kids play with Italian toys

We planned and packed slightly better this time round. Correct seasonal clothing, medical supplies and kids play essentials. Cream of tartar for play dough, blocks, farm animals, cars, costumes, tons of art supplies and a hairdressing & medical set.

Their hair saloon - parrucchiere, vuoi capelli lisci oppure ondulati

As we settled in, something new would usually come out relevant to what we were doing. A magnifying glass was packed in but only Milan had enough courage to chase the lizards and massive ants trying to collect them.
The kids were also into making "big big castles" with wooden blocks and containers. They were really taken by the old castles, so they'd often be creating what we'd earlier seen or been a part of.


They soon were making rock pools from a fresh batch of classic play dough. I couldn't find food colouring (code for - couldn't understand & translate correctly) so we had a plain white batch with glitter.

Our first italian playdough batch - Carlos tells me 'bongo' is the Italian word for it .. ok

The play dough recipe is a treasure from Emma an awesome campus creche teacher.

Its simple & it stays soft forever.
   

2 cups Flour, 2 cups boiling water, 1/2 cup salt, 4 Tablespoons Cream of Tartar, 2 Tablespoons Oil  Mix together the flour, salt, oil, and cream of tartar  - Add the boiling water and colours,  Mix and kneed on floured surface, adding more flour as necessary -  Enjoy. 

Milan's rock pool and Carlos's cake x

Milan has forever been called our principessa from the must watch movie 'Life is Beautiful'.  It picked up the Academy award for Best Actor with the fantastic Roberto Benigni. Lately they've even been talking of him running for President.  So this princess of ours continues to have many princess like interests emerge. Initially we didn't know how to cater to it all. Brig would look to me, I'd look elsewhere thinking "you knew I was a tomboy".

Because of our parental love, we've taken to it all and we are now trying our best to accomodate our daughters taste. Dress ups, heels, accessories, pink galore,... babies. We even all hunt about finding her lip balm for outings.

 

They're forever dotting in each other - Brigs putting a plait in harakeke Milan will call it

We've also shifted our time for bed from 7:30pm to ??? as it would never work here. Italian's eat & get together late, they'll organise something for 9pm. Sure enough we are eating around 10pm and the kids are still running about at 11pm. One night while playing with their Argentine friend Bautista, the drive home was dominated by talk  of how cool his 'Toy Story' bowling set was. Unsuprisingly, the following morning they wanted to make their own bowling set. I played along as they'd kept to their guideline of staying in bed 'until the sun comes up'.

Their artwork attached to water bottles made the perfect el cheapo set, that they really enjoyed. Everyone buys their water here. I've never felt bad for drinking the tap water, though you can actually taste the difference when drinking the 'Levissima' its like an Italian Evian. One morning Carlos refused his tap water saying it tastes dirty, you are your fathers son Carlos Xx