Photo challenge - Pink/Home

Last week-end we went to Prague. What a beautiful city! Here are a few photos from Prague for the Nurture Photography challenge. The prompt was Pink/Home. I'll tell and show more about our week-end later.

Photo challenge - Ivory/Dream

I was late posting last week's prompt for the Nurture Photography challenge, which was Lilac/Flowers. I took a couple of photos with that prompt in mind, though, so I will post them here. Lilac flowers in our garden.

This week's prompt is Ivory/Dream. Here's my contribution. A photo taken of Carlotta and Sofia at the beach against the setting sun. The colour of the beach and the sky became ivory and also a bit dreamish.

Week 18 - The beach season has started

We went to Armando's cousin's son's confirmation on the 1th of May. These celebrations are a good opportunity to meet his relatives who live at the opposite side of Rome. It's like living in another city considering the traffic here in Rome, so we really don't meet often. - This year we don't get any apricots, but we are going to get lots of "nespole". It's a fruit that I never have seen in Finland and I don't know what it's called in other languages than Italian. They are yellow, look a bit like prunes and are very succulent. Soon they will get ready! - Carlotta had her riding lesson and was happy as she trotted on her own with the nice pony Morositas. Carlotta thinks he is a bit too lazy, though. - On Saturday when all the home work was done we went to the beach and Carlotta and Sofia had their first swim in the sea and bought their first "grattachecca" which is crushed ice with syrup that you get in different tastes. - I tried to be creative and started to do a necklace, but in the end I only made a pair of ear rings. They are fastly made. Waiting for more inspiration to do some other summer jewellery. - -We picked our first "nespole" from our tree on on the week-end.  

Photo Challenge - Green/Nature

This is my first contribution to the spring photo challenge on the blogs Project Alicia, Bumbles & Light, and Live and Love...Out Loud. There have already been two prompts, but I didn't partecipate. Well, this week it was easy. Everything is so green!

 

Week 13 - Easter and last snow of the season

Spring is slowly coming and the trees are getting green, but I think I have never experienced such a rainy spring here in Rome!
On Thursday the Easter holidays began and we had booked a hotel up in the mountains in the small village of Pescocostanzo in Abruzzo, quite near Rome. Since my husband started training for the marathons he hasn't been interested in skiing anymore and we didn't go at all last year. I didn't want to let another year pass without putting the skis on and especially Daniele was really eager to go skiing. As he has started the "liceo" and can't be away from school too much, we had to wait till the Easter holidays and of course there was a big risk that the snow would have melted already. But we were lucky, because up on the slopes there still was enough snow for skiing. Down the grass was green and there was no snow in the villages, but we were able to ski every day. The hotel was small and nice. There were ski slopes just in front of the hotel, but there wasn't enought snow, so the ski lifts were closed and we had to take the car and go a bit further away to ski. We spent five nice days there and Carlotta cried when we had to leave. Three years ago when she first tried to take ski lessons, it was no success, but now she was the right age and learnt a lot in four days.

Week 12 - Hot springs and other nice things

It was a nice week:

Apertif on Monday

Father's Day on Tuesday - the card that Carlotta had done at school

Saturday night dinner at Mc Donald's.

Songs at Carlotta's school, as most of the children were ill when they had their Carnival songs, on Wednesday after school they repeted the show.

Sign of spring - the apricot tree flowering, but very few flowers, so this year we might not get any fruit.

Sofia and her friend Alice going to their first afternoon disco on Saturday. It was a success, they want to do it again, help! 

On Friday Daniele didn't have any school, so me and my friend headed off to the thermal hot springs near Viterbo and had a fantastic and relaxing day with the bigger children. Carlotta had organized to go to her friend after school, so she didn't come. 

Riding a very nice horse on Saturday.

Sofia's show jumping competition on Sunday.
 

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!

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.
 

Bye Finland!

