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Mamma wears Prada

June 10, 2014

Father’s day: dreamy vs ordinary gifts

Daily photo, family, gifts Comments Off on Father’s day: dreamy vs ordinary gifts

Less than a week to go and the hunting for Father’s day perfect gift madness has started.  Every now and again I wonder what we’d buy him if money was no object so I decided to create two wish lists naming gifts I can afford and gifts I WISH I could buy for him. Because I’m planning to choose some numbers and play them at the next lottery, I need to keep my options open in case in a week time I will become a millionaire LOL

PRESENT NUMBER ONE

My husband’s goal before he turns 40 is owning a Porsche. Therefore, on a small scale, I thought why not a bluetooth Porche 911 Carrera?

The iConnect Bluetooth Porsche 911 Carrera features working headlamps, tail and brake lights, indicators, and even hazard warning lights. It has proportional steering, fully functional suspension, realistic sound effects, a range of ten metres or more indoors or outside, plus thirty minutes continuous operation.

Officially approved and licensed by both Apple & Porsche, the bluetooth Porsche dashboard offers both full gesture and virtual joystick control options, a collision sensor, battery power indicator, and even provides vibration through an iPhone, when you perform extreme manoeuvres. Sounds much fun even for me!

The luxury version of this would be a Porche Ice drive experience in Sweden!

This adventure break consists in four days in Sweden doing ice driving and snow safari for the little price of £4990. This would include:
– Ice Drive Training on frozen lakes  in Porsche Carreras, 2s & 4s
– Snowmobile Safari in the Swedish countryside
– Three-night accommodation
– All meals including breakfast, lunch, three course dinner in a gourmet restaurant
– Spa facilities and outdoor hot tub to for post-driving relaxation

How’s that as a present?!?

PRESENT NUMBER TWO

Daddy is obsessed with films, like OBSESSED. Every time he’s got a minute free you can find him in front of his laptop looking for new movies released or buying new DVD’s. Many nights a week, while mummy is busy writing posts on her blog, he’s like hypnothised watching his favourite film. An original present would be a date night watching a good old movie in an amazing outdoor venue like Kensiton palace or Lincoln Castle. Beautiful!

The rather expensive option (which really depends on this week jackpot!) would be suprise him with a 6 million dollars home private screen movie theatre!!

Designed and build by Jeremy R Kipnis, this enteratainment room features a gigantic 10’ X 18’ screen, professional video projector, numerous custom DVD/CD, Blu ray player, VHS video recorder, Laserdisc, a gaming console, huge speakers, and luxurious seating. Other additional features include an orchestra section, double-story balcony and acoustic materials used to isolate noise in the room. I’d probably need to buy a new house before considering this as a gift!

PRESENT NUMBER THREE

A man in his late 30s (ssssh don’t say I mention his age) should look after himself and especially after his skin so what better idea than a Moisturiser Gift set?

Or sit down and enjoy because the expensive version of that would be let other people do the job and enjoy a luxurious Spa holiday on a small private island in the middle of the Indian Ocean is Baros Maldives!

The resort offers elegant, secluded villas with palm thatched roofs either over water or facing the beach. It has a PADI diving centre and a Spa with a tranquil water garden. By entering the Spa Reception, one walks through intricately carved doors, onto stepping stones, embedded within a pond. On either side there is a beautifully designed garden while gentle sounds of trickling water indicate a place of wellbeing. From £315 per person per night this is Paradise!

PRESENT NUMBER FOUR

What are daddies obsessed with? Barbecue! The problem is we don’t have a garden so I could only buy him a portable barbecue that he could take wherever he likes: to the beach, to the park, etc.

I found this one which looks pretty cool and for £180 I think it’s a real deal. It includes:

  • One stainless steel burner produces 8500 BTU-per-hour to heat 189 square-inch total cooking area
  • Porcelain-enameled cast-iron cooking grates and cast aluminum lid and body
  • Fully assembled out of box
  • Push-button ignition and infinite control burner valve settings
  • Uses disposable 14.1 or 16.4 oz. LP cylinder

The ultimate version of a simple barbecue is this beast!

