Carpe diem with kids

Interestingly I started writing this a week ago then, don’t know, things got a bit too busy, and lost the momentum, but getting back into it today on Earth day. Spring is just amazing, and we really miss being out and about and enjoying nature at its best - flowers, birds, butterflies, a day by the beach, whatever. I even miss the craziness before leaving the house for a fun family day, getting everything and everyone ready, where by the time we get in the car to leave I am all sweaty and pissed off, and then I need to go back because we forgot something. Fun family day indeed. Surely that only happens to us! 😂 Funniest and most annoying thing I saw on Facebook recently was the ‘Bluebell trail run’ event being postponed. How on Earth do you postpone an event involving seasonal flowers?!  ‘You can never hold back spriiing.‘ Ok, now Tom Waits is stuck in my head again. Couple of years ago in April we visited our friends in Holland and I got to check Keukenhof, the tulip park,...

Four weeks and an eternity since we've been working from home, and 3 weeks since the children stopped going to school and nursery. Has it been a challenge to juggle everything and keep everyone happy? Absolutely! Have we managed? Just! Is it getting easier? Not really, no! So looking forward to get back to normal, although I'm pretty sure life will not return to exactly what it was before this. I have wondered how we will cope, but, luckily, few weeks back, Boris has spoken: we're allowed to go out for daily exercise! Oh joy!!! I have never seen so many people out walking, running, cycling. If this goes on for much longer, I think many of us will be in better shape than ever. Sure, I might not get back my pre-kids waistline, only a time turner can do that, but might finally get rid of any extra weight. I am doing so much exercise lately, compared to what I used to do up to a year ago (which was close to nothing). Over the last few months I joined all sort of fun challenge...

Cancelled ! - I have started to really dread this word. Too many things in a short amount of time having been cancelled. I keep trying to remind myself that in the big picture of what’s going on in the world these are ridiculous problems, small and insignificant, but they do matter too. So last week we were supposed to fly to Budapest, spend a couple of days there, then drive to Timisoara in Romania. Celebrate Dan’s Mum’s birthday, have some drinks with friends, spend Easter in my beloved village where I grew up, the girls spending time with their cousins, have a session with our photographer who’s been taking the most amazing photos of the girls for many years. And as much as I was really looking forward to all this, I was equally happy about the time we were planning to spend in Budapest. Because after some very succesful holidays with the girls I felt that we can finally get back to travelling more and passing on to the girls our passion of exploring new places and revisiting some...

Yes, it may be crazy times out there, but in here one very cheerful,  beautiful, happy, fascinating, kind, cheeky, amazing, feisty little girl turned 4 today. We tried a few tricks, but couldn’t stop time from flying.  So here she is, ready to (hopefully) start school this year and rocking her preschool attitude. We had a fabulous birthday party planned for her and it was really difficult to make her understand that we need to settle for a ‘virtual party’. She did enjoy seeing everyone and danced (but not as she would have done at her real party), she really loved her Frozen cake and kept telling me how happy she is, so felt like we managed to turn things around for her. But I felt really emotional and  I was nearly in tears when the Zoom party finished, as it just didn’t feel right. Emma’s arrival completed our family and turned our days and nights to complete chaos, but has brought endless happiness and joy. She knows so much and has such a rich imagination, makes u...

We’re over 2 weeks into staying at home and looking back it all feels like a blur and each morning the first thought crossing my mind is that’s it’s all been nothing but a bad dream, but then reality hits me. In a very odd way this brings back the same feelings I had after my Dad passed away, when for weeks I woke up thinking it’s all been a silly dream, but then having to embrace the painful truth each day. Yes, it’s not the same thing as mourning an irreplaceable person’s loss, but this is a loss for each of us, on different levels. My heart goes out for those who lost so much  - important exams, jobs, dreams they’ve worked on, businesses they built over years, and sadly even dear ones lost to the virus. ❤️ Somehow some of these will hopefully be fixed. The list of cancelled events, holidays, adventures, weddings is getting longer and makes me so sad. Some of them are only postponed, but it’s still hard. Feels so selfish to complain about smaller insignificant things. Feels so...

https://quotefancy.com/ Dan was brought up in a family where the best music was always playing. My father in law is a walking encyclopaedia, knows more about artists, bands, albums than anyone else I know. It’s amazing to see someone with so much knowledge and being so passionate about music, he even wrote a study on how graphics of the album covers has evolved through time. So obviously we’d love our children to get familiar to alll kind of music and particularly know the good old (and new) stuff. For this we came up with a little game to play at dinner time, which Is basically an alphabet game. One of us will start the alphabet, someone says ‘Stop’ then they pick a a song played by an artist/band whose name begins with that letter. Clearly this means that at times we may learn something too, as Ariana will pick the Taylor Swifts, the George Ezras and whatever else, but it also means she will recognise a Coldplay, Beatles or a Queen.  So the other day I was list...