venerdì 30 settembre 2011

Summer in review

I have done three layouts that resume our summer. Actually also September can be considered a summer month here in Rome, where we still have almost 30 degress during the day, but as schools start in September, I only included the months of June, July and August. I have used ready templates found on the web, but I can't remember where I found them.

giovedì 22 settembre 2011

Happy candy eaters

The choice of candy in the Finnish super markets is huge compared to the Italian ones. When we leave Finland after our summer holiday I take the children to a super market to buy candy. I usually never buy candy, only when we have a birthday party. Each of them gets a certain amount of money to spend. Daniele wanted to go to a bigger super market this year with even more choice, but I refused to and said that if he wanted to he could go there by bike and I would give him the money. I thought there was quite enough choice in the one where we went last year with all three children choosing, counting how much money they got left and when I thought they finally were ready they quickly had to leave something to take something else instead and so on, until I was quite exhausted. In the end Daniele decided to come with us. This tradition started when I started buying them a candy box in the aero plane when we left Finland. Last summer, I think it was Daniele who asked me if he could buy his candy in Finland instead so he could choose what he wanted to with the same amount of money. Well, here is a lay out showing my happy children with their sweets in front of them.

giovedì 15 settembre 2011

Beaches in Sardinia

These are all the beaches we went to on our holiday in Sardinia where we went before school started. Wonderful beaches, lovely weather, lots of swimming - a relaxing and nice holiday, a part from the fact that we were worried about our dog, Milla. Carlotta learnt to swim underwater this summer and got better and better in Sardinia and managed to swim a little bit with her head out of the water, too!

First school day

Sofia and Carlotta on their way to school on the first day. Daniele's school started earlier in the morning, so I didn't get him in the photo. It is still very warm here, about 30 degrees so it's not so easy to be very efficient working or at school.

martedì 13 settembre 2011

An exciting and sad day

Today it was an exciting, but also a sad day. Exciting because school started again and it was Carlotta's first day in the real school, the Scuola Elementare and Sofia's first day in a new school, too, the Scuola Media. And a sad day because it was time to decide to put our beloved 15-year-old dog Milla to sleep.
She had begun to get much older in her behaviour already in Finland, but after an epilectic attack that she had before our holiday in Sardinia she just stopped eating. We spent 7 days in Sardinia and as she refused to eat we called the vet. She told us to try with baby food and just put it in her mouth and try if her appetite came back. It seemed to help first, but then she completely stopped eating and only drank lots of water, so on Monday the only thing to do was to take her to the vet while the children were at school. It feels very sad and empty, although we can  be happy because Milla lived a long life and always was very healthy.

The first school day went well and Carlotta said it was great and didn't feel as school. She had been quite worried about the fact that you get to do home work, but as she didn't get any the first day she thought it was very nice. Also Sofia and Daniele didn't get any home work yet. For Daniele this is the third and last year in the Scuola Media. Sofia had some companions from her old school and many new ones.

domenica 21 agosto 2011

Celebrating Carlotta

On the 20th of July it was Carlotta`s sixth birthday. She has become a big girl. Lots of things have happened during the summer and in many ways she really has grown.
On her birthday my parents were in S. Petersburg, so I invited two friends of mine whose girls are about Carlotta's age and who we see quite often when we are in Finland. They both were my classmates when we were at school and our children get along very well.
We baked oat cakes the night before and made a cake and bought some sweets. The weather was nice so the children could play out in the garden and we could drink our coffee outside. Carlotta was very happy with her little birthday party.
I got this template from Maybemej, but used different colours in it.

As my parents weren't there and Carlotta wanted to celebrate with them too, we went out to have lunch this Friday to Kärkisaari. We usually go to this summer restaurant once every summer and love the atmosphere there. A few years ago the place got new owners and isn't as good as it used to be, but the place in itself still is wonderful. This time I must say the service was a bit awkward. They always have cold starters and and then you can choose either meat or fish for the main course. I ordered to the children (they don't have any special children menu) who all wanted meet and when it was time to order for us adults they told us that they had ran out of meat and only had fish. I don't like fish, so I said, I preferred meet. The waitress, who I suspect is also the owner of the place, asked me why I didn't like fish when you get so intelligent when you eat it and suggested I could eat my children's leftovers from their plates. Nice, I said and when she asked if my parents wanted fish and they answered that there obiously was no choice, they said that they could always decide not to eat at all! Never heard a waitress giving those kinds of answers to a client... Well, in the end I did eat what the children left, as both Carlotta and Sofia hardly ate anything, so the problem wasn't that there wasn't enought to eat, but the very strange way to treat their guests. Otherwise the food was nice and the cake good. But I'm not sure if we will go there to celebrate Carlotta's birthday next time.
Me and Daniele went there with our bicycles. It's about 12 km one way, so we burned off at least a little part of our meal.

venerdì 19 agosto 2011

July lay-out

We did these and lots of other things in July - it was warm, we ate strawberries and picked blue berries, went to Hamina Horse Show, to Lovisa, Sofia went to the riding camp, Daniele to the sailing camp and it was Carlotta's birthday.