New Years Eve

The Policaro family invited us over to their house to celebrate New Years. It was great fun for the girls because it was like a late night party. I couldnt get Sophia to take a nap today, so I was suprised she stayed up past midnight. Max had to work, so the girls played and then ate dinner, then it was played some more.

This is a game where the winnie the pooh tree blows up leaves and you have to catch them with your net. Apparently the game cannot be done without intensive screaming and then it takes more time to actually pick up the leaves that didnt get caught and put them back into the tree. but of course thats the fun part of it all and the girls enjoyed themselves.The Policaros have a little turtle that squirmish Sophia loved to play with but didn't like to touch. She did all her playing vicariously by picking up Giorgia's hand and tell her what to do with the the turtle.

Max eats the traditional lenticchie and cotechino.

Marco does it too.

The only reason why I am posting this pictures is so that you know what I have to deal with. Max seems to be allergic to taking pictures. I have to ask him to do it, I will give him that he does it semi-willingly, but I swear he is the worst photographer. I dont have to toot, nor do I dislike Paola. I simply asked that he take a picture of Paola, but instead he took a picture of both of us, without telling me. And then of course he didnt redo it or take a better one, he just left it and didnt say anything until it was too late. (while i am on the bitching and whining subject I will also add: it takes him a lifetime to snap the picture and get it 'just right,' by the time he presses the darn button, you've already stopped smiling and even if asked, he wont tell you if your hair is messed up or you have something in your teeth. This is why there are very few pictures of myself that I keep and why Sophia will think she was brought up by a single dad!) It drives me nuts!

Hot Chocolate

One of the things I love about winter is having hot chocolate. We got the scooter out, Sophia wobbled a lot but did a good job (i dont have any pictures because my camera is having trouble taking action shots/using the flash). I was suprised she got the hang of it so quickly. And then it was into the local bar for hot chocolate, which is more like hot pudding.

Cheers.

The secret to young skin: hot chocolate facials.

Occupying the Vacation days

This year the Christmas breaks seems extra long, it's about 3 weeks (also because we had that snow day right before the break). Sophia's imagination has been running overtime and she really likes to act out things with her dolls. She also loves doing puppet shows. We don't have too many, so I decided we should make some. Turns out it is a longer more detailed process than I imagined, esp when someone slapped on 2 pieces of paper mache and decided she didnt want to get her hands dirty. Well, at least painting doesnt get you too dirty and she enjoyed doing that:

And after that she decided she needed some glasses:

and Dad did too:

Che Asciugona!

We don't see the Zii too often, Sophia made sure to make up for lost time. I think she told Zia Paola EVERY detail of her life since the last time we saw them. I would walk past every few minutes and all I could hear was Sophia take a deep breath and say '....e poi: blah blah blah blah' (e poi = and then....). I'm sure Paola just wanted to get some quiet sun but she ended up with an earful instead. Luckily she is a good sport about it.

*asciugare v. -meaning when someone talks so much, they suck the life right out of you.

San Stefano

I can never remember why this is a holiday, but it is and therefore it means only one thing: more eating! Paola and Ale came up and we met them for lunch in a neighboring town. Sophia on her most excellent behavior, despite the fact that lunch was long and noisy. One of the things she did to occupy her time was take pictures:Self portrait.

Auntie Paola

This looks like some bad version of that tmobile(?) commercial asking if you have all the bars.

Max the Carnivor with a big plate of bollito (salsas not in foto).

Nonno and Uncle Ale

Group foto.

If Stevie Wonder was...

...Italian, not blind and couldn't actually play the piano:

Christmas in Cuneo

Luckily Santa has a people finder (or facebook) and GPS and can even find us in Cuneo! Sophia was extra worried that a) we were not going to be in our house and so Santa wouldnt know where to leave the presents and b) (after we read the night before christmas:) how would he get into the house, since there is no fireplace. (obviously the author was not a city folk like us!). Santa was extra generous this year, he busted out with a scooter (and knee pads, helmet and all the other stuff).

Sophia has been asking for one ever since she road Tia's in Germany.
This was by far the favorite thing she opened (after she tried to ride it and found it was difficult, she already started to lose interest-but as it was an expensive present, we are going to try our best to have her keep trying-she will have fun on it whether she likes it or not!)

