Winter outfit (daddy's proposal)

Pants as hat,
Socks as gloves.
Winter, you may come,
As Ilaria rocks!

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How I started blogging

Currently we are living in a tiny flat and are dreaming of a house in the middle of a large garden.

Dreaming of country living, I thought that reading "Country living" magazine would help us getting closer to our dream. So I've subscribed to this darling magazine.

I remember it was somewhere in April this year. Ilaria was 6 months old already. We were visiting my parents in Sighisoara, so I was like in Holiday. There were enough people around us to care Ilaria, to play with her, to feed her,... so her mom could peacefully read her beloved magazine, April issue this time.

Everything was "under control" until I've reached page 122, where I found the picture below:

I remember myself starring at it for minutes, in the beginning not understanding what it means; then realizing it's a family picture, but not finding the mom; then finding the mom and not understanding how it was possible in nowadays.

Living in a country where having more than 2 children is something really rare, my brain didn't know how to process such information. After few minutes of studying the picture, I went to other family members telling them: "look: this is a mother of 7 children; she has SEVEN children and she still make time for looking good, for organizing night dates with husband and she even rules her own business"... Of course I was not the only one in the house very surprised!

I went on Internet and found Kayce's online shop and then her blog. It was the 1st blog speaking about mom adventures that I was ever visiting. From it, I found Sarah's blog and from Sarah's blog, Erin's.

I was reading those 3 blogs for months, surprised to see how many beautiful ideas, memories, moments, recipes, pictures, they were sharing with other women.

After 6 months of reading those 3 and many other wonderful blogs, being inspired so much by those beautiful mothers, I started to want my own blog.

I've realized that our memories cannot be kept untouched in our brains; and even pictures are many times not enough, because you don't remember exactly how you felt in those particular moments and many sweet details are lost. I was writing Ilaria's evolution in one notebook, recipes in another; pictures were saved here and there... I never kept a diary and I never scrap-booked, but back then, I've felt that blogging was such a good way of keeping the already lived part of life, in one place.

And that was my 1st reason for which on 5th October this year I've started blogging.

And I'm so happy about it! Blogging rocks ;-)

Many thanks to you, wonderful bloggers & moms that have inspired me!

Kisses,

Raluca

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Kayce's giveaway week

I was just having in mind that my next post will have to mention Kayce, when I discovered in the morning that she started a whole giveaway week! Nice coincidence :-)

In case you'd like to win one of those wonderful totes, all you have to do is click here and leave her a comment. Good luck!

And don't forget to visit her blog daily, as more surprises are to come.

Happy Kayce's giveaway week!

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Progress

Yesterday, 21st November, orthodox Christians celebrated Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple.

For our family, 21st November has a 2nd important meaning, being the date when, last year, Ilaria has been baptized. We consider this fact more than a simple coincidence, as we prayed Virgin Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, for a baby and we will always consider Ilaria being God's gift sent to us through them!

As it can be seen in the above pictures, Ilaria has made a lot of progress since then.

Now:

- she has 3 teeth (2 down, 1 up-center-left)

- she started to walk without help also outside her comfortable room (until now she was afraid to fall down on anything except her soft carpet)

- she started to help with dressing. When we tell her: "foot up to put the pants on" she is so happy to help

- she is very sociable, wanting to speak with everyone we meet on the street; she even offers her toys, clothes and anything detachable from her stroller, to the others (don't imagine she would leave that object to that person; she would immediately ask it back; but even so, her gesture is so sweet)

- she loves people - she is all smiles when there are people around her (she prefers people instead of any toy)

- she loves to play the "tiiiiiiiiiit" game: she presses our noses while we pretend to be honking cars; we say "tiiiiiiiit" and she says "aaaaaaaaa"

- she loves to "speak" on the phone. When a phone is ringing she would immediately leave anything she was doing and she would start searching the ringing phone, with a look in her eyes telling: "Don't even think about it! It's for me! I was waiting for this phone call since morning". We answer the call and she starts to speak and she speaks and she speaks and she speaks some more...

We got such a sweet baby!

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Life without TV

Since 2007 there is no TV set in our house anymore. And we are still alive!

Of course, there were times in our lives when we were almost addicted to TV.
My family didn't own a TV set before '89. On those times there wasn't much to be seen on TV. There was only 1 channel available and on it they were repeating again and again how grateful we should have been for being Romanians, how much we should have loved our country and its leaders, how Romania was the Europe's garner and other stuffs like this.
After revolution we bought a TV and addiction started. We were watching like crazy (especially me and my dad) and sometimes my mom was asking "what are you watching there so interesting that you need no food or water?". The truth was that TV was giving us the feeling of freedom and through it we were able to "think outside the box".


