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We are ready for Christmas!

family Comments Off on We are ready for Christmas!

I can honestly say this year I’m particularly emotional about Christmas. Both my children are now visibly excited about this magic time of the year and I’ve wanted to do my best to create the perfect Christmas atmosphere and enjoy every single moment all together.

In the last few weeks we talked about Nativity, sang Christmas songs, watched Christmast movies and obviously baked Christmassy cookies and treats for the whole family!

We started celebrating the countdown at the beginning of December when we made our Cake pop advent calendar.

Then we made a garland of little gingerbread Santas and some Christmassy cookies: a boot, a tree, an angel and a star and we put them in little boxes to give to our neighbours.

Christmas cookie

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We made Christmas cake pops!

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We made glittery candles to place on the top of the fire place and to decorate our Christmas golden table.

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we made salty dough to prepare some glittery gingerbread men

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The night of the 12th of December we prepared our shoes for “Santa Lucia”. In my family waiting for Santa Lucia and her donkey who arrive during the night while the children are asleep, has always been an exciting experience. When we were little my mum thought Christmas was too much about presents and very little about the real meaning , so she used to have Santa Lucia bringing us the presents instead of Santa.

We had to prepare our shoes in line and leave some water and bread for the donkey. The next morning the shoes overflew with sweets and presents and I can still remember the excitement in my dad’s voice ” E’ arrivata Santa Lucia, e’ arrivata Santa Lucia” (Santa Lucia has been here!) so we used to jump straight out of bed and go and check our shoes.

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Amazing memories which will be with me forever. And this is the reason why I was very keen to carry on this tradition. This year Bee and I carefully prepared the shoes, the bread and water for donkey and we wrote a letter asking Santa Lucia to make sure that donkey didn’t poo poo inside the house (Bee saw me cleaning the floor during the day so she was concerned lol!). It was really funny and spending time together preparing for her arrival was magic.

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Yesterday we made more gingerbread dough to make an Edible Nativitiy and more vanilla cookies to fill with jam.

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Then in the afternoon we baked 6 little baby panettoni and a big one to eat all together on Christmas eve.

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We covered some oreos cookies with white chocolate…

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And made more chocolate treats!

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Last week we have been watching Christmas movies like “Home Alone” and “The Polar express”, many nights we put our Christmas cd on and danced all together! We truly are into the Christmas spirit and we love it! Tonight we all will be wearing our new Christmas jumpers (I bought one for every single member of the family)  and will be singing Christmas songs and being silly! What a wonderful precious time!

Buon Natale everyone!

Want your kids to behave? Santa can help

Christmas, family Comments Off on Want your kids to behave? Santa can help

This is the time of the year where I guess most parents use the “Santa excuse” to have their children to behave “Please remember that Santa is watching so if you want to be on his nice list you have to behave”.

In our family Santa is the magic word to make Bee behaving better, being nice to her brother, cleaning her room, and generally (for once) saying “yes” rather than “no”. But recently, despite our warnings, Bee hasn’t showed her best behaviour so I had to find a solution.

I discovered the PNP website a week ago and I thought it was perfect! www.portablenorthpole.com is a website that allows you to create a special personalised message for your kids (and adults too!).  It’s very easy to use and the fact that you can add pictures and details about your kids makes it even more special!

When I told Bee that she received a message from Santa himself, she was literally speechless!

On the website you can choose different scenarios and tailor the message based on your “needs”.  I chose the  “almost nice” option so Beatrice message from Santa was a warning saying that she actually hasn’t made it to the nice list YET but that she still has two more weeks to make it up. Her face was priceless! At the beginning she was a bit upset but since then it’s all roses in our house! She ‘s happy to help, she shares her toys with her brother and there are no more tantrums to go to bed! Fabulous!

A part from this “useful purpose”  I found watching the message pretty emotional…

Believing in Santa is something magic that I can live again through my children’s eyes so anything that excite them towards this wonderful time of the year, fills me with joy! Bee asks me to watch Santa’s message again and again and I can see she’s doing her best to make it to the nice list, to be good at Santa’s eyes and receive the present she dreams about.

Bee ready for Christmas

If you would like to create a personalised message for your children I’ve got a little treat for you. Go to www.portablenorthpole.com, enter this code BLG20BKP for a  20% discount on all digital products (excluding in-app purchases) and you can choose the option that best suits you. Don’t forget that you can have Santa calling directly your phone and leaving a message for you loved ones! I did this too just to let Bee know that Santa had received her letter, she was excitedly surprised I cannot even describe it!

What about you? Did you make it to the nice list?

Have a wonderful Christmas!!

What’s better than a present? A beautifully wrapped present!

Christmas, Daily photo, family, gifts Comments Off on What’s better than a present? A beautifully wrapped present!

Who doesn’t get excited at the sight of a present? Either when you give or receive one, the happiness is huge and for me the look of your loved ones when they open a gift is priceless!

But what if the beauty of a present started outside of the box?

