italy, part IV, the last days

after we returned to torino from our riviera road trip we had a few days of rain in which we didn't do much other then stay around the city and see some local sites. no complaints here though. torino is absolutely gorgeous, and our friends parents made us feel like we were family ourselves.

thankfully the grey skies cleared though for the big gathering at the family vineyard. this place, uhhh i could have sold all my belongings and stayed there forever! the bread, the wine, the view... it stole a little piece of my heart.

i don't think our trip could have been more perfect. staying with family and really getting the true taste of italian living just felt so very right. i don't think we'll ever be able to thank our extended italian family enough for the experience they gave us. i know penny won't remember a lick of it, but thankfully we have a ton of pictures to show her when she's older, and her dad and i will never forget what it was like having her along with us.

if you missed them, here are posts one, two, and three. and all the pics from our trip can be seen here. hope you have a great weekend, ciao!

today, we baked!

it was like a sign from the heavens. this morning i woke up to this post, by sydney, and she had me right at the title. ya see, penny has recently realized that she can have an opinion on the things she eats, and it's making meal times much more interesting. she still eats really well, but it's like some days i'm the greatest chef she's ever known, and then others, well we'll just say that the dogs are getting their fair share of my cooking as well. so when this recipe boasted health AND yumminess i was right on board with it. and my little sous chef, once she saw that she could nibble on chocolate chips while helping, was definitely on board as well!

we copied the recipe sydney posted, and just made a few little adjustments...

* we didn't have any nuts on hand so we just left them out. kinda sad about that one.

* we kept this recipe vegan by simply leaving out the eggs. since many of the ingredients in the recipe already act as egg replacers it's simply not necessary to add actual eggs.

* we used almond milk instead of cows milk. easy peasy!

i can say that these are indeed a yummy treat. it made 12 regular size muffins, and about 10 mini muffins. i say 'about' because the minis are already gone. yum for sure!

sink baths for life!

a few weeks ago i read this post by molly flanagan and it got me thinking... sure penny fits perfectly fine in the sink now, and her baths are still in the sink most of the time as of late. but it won't always be this way, and before these days slip away (as so many of her baby traits seem to be doing) i wanted to make sure to capture it good and proper. so here she is, doing her thing, and making our kitchen floor a soaking mess in the process...

thanks for the inspiration molly!

italy, part III, a day in france

on the second day of our Italian/French Riviera road trip we woke, had a little breakfast, and naturally a cafe or two, then headed down to the little beach that was right near the house. the day was overcast and threatening to rain, but some of my most favorite moments from our trip were on this day... as you'll be able to tell by the enormous photo share, enjoy!

^^ that teeeeny tiny cafe right there cost 4 euro. oh, Monte Carlo, you made me feel i was back in NY... ^^

and if this just wasn't enough travel pics for ya, you can see the first posts here, and here. and loads more to be seen here.

italy, part II, our third day

ahhhh, our Italian/French Riviera road trip. these two days were absolutely blissful! on the first day of our drive we stopped at a few beautiful little coastal towns on our journey to Latte, Italy. our friends aunt was letting us stay in her beach house for the night, so we had a cozy place to crash at the end of this jam packed day.

more of this adventure to come!

see the first post here, and lots more pics can be seen here!