Out-numbered by our children

The transition to three kids has been wild! So wild in fact, that I started writing this post in early November and now it is late January. The early newborn period is always a little tricky for me but we are through the most difficult and have figured a few things out. It is nice have parenting experience so we don't need to panic about normal baby things, but funny to me how many things we are re-learning. It is like each kids is their own little person (which I say sarcastically, of course they are! With their own sets of great things and hard things).

Our baby Kate is just about the cutest baby ever, not that I am biased! I could just sit around and coo and nibble on her cute chubby body all day long. The tricky thing is, she has these two older siblings who need to go to school, have clean clothes and food. For all of Kate's extreme cuteness, she is a terrible at taking naps! I had hoped that by our third child we would know how to help them sleep but alas, no. Each of our kids have brought very different sleep challenges. She is a great sleeper if I can lay down with her or hold her all day but that can't always happen. She just loves us too much and always wants us close. Hopefully this will instill in her a great sense of security and love. However in the meantime, I just don't get much done.

Our sweet little 3 year old Jane has had more of an adjustment than we anticipated. Can't you just see the spark of naughtiness in her eyes? Overall she has done great, but we have some difficult moments every now and again with our willful Jane. We hope her willfulness will turn into great perseverance. There have been many times since she became a big sister where we have to collect her off the floor or leave somewhere with her screaming. My husband was shopping with her recently when she had a tantrum so spectacular that a stranger asked him if he needed help restraining her. Are not those the best parenting moments?

Our nearly 6 year old Colin has been an extremely sweet big brother to the new baby. (If only he could be so sweet to his 3 year old sister!) He is very attentive and soft. He loves to make the baby giggle and cuddle and help out. He has always loved little babies and adores his baby sister.

And when your Daddy is a musician, the wriggle wrapper is going to used for piano playing. Kind of funny, for Christmas of 2010, I gave Brian the wriggle wrapper as a joke because I wanted it. On Christmas Eve, we found out we were expecting (which was a few months sooner than we had hoped) so the wriggle wrapper became less of a joke. The positive pregnancy test did make the package of condoms I had bought for Brian redundant.

And so the real adventure begins parenting all these kids! I have great admiration for Moms of many children! (And I know lots have many, many more than I do!)

No more waiting

Since I had complained about the waiting game of the end of pregnancy I wanted to report that thankfully it did come to a nice ending with our lovely third daughter a few weeks ago. The past month has been a blur of not much sleep and lots of nursing and diapers, but we get to cuddle a very cute little baby!

Our phil&teds Explorer came in handy even while I was in labor. My water broke early in the morning on our son's first day of kindergarten. I thought labor might go really fast like it did with my second child. We headed to our birth center, but things stopped progressing. We decided to come home and made our kids a pancake breakfast. We then loaded our 3 year old in the stroller and walked a mile to get Colin to school. I think the walk helped get things moving again, and our new little girl joined us a few short hours later. I can now add to the reason I like phil&teds, they helped me not be pregnant anymore!

Here I am with my son at school, in labor and in all my huge pregnant glory! It feels so good to not be pregnant anymore! I have extreme respect for the moms of multiples as I can barely handle gestating just one baby!

Now we begin our real parenthood adventure as we are outnumbered by our children!

Fun cities to explore with kids-Mexico City

As we are home a bit more with a new baby and a more serious school schedule, I thought it would be fun to outline kid friendly things to do in some of our favorite cities. We do have 3 trips planned for the last few months of the year, can't stay still too long!

First stop in fun cities to explore with kids, Mexico City, Mexico!!

With kids in Mexico City head directly to el Bosque de Chapultepec!! We had an apartment in Zona Rosa, just a short walk from this truly amazing park. The size of Chapultepec makes New York's Central Park seem like a small community park; Wikipedia tells us it is Latin America's largest park. Get to the amazing free zoo as soon as you can!

The Chapultepec Zoo is a very impressive zoo with great animal habitats and some rare to see animals like pandas and condors. We also loved the monkeys! Our son was only about a year and a half at the time and in his vocab, all the animals were either doggies, kitties, or birds.

How sweet is that baby monkey!

The zoo also has a lovely butterfly and insect exhibit, which requires an extra ticket but is very reasonable and worth it. We loved being so close to all the beautiful butterflies and gross bugs.

Also located near Chapultepec is the Papalote Museo del nino, the Children's Museum of Mexico City. It is a massive wonderland of all things fun. We adore children's museums but wonder if it is a little confusing for our little ones. Suddenly they have a place where they can play with everything and then we go back to the real world where they cannot touch everything.

