Friday Favourites

I can’t believe another Friday is actually here! Time goes by so quickly!

Our big news is that Ela is now rolling over from her back to her tummy! Such a big girl!

Here are some of my favourite blog post for the week:

I found this post about gluten free flour very interesting…

Seyfi has said that he is completely taking over weekend breakfast making… But I really want to try this strata… I wonder if he’d make it…

I love crepes, but why does it always auto correct to creeps? Anyway these look delicious!

I love my diaper bag, but this one looks gorgeous…

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Some how, and I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but I have gotten myself slightly addicted to Real Housewives, both of New York and Vancouver…

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Hope you all have a great weekend!

See you next week!

Saturday Favourites…

This week has been all about the chickens. We’ve been taking care of them, collecting eggs, and eating eggs.

Alara is almost not scared of them any more!

Really though, life is finally back to normal. Alara is back to school, Seyfi to work and me back to my walks in the forest, baking/cooking and having a nice time at home with Ela.

If only the weather could be a bit nicer!

Anyway, here’s what I’ve bee reading on the web…

What a great idea for a brunch with friends, then everyone could take the coffee cup home with them…

I do love me some salads…

Muffins + coffee cake = delicious

I love crepes, and these are some great ideas…

I generally don’t care for tiramisu, but this one looks fab…

This blog looks so good, the food photography is great!

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Seyfi and I have started watching Game of Thrones… Better late than never! It is really good, I can’t believe it took me so long!

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The reason I didn’t do my favourites on Friday, like usual, I was at my new book club. Great group of gals, we read The Book Thief. Probably one of the best books I have read in a long time.

Next month I am hosting the book club, and I need to choose the book…

Any suggestions??

Friday Favourites

Well, Alara has finished her week at art school. She really loved it! She has come home with a bunch of beautifully, colourful abstract paintings, that I plan to hang up around the house.

This week has been good, but I don’t feel like I got very much done around the house. I think that with Alara going back to school next week, things will settle back into our normal routine, and I can be more productive.

But here is what I have been into this week…

Here are my favourite blog posts…

I’ve just gotten a new juicer, and this post was nice to read.

I love anything lemon poppy seed, so I’ll be making these!

All I have to say is mmmm shortbread.

Lemon cookies would also be good…

Other wise I really haven’t been up to too much this week,

I’m feeling slightly disappointed with Mad Men (please tell me it is going to get better…), but I am loving Up All Night, and Glee has some how sucked me back in…

I’m trying to read the newest Sophie Kinsella book, I’ve Got Your Number, but am having trouble getting into it…

We are planning on having a quiet weekend at home (thank goodness!).

However, Seyfi has mentioned something about the Turkish football playoffs starting this weekend…. Oh goodness!

Hope you all have a great weekend!
See you next week!

Jamie’s Italian

Since Seyfi has been wanting to do more cooking, to get inspiration, he has started watching more cooking shows. One of his favourites is Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals.

So, when I suggested that we go to a Jamie Oliver restaurant while we were in the U.K. last weekend, he was totally up for it.

I’ve been a fan of Jamie Oliver’s for a super long time now, and ever since he started catering his cooking style to an accessible, easy, home cooked style, I have really gotten into it.

I also, really agree with his ideas on how we should be feeding our children, about introducing them to new tastes, and giving them healthy food. I loved his food revolution shows (both the ones in the U.K. and U.S.), and learned so much from watching them.

Anyway, onto his restaurant…

It was BRILLIANT!

Loved it! Loved the food, loved the atmosphere, loved the service! And it wasn’t too expensive either!

Firstly, let me start by saying this, they know how to take care of people with dietary challenges- and we are such a family! I’m deathly allergic to fish, Seyfi has celiac disease, so there is no gluten, and none of us eat pork! We are not easy people!

But, the server handled it all, listened to everything, helped us choose, and made appropriate substitutions where necessary. We left there feeling great!

So here is what we ate:

A shin of beef, braised over night in balsamic vinegar served over creamy polenta…

Amazing…

A whole spring chicken, split and grilled, served with artichokes…

Delicious!

This was Alara’s…

Two mini sliders, one turkey, one beef, served with polenta chips and a ‘shake it’ salad…

The polenta chips were to die for!!
(obviously Seyfi didn’t eat this one… Poor guy…)

Here is Alara enjoying hers…

I was so happy with everything about this restaurant! I can’t say enough about it! I only wish that we could have gone there for both lunch and dinner!

I hope that if you are ever in the U.K. that you will take the opportunity to try out one of Jamie’s Italians. Totally worth every pence!

Favourite 5… Right now

Usually, I write about my favourites on friday, but this week I will be doing it on Thursday for two reasons-

1- I am writing this post as a piece of ‘homework’ assigned by my favourite podcast- the Joy the Baker Podcast- where I am to write about my five current favourite things.

2- We are off to London very early tomorrow morning, and I don’t see myself being anywhere near a computer to be able to put a post up tomorrow…

So… here are five of my favourite things right now, today.

1. These are two blankets that my sister sent to the girls. Why are they my favourites? They are the best for traveling with. They are bright colours, have the girls names on them, and they are a piece of home that the girls can take with them to make them comfortable when we are away.

2. All of my new nail polishes that I got in Turkey. I’m so into nail polish these days (and so is Alara…) and I am loving all of my new colours. (If you are wondering why there is nail polish on the outside of all of them, one of the bottles broke in my suitcase on the flight home, don’t even ask what kind is mess that made!)

