X'Mas Tree ...

This year for X'Mas Tree we went to Ikea and bought one. Up till now I have not yet decorated it, I guess I will wait until 7/8 december.
The tree is really small and as you know at home real tree start to loose their needles so I wait a little before decorate it so as to leave it in peace and adapt to our house before covering it with tiny pelouche and red glitter balls ^^

Momichan will help and I hope pine tree will not loose to many needls or w will have a horrible X'Mas Tree this year ;-)

here I am ...

dear Santa Claus ...

Christmas time, time to write letters to Santa Claus and tell him what you want under the Tree.
On the web there are many ways to write letters and many websites but this I found I think is the cutest. In the website SANTAPOST you can order a special letter signed from Santa Claus that your kid can write for XMas.
There are many versions depending on what you want to spend, with special adhesives, stamps and personal name already written on the letter you have to fill in. (this one in the foto is just one of the examples on disposal).

Letter will arrive from Lapponia, Finland, the house of Santa Claus and he personally will sign every letter. GEEE ^___^

It can be a cute thig to keep and remeber for a small kid if between all expences of december you can spare 20 bucks or you decide to make a special gift ^^

Momi 3rd birthday party !

This morning Momichan awakened early and jumped in our bed, she asked about her party and I reassured her that in the afternoon we would have gone to the kid park but before we would have gone to take te Xmas tree and after lunch she would have had at least one hour sleep.

It's 15.30 and we are at the Kid's Park waiting for all the kids to come to Momichan's party.
I must say I am a little nervous, I want everything is going ok for my little Momo and she is expecting everyone to come to her party.

At 16.00 the first kids arrive, Momichan arrives from the bottom of the room where she was playing and says "hallo" to her friend, then looks curiously at the packet the friend is giving to her, I tell Momi to take the present in the place we have reserved for the party, the parents and friends go to the locker room and they reach us immediately.

The place is funny and amusing so the kids start to jump around and climb over the sliders and in the castle.

Momichan loves the ball pool in the babies zone and she loves the tricycle and little house so she runs there followed by daddy who is curios about all this I have organized and has an incredulous face also thinking at his baby daughter who is growing so fast, more than he could imagine and who is playing happily with her school friends and saying "thanks" everytime a new invited kid arrives with a present and she runs to put it in the special present corner in the party space ^O^
Martina, Giorgia, Lorenzo, Peppe, Andrea are running everywhere enchanted and Momichan is enthusiast even if a little confused because this is a special party and she is just 3 years old, she is not accustomed to many friends all in the same place coming because she told them and taking her a present but she is enchanted and runs to play with her friend Martina on the Peter Pan Galeon.

From time to time three of the kids stop at the party corner while the other play to eat pop corn in peace :-) then they run again to play ^^

Finally around 18.00 the last of the kids arrives with little brother, mum and dad, he is confused and seems not to love so much noise and confusion and at the start he weeps a little.

We call every kid because is time for snack, Momichan helps to distribute food, we have nutella sanwiches, pop corn made just a few minutes ago and small croissants with ham and cheese.

After eating a little Momichan asks me if she can open her presents :-) obviously she can, so some of the kids help her taking the presents to a large space and open alltogather. Momichan is so curious to see what's inside the packets: Peppe has taken a cute violet sweatshirt, really cute indeed a very nice idea, Martina has taken a kawaii Snowhite glass foto frame, Camilla has a Smurf little book, perfect to read Momichan before going sleeping in the evening, Giorgia has taken a kawaii soft cloth doll, Robert has taken a soft Hello Kitty bathrobe and a pair of Hello Kitty home shoes, Lorenzo, Alice and Andrea have taken a special blackboard we can also use to learn to count numbers till 10 and make addictions and subtractions. It's time for the cake and to blow the candles so I tell the owner of the kids park to take it, she comes with a collegue to help and a camera to make a special foto.

All the kids are grouped togather around Momoko behind the table, she smiles and blows tha candle, the lady clicks three fotos, all the kids are really kawaii.