Our very pale blond little boy got lots of attention in Mexico!

One of our favorite places in the museum was the bubble room! Completely fun and amazing! My husband and I would have spent a lot of time playing in here even without our son.

If you have time while in Mexico City, make sure and head to the ruins of Teotihuacan! Just a short drive out of the city and completely incredible!

Here are Brian and Colin climbing the Pyramid of the Sun. So sad Colin will not remember this place, hope we can go back when he is older. My mom can empathize with Colin's young adventures. She was born in Chile and by the time she was 7 years old had traveled all over Latin America but sadly, does not remember much. She knows what it is like to be told all of the places she has been that she does not recall.

Me walking down the Calle de los muertos, the Street of the Dead, trying to not get a sunburn. The Pyramid of the Moon is at the end of the road. Teotihucan was a huge city, so many fun places to explore and climb.

While in Mexico, don't forget to catch some Mariachis! Can't go wrong at the Anthropology Museum also.

Viva Mexico!!

Waiting

I have not seen my feet while standing for about 4 months. Shoes with shoe laces are very hard to put on. I have been waddling around for a long time, and going from sitting to standing, or moving in general is getting harder and harder. I am getting more and more swollen, I would not recognize my lower extremities as my own. Contractions are coming more and more, but just for practice, nothing really making things happen. I have whole new colonies of visible veins down my legs that will be a fun souvenir to keep after the baby is born. I feel super clumsy, drop things all the time and then picking them up is very hard. I keep running into our 5 and 3 year olds with my belly. I get very nauseated again since my stomach is smashed by a baby, and my abdomen seems stretched to its limit. I am in a constant state of pulling up my trousers, of which I have only a handful that still fit. And the fatigue! And the inability to get much done. Just a few of the joys of late pregnancy.

But I still love to feel the baby kick and can't wait to meet her. Our older kids are so excited for a new baby- they both are great with little ones. I love hearing our 3 year old Jane list off the people she loves which always includes her baby sister. I am excited for labor, not only to not be pregnant anymore but I actually have always had a fascination with the process of giving birth. I trained and worked as a labor doula (to provide non-medical labor support) years before I had my own kids. Knowing how labor works and helping other women through labor before having a baby is very great preparation. I have had two very easy births and hope for an easy third. Maybe we will be surprised as birth is unpredictable but we hope for a peaceful beginning for our little one. And knowing all I know, I would happily go through pregnancy again. I am grateful for our growing family as I have seen too many friends who long for children struggle with fertility issues.

And now to keep waiting. . .

I had my final trip of this pregnancy last weekend, a family reunion in Central Utah. This pregnancy has taken me as far as Italy and Poland, but I need to stay a little closer to home for now. I was 37 weeks along (which is when I delivered my first son). While on our trip, we got to go on some mule drawn wagon rides to celebrate our Western United States heritage. I maybe should have taken a few more rough rides to get labor going.

Traveling without kids? (!)

After 5 years on the road with 2 kids, my husband Brian and I had a little European get-away together for an entire week without our kids. (For those new to the phil&teds blog, we are a traveling opera family and have written some travel related posts over the last year. We could not make it without out phil&teds gear!) I was seven+ months pregnant and physically was not up to traveling (and jet lag) with 2 kids. We made arrangements for the kids to stay home and missed them terribly. But, we had an amazing week in one of our favorite cities- Warsaw, Poland. Brian had a return engagement with the Polish National Opera. We spent two months in Warsaw in 2009 and were surprised and delighted by this amazing city. We are continually impressed by all that the Polish people have accomplished with such a tragic history. Their strong spirit is evident in how they rebuilt under Communism after the Nazis destroyed 85% of the city. World War II is much more real to us now and we are so grateful for all the sacrifices of past generations. Warsaw is a very great place to travel with kids, but oh so easy without them too!

Since I was very used to walking around Poland with a phil&teds, I could not help but grab a Vibe and someone else's child! I love the air-filled tires for the cobblestones of Europe!

As easy as phil&teds has made our travel with children, my husband and I were amazed at how simple travel was with just a baby in-utero. We could decide to go somewhere and leave our apartment in mere minutes! No diaper bags to restock, no sippy cups to fill, no recalcitrant toddlers avoiding having their shoes put on. Since we had spent time in the city before, I continually would go to walk the long, stroller friendly routes I was used to but Brian would point out we could just take the stairs. We made it to a few museums that we did not brave with kids, sat at outdoor cafes and generally enjoyed the great Polish food culture and outdoor Warsaw! On our last night there was took a beautiful long walk starting in Old Town and down the pedestrian streets. We do enjoy Europe, our home country of America is just a little baby.

