Wordless Wednesday - The beach on a beautiful day in February

Here's a photo for Wordless Wednesday. The sea was so beautiful and glittery today. Today there was no school for Carlotta and Sofia. I had promised to take Carlotta roller skating by the beach. There's a long walk where you can walk, jog, go by bicycle or roller skates. We had breakfast at a beach bar and took a walk on the beach. Then we went skating. Carlotta insisted that I put my roller blades on, as well. As a child I used to skate on ice, but not on roller skates and I find it much more difficult. Today I tried it again and it's very uncomfortable indeed. After a few minutes the lower part of my legs was hurting so much that I said we had to turn back. I guess your muscles get used to it, though, so I promised we would go again, but I would put all kind of protections, so I wouldn't be so afraid of falling and could perhaps skate a little bit more relaxed. Carlotta said I was very slow. It looks so easy when Carlotta and Sofia do it, but it's not easy at all!

Week 8 - Lots of work and a rainy week-end, but quite good anyway

This week no really good photos. I didn't take almost any photos with my big camera, only with the small pocket camera that I always have in my bag and something with the cell phone. This week was made of lots of work and tired eyes, talking to the teachers at Sofia's and Carlotta's school and on the week-end rain, which meant no riding for us. Daniele had his football game anyway. On Friday evening me and Sofia went to the stable restaurant where one of her riding friends celebrated her birthday. We had a nice evening, the girls jumping outside (when they don't jump with the horses, they do it without them) and us adults eating and chatting. On Sunday morning we went out to buy Daniele a winter jacket that we had seen a few weeks ago near our house and we were lucky, because we still found one in his size at the winter sales. In the afternoon we went to to Port of Ostia to have a walk with our friends. It's a nice place to have a walk in summer with some shops, bars and restaurants. Now it was cold and windy, but most shops were open, so we did some small shopping and then we ended up having dinner at Mc Donalds. At home I continued working till 3 o'clock in the night and finally got everything done that had to be done before Monday morning.

Week 7 - A sunny winter week here in Rome

This week I used my camera quite a few times, also thanks to the nice weather that we had all week, except on Monday when the rain poured down all day long. Carlotta was at home from school on Monday as she had some fever on Sunday and was very tired. I found out that there were only about 5 children in her class out of 23, all the rest of the children were ill. On Fat Tuesday they had the carnival song exhibition at school and she wanted to go there. From her class there still were very few children, but she was very happy to participate.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I didn't go riding, because that meant to take Carlotta there, too. It was sunny, but quite cold and I didn't want her to get ill again. I went with Carlotta and Sofia to the hairdresser's instead. Sofia thought she got her hair too short and I wasn't so happy with my haircut either. They could have cut Carlotta's fringe a bit more instead. Sofia wanted her hair done with the hair straightener and so did Carlotta, although her hair is very straight already. I took a photo of them when we got out from the hair dresser's and as I saw the nice light by the sea on our way home, I stopped to take some more photos. But for some reason Carlotta was angry and didn't want any photos taken of her, so the only one I got of her was the one taken from far away where she is watching the sea. Well, she isn't actually watching the sea, she is angry at the whole world and doesn't want to get into the car with us.
Thursday was Valentine's day and we went riding in the afternoon and then came home to make dinner and eat chocolate and make buns. On Friday me and Carlotta went to the dentist's.
The nice weather continued on the week-end, but then it was Sofia's turn to catch the flu. She had some slight fever in the evening and was tired, but she wasn't ill enough to want to stay at home all day. On Saturday we took a walk with our friends through the pinewood to the sea. It's a really nice walk, especially in good company. On Sunday morning I went riding, Sofia didn't feel like riding, but she and Carlotta came to the stables anyway and we spent a few hours there. In the afternoon a friend of hers came to our house and I did a new attempt to make the Finnish buns with cream inside them. Well, I guess someone is trying to tell me that I should stop with these baking attempts, which actually would be very wise if I want to loose some weight. But I had promised the children to do these buns. This time I knew how much flour I had to put and also which program to use in the bread machine. Well, after an hour Sofia said to me that it doesn't seem to happen anything in the machine, that the dough wasn't quite ready. I said, that it just has to grow now. No, said Sofia, it hasn't happened anything in the bread machine. Well, I had a look a the dough and, actually, the bread machine had tried to do it, but I had forgotten to put in the blades that are quite fundamental to make the dough. Ok, so in with the hands into the flour-milk-yeast mixture and trying to get the blades on place and then restart the dough program. The final result was very good anyway. Now we have eaten the buns and a healthier life can begin!