The cake is really tasty YUM YUM, while we are finishing it the kids already jump away to play. Now Robert amuses so much, he no longer weeps and runs and jumps as all the other kids, his brother Ale, 7 months old, amuses even more inside the babies area in the center on the big park and his mother is so happy, I guess he was not convinced her kids would amuse so much.

Sampei has to go to work, so he waves goodby and kisses her daughter and goes away, we stay a little more, the parents of Robert and Ale will take us home.

The other kids in the meantime slowly start to go home, Robert, Ale and Peppe are still playing with Momichan who seems not to have the slightest idea to leave :-) but soon is 19.00 PM and the park has to close so we hurry up, I dress Momi, we take all the presents and we are out in the night.

Momichan doesn't want to admit but she is really tired, today she has not slept much because she had gone to bed for nap at 14.00 and at 15.10 I has wakened up so we hurry home, she helps taking her presents to the car and soon we are home.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN MOMICHAN !!!

cake for the party

Here is the cake we have bought for Momichan's party this afternoon, she said me she wanted some Smurfs and I found theese ones. Momichan love this cake ^^

Buying X'Mas Tree

This morning we went Ikea store to buy the pine X'mas tree, Momichan cannot see the moment in which wee will decorate it togather with plush toys and small red glowing balls.
We enter Ikea store and go directly to pay it, we have also bought some earth, vase I already have at home.

Ouside Ikea there is a small red X'mas wooden house with all the trees and we choose one we think it will be suitable for our livingroom.

Tree is not enormous and enters easily inside our small car, it makes a nice smell inside ^^We have still one thing to do before coming house, we have to go to our preferred shop to retire the special b'day cake we will take to Arcobaleno delle Favole this afternoon for the party we are giving for Momichan with all her kindergarden friends ^^

day 4: happy birthday Momi !!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMICHAN !!!

Today Momichan is 3 years old !

For Momichan this year, birthday has been the occasion to celebrate three times, friday inside kindergarden, today with the family and tomorrow at the kid park.
This morning while cake was baking inside the ovwn we went outside to our preferred shop, to take the food we needed for our little party and after to the balloon shop for a couple of special balloons I reserved yesterday (see foto).
Momichan is really happy for the balloons, she shows everybody and jumps happily everywhere we go.

After the shopping we have come home while daddy went to take granny with the car. In the meantime at home, Momichan and I were decorating house, preparing the table and disposing food in the living room, the balloons make a happy atmosphere and the kid music I tuned up do the rest, Momichan starts to jump and dance according with the songs and also singing some of then she is very jouzu. My special home b'day cake made with ikea baking items has come out strange but anyway Momichan says it is wonderful, maybe because I made it colorful.Granny arrives with two presents, one is coming from auntie, uncle and dog ... (she always sign every present with the three signatures including the dog) we put presents alltogather on the table and Momichan helped by daddy and granny, starts to open enchanted to have so many colorful packets. Granny has bought a special puzzle book, auntie have provided a supercute Hello Kitty purse bag, Momi loves it ! we have bought a patisserie Hello Kitty shop, a Smurf house and some marionette from Ikea. Momichan says she loves all her presents but the one she is most crazy about is the Kitty patisserie shop (see the foto).
The main dish is a rousted piece of meat with veggies but Momichan has her special dish with Ikea meatballs she asked for today.

We have to hurry because daddy has no day free today and he has to go work so we have to blow out candles and eat the cake. Daddy puts the light off and lights the candles, Momichan is all enchanted, we start to sing "Happy birthday song" and she blows up the candles ! Bravaaaaa !!! (yoku dekimashita Momichan !)