This apparently is the best gas grill in the world, easy to clean, it has advanced custom grill grates PLUS it has the ability to cook with charcoal and wood as well! In my house it will be in use every week end, that’s for sure.

Ok, it’s me done now (mostly dreaming), let’s go an play some numbers, wish me luck!

Happy father’s day everyone, I hope you get what you wish for!

May 30, 2014

Wall stickers, the original gift idea

baby products, Daily photo, family, gifts, Inspiration, nursery Comments Off on Wall stickers, the original gift idea

Every year, around this time, we, actually Bee has got a very busy social life. Many of her nursery friends have thier birthdays in April and May and we get invitations to their parties. The hunting for the perfect present starts early when we wonder in toys shops to find the perfect present which will wow her friends.

Most of the time we end up buying princess games, or princess dolls, books, puzzles. Don’t get me wrong, these are all very nice presents and the girls love them but I’d like for once to buy something different.

Few weeks ago I came across this website which sells wall stickers. Bee’s bedroom doesn’t really look like a girl’s room so we thought a touch of colour is what it needed. I’ve wanted to buy nursery wall stickers for a while but always been afraid that it would not stick properly on the wall or the colours wouldn’t be as vivid as the ones in the image so I never actually made it to buy one. Until now! I read many positive reviews about this company and went for it.

The wall stickers arrived well packed in a padded tube. Once we opened it we were surprised to see so many stickers and what amazing colours they had! The tube contained 2 sheets with different characters, flowers, leaves and many other decorations. Bee got really excited and she couldn’t wait to peel them all off!

The fun part is that we all got involved and started working as a team. I was peeling the stickers off the sheets, passing them on to Bee who was handing them to daddy who was in charge to stick them on the wall. All characters were incredibly easy to peel off, even if Bee was touching them they would not loose their stickyness. Plus to make it right we followed the image sample which assigned a number to every piece, really we couldn’t get it wrong (very useful for the tree which had many similar branches).

Out of many choices from the website, we opted for a very colourful one which would have suited both Bee and Leo’s age.

It was difficult to keep Bee from sticking the animals all over the place on the wall so we allowed her to stick all of the butterflies, the flowers and the birds wherever she wanted, and helped daddy to stick the bigger ones.

It took us a while to put the whole picture up as we decided to carefully follow the instructions and the colour pattern of the image sample, the result though was amazing! Somehow it actually looks like someone painted those vivid colours on the wall.

I was very pleased with the quality of the stickers, their precised pre-cut shapes made it easy to peel them off and even if you made a mistake and peeled one of the stickers off and stuck it again it actually stayed there!

Every night when Bee goes to bed, I can hear her making up stories that involve the animals on the wall and I think it’s great for her imagination. Plus I think she feels less alone at night with all these little cute animals surrounding her bed.

A few more stickers and we were almost done! It was actually a pretty fun time as this was a rare occasion where we were all together in the same room doing something crafty!

The wall sticker is covering almost the entire wall of Bee’s bedroom and the room looks amazing with those bright colours and funny face animals!

A surprisingly good quality product, I was definitely pleased with it and I think it would make an original and fun gift for kids of literally any age thanks to the wide choice of patterns available on the website.

 

 

 

 

 

May 22, 2014

Dribble dribble little baby – Skibz baby bibs review

baby products, Daily photo, family Comments Off on Dribble dribble little baby – Skibz baby bibs review

Leonardo has been teething forever and trust me when I say FOREVER it means almost since the day he was born!

During his first few months he had colics and when those where gone at 3 months he suffered so much because of his irritated gums. I cannot even tell you how many bibs we went through.. because none of them were absorbing enough dribble at one point I actually gave up and just started changing his tops more often.

At the beginning we were using normal bibs but he just looked like he was ready for lunch most of the time, not cool. Then I discovered these new bibs/bandana which looked better and they were quite fun to wear but they definitely were not doing their job. He used to get wet pretty quickly and because they didn’t absorb enough I constantly had to change bib and top too.

