies on it.

Put a teaspoon of strawberry jam on each cookie, spread all the jam on the cookies and leave just a little edge.

When finished bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy your cookies!!

Homemade play dough

2018-03-05T15:15:00.002+01:00

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to homemade play dough to keep me busy while she made cakes. I loved play dough and I loved pretending to cook a cake like my granny.

I have such wonderful memories about those days, thinking about my granny and I making a cake or cooking homemade pasta, make me feel so peaceful.

My daughters also love playing with play dough and any time they ask I make it for them and let them play as much as they like.

Homemade play dough has lots of qualities that anyone should think about before giving any play dough to children.

First of all it isn’t dangerous for children, it’s made by flour, salt, water and a drop of food color (if you would like to add it) so also little children, who have the bad habit to put everything in mouths, can play safely with it.

You can chose the ingredients, so if your child has any kind of problem with ingredients (intolerance, allergy, and so on..) you can use the best for him/her.

Your children can use the same shapes you use to cut cookies because the ingredients are the same of the cookies.

It’s not made by plastic so when it’s dry and children will not able to play with it anymore, you just throw in the compost bin.

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour (or gluten free for intolerant children)
1/2 cup of salt
1/2 cup of water
Food coloring (optional)

In a big bowl mix flour and salt well, then add water gradually.

Mix with your hands and add water until the dough is smooth. Probably you need less water, depending of the flour.

But if you add too much water don’t despair! Just add some more flour until the dough is smooth.

On the other hand if it’s too hard add a little bit of water.

When the dough is smooth and soft enough (remember that children are not strong as parents) add a drop or two of food coloring and mix well with your hands.

For a brighter color add more food coloring.

Remember that different colors of food coloring could be mixed together, so you need to buy just red, blue and yellow to have all the colors your children want.

Ask your children to help you mixing and coloring the dough. They will learn to mix ingredients to have a dough to play with and they will also learn how to mix colors to obtain a new one.

You can also make 3 different dough in different colors: 1 red, 1 blue and 1 yellow and let your children free to mix two or all of them to make different colors.

Show them that adding different colors in different amounts they will obtain new colors.

Make it together and they will learn a lot.

Then let them free to play with their play dough, stay with them helping for hard things such as making a difficult shapes or colors.

Play dough is a such creative game for all ages, I also enjoy myself playing with it.

Children learn a lot: little ones learn to use their hands, that are difficult and powerful tools to learn to use, they learn colors, they use their creativity to make things with their own hands.

Big children have the opportunity to let their mind free from everyday routine and use their creativity to create something new while relaxing a bit.

And parents… spend a great creative time with children making different shapes, colors or creations together.

Nature life

2018-03-05T15:13:00.001+01:00

I’ve had a great love and respect of the Nature since I was a little child. I really care about any animal, plant and all the wonderful things around me.

This is a very important value I would give to my children.

To make this real I spend lots of my time reading books about animals and places where they live with my children. I have started doing this since they were little children. Now my older daughter is grown and she also enjoys TV programs about wild life.

Our garden is my favorite place of the home.

Any season brings something special and I really love spending my time watching the life around me: flowers, plants, birds and little animals that live or are just pass through the garden.

I usually encourage my children in watching life around us, I spend time in the garden and watch birds on the plants or listen to them tweeting. Spring and summer are the best seasons to do this.

But also fall and winter are full of life. During fall and winter little birds usually eat seeds that are difficult to find in cold seasons, they also like to eat small pieces of bread and cookies.

In order to help our little friends, I usually put some small crumbs (the ones drop on the table during the dinner) in the grass in the garden in front of my kitchen windows, in the evening so they have the time to find and eat them in the next early morning.

When winter is really cold, like this one, crumbs are not enough, that’s why my children and I hanged up some food in the garden.

I bought sticks with seeds at the pet store, they are food for canaries, long sticks with seeds on them, then we hanged up on the plants in the garden using some laces.

We needed to find good places where hanged the sticks.