Carnival, Valentine's day and my baking attempts

No sugarfree week this week for me. Maybe next week. One has to follow traditions at least a little bit. And this week it was both Carnival Tuesday and Valentine's day. At Carnival you eat something called frappe in Rome, elsewhere in Italy I think they call them chiacchiere and they also have other names, depending on the region. Armando had promised the children that he would make them himself and so he did. I was a bit skeptical about it and about all the mess he would make frying them, but to my surprise they turned out very good and he also cleaned up the mess. They tasted better than the ones you buy.

I haven't been so successful with my baking lately. Last week when I was baking a cake, the oven temperature accidentally had gone up to 300 and when I noticed it, the cake was black outside and still uncooked inside. Then the cake I took to Carlotta's carnival party - one egg was missing, so it was too friable. Today I got the brilliant idea to let the bread machine do a dough while we went riding. I thought I could quickly make buns out of it when we came back from the stables to celebrate Valentine's day. But I think the program I used wasn't good for bun dough, because it was far too liquid and hadn't grown. I hate to knead the bun dough that sticks everywhere, so I chose another bread machine program. The bread machine's manual didn't say anything about it, but it was called "pasta" and I thought that would mean dough. Well after a while I started to feel a scent of baking bread and when I looked, I saw that the machine had started to bake the dough. Help! I quickly took out the dough, started mixing it and added some flour because it still was too liquid. I let the bread machine knead it some more and in the end I managed to make the buns, but only in the evening when Carlotta already was in bed. Actually I wanted to put whipped cream and almond paste inside them and eat them as we eat them in Finland on Shrove Tuesday, but I think I will do it on the week-end when I have more time. The buns turned out good anyway. Fortunately we had bought Baci Perugina chocolate when we came home from the stables, so we had a little Valentine's dessert for everyone. That was Sofia's idea, she likes these sweet traditions.

So my baking attempts seem to be bound to fail, but there are so many inspiring blogs with lovely pictures and nice recipies and they make me want to try them. I have a lot of work in this period and it's nice to take a little break from the computer and bake something that I know my children appreciate and sometimes they are also willing to bake together with me. If they have something better to do, at latest they appear in the kitchen when it's time to put the cake into the baking pan, so they can argue about who gets to lick the dough from the pots.

Week 6 - Sugarless week and sugarful week-end

It was quite a tiring week. Lots of work, a nervous husband, an unhappy son and other things that made some days a bit heavy. But my happy moments were my riding lessons and my new Monday Zumba with my friend and, of course, the time spent together with my children.
From Monday I decided to have a sugarless week and, I must say it really helped. I have been very sugar dependent and, especially in the evenings, when I have my time for myself, I feel the urge to go and get something sweet to eat in front of the computer. Very bad! I managed not to eat any sweet things during the week and only in the week-end I allowed myself to eat what I liked again.
On Saturday Carlotta had a carnival party at the riding school with a small competition and afterwards we got together in the club house to eat and drink the things that everyone had brought. I had baked a cake the night before, but for all recipes that I had, something was missing. In the end I thought I would try a very simple sponge cake, although I didn´t have the three eggs needed, but only two. Well, the cake's consistency was not good. During the transport to the stables it had fallen into pieces and was very ugly, so when I showed it to Sofia she asked me to put it away immediately. People had brought so much cakes and other good things to eat, so I really think that was the best thing to do. And it's not the first time my sponge cakes don't turn out good, so I'm just not a sponge cake baker. I'm much better at making apple cakes, pies or biscuits, so next time I will do something like that!
On Sunday me and all three children went to our stables, first for mine and Sofia's riding lesson and afterwards we had lunch at the restaurant. The rare times Daniele likes to come with us to the stables are when we have lunch or dinner there.
In the photos that I chose for this week: Me and Sofia at the riding lesson Sunday morning. This time there was no one else and we had a very good lesson. Carlotta struggling with her home work, Carlotta after school when she had had a rehearsal for Rugantino, their carnival show for the following week. Carlotta with a huge cornetto (I didn't have any) and the fairy Carlotta with the little pony at Saturday's carnival party.
Yes, most of the photos are of Carlotta, because it's far much easier to catch her on the photos than the bigger children.

