customized board books for your baby

I've been eying these customized photo books from Pinhole Press for awhile.  Plug in photos of family and friends, press "order," and in no time flat you'll have a way to enjoy the faces of loved ones with your baby.   Especially since we live in Sicily and Lena's entire extended family lives in Virginia, this seemed like a wonderful way to help her remember their names and faces.

However, as with most things in life that cost money, I just looked.  I did not do.

And then what should my mother-in-law get Lena for Christmas but a customized photo book!  It came from a company called Pint Size Productions.  After browsing around, I really like Pint Size because it's much more customizable and they also offer many more book options.  I'll be going to them with any future board book orders, I think.

Lena's Marmee (which sounds like "Mommy" when she says it these days) put together a beautiful book with all Lena's aunts and uncles from Elliott's side of the family.  She loves it!  Below is a little video I took of Elliott and Lena reading it together on the night she received the book.  Makes me want to make one for my side of the family!

Have you ever made a customized photo book?  Or a board book?  What's your favorite online resource/company to use?

***

P.S.  This is not a sponsored post.  

The day when I am actually cool enough to have a sponsor, I might dance a little jig and post a video of that!

searching for bugs

Elliott has a four-day weekend starting today (hip hip hooray!), and so we decided to kick it off with a hike down into the valley below our house.  Lena is lately obsessed with bugs, which you might remember from a recent post about our walk to the orange groves.  Here's a little video that I took of her searching for bugs while Elliott and I relax on the picnic blanket with our books. 

And yes, it's chilly here!  Clear and cold, a perfect day for blogging by the fire with some hot chocolate after a beautiful hike.  Of course I also have a huge pre-baby to-do list, so it won't be all relaxing around here this weekend!

What are your plans for the weekend? 

these final days

I had my 38-week appointment today for our little babe.  Hard to believe he could arrive any day!  The news from my doctor is that he doesn't look that ready to come out yet (can't blame him) and so we've probably got another two weeks to wait here... at least.  Maybe three weeks.  Maybe four.

Or maybe he'll come tomorrow.

In the meantime, life as it is has taken on a whole new meaning for me.  These days are limited.  Change is on the horizon. 

What will he be like?  Quiet and chill?  Anxious and colicky?  A good eater?  A good sleeper?  Mothers tell you they are so excited for their new babies--and they are!--but they are also full of apprehension about what this unknown creature will be like.  In some ways a mother already knows her unborn child better than anyone, for he came into existence and has grown inside of her for nine months.  Yet in most ways everything about him is a complete mystery.

My response to the unknown has been to worry, which is foolish, I know.  Worrying will do me no good!  But my other response has been to slooooow down and take a deep breath and savor.  Life right now is not perfect by any means, but it is good and it is full of beauty.  I want to treasure these days up in my heart, locking them away to ponder over and remember forever.

Most of all I want to remember my quiet days at home with Lena.  Our days are fairly routine here: awake by 7-ish, breakfast at 8-ish, goodbye to Daddy at 9-ish, nap at 10, lunch at 12, another nap at 2 or 3, and dinner prep starts at 5.  In between we go on walks around the neighborhood or I push her stroller into town for groceries.  We bake cookies for Daddy.  We sit on the rug and play with her puzzles, her baby doll, her blocks, her paper and crayons.  We read books before her morning nap, before her afternoon nap, and sometimes in between, too.  She occasionally helps me with cleaning, like turning the vacuum switch on for me or dusting side-by-side.  We practice words.  We dance.  We change diapers, we change clothes, we wash diapers, we wash dishes, all day long.

In this world, my daughter is my constant companion, my chatty little shadow, my ever-present friend.  When she is napping and I am putting together a blog post and I see a picture of her, I actually miss her.  And she's only been asleep for 30 minutes!  And I need the break!  But I look at her--her huge blue eyes, her curling brown hair, her petite little hands, her beautiful little body--and cannot believe she is our daughter, and how pretty and sweet she is, and that she exists in this world and loves us more than anyone and calls me, "Mama."

As some of you know or remember, I've felt a great deal of emotional conflict about being a stay-at-home mom.  As a result, I am spending a lot of my spare time trying to develop talents so that I can work from home.  Yet in this past year I have also fallen in love with this new job of staying at home with my child.  I wake up each morning and look forward to the day.  (And that is saying something when you consider other things that have happened in our lives this past year.)