They must be in a high place on a plant, but not too high to not be reached, and not too low, birds will feel in danger and our cats and dog like hunting little birds in the garden.

They must be hidden to make the birds feel save to eat, but not too much or birds won’t see them.

We hanged up lots sticks in different places, some that I thought good and some that my children thought good. We also hanged some stick in places where I’m sure no birds will come to eat, but my child would like to hang there.

I’ve been doing this for years and I know it’s a good help for little birds who live in the garden. It’s important to change the sticks any time they finish their seeds and place them in the same place or just near. Any fall and winter sticks must be changed because seeds last on the sticks are humid and birds won’t eat them.

It takes time before birds find and feel save to eat the seeds, the first time I did it, no birds came and I found most of the sticks unharmed.

The next winter, I hanged up lots of new sticks in the same place and birds started to come and eat.

The next winter, they felt in a safe place and they didn’t care my presence and they ate their seeds also when I was out in the garden.

When the birds find the seeds they remember where they find them and come back everyday, so remember to place them in a quite place where no one can scare them.

In my opinion, it’s important for children spend their time in this way, they have the chance to do something helpful and they can see the effects of it. They also have the chance to watch little animals that live in their garden and take care of them.

Children will learn to love and respect the place where they live and do their best to take care of it and its inhabitants.

Ruffled scarf

2018-03-05T15:11:00.000+01:00

I’ve never knitted before in my life and to be honest I don’t like it at all.

My mother is very good at knitting and she tried for lots of time to teach me but I always found it a little bit boring. I love knitting things and I usually ask her to knit something for my children and me, she likes it very much and she does it with pleasure.

One day I saw those ruffled scarves, they were so

lovely and my older child loved it and would like one for her.

After a quick search on the internet I found that is very easy and knit a scarf is not so difficult, the only thing I had to do is… repeat the same thing for lots of times.

My research revealed me also the kind of yarn I need and I went to buy it. Then I need to understand how to work this yarn that was so different to the ones I knew.

Lucky for me I found a video tutorial on Youtube.com that shows how to knit a ruffle scarf.

The yarn I bought was like a kind of tape and the holes on the up side of the tape were the parts that had to be worked, it was different of the one used in the video but the working process was the same.

I bought 3 balls of yarns of 50g each. For my child’s scarf I used just 2 of them, so it’s 100g, that is the right quantity for a child but it’s small for an adult.

Then I started to knit this tape as a normal yarn with knitting needles.

It took lots of time to finish it because I’m not good at knitting, I just know the basis and actually, because of I don’t like it very much, sometimes I didn’t work on it for days.

Anyway, I finished my first ruffled scarf and I’m sure anyone can do the same because it’s very very easy.

I think it could take very short time and it could be finished in about 2 or 3 hours, but I’m not very fast and good at knitting so I had to check any movements of the needles.

I’m sure an expertise person can knit the scarf very quickly.

By the way, the point is that I made it by myself!!! And my daughter is so happy about it!!!

I hope anyone would try it and will tell me about their scarf.

Gnocchi recipe

2018-03-05T15:08:00.005+01:00

Gnocchi are kind of cubes made by mashed potatoes and flour. This is another good recipe to make with your children.
I usually make it with my older daughter who really loves making the dough and cutting the cubes.
It’s really easy and it takes about an hour to make and cook.

This is my personal version of this recipe, there are lots of different kinds of it, but this one is the one I usually cook and, of course, it’s can be made by plain or gluten free flour.

Ingredients:
5 Potatoes (medium size)
300g gluten free or plain flour
a pinch of salt

Serves: 4

Peel and boil the potatoes until they are soft.

Mash up all the potatoes, then add the flour and salt. Mix all them with your hands until you have a dough. The dough must be like a play dough and not be sticky. If it’s too sticky add some flour.

Take some dough and make one or more stripes working it on a pastry board cover in flour.

Now cut some cubes of about 1 cm with a knife. For children it’s enough a knife that doesn’t cut too much because the dough is soft.

