Thankfulness Day 24 - A Beatrix Potter Baby Shower

 Around this time last year, my DH and I went back to our hometown for Thanksgiving, thinking it might be the last chance we would have to see family before we headed off to Italy. During this time, my grandmother graciously let my mother and sister take over her house as they cohosted a baby shower for us, and it was awesome! My mother and sister, as with most of my family come to think of it, do nothing half-baked and always go above and beyond when committing to something. Most often their generosity borders on absurd and insane, and this event was no exception as they single-handedly furnished the baby nursery! They also spent countless hours decorating and planning, and as such, I am going to show off the fruits of their labor below.

            The main theme was Beatrix Potter. I have been a huge fan of the books and movies ever since I was little and have always wanted to theme the baby nursery as such, regardless of the gender. However the color scheme of blue and green worked particularly well for the garden/Peter Rabbit theme as well as our baby's gender. (yay for little boys!) 

          My mother and middle sister both work, and due to the holiday season they had particularly long hours and decided that they may need help decorating. I love decorating and was more than happy to come and assist, and it was easy because they already had all the supplies needed. 

  

    
          As you can see in the picture to the left, even the dining room joined the happy theme! We hung the balloons from the ceiling at various lengths to add dimension. A marble inserted into each one helped them stay in place. We also mixed plain with polka dot and had different colored ribbon tied to each. This took a lot of teamwork and we had an assembly line going to be most efficient. My sister would insert the marble (so the balloons would hang nicely), while I blew them up and tied the ribbons to them, and then my other sister would hand them up to my tall hubby who was on a ladder and attaching them the ceiling. It looked great and was really fun to walk under! Snippets of the curled ribbon decorated the floor so nothing was left untouched for festivity.


I was also in charge of lemonade! With a little help from my family and friends of course ;) I found some unique lemonade recipes online and my hubby and sisters helped me make them. They were sooo good!

Squeezing the lemon juice! So many people pitched in to help, thanks everyone!

We tied cute/themed ribbon my mom found around the mason jars.

I made the mini labels so people knew what they were getting into! The Honey Vanilla Lemonade was the very best of them, which I had not anticipated. 

Food! Family also brought delicious dishes to share. yum! back when I was allowed to eat anything and everything... ah those were the days ;)

My mom made these delicious dirt (oreo pudding) cups complete with fake flowers and gummy worms. 

And of course it's a carrot cake because it was a bunny/garden party

We played a lot of fun games and won plants as prizes. Here people filled out cards of advice for us as parents. Most of them advised us to "get sleep!" (And yes, I still have the cards. They are tucked into the baby book)

Such a beautiful toybox!

Family on both my and my hubby's side showered us with gifts for our upcoming little one, and we really have been in need of little as far as baby supplies go. A year later and I still have unopened bottles of baby soaps to work through! We managed to transport it all back to our apartment in Arizona, where it was packed up by movers the next weekend and shipped off to Italy. Just over two months later, in mid February, the shipment arrived (all in one piece! and less than a day before the baby made his appearance! What timing!). After the weeks in various hospitals for his PKU, we finally got to be home and set up the nursery. Although it's changed a fair amount since the spring, here are the pictures we took when we first got it set up:

This picture was taken before we learned how to hang things in the concrete walls, so the pictures, cross stitch from his great-grandma, and beautiful mobile my mother-in-love made aren't here.

  




Today I am thankful for family and good memories, for the one's who help you and celebrate with you. We are very blessed!

Thankfulness Day 9 - Thankful for Gardens

Today my hubby went out and planted our winter garden (yes, a bit late in the season, but better late than never!). We had moderate success with our summer garden which was encouraging, and since we have been on a recent health kick we have had even greater motivation to grow our own food. I am so thankful our landlords not only let us tear up their yard, but are fully supportive and allow us to use their left over tools and supplies. I am also thankful we have the ability to grow our own food! With some of the scary articles I have read concerning genetically modified foods, pesticide use, and the attempts to patent seeds (can you imagine?? The ridiculousness…) brings me to be thankful one can still grow a private garden!

Here are a couple pictures of a bit of our harvest from the past few months:

Garden Zucchini! I mix this with bellpepper into my scrambled eggs every morning.  Sometimes we steam and mash it so our LO can enjoy our harvest with us.

I enjoy cabbage from time to time, but it’s not usually my vegetable of choice. However, our homegrown cabbages were far different than the ones we procure in stores. I was skeptical after my hubby plucked them and they were all manner of sizes and misshapen appearing; compared to the perfect, round, matching globes of cabbage one finds in stores. And when my husband sliced the first cabbage head open, unlike the dry cabbage from stores, watery cabbage juice flowed from the slice and left a puddle on our cutting board.

We fried it up in some coconut oil and let me tell you, it was scrumptious! Most flavorful and delicious cabbage I have ever had! A small amount of salt added and I gobbled an entire head of it for my dinner. When my hubby asked what I would like him to plant for the winter garden, cabbages were my first request. LOTS of cabbages!