(To see more of beautiful Warsaw, our family blog has lots of photos from this June, http://stuckihouse.blogspot.com/)

Now we just wait the last few weeks until our new adventure begins, parenting three children! Wish us luck!

Eating Out!

We have had many restaurant adventures with our kids, some good, some not so good. Here are a handful of things that have helped.

Above, Brian with our kids in Victoria BC's Chinatown. I love how Brian looks like he has had enough. There are definitely some days when I would rather do anything else but take our kids to a restaurant. When living on the road as a nomadic opera family we have not had other options at times (only so many meals you can eat in a hotel room).

1-We love appetisers, or if we are going to a place we are not familiar with, we bring some food to keep kids happy. At times this can ruin kids appetite but we enjoy quiet, happy children while eating out.

2-It feels like lame parenting, but we have used our portable DVD player and my husband's smart phone to keep kids quiet and happily plugged in when needed. We try to use this as the exception but at times it is necessary (and nice). We were in Italy not long ago and thanks to the bread sticks and the cartoon Pinocchio on my husband's phone, we were able to wait for our food in relative peace in a restaurant we were dying to try. (It was worth it too for this restaurant! We had these amazing stuffed squash flowers that were unlike anything we have ever eaten! We had amazing food in Rome and really bad food too. Beware of restaurants that speak to you in English and serve dinner early!)

3-At times, I feel like whatever works and keeps kids happy is worth it, even if a little gross. The above photo is from a Mexican restaurant in San Angel just outside of Mexico City. Our son was about 16 months old and kept himself busy for a long time making the above concoction. It was a water bottle layered with corn tortillas, beans, orange rind and anything else that was in front of our son. My husband and I were able to eat relatively calmly, even with this disgusting thing on our table. Our son continued to drink the water even when it was full of stuff.

4-Sometimes all your best efforts will not be enough. The above photo is our son on the floor of the famous Opera Bar in Mexico City. He was done and had started exploring and saying hello to other people trying to have their meals. Lucky for us he is cute and Mexicans loved him.

5-Bring a good bib while your child is little to keep them and yourself cleaner. I LOVE the bibs with sleeves! Ikea sells some good ones or we have had a couple of these brands, they have lasted very well too. Bring lots of wipes to clean up after yourself and tip your server well!

6-Especially in Europe, we have typically brought our own baby chair as many restaurants do not have children's chairs. We travel with a booster chair that is a little bulky but is worth it to take with us. (We have yet to get a phil&teds clip-on chair as many times we have been in apartments or hotel rooms where we could not clip on such a chair. We do have a new wriggle wrapper for baby #3. I wish we had the wriggle wrapper for #2 but we did not know about it in time!)

7-When possible, ask if it is possible to sit away from other people. We went for some great Ethiopian food in Tel Aviv (there is some amazing food in Israel!). Our son had some extra energy that night so we asked to sit on the patio. It was very nice for him to have a little space and not bother other in the restaurant.

Below is our son at the Ethiopian restaurant. You can see in his eyes he was up to no good that night!

We had a funny time in Paris when our son was just about 2 years old. We were at a restaurant that had many mustards and condiments in the middle of the table. We moved them out of our son's reach but every time the waiter came to our table, he very fastidiously re-positioned them in the center of the table. He seemed very disapproving that we would move them as I suppose our 2 year old should know not to touch them. Oh well, it was not a great restaurant and we ended up eating a lot of street crepes in Paris.

We also found you can’t believe everything you read in a guidebook. One of our books for Warsaw, Poland claimed that “Rooster” was a great family eating establishment. There was one a short walk from our apartment, so we ventured in one evening for dinner. As it turns out, “Rooster” is modeled on the American “Hooters” experience, where the waitresses do not have much to wear. After being seated, our waitress came to take our orders and our three-year-old son wanted to know why she wasn’t wearing any trousers. However they did have a baby chair, crayons for kids and popcorn on the table. Our kids had a good time and the food was pretty good (we were hungry). We did not need to go back however.