Put all the cubes on a board and put some flour on them in order to take them divided from each other.

Now it’s the time to cook your gnocchi.

Put all the gnocchi in pot with boiling salted water. Wait until they bob up, they’ll not bob up all together but one by one so you have to take them out of the water with a spoon and put them in a colander.

When all the gnocchi are cooked put them in bowl and mix it with the sauce.

You can use lots of kind of sauces: from tomato sauces to butter sauce.

Just add the one you like and serve hot.

This recipe is really loved by my children: it’s easy and funny to make, it’s good to eat and little children easily learn to eat by themselves because the soft cubes are easy to pick up also with a small fork.

My older daughter told me she is proud when we make this recipe, because she can eat something she cook by herself.

I’m sure you’ll have some good time cooking this easy recipe with your children. Remember it could be take some more time because children, especially little ones, are not very talented cutting with a knife.

This could be a good activity to do on Sunday rainy afternoons and cook it for dinner.

Creative friday

2018-03-05T15:06:00.000+01:00

Children love to express their selves and feelings in lots of ways. Drawing, dancing, singing, playing an instrument are well known ways to relax mind and body.

As a mom I encourage my children to be as much creative as they can.

I love drawing and painting very much, so I’m feeling more comfortable helping them in those ways. I like very much listening to music and music is part of our daily life. My children love singing their favorite songs and usually I do it with them, I don’t think I must be a singer to sing children songs. Unfortunately, I’m not good at playing instruments, but their father helps them with music, he is more talented than me.

Friday is the last day of the week, children are usually really tired and stressed out, another long school week is at the end and it’s hard try to do the weekend homeworks. It’s better help children to free their minds and let them free to express themselves in their way.

Our Creative Friday starts with a funny snack, it isn’t important what we eat: fruits, cookies, a fruit juice, or so on. The important thing is that it must be special, just the Creative Friday must have this kind of snack. For example: if we would like to have fruit, we make a smoothie, it’s easy with a mixer: we choose some fruits and mix them with a little bit of milk. Or we have fruit juices in special glasses.

Just choose the funniest way you like and ask children to help to make and to clean, of course.

After the snack, it's creative time.

I stick a very big white paper with tape at the table (it’s also good to stick some smaller white papers together), then I give my children different tools and they choose what to use to create: pencils, rubbers, colored pencils, felt pens, finger colors, brushes, crayons, colored papers, scissors (just to my older daughter), glue, play dough, and so on.

I just put everything on the table, or I give them what they ask.

Then I just let them free to do what they want.

It’s a good way to free my mind too, so I stay at the table with them and I help my little one creating with play dough (it is her favorite), or drawing something.

My older daughter is very creative by herself and she always would like to do surprises for everyone: a drawing, or something with colored papers.

The big white paper on the table is a cover for the table and a white canvas to paint. Usually they draw and paint it too!

Sometimes we paint together a big paint.

Anyone cooperates to the painting adding different things: while I paint some flowers and my child draws the sun or the grass, or something she likes. Anyone draws things while the other one draws something else. At the end we enjoy our big paint.

Creative Friday is our time together, we spend time together doing something we like to do. We spend as much time as we like drawing and painting, or doing anything we like.

At the end of the creative time (for us arrives when I have to cook and serve the dinner on that table) anyone is more relaxed, feel better, free from the duties of the daily life.

I suggest anyone to create a special day in the week to do something creative.

Of course, anyone choose the favorite creative way, but the important things are the feel to be free and the presence of a parent.

Children draw, paint, sing, play an instruments anytime by themselves.

My children fill our home with their drawings and paintings but the ones during Creative Friday are the best ones, the ones done with heart.