Most flavorful cabbage I have ever had! Quite delicious

Domestic Day - Making a House a Home: Something Living in Every Room

I once read, somewhere in a list of home-making tips (likely linked from Pinterest), that one ought to put something living in every room. Being a lover of plants and animals, I fully supported this idea. Now that we have our own place I have begun to implement this idea, and I must say, if you are looking for ways to make your place more homey and alive, add plants!

My hubby seemed rather skeptical when I informed him of my intentions. He also has a passion for plants, but he prefers ones that bear fruit and vegetables. House plants don't generally fall under that category and as such didn't seem as useful. However, after I had finished my work he agreed they added a nice homey touch and later commented on the added advantage of how they made the rooms smell good as well. (Bonus! Hubby approval ^_^)

This activity is really a quick and easy thing to do, and took me only one afternoon to complete. After going through the house and taking note of locations that looked like they needed sprucing up, I went to the local Italian nursery to procure my plants. The plant nursery was recommended to me by our landlords, who advised me let the woman know who had sent me. I then appropriately name dropped and coincidentally I was given several plants for free! (Yay for connections!) I returned home and proceeded to get good and dirty planting.

Above are pictures of some of the creatures I encountered while planting. Upon seeing them, I took the opportunity to practice one of my new hobbies: photography. I've been attempting to improve the quality and style of the photos I capture, and this here may be the most captured lady bug ever! I took numerous shots in various settings and angles, finally settling on showing you this one. (Thank you again for the camera Uncle Tom! We use it almost daily.)

Our landlords are very involved with their yard and garden, and have been more than supportive with our endeavors at gardening. For this project, they offered me planter boxes they no longer use. (Hooray for saving money!)

While we were house hunting here in Italy, I noticed that nearly all of the windows here have very large windowsills, due to the fact that the custom is to have wooden window shutters and they need space to fold up when opened. The house we selected is no exception and every room has large window sills with plenty of space to put plants. This thrilled me, as I had always wanted to live somewhere where I could have a window box of flowers. A dear friend of mine once made me a lovely window box that I got much joy out of, however I was unable to bring it with us overseas, and realizing that our new house had the ability to home flowers/plants in EVERY window was very exciting.



     Here are some of my finished results! What do you think?

I have little pansies on the window sills in the nursery. The tiny colorful flowers seemed suiting to the room.

The window sills in our bedroom.

This is my favorite window in our house! I like the unique triangular shape and design of the bars on the other side. My favorite window happens to be in my hobby room. ^_^ My hobby room is really about the size of a walk in closet... and currently stores the boxes we've partially unpacked... but it will be great someday soon!

A partial view of the window from the outside. These plants are supposed to grow long tendrils and flowering vines. I thought they would look pretty overflowing from the window, and the representation of life escaping through the bars and the fragile, whimsical petals against the cold, hard stone wall make for a good contrast too good to pass up.

Our current table center piece. I may look for some natural pebbles to put in the square vase. The small vase is actually a glass salt/pepper shaker.

The plants have definitely added a homey touch and some life through their vibrant colors, smell, and movement when a breeze blows through the house. This project was a very good idea indeed.The only potential downside to the majority of the plants I chose is that they are only good for a year or season. But I guess that means I will get to redecorate with new varieties next year!

Pslam 103:15-17

 "Our days on earth are like grass;
    like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
¹⁶ The wind blows, and we are gone—
    as though we had never been here.
¹⁷ But the love of the Lord remains forever
    with those who fear him."

A Lazy Saturday

Since we arrived in Aviano, the weather has been generally overcast and rainy. However, as April arrived the weather took a turn for spring. It has considerably warmed up, and as such we are spending much more time out of doors. Here's an account of our lovely lazy Saturday in pictures.

Here my hubby is preparing the dirt for his plants. After asking the neighbor girl her name, she wouldn't stop chatting! Even though she knew we didn't speak Italian... haha.

Providing moral support to daddy can be exhausting

Adam, napping in the warm grass. Love our yard! (And to the panicking relatives, no he did not get sunburned! It was about a 20 min nap and he spent most of it in the shadow I cast sitting next to him. lol)

My artistic photo? A small feather caught on a blade and blowing like a flag in the breeze.

The whole group, minus me (the photographer, daisy chain maker, baby minder, and gardening moral support giver ;) )

After lunch, we decided to go for a short hike in the woods across from our house. Here's the trail. Everything was green and budding with the heat spurt!

Sitting in the soft moss by the creek

Our trail turned into this awesome wooden pathway with moss covered railing. Troy and I both agreed it was fit for an Ewok village and made us feel like we were somewhere off earth.

So many vines!

Did I mention this trail is RIGHT ACROSS FROM OUR HOUSE!?! We are thoroughly enjoying the place we live in!

A snake we encountered, warming himself on the sunny path.

We came home and I made this dinner! yum! BBQ Spare Pork Ribs, vegetable salad, baked beans (I added bacon and sauteed onion), Green Beans (with soy sauce and sesame seeds), and totts. And it was all done and warm at the same time! ^_^ rather pleased with myself. There are three place setting because we invited a friend from my hubby's work over to help us eat this delicious dinner and play games afterward. It was a perfect lazy Saturday. :)