Daddy is going work, Momichan has to go sleeping for her usual nap, granny sits on the sofa reading some books I have and I start to reorganize and clean around.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMICHAN !

dinner

Special dinner tonight for Momichan, a lot of veggies decorated by some carrot butterflies ^^
I cannot check at kindergarden if she is eating veggies or not and Momichan recently has a problem connected with veggies, she has to eat a lot
because she has problem going bathroom. The problem is she doesn't want to eat in the evening, everytime we have to stay sitting at the table nearly 40 minutes just to eat half of the dish and every thing she puts into mouth she sips a little water so inside belly she has more water than food !!!
Every day in the evening is a fight to make her eat something and I cannot leave it and say, "well you do not have hunger, you will eat tomorrow no problem" because we are giving Momi a special medicine she had to take for one month to help her but if doesn't eat the medicine doesn't work and as in kindergarden she doesn't eat veggies, every day without veggie is dangerous for her. Let see this evening if she will eat this dish.

day 3: kindergarden party

In Italy there is the use of celebrate kids birthday inside kindergarden; Momichan had had a school party also last year when she was 2 years old, we had taken cakes and beverages to be given to her mates, this year will be the same also if her real bday will be on saturday, (kindergarden is from monday to friday) we will take some cakes for the kids.
It is important that the cakes are bought at supermarket, kindergarden and school in general do not accept any food taken from outside which does not have a wrapping with all the components written so that they are absolutely sure what they are giving to kids and in case there are some allergies they can read the ingredients on the packaging. We decided that a "crostata" and a "plumcake" would work so we bought two special crostata (see the foto) with peach and blackberries marmelade and two plumcake which easily kids will like (kids are 26). Kindergarden will provide beverages, cakes will be given to kids after lunch before going for the usual nap.

day 2: decorations

Another step for Momichan birthday is to decorate the genkan wardrobe. I have attached some confettis to the doors of the wardrobe, some of them are little balloons, some are happy-birthday

Momichan amused so much in helping me to decorate house and her special corner in the bathroom, she loves blue so she gave me all the balloons and happy-bday in this colour, we decorated every corner, her ikea kitchen doorn, the wardrobe, the bathroom and also some books, she smiled and jumped happily and gave me a big kiss saying I was really a sweet mum because I had this idea ^O^

day 2: balloons

This morning while Momichan is in kindergarden I went to reserve the balloons for saturday, one has a Smurf on it and is shaped heart, the other is big round and coloured with a "happy Birthday" on it. They will be illed with helium so that they will fly, Momichan will be happy about that.

1st,2nd,3rd Momo birthday

This is Momichan during time, from her first birthday till today (last bday foto is just temporarily, will be changed with the real bday foto as soon as we will make)

Momichan is 3 years old

19 november 2011

Momichan is 2 years old
19 november 2010

Momichan is 1 year old
19 november 2009

ciao ciao

day 1: preparing b'day

This morning after having taken Momichan to kindergarden, Sampei and I have gone shopping to prepare her birthdays ... well, she will celebrate three days:
friday 18th at kindergarden with her school mates so we had to visit a supermarket to buy a couple of cakes.
saturday 19th at home (effective b'day) granny will come to our house to celebrate her nephew, so we had to visit our preferred coffee shop to order some sweets and brioches, then we went to another big superstore to take the necessary food and decorating cake items for the lunch and last but less important, we went to a toy center to buy a present for Momichan.

Saturday we will have a big breakfast alltogather, we will dance and play, I will make a special make up to Momichan (she will tell me what she want to be designed on her face with the special pastels) we will give her the presents and after we will have lunch with the special cake I will bake and decorate myself.

Sunday 20th at Arcobaleno delle Favole Momichan will have her real party at the with all her friends, she will have their presents, will have a big cake decorated by a Smurf image (she told me she wanted a Smurf so I searched in internet and found a cute image with three Smurfs I think she will like) and I will have to prepare the little presents for each kid coming.

Once at home while Sampei was cooking lunch I was busy to wrap Momichan's present and compose the kid's sourprises for the party on sunday (see the foto below).

Here it is, before creating this little presents I have looked around and asked other mothers who had already celebrated birthdays of their kids in the same way and they have suggested me some ideas. Each of our small envelope contain a bubble bottle, a couple of discount tickets for McDonalds valuable till X'Mas and a dozen candies. Every kid will receive an enevlope after the party as a thanks for having come to celebrate Momichan.
On each enevlope there is a Mickey Mouse adhesive on which I wrote "thanks for having come to my party" signed "Momo".