Mom and Dad gave a pop up Charlie and Lola book
(we found her favorite episode/the one she identifies with most, about how Lola is a picky eater)

Dad got me an iphone (which i have been asking for)
side note-it got robbed the day after when we went to dinner. totally my fault. i left it in my coat pocket and somebody snagged it-i feel nauseated just writing about it!)The Nonni open Sophia's gift to them, a photo album.

altho not on her xmas list, Santa knew wanted a piano (every time she sees one, she sits down and likes to bang out a tune and sing. she is also pretty good at pressing notes and beat-boxing.). Santa and the Nonni gave one to Sophia.
side note: i dont want to seem ungrateful, but we havent quite figured out how to get the Nonni to get the presents Sophia has in mind. They are sweet and overly generous-but mostly overly zealous: whatever she asks for, gets magnified to something much greater and more expensive than what she has in mind and not kid friendly. The big ones this year were that Sophia says piano (small inexpensive toy piano), she gets a complicated keyboard. She asked for binoculars or a telescope (like pirates) - something made solely of plastic and probably wont last until next xmas, but instead she got a telescope to see the stars. The piano was actually fine because she will play it, but when she saw the telescope, she was not interested at all. I want her to be grateful and gracious, but I sort of understand her disappointment because it wasnt what she asked for and its way over her head. but i also feel badly for the nonni because they try so hard and get no enjoyment from seeing her having fun with the presents. (hopefully in the new house we can use the telescope a bit, but living in the city we often have a cloudy sky and we are sandwiched between buildings.) I guess the whole sitch drives me nuts bcuz Santa didnt go overboard at our house (or at least that's the way I remember it), he brought one big gift that we would appreciate and some stocking stuffers (and everyone else gave us something small like books or clothes or money to be put into our savings)I and toys were still overflowing at our house (and my parents have a much larger house than ours). I want the Nonni to be Nonni, but I would also like Sophia not to be spoiled. This is her last xmas as an only child, so I guess I can suck it up and she can live it up. And hopefully next xmas will be different because there will be 2 grandkids to give to, instead of one. yeah right, i doubt it too. but at least i can drink a couple glasses of liquid relaxation to help deal with the stress. this year probably bothers me more because i have to be alcohol free.

Xmas Dinner

Well if there is one thing an Italian Nonna lives for, it's cooking for Xmas dinner. I think she waits the whole year just to plan the menu. This year it was spaghetti alla bolognese and roast. Sophia made the Nonni happy by eating A LOT! Usually no matter how much you eat, the Nonni think you're emaciated, this year they were actually impressed with Sophia's appetite!

I started eating and forgot to take more pictures. But trust me, it was good.

Cookies for Santa

We brought the cookie we baked with Vale yesterday to Cuneo to leave for Santa.

Careful...careful...snack for santa/bribe to ensure he will leave presents!

The Day B4 Xmas Eve

Today Valentina came over for a playdate. It was impromptu and I still had lots of things to do, like baking cookies. Luckily I had two good Santa's Helpers!

And the little elves reap their rewards with a little tea party afterwards!

Jabba the Snowman

About pick up time from the preschool, it started to majorly dump snow. I ended up walking because cars were stopped up and our car was already buried in snow quite a bit. I think it was faster anyways, and Sophia had fun catching snowflakes on her tongue. That was yesterday...today Sophia is at home, school vacation started a day early due to the heavy snow (unfortunately for me because im not finished with xmas presents yet!!!). She and Max unburied the car.

And then they made a snow(er?)man?
I think he has to go on a diet, looks like he swallowed a panettone whole!

Last Minute Tree Decorating

We are soooooo lagging behind this year. I put some of it down to the fact that I was sick, but really most of it is just typical Christmas slacking. We are so late that Ikea didnt have any trees left, luckily Castorama (like Homedepot, but less organized) did. I like Ikea's trees, because you can return it and they give you a gift certificate worth what you paid for the tree to spend inside their store. (even if the tree is dead!). Trees here only come potted or fake, I feel so guilty about the fake trees making the landfills bigger, we usually just get a real one, hold on to it and then try to keep it alive until the next xmas. Of course we end up leaving the decorations on until Easter, forget to water it all the time and it is usally half dead by spring. Anyhoo, Sophia told us we needed to get a real tree this year and not decorate her treehouse again this year.

Hanging up snowmen with Dad.

The proud tree decorator.

Hiding Mommy's tummy in front of the tree.

Waiting for Grandma

Sophia has been missing her grandparents a lot lately. I told her Grandma is coming in Feb for the arrival of the baby. So she made a sign for us to hold up when we pick up her up from the airport (in case she doesnt recognize us).

The story of Rudolf in 8 pages

This summer my friend Karen introduced us to bare books. It is such a great find. The idea behind it is sooo simple, but genius! They are just blank books that kids write their own stories/illustrate in. We did our first one this summer at the Gran's house. Now Sophia likes to do books all the time. Unfortunately we don't have any more bare books left, hence the computer printer paper style book. Why waste 45 minutes watching that old stop motion movie Rudolf? You can see it here in 8 pages:









ps yeah i know some of the drawings are mine, altho its hard to tell. usually she does the whole book by herself, but this time she wanted help. i'm looking for other books to stick up here where its just her stuff, but this was the first one on hand.

The Christmas Wish List