20 Questions: Georgie 2013

20 Questions

Georgie 2013

What is your favorite color?  Blue

What is your favorite toy/thing to play with?  The Kitchen and my Barbies 

What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Playing with BunYun with her new leash and hopping around with her outside.

What is your favorite cereal? Special K with Strawberries

What is your favorite restaurant?  New Punjab (Indian in Fontanafredda)  

What is your favorite dinner MOm makes? I don't know, you make lots of good foods?

What is your favorite Holiday? Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter! 

What do you love about summer?  I don't know...it's too fun!  

What do you love about school?  I don't like it...at all! (with a giggle)

Tell me about one of your best days?  One day we went to Lake Barcis with our friends Vivian and Clara, that was really fun. We found tad Poles, and we floated in the stream with the tubes. (We went to Lake Barcis lots of times this summer but that day was somehow magical for the kids...perfect weather, perfect current in the stream, and they found the perfect games to play together.)

Tell me some things that make you happy?  My BFF

What do you enjoy doing with Isaac? Playing at the beach 

What do you enjoy doing with Juliet? I like playing with Isaac and Juliet.

What do you enjoy doing with Mom?  I like cooking with Mom, playing Sisters, cleaning, playing, going to the grocery store, going to BINGO, gardening, bike rides and I want to crack hazelnuts with you today.  

What do you enjoy doing with Dad?  Singing with Dad when he plays his guitar, reading with him, playing games with him, swimming with him, I like going to the gym with him, I like going on private dates with him, dad's not home all the time so that's about it:)  

What are some of your favorite family traditions?  Finger food, family home evening, movie/pizza night, movie marathon day, Hannukah food night at Christmas...wait delete that, that was horrible, my head hurt and i couldn't sit still.  I don't like watching TV all day!  ( we only made it through 3 movies, Georgie and I could NOT do it!:) 

What could we do better as a family? Team work, doing chores all together, helping each other, going to bed earlier so we don't get grumpy.

What do you like about yourself?  That I'm me!

What are you good at? Swimming, doing work, climbing trees, crafts, coloring 

What's really cool about your life?  I don't know?

What are your weaknesses?  Homework

What is your favorite quote? "Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills!" 

Cool!

20 Questions: Isaac 2013

20 Questions:

isaac 2013

What is your favorite color?  Bright Green

What is your favorite toy/thing to play with?  Legos

What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Play and Run Around

What is your favorite cereal?  Cracklin Oat Bran

What is your favorite restaurant?  New Punjab (Indian Food in    Fontanafredda)

What is your favorite dinner MOm makes?  Pasta Pomodoro

What is your favorite Holiday?  Christmas

What do you love about summer?  Staying home and sleeping in, watching movies, traveling, playing video games, the pool, all the stuff we can't do in the school year.

What do you love about school?  That I have my friends with me and that I can learn new things.

Tell me about one of your best days?  The day we went to Venice with my cousins.

Tell me some things that make you happy?  Legos, my Grandma, my cousins, family, friends, dinner time makes me happy but it goes up or down when I hear what we're having for dinner, listening to grown ups talk, traveling, green grass, birthday parties, bunnies, airplane rides, movies, having people over for dinner, mom laying down with me and Dad playing me the guitar.

What do you enjoy doing with Georgie?  Playing Wii with her

What do you enjoy doing with Juliet?  Playing little baby games with her, like spying and imaginary, funny baby games.

What do you enjoy doing with Mom?  Crafts

What do you enjoy doing with Dad?  Board Games and building Legos

What are some of your favorite family traditions? Back To School Finger Food 

What could we do better as a family?  I have no idea, cause we're perfect;)

What do you like about yourself?  I'm very creative, I'm smart and funny and cool.

What are you good at?  I'm good at drawing, Math, Lego Star Wars Wii game and swimming.

What's really cool about your life?  That I live in Italy and I speak 2 languages and my family is awesome!

What are your weaknesses?  I don't really know...I have a lot, I think, but I don't know any of them really...?

What is your favorite quote?  Just keep swimming!

What do you believe?  I believe that all people should treat each other how they would want to be treated and we should stop littering.

Cool!

A Georgie Day

Today was a Georgie kind of day so I'll feature all the Georgie action in the following photos!