Sampei was laughing seeing me arranging all that, he is not able to imagine and organize her daughter party but he bought her a big present we really hope she will like, is something decorated Hello Kitty, Momichan can play every day and amuse, I can also play with her. The only thing lacking for the party at home on saturady is a couple of balloons I will take home around 10.30 after having put inside oven the cake for baking, in the meantime Momichan will stay with daddy and granny, when I will come back with the balloons we will have a big breakfast and the opening of the presents ^O^
On friday night I will take her presents out of our wardrobe and put on the table of the living room, also I will decorate the genkan wardrobe with images she likes and "tanti auguri" written everywhere so that when Momichan will awake and come in the living room she will see everything ^^(follows day by day ...)

my dog ...

We had a cat last year but when we moved in this house again he simply disappeared. Momichan has grown up with Felix and was sad about his loss, anyway we cannot have a pet now, I am too busy for that so Momichan plays with Ikea plush dogs, 8foto) and pretends they are real HAHA this one has his own dish with food and a little bed to have rest (well, bed is too little for this big dog) but Momi does not care ^___^

library

This morning I went to the public library (yessss we do have a public library with a kid corner HAHAHA seems strange but we have) and took some books for Momichan.

One of theese is "Attenti alla casa stregata" related to the Halloween night, the other is a book of Richard Scarry. When i saw it I decided to take, it was my prefered book when I was little and somewhere inmum's house I still should have, we will have to search for it.

Richard Scarry was an american writer, he has written more than 300 books for kids but I guess the one everybody knows about is "The fantastic world of Richard Scarry" about a little town inhabited by various characters named Busytown (in Italy is called "Sgobbonia").

Recently his characters are on a popular tv cartoon on the air on Rai YoYo.

One of the most popular characters is Zigo Zago, a funny worm, he usually wears tyrolean hat and a shoe on the end of his tail. His best friend is Hucke Cat (in Italy Sandrino) who has a little sister called Sally. Zigo Zago drives and apple shaped car, Huckle Cat has a normal red car and Sally has a scooter.
The Cat father has a little supermarket and the kids love to solve the various misteries which happens inside their little town. They always solve them togather with Zigo Zago and most of the time with the two Pig brothers Pig Will and Pig Won't who always quarrel for everything, everyone wants to help solve cases but they are not intelligent as much as Huckle to understand and collect proofs so most of the times the make disasters :) Sally instead is very helpful to her brother and amuses so much togather with the worm Zigo Zago to discover what is going on in town.

(Hilda Hippo, Sally and Hucke Cat, Zigo Zago, Pig Will and Pig Won't)

Other characters are Sergeant Murphy (sergente Multa) a cocker spaniel motorcyclist policeman, Gorilla Banana, Hilda Hippo, mr Fixit, a fox who repares everything, mrs Honey, a bear teacher in the school, doctor Lion, Pig Will and Pig Won't, two pig brothers who drive a sausage car and are friends of Huckle Cat and Sally.

Leaves Day

In our little town we have a small library and outside the library there is a big park where we take kids to play. Unfortunately the park would need some help to be cleaned in automn and cared for but the Cityhall does not pay much attention except when there is something really urgent to do.
During theese days the park would need someone to take leaves away from the ground because therre are too may and it start to become dangerous for kids because it is slimy and also not so nice to look at so we are triyn to organize a kind of Leaves Party for mums and kids, every mum will take a cake or bisquits or beverages.
I will organize a kind of tree safari with explanation of the trees of the park, history, how much they grow, the flowers they produce and something like that, and we will take leaves away. We can organize for kids something like a treasure game to seek for some some elements like a red leaf, a yellow one, a wooden stick, a stone, a pine cone or else.

This mornign while Momichan is inkindergarden, I have gone to the park and I have made many photos I have to elaborate and put togather to make a kind of booklet to give to children and tell them about the park. I was thinking to make a little book with pages with infos and one blank to use to glue on the real leaves found in the park (absolutely not taken from the trees but picked up from the ground.

