Pasquetta

Happy Easter

Fairy

There is a song about a fairy sitting in a tree, wanted to have the kids make a tree and the fairy, but its not all going to fit into the schedule-so we're just going to do the fairy. i think it can probably be done with a paper plate or a paper doily, but we're doing ours with construction paper.
How to Make a Fairy:
Supplies
construction paper in 3 colors (dress/star/wings, face/hands and hair)
something to color with
glue
toothpick
string
fairy template

Trace dress, star and wings onto construction paper (ours is pink), do the same with the hair (brown) and face (ours is white and we colored it the skin color on). Cut everything out. Draw on face. Glue hands to arms. Poke a hole in the center of the wings (I used one of those fat embroidery needles that came in a pack and really don't know what it's original use is for).  Thread about 1 foot/30 cms of string and tie a knot/glue/tape down one end of the string.  Glue the knotted side of the wings to the center of the arms. Fold the body in half (center of the diameter line) glue together (forms a cone). Glue the arms in place. Glue the face on top of the hair and glue to the tip of the body. Glue the star to the toothpick (i cut the point end off the bottom) and glue magic wand onto hand. poof-your fairy is ready to fly.

*side note- this took a loooong time to put together, even though i had already cut out the circles, the hands, face, and hair-so basically the kids just had to glue. gotta figure out how to shorten this activity.

Walkies

She's gettin better and better at this standing up thing.

Stefanini

 Pry and Paolo called us up for an impromptu get together.  The kids had fun running around and going nuts. 

Viv showed off her fairy wings and demonstrated her walking skills.

Still hot, but so excited we get to make use of our little band-aid sized strip of garden.  Sophia blew bubbles while Viv did jazz hands.

Heat Wave

It is damn hot outside and the kids are bored! Good thing we have 2 laundry tubs now. Those, plus a couple of bath toys, empty yogurt cups and water = a splash a rama! (wow lookin at these pics, i can see we really need to paint the walls-they are nasty green!)

Play Date

Sophia had asked if her friends could come over on friday, but we sort of forgot to ask parents ahead of time and then just sort of prayed that she forgot. Of course she didn't.  This morning she asked if they could come over today.  It started off cloudy and looking dreary and I was thinking about how it would be trapped inside the house with 4 screaming kids. luckily by 10, the clouds gave way to sun and it was a beautiful and warm day.  I can't believe last night saw such crazy weather! So we opened up the awning to dry out, threw the cushions out into the sun and made a few phone calls. A few minutes before Valentina and Giorgia were to come over, Sara rang the bell. Ah well the more the merrier and at least i could open the windows to let some of the sound vibrations out!

We made helicopters. I love making paper helipcopters, b/c they are easy, fun and kids love to see them twirl. I think I've been watching too much of The Big Bang Theory (the sitcom) b/c I had this urge to experiment how I could make them slow down, but still twirl. I am sure it is some ratio of weight to wing span, but then I was like-eh, too much work.  Even I was smart, I could never be a genius, I'm just too darn lazy. Plus after about 10 seconds the kids would have lost interest and my purpose for distracting them from bickering with each other would have all been for nothing. 

The girls having snack.  They were all being gross and doing seefood surprise, but apparently Sara turned around and pretended to be sweet for the snapshot :o) don't let her fool you!

The girls came in to wash their hands, guess who wanted to be in on the fun too? The little stinker climbed up on the step stool and stood their and whined until someone finally helped her wash her hands. And don't think I didn't try doing something else and praying she'd get the hint and stop.  Apparently not.  And of course 5 seconds later she was touching something gross she found and trying to eat it.  Really? That just defeats the purpose of having cleaned you hands!!!!!

Hailing Golf Balls

Unfortunately it was really hard to get a picture of, but...yesterday when we were coming back from Sophia's painting class it got dark really quickly, thunder and lightening began and gigantic hail started falling from the sky-of course we had left the awning open, an umbrella  up and the had just put the cushions out on the patio furniture-we caused this storm didn't we??

Father's Day

 Here in Italy, we don't celebrate Father's Day the same time as in the States, in fact it's today. I can never get used to when it is.  In the States it's like the 2nd Sunday in July (give or take a week, okay okay I'm not too good with dates, don't judge me-at least I know what month it is), here it's March 19th and I am gonna have to stick it on the Google calendar if I am ever going to be ready for when it comes.  So once again Max gets bubkis from me.  However, from his eldest daughter, he got woken up early (ha on the one day he could sleep in, ironic isn't it :o) a button and a memorized poem about the button (something about how it was a symbol of how she always wanted to stay attached to him, which really doesn't translate into english-it seems so codependent/Electra said like that). Anyhoo this is our best lovely Father's Day foto

and the scary thing is, this is the best one.

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow

My mom brought this book for Sophia to get her to learn to start reading, but it's also a great book for learning clothes. So here is my version of the clothing, minus the long  underwear b/c aside from having to make them go under the pants, they aren't that important to learn at this stage of ESL.

  here are the pencil versions if you want to color them in yourself

 otherwise here are the colored versions. not crazy about the boy's bvds, they look like a weird baseball.  The clothes don't have tab things to hold them in place, b/c i am planning on gluing magnets to make it a fishing g

Canivale in Piazza Duomo

Despite Carnivale coming late this year - it also crept us on us too.  Since we missed the parade in Brugherio, we decided to go check out Milan's festivities instead. This is my annual picture of Sophia blowing on the steamers - I'm going to have a large collection of these in a few years.

Two robots on a rampage. Vivienne does not look too happy - we look like the robotic version of George and Kuato from Total Recall.  But since the metro stops either have no elevators or they are very far away and I knew Piazza Duomo would be filled with people, I didn't want to push the stroller around.