Every morning that we're home and the neighbors are out working in their beautiful garden (at least 3 days a week) Georgie runs straight out after breakfast, often in her bare feet and PJ's, to work at their side.  This morning Bruno was harvesting potatoes, he raked them up and she sat on her knees and plopped them in a bucket.

They always send her home with something...a cucumber, some tomatoes, lettuces etc.  This morning we got a bucket of freshly dug potatoes:

Bruno said these potatoes are for making patate fritte/fried potatoes.  A couple of weeks ago they harvested little tiny white ones that they store and use throughout the winter in soups etc.  They grow enough to feed the family for the entire winter.  So freaking cool!  And not at all rare around here.  I have been meaning to make a note to myself about how and what they planted this year.  In the bed pictured above they planted one half potatoes and one half green beans in early May.  As they've harvested the potatoes (late July/early August) they've been putting in red and white cabbage.  The green beans are still producing so they haven't pulled those up yet. 

A years worth of food lives, waiting to be plucked.

Zucchini, chard, lettuces, leeks, cucumber, pumpkins, peppers, and tomatoes..ahhh the tons of tomatoes!  Georgie loves being out here with them, chatting it up in Italian!  I wonder sometimes if she is bugging them but they seem to love having her which is adorably nice of an older Italian gardening couple. Juliet joins most of the time too.  Bruno gets a kick out of just watching her toddle around, curls bouncing.  I can tell he really likes both of them.  He has a contagious, cheery laugh and smile...almost enough to make me want to study Italian so I can chat it up with him too;)

This evening Georgie and I went on a "private" date.    

We played BINGO on base!  It was really edge of your seat fun!  We both want to go again, for sure.  Afterward Georgie said, "Can we figure out somewhere else to go because I don't want this night to end!"  Well if that didnt' melt my heart!!  She suggested going for a walk.  She talked my ear off while simultaneously wanting to stamp everything she saw with the pink BINGO stamper.  I reminded her that doing so was called Graffiti at which point we discussed how boring it was to be good all the time.  "Naughty things are fun!" she said, "until you get caught!"  We determined that in the end...it wasn't worth it! (Phew!!)

And who ends a date in Italy without gelato?  Not us!  Georgie chose the "Red Love" Sundae which was a grapefruit sized myriad of pink flavors stuffed into a cone then piled with whipped cream.  

She ended up eating half my strawberry granita while I finished off her gelato.  

She makes me fat:

 

I love this girl.  

She's growing up and I want to squeeze her for it!  

She is such a cute girl with unique passions, thoughts and interests.  

I am proud to be her Mom.

I love you my Georgie girl!

xoxo

Recipe: What To Do With Subpar Tomatoes

Alot of our first tomatoes are turning up like this.  And on top of that, the first tomatoes you pick don't usually win any medals for flavor.   In addition to all that, Lovable little ol' me left 3lbs of our first crop of tomatoes outside to finish ripening all day long when's ident).  When I returned home they were soft and mushy...in other words, cooked.   How tragic!   The stuff we grow ourselves is practically sacred! so tossing those tomatoes out felt all kinds of wrong.  So, Georgie and I finished what the sun had started;). We cooked them into a yummy sauce!

Here's how it turned out:

Rancher Sauce: to be eaten with fried eggs, refried beans, ranchero cheese, avocado, corn tortillas and sprigs of Cilantro., or spread into a quesadilla, o serve it with sautéed squash, onions and zucchini seasoned with Mexican spices and served over Rice (this is how we ate it the first night...a yummy surprise!

Chop hip up the tomatoes, add 2 onions, 3-4 cloves of garlic, and one jalapeño, seeded, switching it up according to your tastes, and toss it into a food processor.  Once it is blended up to a fine texture, hear some canola oil in a large pot or pan.  Sauté your purée on med-high heat until your sauce is quite thick, (no water puddling  on the top).  Add salt to taste.  I added a little bit of sugar because my tomatoes weren't very naturally sweet.  Let it cool and toss in the fridge or freezer for later use.  

Unlike those tomatoes, this sauce was really yummy and will not go to waste;). 