Let see if someone from kindergarden mum group will help ^O^

Grancia CH

Instead of taking Momichan to kindergarden, today we decide to make a travel to Grancia, Swiss. The reason why we want to go there is to take my b'day present Ikea Grancia every year prepares for its clients and this time present is a cute thermo mug for coffee, in Milan nobody has and I love to have this gadget I will use so much for my Nescafe everyday. So first of all we get inside Ikea and we take my special mug then as it is a little late, we go eating at the ikea restaurant, we all like the meatballs and fries.
The impression this restaurant gives is different from the italian one, even if more or less all ikea restaurants are the same but this one has two differences: first of all dishes are all personalized and also here you can find some new foods or matchings different from the ones you can taste at the store near our house, second, the place is absolutely clean (WOW !), noone is shouting like in italy, no confusion and also there is a big cupboard near the tables zone full of items for kids to use to eat: in the big drawers we find bibs, dishes, tools, glasses, every thing a kid might need to eat is put there in a big clean drawer, after the meal you simply take the trays in a corner and everything will be washed and put away.

In Milan we do not have bibs (everytime I forget is terrible to ask for one) and absolutely no dishes for kids ! theese dishes and tools are the same you can but in the store and which we already have since Momichan has born to eat her everyday meal at home, plastic, colured and easy to use for children. Momichan loves them because they make her happy, she loves colours.

Sampei today is free from work so we have plenty of time for the travel and to walk around the Ikea and the Mall.
Just in front Ikea store there is a big Mall with a big Coop supermarket where every time we go shopping for strange foods, there are many different stores inside the mall, selling shoes, dresses, toys and many other little shops and coffee corners where to find cute presents for every occasion. Some of the shops we already know because we have also in Milan like Yves Rocher and H&M but here they sell items we cannot find in Milan like for example H&M where we always go for a visit to see what cute we can find to dress Momichan.
After lunch we go supermarket, we want to buy some chokolate bars and see what new foods we can find there. Today my attraction goes to some ravioli can ... I have never saw something like this except on tv in the american movies, for me ravioli in a can is absolutely funny, no italian ever would eat ravioli like this, we love to buy fresh and cook at home in various ways with fresh products.
Apart from this I find some items and decorations for cakes (I take some for Momichan's bday cake), there are some yummy ham and cheese, yogurt tasting chestnut and honey, some strawberry ones yummier than the one we can find at our local supermarket. There is a big varity of frowen foods, something like I can find in Japan, many different meat and veggies and ice creams for kids with cute shapes and characters, some of them have sourprises inside.
In a small corner there are foods for chefs, some strnage blue Syrian salt and another pink salt coming from some arab place, many custard creams, herb mixtures and much more that makes this supermarket a real paradise for Sampei.

Inside tha Mall apart from the Coop, there are also some games like a little little horses and a Ferrari car Momichan is always happy to drive (see foto), is a classic, three years we go there and three times Momichan jumps inside and drives, we just need to put inside the car a small coin ^^

Going around we also see a strange cow for the publicty of some chokolate and Momichan amuses to play, she wants to sit on it and pretend to be an indian girl (indian feather crown has been bought at Ikea store after lunch), going with her own cow to make her eat, she walked away calling the cow "hey cow follow me, I'll take you to some goog grass for dinner" then she wanted to jump on the cow to drive her some part ... "hey cow go !" funny in this foto the false cow seems really to follow Momichan HAHAHA

Around 19.30 we decide is time to go home, Momichan has not slept all day long and surely will once she will be seated in her car seat. We want to realx a little on our sofa eating dinner and watch tv and also Momichan will have kindergarden tomorrow so we cannot arrive home too late. Luckily rain is not hard (it has gome and gone all day long) so just before 21.00 we are home. Momichan is asleep, I undress her and put her on a fresh pijama, give her a bottle milk and she goes on sleeping.
ciao ciao