almost autumn

We have spent two days in Ala di Stura with a couple of friends and their two girls.

There's a river, woods, nice friends to talk with, in other words it is a perfect place to rest and enjoy life.

We played many board games and although we went looking for berries we found lots of mushrooms instead,  but we didn't dare to eat them.

zoom day

On sunday we have been to Zoom, a park were to have a picnic, swim, and see many animals.

There was Silvestro, an old tiger that worked in a circus,

hungry african penguins (I didn't know that most of them do not live at south pole)

farm animals from all over the world, from pigs and donkey, to lama and dromedary and an african cow with an enormous pair of horns.

We even saw many raptors, such as an eagle, a condor, hawks and two owls.

If you live in Piedmont it's worth a visit: it has a picnic area and you can buy there some gluten free icecreams and chips, I'm not sure the restaurant offers gluten free meals.
Be careful, your kids will talk of the animals for many many days.

Baby Anna

Anna was born few days ago. We haven't seen her yet so I decided to make a little present for her, just to say welcome to this little bundle of joy.

I chose a japanese pattern from Ravelry and made two little alteration: simpler neck and different application, a pink flower instead of a bear.

BACK TO SCHOOL - pencil case

 

 It's almost back to school again. This year D1 asked for something special just for her. I made a pencil case I saw once in an old magazine.

We choose some fabric from my stash: the flowers one come from an old dress, the plain green from this Tuchini costume I made, and the striped one from a bag I made. The ribbon is the one I used to make flowers to pin to her hair on her first communion day.

I made 15 small pocketsand there are 2 cm between the vertical seams, so that you can put 2 pencil or a big crayon, depending on your need. 

To close you have to roll it and tie a bow

Turning ten

I just can't believe: that small baby that was falling asleep only if I hold her hand has turned into a smart girl. I'm feeling somehow older too and I think that many of my gray hair comes from kids feeling sick in the middle of the night or falling from the stairs or entering home yelling "MUM, I NEED A DOCTOR".

This afternoon came H's sister and we looked at old pictures, were D was just a little baby to cuddle and we wore funny dresses. No need to say that the kids were laughing at us.

As usual I asked D which cake she preferred for her birthday, but I should have been wiser and offer just two or three different kinds. She came up with a super-special-four-layer-birthday-cake, so that, to keep my promise, I made this.

I baked two sponge cake, one diameter 24 cm and one 20 cm, and I sliced in two the smaller, cutting from one slice a circle diameter 15 cm. I sliced the larger and put a layer of custard. Then I covered everything with my

WHITE CHOCOLATE FROSTING

350 g white chocolate

480 g Philadelphia-like cheese

230 g butter (softened)

melt the chocolate in the microwave and stir together with cheese and butter.

For her "real" birthday she asked for a cake that It comes from a book she received last year, "Disney recipes: from animation to inspiration", were it is called "the mad hatter and march hare's cheesecake".

I didn't follow exactly the recipe, because I have to cook gluten free, so I made my personal version

CHOCOLATE AND STRAWBERRY CAKE

200 g chocolate wafer

60 g butter softened

250 g mascarpone cheese

100 g strawberry jam

Crumble the wafer and mix with butter, put in a round mold and cook for 10 minutes in the oven (180°C). While it is cooling mix mascarpone and strawberry jam, then put on the pie crust and you are done.

Both recipes are simple, but high in fat, so now I think I'm going to eat only vegetables for some day.

Happy Father's Day

In Italy Father's Day is always on March 19th. And yes, we have a cat.

Crafty sunday - Keep your seat

This should be our art period, we enjoy so much going to museums and exhibitions.
So we spent another sunday afternoon at the GAM (Modern Art Gallery).

The girl with the blue sweater in the picture above is Giorgia, the new team leader for "family activities": she has a lot of ideas and this year we'll enjoy brand new activities.





The temporary exhibition is called "Keep your seat" and is on chairs: you can see dozen of different chairs, some cool examples of industrial design, others used as a form of art.
Contemporary art has always been tricky to me, may be that's the reason why I found this exhibition boring.

Not so the family activity. Can you imagine 15 kids and their parents building their own chair from boxes, newspapers, tape and glue?
There were many armchairs, some sofa, a beach chair and even a dog's bed!

Now we have 2 more armchairs and a sofa. Wow!

Sunday at the GAM

I live near Turin, in Italy, and many museums have activities for the children. One of our preferred is the Modern Art Gallery.



The activity start always with a small guided tour of the museum, focusing on four or five pieces only that are related to the activity theme.

We have found it interesting too, no doubt due also to the communicative skill of the girl leading the group.


This time it was "Clothing in art". So about 30 children aged 6-11 are here discussing about materials, skirt lenght and formal clothing.


After the tour we went downstairs, where there is the craft classroom. It has been completely renewed in october and now there's plenty of space for children and their parents.


During the week teacher can bring their class to do similar activities that cover different topics and age groups.
They are very popular among kids.





The kids spent a wonderful afternoon pretending to be stylists. Have a look at what they have done.