White

Today, a lovely comment from my sweet blog-friend from JARDIN ANGLAIS reminded me how much I neglected this blog. So here I am ! I am fine, and so it is my whole family. Did I say we already celebrated two birthdays this year ? My youngest doughter turned 12 and I turned 40. She is growing, while I experienced some kind of regression, I probably mixed up forty with fourteen. So in the last month I spent so much time drawing, listening to music, writing and spending time outside. I am dreaming of a long series of teenage-like things I want to do. I wonder if this is just normal once you become middle-aged. I mean, I don't need to prove anything anymore, I don't need to compete, I don't need to behave. It's kinda fun, even if few of your children might think you've gone nuts ...
So what about the odd title of this post ? Wait and see, white is the perfect word in this moment ...

Have a wonderful week, and a great new month <3

Love, Flavia

Busy busy busy

Wow ... such a very very busy weekend ! I have to admit most of this busy-ness it's my own fault, I have so many projects going on and saturday I decided also to bake some goodies for the following days. And ... And James has started to sleep in his own bed ! I can't believe it. We have been co-sleeping since day one and now it feels so strange ... yesterday he has been in his bed until 1:00am who knows how tonight will be ...
And next friday my youngest doughter ( 11 yo ) will go to her first live concert with dad ! Nightwish are playing in Helsinki and she has loved the group since she was six or seven ... time runs away so fast ... I want to finish my huge amount of projects and then I want to start prioritizing better what I decide to do in my life. I want to enjoy my little people more. And here few pics from the weekend ....

Baked goods

 

Crocheting, crocheting, crocheting away ....

 

My boy is growing !!!

Have a happy new week dear friends !!!!

Challenges and priorities

Finally tonight I decided to log on my poor neglected blog. I found two lovely comments by my blog friend from the JARDIN ANGLAIS  (check her blog and web-shop are soo worth ! ) and this made me realize how I missed my blogging and how I should try to be back and more active on here. But as the title of this post says, this is a very challenging moment of my life and it's now time to set my priorities in order to get out from this depressing feeling of being a failure i'm stuck in. I have to say that my fifth child confirmed my feeling that it's much more easier to have children very close in age. My first four were born in 3 years and 10 months, I have heard the sentence ''you have your hands full'' so many time when they were very young. And now I keep hearing how much easier must be for me to have the little one so much younger than the others. Well it is not. When the fab four were small they always played together, wanted to eat, drink, listen and watch the same things, it was so easy for me to have them all happy, of course I was very busy, but knowing they were happy and having fun was the best reward. Now my little one has to share his mom with four siblings that more or less just started to navigate the mysterious teen-age-land. They love him to pieces, they have fun spending some time with him during the day, but they don't see him as the whole person he already is, just like a small funny little thing, and they hardly want to spend their time doing what he loves or letting him get hold of their stuff or watch something suitable to him, that he can understand. So most of the time I find a very sad, sometime quite angry and bored three years old running around looking for a playmate ( which usually it's me ). And yes, homeschooling it's not always easy, and you find yourself doubting ten thousand times a day this choice, but still at the end of each day you decide that you wouldn't really want it any other way. But well, the point of my very long rant is that this is one of the most busy, challenging moments of my life. I can't remember to have ever been so overwhelmed before. So yesterday I read this quote from Elizabeth Gilbert '' sometime you have to give up something you love to do what you want to do most''. So here I am, ready to declutter my life. Not my house. The moment has arrived to decide what to keep and what to give up, at least in this busy moment. My little blog won't be among the things I will be giving up :-) So here I am, with a couple of pics to make you smile ....