When me and Adrian moved together, of course a TV set had to join fast.
And of course we were fighting often on what to watch. He is crazy about ANY sport EXCEPT the ONLY one I like: figure skating. So he would have watched Eurosport non-stop and when was time for figure skating he would have changed the channel! Funny, isn't it? Don't ask me!
The most ridiculous quarrel we had was when Pope John Paul II was dying and there were transmissions from Vatican, everybody speaking about his beautiful life. OK, not everybody, because there still were some guys... playing football!!! And Adrian wanted to watch them... I prefer to stop here and not to detail further.


I remember when I was in elementary school, our form tutor (dirigintele), the geography teacher, a guy who traveled much for those times, was teaching us how to watch TV: "You should start TV only after checking the TV program and after finding some subjects you are interested in. Don't turn on the TV and wait for them to give you something good." Unfortunately that was good theory, but I wasn't strong enough to apply it. I wasted a lot of time waiting for "something good" on TV. Something which many times didn't come. 


I remember our friend Aniela telling us that she read somewhere about a family which chose to throw up the TV and it proved to be the best decision of their life.
Once again we were not strong enough to follow such a good example...


But in 2007 fate smiled to us and our TV crashed. Tired of so many hours spent in front of the TV and of our what-to-watch quarrels, we were sharp enough to say "no-more-TV-set-in-this-house". And we can confirm that family's testimony: life without TV is better. We cannot imagine now, with our busy life, when we would have had time to also watch TV!? Fur sure there wouldn't be so much time spent with Ilaria, not so many books read in this house, not so many meals cooked, not so many meetings with nature; which would be really sad.. And for sure there will be more money spent. Because on TV they are soooo well-meaning, that they teach you almost everything: what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, what to drive,... for having the happiest life ever. And sooner or later you will find out that even owning everything they've recommended, you are not so happy as the commercials promised you.


Even without TV, we still keep ourselves informed. We have Internet and Radio station and those are sources of information easier to be controlled. I am a little bit melancholic for my lovely Italians which I don't watch so often anymore (I love RaiUno) and that I get my most beloved events on TV - Miss Italia & Eurovision - on a low quality over the Internet, but I still survive. And Adrian takes his TV addiction dose when we visit our parents and he stay glued on TV for hours.


I've read a study about children watching TV for an average of 4 hours / day and following 20.000 advertisements / year! You can check more here.
As we are Ilaria's angels, we will try to keep her away of this. For how long... we will see! :-)


The funniest news I've heard on how TV can take your minds away, was before a Christmas, when a Romanian housewife refused to cook for her family the Romanian traditional recipe "sarmale", because in Dallas TV series Bobby has just died.. :-)
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Incredible, but true!

Few days ago, I couldn't believe my eyes seeing for the 1st time in my life a MAN washing non-office windows! So I took him a picture, to be sure I was not dreaming :-)

Please leave a comment here and tell me what do you think about him:

a) he is a loving husband (he shares the domestic chores with his wife and washing windows is part of his responsibility)

b) he is single (so, if not him, then who else?)

c) that's his job (he was payed to do the miserable chore)

d) he lost a bet ( that's Adrian's idea :-) )

e) there must be something else there - your ideas are welcomed

I know, life can be so full of surprises... But I go for a... "b)" ;-)

Have a nice and happy day!

Raluca

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Our 1st family photo shoot

(shooter: Bogdan)

Inspired by two beautiful ladies (thanks Sue, for photo advices! thanks Heather, for your recent family photo shoot post!), yesterday I've took my family out of the dusty town, into the gorgeous nature and took our 1st family photo shoot. 

In the beginning it was planned that the tripod and timer option would be our helpers, but, we were fortunate enough that our friends Bigu, Dana & Bogdan joined us and helped a lot taking some nice pictures. In case you ever plan a family photo shoot, my advice would be to ask for a helping hand, as no tripod, timer option and remote control could ever replace the human eyes and decisions!

Some other friends wanted to join us, but our little girls' nap schedule didn't synchronize at all. Sorry for this, Aniela & Co. and hope we will meet you soon.

This is the best I could get using tripod and timer option on camera: 

(shooter: tripod + timer)

Some photos taken by Bogdan (the 1st photo of this post, which we also consider the best one, was also taken by him):

(shooter: Bogdan)

(shooter: Bogdan)

Other photos:

(shooter: Adi)

(shooter: Ralu)

(shooter: Ralu; Ilaria's entertainers: Dana & Adi :-))

I think the hardest job when photographing a baby is the entertainer's one. And you really should have at least one dedicated job for this! In our case, Ilaria was fascinated by digging into the molehills and to take off the fillet, so it took us some time to catch the above photo.

Adrian was in an artistic mood. I love this photo:

(shooter: Adi)

And finally, a photo with the entire technical staff:

(shooter: Ralu)

Our photo shoot's staff & technical details:

The sweetest participants: Bigu & Ilaria

Entertainer: Dana, Adi

Shooters: Bogdan, Adi, Ralu

Photo camera: Olympus C-770 UltraZoom

Location: Mărcuş, Covasna county

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