With a new baby due any day, I feel a great deal of apprehension about the changes ahead.  Apprehension... excitement... thankfulness... and just a bit of fear.  And that is why I savor my life as a mother just as it is right now, savor our quiet and uneventful days together, savor today.

Dutch babies + pigtail buns

Saturday morning usually means piping hot whole wheat pancakes (< they're so good that I'm proud of them even though they're not from scratch!).  Every now and then, though, it's fun to try something new.  I had seen a recipe for Dutch babies on one of my favorite blogs and decided to give it a try.   I went to work with a very cheerful assistant.

Moments later we sat down to Dutch babies dusted with powdered sugar and sprinkled with lemon.  Although I did like them, I'm not sure I'd repeat the topping combination, because the flavor of egg was too strong for me.  I might prefer them with pure maple syrup, like we eat on our pancakes, or... Nutella and bananas?

Because everything is better with Nutella.  Can I get an amen?

Dutch Babies 

serves two
adapted from Elephantine

Ingredients

• 2 room-temperature eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• a pinch of salt
• 2 Tbsp butter
• Toppings
• lemon slices
• powdered sugar for dusting
• jam
• maple syrup
•  Nutella!

Directions

1. Place an oven-proof skillet (mine is 10") into your oven and heat to 425˚F. 
2. In a medium bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until light and frothy. Add milk and stir. Gradually whisk in flour, nutmeg and salt. 
3. Remove skillet from oven. Melt butter in the hot skillet, rotating to coat. Pour the batter into the skillet and return skillet to oven. 
4. Bake until puffed and lightly browned, about 12 minutes. 
5. Remove promptly, slice into quarters and squeeze lemon slices over the pieces, then sprinkle with powdered sugar.

life lately

I haven't shared bits and pieces of our life for awhile as captured on Instagram. It's always so much fun to go back through the images and remember all those random memories I captured spur-of-the-moment!  Here some snapshots of the ordinary and the lovely in our home:

Enjoying her beautiful alphabet magnets from her grandparents.

I love the ferns and cyclamen in the window boxes in this beautiful house

& post-bath tickles

Everyone in this house loves our new blocks (thank you, Anthony and Laura!)

& goofy girl

Modeling a sweater knit by her Aunt Eden and a bonnet knit by me

& lovely afternoon light over our town

Hours of fun with this reusable sticker pad

& admiring our finished Advent calendar: a tree full of birds

at a restaurant in town, the chef working the stone pizza oven always lets kids make their own pizza

& tired wreath on a worn door in our town

our neighborhood (Vecchia Matrice) wishes you happy holidays

& putting baby Jesus in his manger from our nativity set

I'm trying to use this purse as much as possible before I need to go back to a diaper bag in a few weeks...

& got a little growing to do into the apron her Aunt Jess gave her

my big girl on a playground on base one morning after we took Daddy to work

stories and baby bumps in bed before naptime

& not sure what she thinks of Siena helping her color

first pair of big girl undies! 

& her new favorite breakfast: Greek yogurt and Charlottesville Farmer's Market granola from Aunt Jess

sleepy kitty

& isn't she pretty when she smiles!

practicing what I preach :: toy library

Old-time readers of my blog will know that I love the book Simplicity Parenting; I wrote a book review about it for the blog almost a year ago.  In one section of the book the author suggests starting a toy library.  Try putting out only a few toys at at time for your child to play with and then switching up the available toys every few weeks or so.

Well, I've been trying to incorporate this idea into my parenting for awhile now, and anyone will tell you that I've been less than faithful.  However, on Christmas Eve night, as I crawled around the floor on my hands and knees tidying up Lena's toys (as I do every evening... and after every nap... and after we leave one room for another...), my husband shook his head and said, "What about that toy library, honey?"

I looked at the present Lena had just opened and the pile of presents to be opened tomorrow over the next several days and agreed with him.  I dumped out her toy basket and removed everything except a relatively new alphabet puzzle and the gift she had just opened.  Everything else went into her toy library bin.  Many of the smaller items had to be organized into Ziploc bags.

(Do you see that white garbage bag under all these toys?  That is full of infant toys, which I'll be breaking out at the end of January for our new baby!  And so the toy multiplication continues....)