Love

 

Fun

 

Togetherness

Turn back time

Some year ago there was this song whose title was '' if I could turn back time'', do you remember it ? Well it came back to my mind in the last couple of days because I actually felt like I indeed turned back the time. As many of you might know my children are devided in 'the older group' and the little one. The first four where born in 3 years and 10 months, but my youngest made me wait eight years before coming. So at the moment I have a 15yo, two 13yo, one 11yo and a wee 3yo. As it could sound weird to most of people I miss so much the time when my first children were all happy to create alongside me. I used to spend my days organizing activities and crafty moments to make a happy home life. But as you know children grow ... and mine did it too. They stopped enjoying my ideas because (of course) they wanted to pursue their own, to achieve their goals, to set their own goals. It makes me very proud, but sometimes I feel like my best buddies for my favourite activities tuned me down. But yesterday I proposed to my little one if he wanted to make an autumn tree to hang on the wall complete with painted autumn leaves as the tree just outside our crafty room and he said YES very excited for his first important project, and I couldn't be more happy ! We spent many hours creating and cutting and painting and at some point even one of the sisters joined us. It was an incredible two days of fun and now my mind is already picturing new project and ideas ! Whoohoo !!!!!!! But here some evidence of what we have done ....

 With the fantastic BigShot we cut a lot of leaves of different sizes on a white watercolor paper

Since my little one has the habit to get a bit over excited when he has a lot of color(s) I bought few very cheap glass candle holder and filled them with a couple of spoons of watercolor paint ( so even if he want to finish all of it it's not a problem )

Fun ! While he was painting the leaves I could sit near him working on my drawings or on  my crocheting. When he got tired of painting I wrapped some foil over the little 'jar' and saved the color for later use.

I made a big tree on a piece of cardboard and Milla painted it and helped me to laminate it.

After taking few pictures I took away Gaia's poster about China ( with her permission of course, it is now neatly folded on the shelf )

 And here it is ! The tree in its place, Milla and Jimmy still painitng more leaves together.

 And here the first leaves on the tree !!!!!

( few billions of them are drying on my working table ).

What a wonderful day !!!!!!!!!

In Italy !!!

I will keep this post quite short, as I'm using the phone and I find it rather uncomfortable. We've been in Tuscany for almost one week and tomorrow we'll be off to Rome. Very hot but after the finnish non-summer I'm almost enjoying it. Here's few pictures ...

Home is where you park it.

Traveling, or better, being on the road is one of the favourite activities (or way of living ) of my family. The first time we traveled abroad with the children has been 13 years ago. We came to Finland for the first time (by plane ) with a three years old, two one year old twins and pregnant with our fourth baby. It sure has been an hectic vacation, but fun and exciting indeed. The following year we became more brave. One four years old, two two years old and a newborn. And we didn't only stay in hotel in the city centre, but we rented an old VW and headed to the countryside and then a friend borrowed us his apartement in town.
Two years later we traveled for the first time by car, from Italy to Finland, and lived in Helsinki for few months. Long story short, our travels became such an important part of our life that on 2010 we bought our first caravan and lived on the road for 3 months straight, visiting almost all Europe.

 First day in our first caravan

 And the following year with a bigger caravan ( the one that we still have ) we traveled again for four months, up to NordCap.

Our actual caravan

On 2011 we moved here in Finland, and traveling  happens at least once a year to go  to Italy and back to Finland. And here we are, on sunday evening we will be leaving for a new adventure.
Two ferries, from Finland to Sweden and from Sweden to Germany, and then the neverending road unfolding in front of us.
As a (mainly) unschooling mama, traveling has been one of the biggest sources of learning for my children and the best curriculum. While traveling they learned to read  ( by themselves ), to count, to read numbers. They learned about the geography, the flags, the currencies of many countries. The form of governement and the products and typical foods. They had hints of the history of Europe, ancient and contemporary.Traveling ignited they will to learn english. And they learned to know and appreciate people. Different people, same heart. Home is where your heart is. Learning is where life is.