This Friday it was time to say goodbye to snowy Finland. We had a really nice time and Carlotta said she wanted to remain in Finland. Daniele went to Lovisa twice this week to see his friends. On Monday I took him there by car and he came back by bus. I took some photos of the beautiful snowy streets of the old town. Then he went there and slept over the last night before going to our dear friends' house where we slept the last night and then took the early flight back to Rome on Friday morning at 8.30.
This week me and Sofia went horse riding and it had been snowing a little bit so we could gallop in the snow, which was really fun. After that a warm sauna at home and life couldn't get better! We also went to the sledding slopes and walked on the ice before going back to Rome. And of course we did some shopping in the winter sales.

Eyes of March

This week's theme was Eyes of March. I have been working so much this week that my eyes have been really tired watching the computer screen for hours and hours a day. The weather has been so lovely here and spring really is in the air, so I have tried to get out at least a bit every day, either horse riding or on other days at least a moment out in the garden with the children. They also seem to enjoy it when I stay there with them. Their hobby horse got some apricot flowers as ornament. I find real horses eyes so beautiful, but this time I only caught the hobby horse's eyes.

 This is what Sofia and all her horsey friends like to do when they don't ride real horses.

Flowers! Quite hard to imagine that it was snowing here just a few weeks ago!

This week the apricot tree was in full bloom. So beautiful!

And Carlotta made some flower soup.

Daniele played table tennis with his friends and dreamed about having a real ping pong table in the garden.

Be still

This week's theme at My 3 Boybarbarians is Be still. I have been working a lot this week and sitting behind the computer, so there has not been too much time for photos. Wednesday afternoon we didn't have to go to any hobbies and the weather was really nice so I went outside to watch the children play out in the garden. The sun was going down behind our apricot tree. Soon it will start to blossom.

After just half an hour I saw that it was full moon.

After all those hours a the computer it felt good just to be outside and enjoy our garden for a while.

Week 7 and 8

I'm late again, so I here are both the weeks 7 and 8 for  the 52 week project. On week 7 me and Sofia both partecipated in a show jumping competition. For Sofia it was an important day because it was the first time in the 90 cm class. The pony she rode, Flicka, refused once, but other wise they did really well and our riding instructor was very happy with her. As I couldn't choose between the photo of Sofia jumping with Flicka and a carnival photo of Carlotta chasing her big brother and sister in the park, I included both photos for this week.

For week 8 I chose a photo of Carlotta watching the glittering sea and wishing summer would come quickly. My husband run a half marathon for the first time and we went to see him arrive to Ostia, which is by the sea.

 

P52 - Cabin fever

For the first time I will try to participate in the Project 52 photo challenge I found on the Life with my 3 Boy Barbarians blog. I have followed it but I find it very difficult to take a photo following a theme and even more difficult to do it on time to post the link on the blog. This week's theme was Cabin Fever. First I didn't even understand this expression, but in the blog I found the explanation "Cabin Fever is English slang for that pent up feeling you get when long months of bad weather have you stuck indoors".
This week we haven't had any cabin fever here in Rome as spring is really in the air now after the unusually cold weeks. My photo is from the end of last week when I had a fever and couldn't go out and didn't have the energy to do anything with the children. Carlotta resolved her cabin fever sitting on the couch in her princess dress eating sweets and watching films.

Week 6 - Dreaming

This is the photo of Week 6 in the 52 week's challenge. It started snowing a lot on Saturday and the girls went out to play. Sofia and her friend were running and jumping and throwing snowballs and Carlotta just stood still watching the sky. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was dreaming and then she told me not to enter other people's dreams.
I made a lay-out of it too. I'm really bad at remembering where I have taken or bought the scrapbooking kits and templates I use, but I will try to remember to leave a thank you note when I download free scrap booking material. From now on!