And just this morning my neighbor gave me this huge, huge bucket FULL of fresh chard!  Fun day in the kitchen;), just how we like it(at least the girls in this family;)

Georgie Girl

georgie girl

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Our Georgie spent the entire last school year learning Italian language and culture, so we're spending the entire mornings of our summer days at home learning English. Those vowels sounds are confusing (because in Italian they are different) and sitting at  a table inside while the sun is shining outside is HARD!  

               In her journal she writes 10-12 lines about all of the places we have visited.  And I am usually impressed with what she remembers, what stands out to her and the way she chooses to write it.  Most of the time she writes in third person which makes a lot of sense when you consider that she is always imagining herself somewhere else as someone else...in some kind of dream world;) 

Georgie loves to be silly and play which proves as a distraction with summer school work.  But all and all she's pretty good.  Sometimes she gets really into her writing.  And sometimes she ends up over on the couch like this:

Frustrated!

On top of all the English work she is catching up on, she has a mountain of Italian summer homework.  Two 75 page workbooks to be exact.  Georgie loves doing the math, is good at it and does it all independently so I am rolling with that!  We haven't even started the Italian reading/language homework yet!  Too much work/not enough time yada, yada, yada!

Not at all to our surprise, Georgie has discovered a love for swimming this summer.  She went to Italian swim camp in June and reported that she loved swimming laps.  So we signed her up for the swim team on base. Mimi says she has a lot of potential.  More importantly than all of that, she loves it.  She has so much fun being in the water.  She is now swimming laps with swim team 4 days a week and attending Grest (Italian summer camp in our town) every afternoon, all done after we spend our mornings doing homeschooling.  She is one busy little girl!

Dropping Georgie off for swim camp, Italian summer school camp (going on now)and swim team has left me proud and cheery every time.  Georgie has no fear!  I consider the social anxiety that comes along with starting new things with kids you don't know , especially in the situations where you don't completely speak the other kids language, and marvel that Georgie is not a ball of nerves.  Because she doesn't speak the language entirely she has, 2 or 3 times, come home from school or camp discouraged because no one will play with her and sometimes the girls are even mean.  Even though she has told me this through tears before she doesnt' seem to have let this effect her opinion of herself.  She seems to know who she is and doesnt' feel any pressure to hide that person. I really admire that about her.  

When Jake was here he articulated something that I always wanted for my kids..something I hadn't been able to put into words before.  Jake said that he wanted his kids to know that they can do hard things.  And I feel the same way. I am so proud to see that Georgie takes to that confidence quite naturally.  And its a joy to watch.

Happy Summer Georgie girl!  

Italy ♥

Italy ♥

Summer air in Italy is sweet perfume

Jasmine

For all these years I have been missing out.  I've heard the word Jasmine thrown around in reference to flowers, a girls name... but in all that time I didn't know what the Jasmine flower was, what it looked like or where it grew?  And saddest of all, I didn't know what it smelled like.  Oh how much I've missed.  Why are more people not talking about this vine?  The smell of this stuff here blows you over like an Oklahoma wind.  I smelled it in the air one morning in the first days of June and I wondered what in the heck that glorious deliciousness was.  As the next few days came it became more and more potent.  When I finally found an Italian to tell me what in the heck that was and what flower it was coming from I  began noticing the bushes everywhere.  Literally everywhere.  And now, I can't imagine our final homes front walkway or back porch not covered in this stuff.  Wherever Joey finds a job one of my first questions will be, does Jasmine grow there?  If not...no way;)  And I'm barely joking.

Lavender

It's July now and the Jasmine flowers are shriveling and diminishing in their potency.  But never fear, our lavender is swooping in to save us!  These beauties line our driveway.  I just received 100 empty sachets from amazon to fill with these dried babies and lace our house (and yours...want one?) with their fresh scent.  I planted Lavender in Oklahoma and in San Antonio and guess what happened in both places?  Yes, they died.  In all my prayers I pray that there's no specialness here in the soil that the West coast or Utah doesn't have.  Because this growth potential is the key to A LOT of my happiness here.  Wait until you see pictures of my tomato plants!!  I am soooo excited!