Max and Sophia fight it out.

The from Castello Sforzesco to Piazza Loreto , there are kids in costume, vendors trying to sell silly string, confetti, streamers and balloons. The columns of balloons rising out of the chaos of people and bits of paper is an incredible sight in itself.

This is by the old market area.  There are these vents that continuosly blow air upwards (i think they are from the metro, but im not sure).  It's really hard to see, but people throw confetti and it all goes up instead of down.  It's pretty cool.

Robots on a Rampage

Finally finished the robot costumes...too bad the Carnivale parade was last week.  We didn't find out until it was over :o( Tomorrow we are going to try to catch the festivities in Milan center, but the forecast does not look good, so after all that work, this may be the only time they stick the costumes on :o(

Carnivale Craft

Sophia's Arelecchino.  This is a rework of the other post.  I looked online for a Carnivale craft or Mardi Gras craft, but there were only masks.  Everyone does masks and I wanted something a little bit different.  This is the same as a couple of days ago, only this time the Arlecchino is a little more recognizable.

Supplies: 

Empty cereal box (or some sort of cardboard of the same thickness)

string (we used the type to truss a turkey or a roast)

2 beads (this is to keep the string from falling out, you can also use tape, make play dough beads or tie a really big knot)

A washer or coins

drinking straws

glue

tape

scissors 

arlecchino template

I love Italian Bureaucracy

I went to pick up Sophia at school, by the time we got back there was a letter in the mailbox.  It's one of those ones that have little boxes to check off that say something like you weren't home when the delivery guy passed, so you need to go and pick up the letter at the post office (and usually it's something to pay).  Today was one of Max's rare days off, he was home and nobody even bothered to ring the doorbell -not only was the we weren't home box checked, but the check mark had been computer printed, so they were planning on making us make a trip to the post office anyway...curses!  (The letter was for a ticket from passing through a no car zone, so yes we have to pay something!)

Pidochi

The sign has been up forever, so i guess it was inevitable...pidochi, lice or uku ukus as my mom calls them...see this is such a wordly blog-now you know how to say those nasty little creatures in three languages.  My mom left last night, this morning Giorgia's dad called to say she and Valentina have them, so we had better check too.  Sure enough, just was Max was heading out the door for work, he saw the little creatures crawling around.  On top of everything, it was raining-so he had to take the car and it's Sunday-most of the pharmacies are closed (they take turns being opened and so you know it was not the turn of the one closest to us).  Anyhoo-thank god for the internet!!!!  Looked up online a home remedy cure - soak the hair in olive oil (we got plent of that) and then stick a shower cap on the head to suffocate and maintain the lice. As you can see, we don't have shower caps - that's a plastic bag cut into a square and tied like a handkerchief.  Max stopped by the pharmacy on the way home and we spent the rest of the night passing the little comb through her hair.  Yeah - fun for  all!  Luckily Sophia loves TV and so she sat still for long periods of time!

In other news...this little monkey has a shoe obsession! She loves going into the closet and pulling out the shoes and trying them on.  Her favorites were Grandma's, but now that she is gone she wears Sophias.

She scoots around and around until she eventually gets them on her feet...and she always does!

Arlecchino

He looks a bit like a colorful Hamburglar.

Sophia went with the more traditional Mardi Gras costume.

 

 This weeks Arts & Crafts was Arlecchino.  You pull on the strings and he climbs up, let go and he slides down.  The idea came from sciencetoymaker and it's very simple to do.

The Bathroom

Back over the winter holiday, we finally had our bathroom finished.  I was such a long a drawn out process because if the millions of problems that arose, that I forgot to blog about it when it was finally done.  This is how the bathroom looked when we came to look at the house.  You can see the grime on the walls, but you can't see the lime/hair/soap scum layers I had to scrape off the floor of the shower, the disgusting lime/algae/pee and god knows what else in the toilet or the dirt lime/dirt/and grey disgusting stuff in the sink.  The toilet didn't even work, it hadn't been cleaned in so long.  There was lots of toilet paper, tissues, food wrappers and god knows what else stuffed behind the radiator.  The tiles on the floor were slippery and the step was crooked and the tiles on the edge not rounded off, so we had all hurt our feet at one time or another during the short time it was still there.  I didn't even want to use the bathroom, but while my parents were here last year, we needed some place to get cleaned.  And besides it smelled, I couldn't stand passing it, so I did end up cleaning it.

Max stayed home last summer to monitor the reconstruction going on, but the bathroom was never finished (it took months for the parts to come in (an especially long time for the counter top, which was cut incorrectly and had to be sent back-we ended up going to the store to pick one up ourselves and of course that took another few months). We lived without the sink in the bathroom for a long time (usually it was cleaner than this, but they had already started preparing the bathroom when I realized I had not taken a picture of the state of bathroom limbo that we lived in for 4 months) and the shower plate was down, but we had no glass to keep the water in, we had to keep a mop in the bathroom, even when guests were over.

Eventually the glass did come in and taking a shower is now heaven!  Our last shower was a small tiny thing, that I had a hard time getting in and out of even when I was not pregnant.  When I was pregnant, if I dropped something, I either had to call someone to pick it up for me or just leave it on the floor.  Needles to say,  I went with one half shaved armpit or used shampoo instead of soap many a time!  The old shower was also put in a little alcove, away from the main light source, so I always had patches of hair on my legs, since I couldnt see what I was doing. TMI right?

Eventually the sink was installed and now we are in bathroom heaven!  I still want to add a piece of art to the walls and some place to hang our shower towels, but we are slowly but surely getting there.