Only few weeks ago on Twitter, I discovered the Skibz bib/bandana. They looked great so I contacted the Company which produces them to enquire about the product and they kindly sent me one Skibz to try. I was really looking forward to receive it as I read brilliant reviews online and hoping to find the one.

First of all, when I received it what suprised the most was the bright colour and the fun design which made it a very cool product straight away. When I then held it in my hands I realised that the quality was pretty amazing. The Skibz bib is pretty thick and soft, it is slightly bigger than a normal bib (which is great!) and it has two adjustable studs in the back so it perfectly fits your baby’s neck. I quickly thought it was a winner!

When I put it on Leonardo it was love at first sight! My boy looked gorgeous and for the first time he wasn’t too bothered to be wearing a bib (usually he quickly grabs it and pull it off!). Not sure if this was because of the softness of the material or because he knew he looked cool haha

Leonardo is now 12, no wait 13 months old (OUCH!) and as you can see in this picture he still suffers quite a lot because of teething and still dribbles constantly. This time though I noticed that due to Skibz higher absorbance compared to a normal bib,  his tops don’t get wet and most important his delicate skin doesn’t get irritated! Skibz bib has different layers of material and it’s all 100% cotton which totally makes the difference. Plus I already washed it many times and the colour hasn’t faded a bit (usually within the first wash I can see the difference in colour with other bibs) and because all Skibz are pre-shrunk, wash after wash it will keep the same size! Just brilliant!

A part from using Skibz to keep my baby’s top dry and avoiding his delicate skin to get irritated,  I think it’s a great bandana to wear in particular during these lovely sunny Scottish days where the temperature is milder but it is always so windy outside! He recently had a bad cough, so knowing that his throat is covered makes me feel he’s protected (Italian mammas are obsessed with covering up their kids! lol)

Skibz bibs are definitely a product I would recommend. At the moment we use it all the time and I’ll definitely be spending some time online choosing another couple of bibs among the wide range of colours and patterns available: one to keep in my bag so I always have a fresh clean bib whenever we are out and about and another one to alternate the one we use at home. Great product and happy to have discovered it!

May 20, 2014

Our Scottish summer

Daily photo, family Comments Off on Our Scottish summer

“Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, But put me in summer and I’ll be a — happy snowman!” Olaf would have loooved this summery day in Scotland!!

We knew it was going to be a lovely sunny one so rather than going to the Botanic garden we opted for a walk on the beach which is literally 5 minutes by car from our flat. What I never expected is that it was so warm that a stroll on the beach turned out to be an afternoon of fun playing in the sand and getting into the sea!

When we arrived we straight away took our shoes and socks off. This was Leonardo second time on the beach so I let him sit on the sand and getting used to it.  It clearly didn’t take him much time to figure out that the texture was a very interesting one so he quickly grabbed some sand and started eating it! I thought once he tasted it he’d have spit it.. nope, he was loving it! Yuck!

We OBVIOUSLY forgot his hat! Lucky my mom had a little handkerchief so we tied all 4 corners and used it to protect Leonardo’s head.. he looked pretty funny!

As the time went on, we were really getting hot so I decided to take his tracksuit bottoms off and go for a walk closer to the sea. As soon as I put his feet into the water I struggled to keep him away from it! He kept going back and even threw a massive tantrum when I grabbed him a second before he jumped face down into the sea!

As soon as we arrived Bee was already making a sand castle.

I love this picture! Both look busy running around the beach. Bee at this point had all her clothes wet and I didn’t have any change for her (to be honest I’ve never expected it’d have been so hot to the point to walk into the sea!)  so she was just wearing the sleevless top which was the only dry garment we had at that point!

Nonna could not quite believe that we were so lucky to spend such a lovely warm day at the beach in May!

Stopping Leonardo from running into the water kept me fit for a couple of hours.

Enjoying the sun and still eating sand!

Bee went a bit further into the sea to fetch some water for her castle. If she had a swimming suit she would have definitely jumped in!

We spent an amazing day at the beach playing with the sand, with the water, watching many dogs jumping into the sea and chasing each others.

It is only sad to think that this could have been our only day of summer (yeah funny Scotland!) but at least we enjoyed it to the fullest!

 

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