The blue bin went back up on her closet, to be taken down again in a couple weeks, when Christmas toys will be put away and old favorites will be pulled out again.

By the time I was finished (not even 15 minutes later), all that remained in her toy basket was the puzzle, a few balls, and her new baby doll and accessories.  Oh, and the box the baby came in, which I think makes a nice little cradle.  Simplicity parenting, right?!

Have you ever done something like this for your kids?  Or would you like to when you have some? :-)

Christmas morning!

Puuuuuullll off that wrapping paper!

Oh Christmas morning in Sicily, I hope you are the start of our family Christmas tradition!  It was a quiet, peaceful morning for the three of us as we opened a few gifts at a time (still haven't opened all of them!) and ate a big Christmas breakfast together.  Although we kept our gift-giving very simple for each other, our family showered us with many thoughtful presents from afar, and their evident love for us made them seem not so far away.  While we loved our Christmas as a little family here in Sicily, we would have given it up in a heartbeat to share our Christmas morning with them!

Later that day we changed out of our pajamas for a Christmas party with friends at Emily and Patrick's... and then of course as soon as we got home the pajamas went right back on and Elliott started a fire in the hearth.  We finished the evening with Skype chats with our family.  

One thing I couldn't forget all day: last year my family was here for Christmas.  I tried to hold Christmas Past (which included my sister Julia) hand-in-hand with Christmas Present, carrying with me the blessings as well as the aches.  There is so much to be thankful for this year, truly, and even more to look forward to both in this coming year and into the future.

Did you come up with any new rituals or celebrations this year that you hope become traditions?  I'm not sure what I think of spreading out the gift opening over four days...!  Have you ever done that?

IKEA thru Instagram

Around here it seems like people make their IKEA shopping lists over the course of a month or two before braving the store to stock up. My friend Becca and I were in that boat, needing storage bins, holiday wrapping paper, potted ivy plants, plastic kids' dishes, etc.  Earlier this week we joined forces and took off for the endless, winding halls of IKEA, kids in tow.

You know you love IKEA when your kids start playing with amazing toys 

as soon as they walk through the door.

On the right: Lucas prepares a meal for Lena as she patiently waits.

(Of course in reality this scene lasted for about 0.4 seconds, or however long it takes my phone to snap a picture.)

Ah, the toy section, where both parents and kids can spend ever so long.

The ice cream machine in the cafeteria is a huge highlight of the trip.

Anticipation... and joy!

(And the perfect t-shirt.)

Beautiful Christmas decorations, IKEA.  You win.

There's a happy face!  

(I actually don't think she's ever had her own ice cone before... and she would not share with her mama.)

And there's a tired one.  

Time to roll out.

N.B. My husband thought I should inform you that this is not a sponsored post by IKEA or Instagram.
#inmydreams 

Wednesday morning at the market

 

Many times I worry that I am not living in Italy enough.  Do I appreciate the food, the language, the culture of this beautiful land?  Am I learning the food, the language, the culture?  What ways can I more fully embrace living in Italy?

Once a week I have a ritual that is entirely Italian: Lena and I walk to the Wednesday outdoor market in our town.  I have come to rely on the stalls full of vegetables and fruits to stock my pantry and refrigerator, as I cannot find better prices or fresher produce anywhere during the week. 

I love these trips: pushing Lena's stroller through the streets of our town and waving at our acquaintances (the old man in the general store, the boy who works in the bottled water store), the arrival in the hustle and bustle of the market, the ritual of tearing off a number printed on thin colored paper from the stack dangling in front of my favorite vendors' stall, the meanderings from stall to stall until my number is finally called, the routine of ordering in Italian as best I can and being helped along by the vendors (father, mother, and son, I think) who by now smile in recognition at me, love Lena, and know when my baby is due.

Today Lena and I arrived at the market during the morning rush, so while we waited for our turn to get fruits and vegetables, we wandered around the market and took some pictures.

At last it was our turn to buy fruits and vegetables! Afterwards we checked to see how our car wash was coming along.  We borrowed our friends' van this week while they were out of town and our persnickety old Honda was in the shop.  I decided to get their van cleaned while we were at the market.  The men washed it inside and out by hand... and all for the equivalent of $20.  I'm coming back with our car next week!