Ten on the tenth

As I said I have been surfing around searching for blogs with photo challenges to get inspiration from. I'm behind with the photo challenges I was supposed to follow. Anyway I saw another one where you have to take ten photos on the tenth of every month. I don't know if I'll be doing it every month, but here's my Ten on the tenth for the month of Frebruary. Lots of them taken with my point and shoot camera, which is good when I don't want to carry around with the big one.
It was Friday and the schools in Rome were closed again because the weather forcast had predicted snowfall. We didn't get any snow during the day, though, only rain. In the morning the weather was good and we had our riding lesson. When we were ready and on the horse back it started raining. We continued for half an hour, until it rained too much and we had to stop. One of Sofia's riding friends slept over at our house on Thursday and also Daniele had his best friend sleeping over. I tried to work while they played games and did other things and Carlotta watched TV or coloured. In the evening we went out for our Friday evening pizza. We often go out with a friend of mine and her girls. When we came out from the restaurant it had started snowing and, of course, the children hoped that it would continue all night and everything would be white the next morning. Unfortunately it had started raining instead. Sofia's friend slept at our house one more night and Daniele went to his friend's house.

Week 5 and snow

Last week it started to get really cold here in Rome and after the rest of Rome already got some snow on Friday, here where we live, close to the sea, it arrived a bit later, during the night between Friday and Saturday. So we woke up seeing a white layer of snow everywhere! The schools in Rome were closed on Friday because the weather forecast had forseen snow and they stayed closed also on Monday and Tuesday. Where we live it really wasn't necessary, as most of the snow had disappeared already on Sunday and the streets weren't more slippery than on other winter days, but I guess the situation was worse in other parts of Rome.

I partecipated in the 52 weeks project with this photo. Throwing snow balls at the beach is something you can't do very often here.

Carlotta and Daniele both slept over at their friends´ houses, but I went out in the garden with Carlotta so she could play with the snow before it melted.

Then we went to see the snow at the beach of Ostia with all thre children and our friends.

So strange to see snow on the streets here!

Inspiration and photo challenges

Lately I have been surfing around in very inspiring photo blogs. I love the idea of a photo book of the year where I would have a whole year documentet, but have never done it. The 365 photos project is just too much for me and even if I have done a few digital weekly lay-outs last year, I think I will never complete the whole year. So I decided to try a 52 weeks project and have found several blogs with these, some with a weekly theme, some without. I really would like to improve my photo skills this year and I also would like to give myself more time to be creative and not just read blogs about other creative people, so now I have decided to start at least two projects on my blog. This way I hope I will also start to update my blog a bit more often. I decided to follow the project 52 photo challenge I found on the blog 3 boy barbarians. Then I will also do the Italian 52 weeks project started by Simona where the theme is free and for that one I will do a photo collage about something that has happened during the week or with my best photos of the week. I saw that approach on the blog Kristy Klaassen photography that has really beautiful photo collages.

So one two three off we go with the photo challenges and a more creative life! I have always found it very hard to follow and interpret a particular theme when I take photos, so it should be a good excercise for me! I'm late for the first weeks' themes, but I will search some suitable photos among those that I have already taken, although that's not the idea with the photo challenges where you should acutally think about the theme while you are taking the photos.

Anyway, week one's theme was Resolution. This photo was taken on the first day of the year and one resolution could be to do more things together with my children - they are getting big!

Week 2 Made with Love. I didn't take many photos on week 2, so I chose one taken on week 3 on our week-end trip to Barcelona. My children are made with love of course, and there's also a heart on Sofia's sweatshirt, so I chose this one. I dont't get too many photos with all three quarrelling children on the same photo.

Week 3 I Dreamed a Dream. Carlotta in front of a bakery in Barcelona and her dream would be to taste all these lovely pastries, I guess.

I want to put another photo, too for I Dreamed a Dream, although it's taken on week 4. I love this photo of Sofia and her favourite pony, Gamberetta. I can imagine her dreaming in this photo of Gamberetta being her own pony.

Week 4 was Self Portrait and that's difficult, because my self portraits always get so stupid. I took this one in the car with Carlotta on our way to my riding lesson. This time Sofia had lots of home work to do and couldn't join us, but Carlotta almost always has to come with us to the riding school even if it isn't her riding lesson, because I can't leave her alone at home.

So in this way I have made a concrete start for the challenge and next time I will join it for real posting my link to the 3 BoyBarbarians blog. The theme is shadows. Not so easy!