I only discovered wrap.me a couple of weeks ago and quickly fell in love with the idea. wrap.me is a new website that allows you to use your personal pictures to create a beautiful personalised photo wrapping paper.

personalised wrapping paper

I could not wait to receive mine. I obviously used my children’s pictures I had on my Instagram account ( you can use up to 30 different ones) and the result is truly spectacular!

personalised wrapping paper for Christmas

It’s simple to create. You can make your own in just three steps:

  • choose your photos,
  • decide how much paper you want ( a single sheet, a small roll or a large roll)
  • then check out!
You can upload photos from anywhere: Facebook, Instagram or from your phone and computer.

wrapping presents

When I received the wrapping paper to be honest I didn’t even want it to use it as it is so beautiful that you don’t want to cut it! I was very pleased with the quality of the paper (very thick!) and the top quality of the printed images too. My husband suggested to make a frame of the single sheet we ordered, and we will probably do that in the future using more pictures from our memories.

But this time I used this gorgeous wrapping paper to wrap a gift for my mum and rather than cut it, I chose a present that fit the size of the sheet so that once she unwraps it, she can still have whole sheet intact.

Christmas presentBecause my mum lives in Italy, unfortunately she hardly sees our children. Therefore the best thing we could give her is any kind of gift involving pictures of her adorable grandchildren. I’m sure she’ll love both the present and the photo wrapping paper!

I tend to put a lot of thought into making presents look special and I think this photo wrapping paper is the perfect touch to surprise my loved ones right from the moment a present reaches their hands. Fab!

gorgeous wrapping paper

 

 

 

 

The secret to a good night sleep

baby products, family Comments Off on The secret to a good night sleep

Creating the perfect environment in your child’s room is fundamental to have a good night sleep which is essential for you child’s health, development and growth.

Unless you have been very lucky, I guess that evey single parent has experience some sorts of sleep deprivations during the first few months (years!!) of their children’s life. Despite having read many posts about creating the perfect routine for a guaranteed (?!?!) night sleep, I personally had both children calling for attention at night.

Bee started to sleep through the night at around 2, Leonardo started… last week!

Yes, last week, at 19 months! I can say I was lucky to find the secret to have him sleeping through the night.

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cot bed sleeping bag

I always knew about the importance to have the right temperature in my child’s room but I never thought that this would affect drastically my baby awakes during the night. And changing from duvet to sleeping bag just did the trick!

I was pretty excited to receive a Grobag sleeping bag. Leo hadn’t used one since he was around 12 months and I wanted to give it another go and see if he was comfortable in it. Somehow, before,  I had the feeling that he didn’t like sleeping in a sleeping bag so we started using a duvet “cot size” because I thought he’d have had more freedoom to move his legs during the night and have a better sleep. I quite liked the idea of having my baby sleeping under a duvet as I always thought it’d have kept him warmer plus I don’t particulary like to see my baby’s arms not covered.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

sleeping bag

Until last week Leonardo used to wake up once or twice per night.  The first night we put him in his new cozy Grobag sleeping bag it was more an experiment to see if that would have made any difference and I have to be honest I didn’t have much hope. I just thought that was the way he was and I’d just have to wait for him to grow out of his habit of waking up at night: wrong!

That night he slept through.

Leonardo slept from 7.30pm to 6.30 am… wow, I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was just one off and that the night after he’d have woken up his usual for a night feed.

The next night he slept through.. AGAIN! I could not believe it!

The next few nights he slept through and in 2 weeks he only woke up one night at about 4am because he had a “nappy explosion” and one night at 11pm because he was in real pain due to teething: that is it!!

What a difference this sleeping bag made for all our family. Even Bee pointed out that her baby brother does not wake her up anymore!

Sleepy Leo

Sleepy Leo

I feel like I have reached an important milestone in my son’s life and in our life too. Sleeping longer has made such a huge impact on our mood, on our energy and on my face lol. I look more relaxed and a part from the first few days when I had ” I for once, slept too much” kind of eye bags, I can totally see in the mirror that my skin is more radiant!

The Grobag sleeping bag is made of 100% soft cotton and I find it quite practical as there are two different zips which allow you to snug your baby in the sleeping bag in a safe and practical way. There is a chin guard at the top of the zip so you don’t have to worry about the zip rubbing against your child’s skin and there is a zip-click cover that stops your little one from opening his zips.

sleeping cozy bag

When I put Leo in the sleeping bag I noticed there was a velcro sealed hole in the back and (ready to laugh?) I thought it was to open and smell if your baby had a smelly nappy haha not at all (although I still think you could use it for this pourpose too lol) These Grobags were designed for traveling so the double zipper and the hole in the back enables you to put the baby in a car seat or pushchair being in their sleeping bag. Clever! I can say they thought about everything!

Super sleepy Leo

Super sleepy Baby

I still cannot believe that such a small change made such a big different in Leo’s sleeping habits. It’s now obvious that my child prefers being cool rather than warm (very different from mama!). This morning he woke up and his little hands were chilly so I thought he probably hasn’t learned yet to hide them under his tummy (like his sister used to do) but still, he looked happy and again he slept through the night.

Last week-end he woke up at 7am, drunk a bottle of milk and back to sleep till 10am!!  After months we all finally slept in! Pure bliss!

Happy Nights, Happy Days!

leo in sleeping bag