The glowing bedroom

2018-03-05T15:04:00.000+01:00

My children have slept in dark bedroom for years since one day they decided to have some light in the bedroom when sleeping.
I knew children change their habits during their life, they usually do a thing or like something and then they change their mind.
Daily life is different for anyone, any child or adult feels the daily life and events in different way.
Anything it feels in different way from different people and often it is hard to say or to know what it was: school life, something at TV, a scared picture in a book, that’s for children, and little children have more problem to know what scare them. In my opinion parents must be very careful and understand what scares their children and help them to face their scary situations.
Adults have the same difficulties in other way and more often they don’t want to tell anyone: a bad day at work, a bad news, an unpleasant time spent with someone.
I’m the one who doesn’t sleep well when I have any unpleasant situations so I try to understand when my children could have any kind of scaring situation.

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to find the cause of scaring situations and help children to deal with them. Daily school life is one of them: I’m not physically with my child when something upsets her, but I can help her at home, talking about it.
That’s why dark bedroom is not a good room to sleep anymore. School life is very challenging for my older one and she finds it hard. Bed time is really hard time for her because she has the time to think about the day and sometimes it’s difficult deal with a bad day.
One day, after some terrible days spent trying to find what was upsetting her, she told me she couldn’t sleep in a dark room, she felt scared and alone. I think about different solutions: a light on during night would make too much light and her little sister couldn’t sleep (she is not good at sleep without light, what about a light on in the bedroom: night party!), a small light… I’m scared about them, I think they are too dangerous during sleeping, a light in another room would keep everyone awake all night.
What about Glowing Stars! She suggest me the best way ever.
We had tons of glowing stars in the solar system box. I gave some to her and some to her little sister, then they stuck lots of glowing stars on the wall next their beds.
Now they sleep all night and they like going to bed at night.
To make the stars glowing more, we light the stars about half an hour before going to bed, during my children wear their pajamas, brush their teeth, read the good night story and so on.
Then we switch off the light and the room looks like a wonderful night sky!

Homemade soap

2018-03-05T15:01:00.005+01:00

My older daughter had a kind of allergic reaction to clothes softener when she was a little child.
I read a lot about problems that a very sensitive skins of children have with soaps or softeners.
In order to try a solution to that, I spent lots of time trying different soaps.
Finally, the best kind of soap was Marseille soap. And I wash any clothes with it.
But it’s NOT good for the WOOL ones.

Usually, I buy a pack of flakes Marseille soap from organic shop.
Sometimes, I don’t find flakes of soap and it is also a good solution buy a bar of Marseille soap that I’ll grate with cheese grater.
Unfortunately, it’s not ready to use because the cold or warm water can’t melt the soap. That’s why it’s a good way melt and prepare in advance some glasses of melted soap.

How to prepare a glass of soap.

Boil some water, put 4 tablespoons of soap flakes in a glass and fill the glass with very hot water.
Mix a little with a teaspoon in order to melt the soap.
The soap is ready when any flake is melt in the water and it could be used to wash the clothes or added in the washing machine.
About half a glass of soap is enough to wash about 5 kg of clothes.

I usually prepare 4 or more glasses of soap.
In less than an hour the soap in the glasses get cold and solid.
When I need it I put the amount of soap in an empty glass, I mix it to some water with a teaspoon and as soon as it gets soft it’s ready to use.
Using this soap I also found out that softener is useless because clothes are very soft and have good smell after washing.

And last but not least it’s 100% biodegradable!!!
That is just enough for me as the best choice!!!

Let it snow!!!

2018-03-05T14:53:00.002+01:00

Winter wonderland is not our usually landscape here. Winters are usually cold, humid and grey for us and that is boring and a little bit depressing. Playing outside for children isn’t easy, it’s not funny going to the park and play in the mud all the time.

Each of my family member loves the snow and snowy days but it’s very unusual to open the window in the morning and see white snow everywhere. That’s why snow is always welcome and when we see just a snowflake we spend the day looking for others and hoping for some snowy days.

That’s what happened some days ago!

We opened our windows in the morning and it was white everywhere. There were about 15 cm of snow in the garden, streets are full of snow and cars are parked! Soft silence everywhere. Just the kind of silence you can feel in the snow.
As any other day, we walked at school, hoping to see lots of those big snowflakes also in the afternoon.
We took our boots and ski jackets. We have them, isn’t it the right day to use them?
We walked in the path left from a car.
We felt like in winter postcard.