I used a nice freebie template from Maybemej.
 

Month in Photos - January

I found this nice template here. These are a some of my favourite photos and moments of January. Playing with the snow in Finland, riding in the snow, walking on the ice, the snowy streets, the rainy days in Rome (not so favourite, but I like the photo) and my afternoon jogging with Carlotta. Jogging without too much stress and once in a while stopping to take a photo.

Week 5 - eating and exercising

Finally nice weather in the week-end, so there was lots of riding and time with the horses for me and the girls. First a nice cappuccino and cornetto before going to the riding stables in the morning. Finally I had time to take also Carlotta riding. She hadn't started yet this year because it had been raining so much. She was very happy because she managed to do lots of things on her own with the nice pony, Morositas. I think I have found the right riding school for her now!
I got a chock when I weighed myself. This didn't stop me from eating, but at least I did some physical excercise every day. On Monday I managed to get my friend with me to try a Zumba class. There was a free Zumba lesson at the theater where I had been with Carlotta and it was really sweaty indeed, but also great fun! So I think that's what I need in addition to my riding lessons. I also went out jogging a couple of times with Carlotta. It's quite good company for me, not too hard, but maybe she gets tired a bit too fast.  I would need to jog a little bit more, but I'm so lazy to go alone. I decided to go to Zumba on Mondays when we don't go riding anyway, because in Italy the riding schools are closed on Mondays.

On Friday evening the boys from our family went to see a football match and me and the girls went out eating with our friens. We had planned to go to Mc Donalds, but the one by the sea where we wanted to go had closed already at 7 o'clock and when also another of our favourite restaurants by the sea was closed we phoned to my riding instructor who has a nice restaurant at our riding school and asked if he had place for us and he dis. We had a very nice evening there, relaxing and good food, only we had far too much to eat!
On Sunday afternoon we took a little walk and when we saw the sun going down we noticed that days had got much longer already!

Week 4 - Another rainy week

I'm a bit behind with my weekly postings. Anyway week 4 began with rain again and it continued almost all week with a few days without rain where we were able to go to our riding lessons.
The week-end was really rainy and especially on Sunday the rain continued pouring all day long. Fortunately I remembered that Carlotta had got an information leaflet from her school about a theater showing Cinderella. Sofia went to a shopping centre with her friend and her friend´s mother and Daniele went to a friend, too, so for me and Carlotta this was the perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. The play was really amusing and the actors were good. Even if it was a children's show, I had a really good time, too. I promised to myself that I would go to the theater a bit more often from now on. We have a few small theaters that aren't too far away, so I really have to go there once in a while.

On Saturday Sofia got dental braces. They are mobile braces, so she will have to remember to take them off before eating and put them on again and be careful not to loose them.
The rest of the week we just waited for the rain to stop, had some of the children's school friends coming over baked a cake that I managed to burn when I accidentaly turned the oven temperature knob to 300.
On Friday me and my friend bought some pizza and spent a nice and relaxing evening at her house together with our children eating, chatting, drinking wine and laughing. Nice!