Here my own words about our first experiences of 'roadschooling' from my old blog 

The apple tree :

 '' Last year in april ( on year 2010 ) we left our more then comfortable suburban home for the unknown. Actually we were leaving for Finland, and we couldn't imagine how longer and interesting that joureny would have been. So while taking care of boxes, traveling plans and rental homes we started unschooling. I left the kids free to manage their days, just proposing them interesting activities in the garden or letting them help us with the move. Once in Finland, in may, I felt it was too late for formal schooling so we kept just crafting, exploring and unschooling all the way.
Then our life took another turn. Long story short, we came back to Italy in July and we bought a very old motorhome ( out faithful Elnagh Magnum 560 ) and decided to travel from Rome to the south of Spain and then once there we went all the way back through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Finland. We got aquainted with the idea of roadschoolig, as we call it. It is not really unschooling, it's more like soaking in the place we're visiting, knowing people, talking and listening people, telling our story and learning other people's stories, and watching around, the nature, the monuments, the animals ... whatever, and trying to learn about them, not because we have to, and not even because we want to, but because we're part of it, like getting to know your own body, made of all the wonders of the world....Call it relax. Call it faith. I know they will learn what's right for them.
So when we decided to leave again in june we were ready to jump again in the exciting waters of unschooling. We traveled from Rome up to North Cape and back, visiting Germany, Finland,Norway,Sweden,Danemark. The kids kept learning, and asking, and knowing people, listening stories, getting to know different lives, and kept using their skills, reading, writing, studying, talking in english just naturally.''

Of course I know it's not a choice suitable or possible for everyone. But in my opinion so often parent are afraid to engage in traveling with young ones, and this is a mistake. I remember how difficult and hard it was to travel with 4 tiny beings, and how fun and easy is now, travel with four travel companions and a little one fully concentrate in learning. How wonderful it is, as a parent, to see my children confidently walking in the ferry, grocery shopping in sweden, looking for their favourite treat in Norway, and looking forward to some good pasta in our beloved Italy.
Well, very long post to tell you all goodbye for a while. I will try to be active on Instagram and to make few updates here in the blog. We will be back at the beginning of august with so many stories to tell.

 Have a wonderful month of july !

Happy Midsummer

Today it's officially summer. Here in Finland it doesn't look like summer at all. But still let's hope to have a good one :)

Happy birthday Leo and Seba

Today my twin boys Leonardo and Sebastiano turned 13 !

They were born 5 weeks earlier and the smallest was 2,3kg at his lowest.

I can't believe now they're taller than me.

I love them deeply.

Sometime they drive me crazy

and one moment later I'm in awe of their maturity.

of their gentle soul, innocence and irony.

Life with them is great.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BELOVED !

Jimmy's joy is contagious

Minecraft cake

 

My men

Yesterday and today. Happy birthday James William !

 This was the announcement PapaF made three years ago:

The apple tree: E'nato!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

James William today turned three.
 I can't believe time is flying so fast. Today was celebration day.
James is such a joy. He is so small, our baby, but yet it seems like he has been with us forever. There was really a life without him ? Nobody of us can believe it.
But today was a special day also for another reason.
 13 years ago I entered in labour for my twin boys.
 But this is a story for another day ....

Not only a word

I've been silent for a few days, but for a very good reason : for the first time in almost four years we had guests from Italy. Truth to be told my mother usually comes once a year, but beside her we never had the pleasure to have relatives here. So when one of my brothers in law told us that him and his wife were coming here to visit us, well excitement and joy grew and grew until last friday when they arrived. It has been a short but joyful and emotional time together (they left yesterday's very early morning ). Something very new for all of us and especially important for my children, our rather lonely situation here put a very heavy toll on them and feeling loved and cherished from someone else other than me was very needed indeed. I come from a very small family, only child of a single mother. I know loneliness very well, I know the feeling of craving for attentions very well, and knowing that my children experience the same feeling is rather heartbreaking. I know, they're five and we try to be very close to each other, but as they say 'you need a village to grow a child' and we always missed our tribe. The few days spent together gave us a glimpse of what it looks like not being alone, and it is beautiful. All of us feared the farewell, but incredibly we don't feel really sad, the love and joy we shared filled us and knowing that FAMILY it's not only a word gave us strenght.

 

 Dear friends, now please, go and hug your spouse, your children or grab the phone and give your old folks a call.

 Family it's not just a word.