Wonders of a sunny day

We've been blessed by another sunny day. In the last week or so we got an incredibly beautiful weather, the snow is basically gone ( except for few scattered piles in the shadow in gardens or on the side of the less traveled roads. This good weather really encourage us to keep up with our newly established routine to include some outside work every morning. So today after some table work we all headed outside for some more pruning and rocks picking. During our chores the children had the chance to see something really unusual: they removed a bigger rock and under it there was a ant nest with all the ants sleeping in hybernation! I've never ever seen anything like that. After the rock was removed few of the ants started moving very slowly, hardly walking. It has rised a lot of questions about hybernation and I'll try to answer properly tomorrow. In the afternoon-evening we went outside again and I took few pictures of the house and the road, it looks so different from few weeks ago, when everything was white and grey.

The sleeping ants

 

Everything looks so different now.  I'm waiting for geese to come back and announce out loud that the good season it's here officially and for good !

My bedroom's window. Beautiful isn't it ? It's quite old, but the house is more than 105 years and this is big part of its beauty.

 

And here it is, light, blue sky, sunset colors and happyness. 

BLISS.

Upcycle - crocheted jar cover

I have a soft spot for decorations and beautiful things. No. That's not true. I have an obsession for decorations and beautiful things. I love to take care of my house and during the years I made decorations for every season and festivity. It's january but the longer hours of daylight already made me think of springtime. So last week I realized this little upcycling project. I'm pretty happy the way it turned out, basically what I had in my mind became true before my eyes and that is great, when it happens.
But let's start from the beginning. Along with my oldest doughter, we have started some heavy decluttering with the new year ( I'll write more about it in the next days ). In a kitchen cabinet we found a half empty jar of instant coffee that we brought here from Italy when we moved here almost four years ago. Yep. FOUR YEARS AGO. So we decided it was time to get rid of the content but not of the glass jar. After few days of watching the jar and letting my mind wonder I had the right idea for it. With my favorite yarn ever ( baby bamboo sirdar ) I started crocheting in every ( rare ) spare moment as I couldn't wait to see it finished. Here few pictures ....

I LOVE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And here it is in use, with colorful tulips in it, over my old sewing machine, near my most lovely music box in the most beautiful corner of my house.

And you ? Any project you're especially proud of ?

Baking with Jimmy

Today we woke up in the snow wonderland. It has been snowing all night, with strong wind. So after lunch we all headed out for some outdoor fun. Jimmy enjoy a lot to be pulled in Seba's Stiga sledge and it's always a problem to bring him back home ( or I should say drag him back home). So Milla and I started walking back and forth in our street pulling him. The first time we passed in front of the house he declared ' Not inside mom, lt's walk for a little while more '. So we walked back and forth two more times. At the third he called me ' Mom, let's go back home for a while now .. I'm frozen ' eheheh so veeeery sweet.
But of course inside we went, and to warm up I thought that it could be a good idea baking something. As usual James is eager to help me...

 Woderful, the world covered in a soft blanket

He is such clever and sweet helper, learning everyday something new, but mostly learning the meaning of being a family : togetherness.

So after a couple of hours we had several goodies ...

Shortbread cookies (before and after cooking )

And two loaves of bread, one of normal shape one braided ( my first attempt, it turned out well in my opinion )

This time I cooked the bread at a lower temperature for longer time (180C for 50 minutes ) and the result was a super soft bread with a delicate crispy crust .

Delicious !

Have a nice week !!!

Nature Journal

Few years ago I found out about nature journaling. I've always had journals, recording my experiences,feelings, prayers, Bible studies so the idea to dive in a new kind of journaling was very exciting for me. I started on 2010, when we were living in Tuscany, to collect wild flowers and plant and draw them or bring my journal with me in the woods or pic-nics. When we  moved here in Finland on 2011, I started  recording for months, beside everyday happenings, also weather, temperature and sunrise and sunset and kept drawing from nature. Then I bought few books from the marvellous Clare Walker Leslie, the two that really opened a new (journaling) world for me have been Keeping a Nature Journal , Drawn to nature through the journals of Clare Walker Leslie . 
Last march I decided it was time to upgrade my nature journaling to a new level, so I started my first 'real' nature journal. In it I record temperature, weather, shortly what it is happening nature-wise and then I sketch something and usually colour it with watercolours ( I really love watercolours ). Now after almost 10 months I can say my way of journaling it's not only about nature, I draw mostly houses or interesting landscapes, few animals and plants, very often the same subject in different seasons or time of the day ( I have drawn the same tree outside my bedroom window in every season now ) and I also like to keep track of the sun in peculiar moment of the year ( solstices and equinoxes ) since here in the north it changes dramatically ( we have 5 hourse of sunlight in late autumn and 20 hourse of sunlight in late spring).
Anyways, what I wanted to share today it's my latest entry, I'm especially proud of it, I really like the way It looks. It's a watercolour of our house as it looked the 30th of december.

Two work in progress pictures

 

The finished work

Christmas days

Christmas Eve was a very relaxed day. After dinner as we always do we watched 'Nativity' and talked about the birth of Jesus. After the baby was sleeping and the older children were upstairs me and papaF did some final wrapping and went to bed. Before going to sleep we noticed it was snowing again. We woke up on Christmas day in a fluffy and white world, with a blue sky and beautiful sun and -14 degrees. PERFECT.
After enjoyng surprise on James face and the unwrapping of the presents, we relaxed with a movie and then, while lasagne were cooking we wend out of the door with James to enjoy the beautiful day. We pulled him around in Seba's stiga but after a while he asked us to go back inside because it was so cold. The day passed beetween movies, chatting, playing with the little one and a lot of knitting for me ( I was in need of a new woolen hat and now I have it ! ). A light(er) dinner and another movie after to finish the wonderful day.
This morning it has been snowing again for a while but today we spent the day inside. A lazy morning watching 'The desolation of Smaug' a quick pizza lunch and the afternoon spent chatting with Gaia and trying to figure out what to knit now ( still no idea about that ). Homemade Tacos dinner and Lord of the Rings read aloud while nursing Jimmy to sleep. A very peaceful Christmas indeed.

So this is Christmas,

for once a lovely one,

 ok not for once really,

but indeed a lovely and peaceful one.