3. These decaf coffee pads for my senseo coffee maker. As a breastfeeding mother, I try to drink only decaf coffee, which I do drink a lot of. In the beginning, this was really difficult because all of the other pad coffee, especially the expensive ones tasted terrible. Then, my friend Hege introduced me to this Carrefour Discount brand of coffee, and it is by far the best decaf coffee out there! (the Carrefour Discount cashews are also rocking my world!)

*Carrefour is a grocery store chain here in Europe

4. Here it is, the Belgian chocolate that I am currently addicted to, (thank you very much Jane!). I’m loving this dark chocolate with orange. It comes in a box with 18 individually wrapped chocolates that are out of this world! The only bad thing is that I eat them far too quickly. This is actually a picture of the last two pieces, and an empty box!

5. Instagram is now on Android! Before my iPhone went to sleep and didn’t wake up I was just getting started with Instagram. I bought a little inexpensive android phone, and had to give it up. Now that it is available for Androids, I am totally going to get into it again. You can find me on it at afamilyslife – just as you see in the picture.

So those are my five favourite things today. As I mentioned, we are off to London tomorrow and then the Cotswolds for a day. I’ll be back on Monday to let you all know how the trip went.

Have a listen to the Joy the Baker Podcast- Joy and Tracy (from shutterbean.com) are hilarious!

Hope to see you all on Instagram!

Friday Favourites

This week has been so full, that I haven’t spend much time looking around the Internet…

I did get to the cinema to see The Hunger Games with Seyfi today. It was the first time in almost two years that Seyfi and I have been to the cinema alone together. The movie was great!

We head home tomorrow, so things here will be back to normal…

Hope everyone had a great week, and an even better weekend!

Friday Favourites

We are here in Istanbul visiting Seyfi’s family, and enjoying some beautiful weather, and some delicious Starbucks!

This is what I’ve been looking at this week:

Are you going to be doing any spring cleaning?

If you are, you can start with the kitchen drawers…

I’m loving this blog, the pictures look great. I could eat all of them!

I’m also loving this blog!

And this expat blog….

I think that this week I have watched every episode of Parks and Recreation… So funny!!

I’ve been looking at Jaime Oliver recipes all week, and plan on making a bunch of delicious things when we get back home.

Friday Favourites

Here are some things that have gotten my attention this week…

A cupcake ATM! Super cool!

Four ways to make your baby laugh.

This looks deliciously cool- mason jar lasagna.

A nice easy kids craft, with lots of possibilities…

I love this colorful table runner…

I’ve started doing this… Do you meal plan?

What else has been up this week…

I’ve started watching BBC’s Upstairs Downstairs. It’s good, but not Downton Abbey.

I’ve been reading the book Some Girls: My Life in a Harem. I’m not finished, but it’s quite interesting.

And something really exciting, I finally got to see the Whirling Dervishes live! Who thought I’d be out of Turkey when that happened!

Thank you for coming to my blog this week!
Hope to see you all again next week!

Have a great weekend!

Friday Favourites

This has been such a great week for me. I’m coming up to the weekend not feeling exhausted, or fed up. I feel normal, not like I have a little baby and a three year old, but like I have a family that has been working together for years.

This has been a week of warmer weather, playing in the park after school and lots of chatting with friends, long walks and delicious (healthy) food, a happy baby and a happy three year old, new yoga poses and stress free living. I hope that this feeling continues for a long time.

Here are some great things that I’ve been reading this week:

Making toast in a gluten-gluten free home at Jenn Cuisine

When I was in Turkey I’d make bagels, but never as good looking as these.

Yum, blueberry muffins from Joy the Baker’s new book on
Shutterbean.

Loving the look of this living room.

Some great ideas for when Ela can eat solid food.

A beautiful (free) desktop calendar to download for March.

What do you think about mixing patterns? Have a look here and weigh in.

I’m totally making these…

I’ve been craving ice cream, this didn’t help!

Raising creative kids- here are some suggestions…

That’s it for this week! Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday Favourites- Downton Abbey

Isn’t ITV’s period series Downton Abbey all the rage right now? It shows in Britain in the autumn and then in North America in the winter, making its buzz last for so long, and does it deserve it? In short, yes!

There are so many levels that this series hits the mark on…

Each of the characters is developed so well. No one character gets all the attention, whether it is a member of the family, or the staff, each one has a story, a story that is developed and linked to the other characters. The people of this house are all fundamentally joined together, their character development is based on each others.

Who is my favourite character? I don’t know, from ‘upstairs,’ Sybil. She is a modern lady. She has grown into a woman who knows her own mind, and does what she thinks is right. I love the development of the relationship between her and Branson, how many times was I just screaming at the television for them to just kiss each other! I’m so happy with her decision to ‘give it all up’ for the man she loves.

My favourite character downstairs must be Daisy. How that girl has grown! She has become so much smarter and confident throughout the two seasons. I respect how she felt about William’s death, and cried when she realized how much his father and her needed each other, and how they made a family.

The historical events that are used to map out the time line of the plot are so interesting. Starting with the sinking of the Titanic, moving through the war, to the 1918 influenza, each of these historic events touches Downton Abbey, shaping the story of the residents lives.

The costumes are also fabulous, I love a good hat! And boy does this programme have a lot of great hats! I also like the way the clothes change as the years (on the show) pass. Such beautiful examples of the fashion of the time.

The plot of the programme movies along so beautiful, there is never a dull moment, I am forever suggesting to friends that they should watch this series, in fact, I am often giving them all of the episodes to watch, many of them watch them all at once because they can’t stop. I think I’ve watched the two seasons, and the Christmas special at least four times now…

Have you watched Downton Abbey? What did you think?

If you too are a fan of period films, check out this site, it’s no longer being kept up regularly, but it is a great resource.

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