Ok, just one more story from our first day in Jerusalem. It was very hot and from a lot of walking we were starving and out of water. I saw a sign for the Cafe of All Nations , so we headed up to it. It was a very funny little place. We walked in and it did not seem like a cafe at all. They had some old ice creams and drinks, but it did not seem like there was any food. There was a glass display case that seemed like it would have food but it was empty. We asked the man if they had sandwiches as the sign had suggested and he said yes, or course, and listed off what we could have. We asked for two falafel, so he made some phone calls and seemed to have sent a fax, and a few minutes later a car drove up, handed the man a black plastic bag from which he produced our lunch. It was a very strange little place and Brian asked me if I wanted to go there because I suspected it might be strange. But the food was pretty good (Brian liked the hint of lemon on the hummus), we had a place to sit and drink cold water. The man was very sweet with Colin and had him laughing a lot with 'gimme five' and some rather alarming vocal noises.

Brian and Colin at the Cafe of All Nations.

What are your best, or worst experiences eating out with kids?

Someone is getting kicked out of our phil&teds

Not to be too graphic but we as we were preparing for Christmas and leaving for Italy for a month on December 26th, I was waiting for my monthly feminine time. It seemed like I was a couple days late. I thought it was just waiting to arrive inconveniently on the day we were to leave (to make the transcontinental day of travel extra fun!) It is not like me to be late so we wondered. On Christmas Eve after our festivities, my husband Brian ran out to a local pharmacy in the last 10 minutes they were open to get a special little test. Very, very quickly, the test was positive. I was in shock (and still am a bit) as this is not quite the timing we had planned. I very selfishly hoped to NEVER be pregnant through the late summer. We are excited nonetheless and very lucky to grow our family.



I suppose babies come when they want to at times. We were hoping for a baby by the end of next year so we are just a few months ahead of schedule. I have been way sicker with this pregnancy than with my other two, which is hard when there are two kids who need attention. I have felt like a very lame mom with next to zero energy, but am on the upswing of the second trimester. Funny how growing our family makes me feel like a bad mom. Oh well, what are we to do? From the Chinese Zodiac it is the year of the Rabbit, which is the zodiac sign for both my husband and I. Fun that we get to have a Rabbit child. Guess it makes sense that we would be pregnant, knowing rabbits. So how to wean my 5 year old from our phil&teds?



Just last week I took my two kids and my niece to the park and Colin (the 5 year old) was begging his cousin to give him a turn in the stroller on the way home. We have been emphasizing that he is getting strong legs for hiking (as we live in the Wasatch Mountains when we are home) but he still loves a ride. They are truly phil&teds kids and have grown up in their strollers! When I ask Colin why he likes the stroller, he just says he likes getting a ride. Can't blame him, we go on some long walks. My little 2 year old was very cute the other day. Our stroller was by our door and as she walked by she said, "I belong to this stroller!"


Fellow phil&teds heads, how have you adapted and survived going from 2 to 3 kids? How do you get your bigger kids out of the stroller?
(Since our kids have grown up with a phil&teds stroller, I made a little slide show of Colin and Jane through the years with their beloved stroller friends)

Mokopuna merino!!

I was delighted to meet another member of the phil&teds family recently through a lovely, lovely box from Mokopuna merino! The wonderful Nicola from p&t let us preview some of the amazing wool products and we were blown away!

Here is some Mokopuna info from their company info:

Born in the pristine mountain wilderness of New Zealand’s
majestic Southern Alps, 100% pure mokopuna merino™
creates the softest and finest clothing range for newborns to 4 year olds (and beyond as they have added sizes for kids up to 14 years).

The mokopuna range consists of newborn essentials, sleepwear and easy mix & match styles in a unique colour palette including unisex and distinctive stripes.

The kids love them and I would like some adult sizes! (Seems there may be a maternity line coming soon!) Seriously, I would LOVE to add the cardigan and the wrap tunic dress to my own wardrobe right now! Easy care too for 100% wool. Machine wash, and they wash very well and look like new.
The kids got darling matching red hats and coordinated hoodies. They are so soft, light, warm but breathable. The colors are vivid and very pretty, and the sizing fits my tall kids well.
I cannot wait to see more of the colors they have to offer, some of the greens, cocoa, and glacier look especially lovely to me. I love looking at the online shop and planning future orders. They have some footed pants for babies that I am excited about for our baby #3's winter wear.

Colin, who can be picky about his clothes, has chosen this hoodie as one of his new favorite shirts. I asked him why he likes it so much and he told me, "because it is made of silk!" (I do not think Colin knows what silk is, but he knows it is soft. That is a pretty great testimonial of the softness of this wool from a 5 year old.) I really love how thin but warm it is for layering. I grew up mostly in the extreme cold of the Northern USA so I can appreciate good layering pieces. And as a Mom I appreciate having something light and thin to keep in my diaper bag to keep my kids warm in changing winter weather.