 Hydrangea

And even though these flowers (one of my favorites) aren't nearly as perfumey, I can't forget to list them here because they grow so beautifully in our area:  Hydrangeas, or in Italian, Ortensie.  Every yard has them (except ours of course, so I've planted two...we'll see if my black thumb can kill them:) 

 With all it's imperfections (and it's paling in comparison to glorious Austria) Italy can grow some goods.  And it makes me so very, very happy.  

xoxo

Ashley

Ju-B

☛ Ju-B ☚

I know, I know, if you're on facebook you've seen it, if you're on Instagram, you've seen it but I had to post it here too...because, dear family, this photo means a lot to me.  When I saw it on my phone, (Joey took the photo), my heart kind of melted at the sight of her, my Juliet, so bright eyed and confident that the entire world surely loves her.  And immediately after that I felt happy and relieved and proud of myself...(yes, of myself) that, in fact, how I feel about that perfect baby of mine called Juliet, at least sometimes, actually does show through.  Despite all the whining I do about having three kids in Europe, despite all the grumpiness and intolerance that I show toward her (and the others) that tortures me every night as I lay in bed, at least sometimes, surely she can see that I absolutely admire and adore her.  I had no idea that it was so obvious...but, here at least, it is isn't it?  I want to blow this picture up large and hang it in our house as a reminder to myself that they know how much I love them (as parents, don't we always want to be sure?) and a reminder to her how much we adore her.

And that's the end of that devote'!:)  But here's a little more about the funny things that Juliet is doing right now:

Juliet loves to laugh.  If you're laughing she will laugh.  And every part of her seems to understand exactly what you're laughing at.  I like to think that her happy soul is looking for any excuse to spread its happiness...that's how idyllic, Juliet is to me:) 

At almost 3 years old Juliet still loves to be held.  She hardly walks 5 steps before she's angling her walk toward my feet, her head still looking forward and her arms outstretched up to me.  "I want a hold you."  I trip over her almost every time.  It drives me bonkers.  But when my patience is thick I press her head into my shoulder, which usually drives her bonkers, in which case I stop but in the case where it doesn't, she lays on my shoulder or giggles into my ear while I kiss her head all over.  

At night she must be read a story.  And she'll cry "Mommy...Mommy" over and over again in the same loud but calm tone until I come in to put her blanket just so, over her body.  If Joey has read her a story she tries to manipulate me into giving her another one and visa versa.  

In the morning her curls are frizzy and all over the place. And with her chubby tan thighs, her nightgown, her baby blanket all wadded up in her chubby arms and that face...we can hardly resist her when she tells us at the crack of dawn, "I'm hungey mamma."  She says it just like that in the cutest little cherub voice.  

She's taken to missing her baby days lately and sometimes talks baby talk.  She grunts and groans and searches high and low for old pacifiers.  If she finds one, she's sucking on it until one of us takes it away.  

She has an opinion.  She knows exactly what she wants and she shouts it loudly.  She talks sooooo loud!  It's absolutely exhausting!  And sometimes cute;)  

If Juliet could watch a movie from dawn to twilight she would.  She loves to "watch a show".  Jack Jack Attack (the short film after The Incredibles) is her current favorite but she'll sit with us through big kid movies too.  

The other day for some wierd reason we were talking about belly buttons with Isaac.  Isaac lifted his shirt and was looking at his.  Juliet said, "Isaac, you're belly button is coming unbuttoned."  We cracked up.  A few seconds later she climbed up to Isaacs ear and whispered, "Isaac, you're belly button (volume increasing now) is FAT (yell)!"  

A few weeks ago she had a really late nap.   That night she could not fall asleep so I let her stay up with me and eat a bowl of cereal while I finished up the dishes.  She talked my ear off.  I kept asking her, "are you ready to go to bed?"  "No, mama, let's keep talking."  So finally I asked her if we could move t into the living room and sit on the couch.  Right next to the sofa I have a fairly large porcelain figurine of The Buddha that I bought recently.  After I bought it I told her how sad it would make me if she broke it.  I told her that she was not aloud to touch it at all..only look at it.  So, we're sitting there a few weeks ago and she began asking me if I would be sad if she broke it. 
"Would Isaac be sad?" 
"yes." 
"And Georgie?" she went on and on about it.  After a few minutes of this she said in her very grown up voice, "Well," she smacked her lips prissily and while her face was turned toward me her eyes looked off to the side, "I haven't broken it yet, but somebody is going to hit it with a bat."  

And that's our Ju-B!

xoxo
Mom