People outside their houses was talking about how unpleasant was the snow, most of them were moving the snow away from their doorway but they weren’t so annoyed because they waved and smiled at children that were going to school. They never do that other days.
Lucky for us, it didn’t stop to snow and in the afternoon after school I got dress my children with their ski suits and we went out playing in the snow, throwing snow balls, making a snowman and so on.
Our garden was so lovely with all that snow.

Unfortunately, just my two daughters were outside in the snow playing and having fun. No more children were playing, no one were outside just to have fun.

The next morning it was still snowing and there were more snow than the day before.
Going to school was an adventure and a chance to watch the Nature and every wonderful thing like tracks in the snow left by dogs and cats, some are smaller probably left by birds. There were ice coming down trees and lamps in street.

I think playing outside with children and spend some time with them, just to have fun, it’s a good way to bind with them. In snowy days the only things they need are some warm cloths, it’s not so dangerous for children spend time in the snow and get wet.
The Nature gives us the opportunity to see and learn wonderful things and it'd be a pity to not get the chance to stay outside.
Later, they change their cloths and have some hot chocolate and they will feel more better than another boring afternoon just watching TV.
And trust me: they will remember that day as the best, funny, adventurous day spent with their parents!

Felt Christmas tree

2018-03-05T13:57:00.005+01:00

I'm always looking for a good way to keep my toddler busy and one day I saw a picture of a felt project like this on Pinterest.com .
Unfortunately, I didn't pin it, so I don't remember who published that project.
That's way I did my own version of a felt Christmas tree.
First of all, I found lots of different felt in bright colors: green for the tree, yellow for stars and decorations, blue for decorations and red for hearts and decorations.

I cut out a big tree shape from the green one. The best way is to fold the felt and cut the tree in order to have the same shape on the two sides.
Unfolding the tree it will look like perfect!

Then I cut out lots of different shapes in different sizes from other colors: circles, hearts and stars. And a very big star for the top of the tree.

I stuck some Velcro hooks on the back of the shapes with fabric glue, also hot glue is good for this.

And... That's all!
All the pieces are done! They could be stuck and moved everywhere on the Christmas Tree and also combined together, making different shapes: hearts on circles, big and small shapes together, just let your kids use their great imagination!
Anyway, anyone could cut out lots of different shapes, in different sizes, that could be a funny way for toddlers to learn names of shapes and colors and differences from any sizes of different shapes.

When this tree was ready, I spent all my time explaining my little one that she could add decorations to her tree and move where she likes.
It worked for about ten minutes then she focused on pieces of felt on the floor!
Well all that pieces kept her busy …. so... It was fine for me too!

Playing with nuts

2018-03-05T13:35:00.004+01:00

My little one is a very curious toddler. She likes finding interesting things in the house, and she also likes shapes and colors.

Yesterday she found a very interesting thing: a basket of nuts!

Immediately she asked me to give her the basket, she looked at it for a while and then she started to study better any nut she found inside.

Nuts are very intersesting: they have different colors and shapes. And best of all a little toddler cannot break a nut by herself/himself and a busy mom, at least, has to take some nuts from the floor and not a milion of little pieces of it. Nuts are also big enough to not being swallowed!

Anyway, she started sorting nuts by color, then by shapes, and finally she made pictures.

Sure, you should have a very good immagination to see a picture in it!
But the most important thing was keeping her busy, safe and focused on something creative.

This creative game took her about an hour and gave me the time to tidy up the kitchen and the time to cook a good lunch for us and her sister who was coming home from school.

In my opinion, creative games aren't always easy to find, they have to be interesting for the child and often, something, an adult find interesting, is not for a toddler, but once a good creative idea works for a child is good to keep it in mind, it's always a better option than TV or other games that need an adult to supervise the child.