I can very much see these garments lasting well for several children! The styling is so classic it will not go out of style.

Thanks for such amazing products phil&teds and Mokopuna! Definitely a must for cold weather kids, but they also have a summer line which offers great sun protection. Another fun thing, the clothing arrived in very cute little gift boxes. I just wish I had a local retailer to see everything first-hand!

Surviving on an Airplane with Kids

We have logged thousands and thousands of miles flying with our kids to several continents. Maybe someone with a history of traumatic flights with children would be better qualified to write this post. Really, our kids are such good travelers that I would say we have only had a couple bad flights, but I would like to think it is partially because we try to be very prepared to keep them happy (and to keep the other people on the plane happy also.) I know traveling in general is stressful, even if you are just traveling alone as an adult. That said, I do get so annoyed by adults who are overly put out with little kids who also travel. Everyone was once a child and just a little patience and understanding goes a long, long way.


With infants:
I did not fly with either of my kids until they were about 5 months old so I don’t have experience with really little ones on flights. What has saved us on many flights is breast feeding. It is so convenient not to pack tons of bottles and formula but instead just to have instant food and comfort. It is also helpful to nurse for take- off and landing to keep little ears more comfortable. For those who don't breastfeed, I would think having a bottle ready to go at those times would be very valuable.

We have kept our kids as lap children as long as possible to save from the extra expense of a whole other ticket. (Domestically in the USA there is no extra charge for a lap child under the age of 2, but remember when traveling internationally, there is a charge. It is usually around 10% of the adult fare or the taxes. On international trips airlines have required our lap children to have an actual paper ticket.) A lap child gets tricky as kids get bigger and squirmy. On all international flights we have been on the airlines have supplied an additional seat belt or belly belt that attaches your baby to your seat belt for extra safety. I have liked additionally having a baby flight vest that does the same thing but secures the baby more efficiently since I feel the belly belts tend to come undone. The flight vest is long enough that an older baby can also stand in front of you while seated, still allows nursing while attached, and it give the parent of the lap child the use of two hands! It also protects your lap baby in the case of turbulence.


We flew from the middle of the United States to Israel with our son when he was 14 months old. It was a long day, made longer by about a 3 hour delay on the jet way in London. Our son was a very busy 1 year old and we were nervous. We had recently celebrated Easter and he was very entertained by plastic eggs and jelly beans. We would break the jelly beans in half to make them last longer. My friend had mentioned that oversized pill boxes (you know, the ones with all the days of the week) were fun for little kids on flights as you can hide little things or snacks in them to find and they are great for shaking. Our son was also very entertained by left over ice from the beverage service. I know some people say just to expect to walk the plane with your kids but we have chosen to limit that option for our kids. Once you open up that option, you better be ready to wander the aisles non-stop. We much prefer keeping the kids entertained in a confined space rather than letting them roam the plane.

Things we have found to be helpful:
-Bring a change of clothing for the kids and maybe even for yourself (and your neighbor). I sat by a lady once who was telling me how her baby threw up on the stranger sitting next to her. She said the person was very understanding but the mom obviously felt horrible. All she could do was hand over some wet wipes.
-Don’t forget to bring lots of wipes, diapers, plastic bags to put any gross clothing, soiled diapers etc after you have used the extra change of clothing. We once flew across the Atlantic the day after our son had diarrhea. I had him double diapered and in plastic pants the entire trip and brought tons of extra supplies just in case. Thankfully our son was fine on the flight, but my husband spent a lot of the 10 hour flight sick in the restroom, poor guy!
-A flashlight is fun, as you can send your preschoolers under the seats to look for things that are going to be dropped. I once was flying alone with my kids and most of the flight I was telling them to not shine the flashlights in my eyes. I am sure there was a great light show on the ceiling in our row but people assured me if the kids were being quiet, they did not care. Glow sticks are fun too. It can also be fun for older kids to make a fort with the flash light and the in-flight blanket over a tray table that is down. Whatever is fun and semi-quiet is great.
-Portable dvd player/ipod/mp3 players can help keep kids entertained. (Make sure everything is fully charged the night before.) We have found that sometimes even on 12 hour flights to Japan or Paris there may not be individual movies screens in the economy class, which is crazy!! If your flight does have individual movie screens, there is usually a kids channel which is very, very helpful.
-I always try to bring little surprises to open along the way. I have spent up to $40 at the Dollar Store getting ready for a trip. I don’t mind cheap surprises because some of them may be left behind on the airplane anyway. (I try not to bring favorite small toys on board to ensure not losing them.) I find lots of things my kids are entertained with in the party favor sections too. Kinder eggs are very fun, a little chocolate and a toy, awesome! Space out surprises every 30-45 minutes or longer if you can. It makes me sound like a mean mom, but the surprises are good for curtailing misbehavior. I am sure I have threatened “no more surprises if you do not stop that right now!” on more than one occasion. We have found great Dollar Stores as we travel also in Japan, Canada, and Israel.
-I find it handy also to keep candy treats in smaller portioned snack bags so as to space out the candy. We make gummy candy go further by making it a game of breaking off little pieces and sticking them to the back of our kid’s hands. We try to make it a goal of not making our kids sick to their stomachs with too much candy. When we were traveling for a wedding once, our son’s babysitter accidentally let him eat an entire bag of gummy candy. He got very sick (everywhere!) and it was not fun, especially as he had eaten hot dogs for lunch. Maybe hot dog vomit is a rite of passage for parenthood?
-We have had a lot fun recently with dry erase markers. My son has a couple activity books that use dry erase markers and my husband realized they can also be used in little photo albums. I make my kids their own photo albums of their pictures and now they are extra fun as they are a place to draw and add funny details to their photos. Wipes clean with your finger or a wet wipe. The dry erase markers are also fun with the inflight magazines and Skymall. (Is there Skymall outside of the USA? Most of our international travel has been based or going to the USA so we always have Skymall. Check out all their ridiculous things here- they have everything you did not know you needed.) With young kids, it is fun to find the doggies and kitties in Skymall, and as my kids get older, they like to look for what they want. We hope to not raise totally mindless consumers, but if Skymall can keep them happy for a few minutes I think it is great.

Trying to relax will also go a long way, you will get there whether you are stressed out or relaxed! I love the feeling of finally being on a plane because I am done packing and even if the flight is a disaster, we will get there! Just a few weeks back we flew from Rome, Italy back to the Western United States and the whole very long travel day was really much easier than we expected. Good luck to all of you in your travels!

Ciao!

Hello from sunny Rome, Italy! We had the surprise of an offer from Opera di Roma for my husband last month so the day after Christmas, off we were for a month in Italy. We had read and heard that Rome is not a super child friendly city, but with our friends phil&teds, nothing is impossible. Double stroller in hand (and with our phil&teds travel cot) we were ready to go.
In the photo above, while we were dealing with jet lag, we bundled the kids up and took a "sleepy walk" to admire St. Peters and Vatican City at night.

We have a very cute little apartment up this hill and are so grateful for a wonderful in-line. A side by side stroller would not fit up the sidewalk, or many places in Rome for that matter! Cars come down this hill at very high speeds so we are happy to keep out little ones contained and safe. We are also so happy to have fat air filled tires! We can simply jump small curbs and take on cobblestone with no problems. There is a lot of uneven ground but the Explorer handles it all well. My kids love the new sun hoods, and I love how comfortable my daughter looks in the extra padded seat up front. She is still a good stroller sleeper.

Near the Colosseum, letting Jane take a break. She loves to find little places to sit down, and then runs away from us.

Outside the Castel Sant' Angelo on yet another sleepy walk.

In the Piazza Navona for a Christmas fair celebrating La Befana for January 6. We are adding her to our Christmas traditions.

Piazza del Popolo and some amazing bubbles!

GELATO!!! Even though it is winter, it is not too cold to eat good ice cream. Sadly, this cone was over-priced since we were too close to touristy areas. We have found to not buy food in high traffic tourist spots as they are usually lower quality and way more money! If possible, try to avoid places that speak to you in English and if you want to eat well, follow the Roman meal times (which is a little late for us with kids). There is great food to be had off the beaten path.

Campo di Flori

And when our little guys get too tired from walking all over Rome, they can both take a little snooze.

We are really so in love with Rome! It is a very walkable city. I bet we average about 4-6 miles a day of walking, and we love exploring all the little neighborhoods. They have lots of great public transportation. Be mindful that if you come with a stroller and are taking the metro, stations with elevators are very limited so be ready to carry everything up some stairs. We have not been to any museums and only into a few churches so far, but at ages 4 and 2, our kids are not quite museum goers right now. There will be time later for more museums but for now, we are just enjoying! One month is not enough time to really get to know this wonderful city! Come to Italy, and don't be afraid to bring your kids!