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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
making my heart melt
So this time we decided to walk there and take public transport back home. I was so proud of my little man he walked the whole way there, it's about a 15-20 minute walk when I do it alone. People walk here, it's what they do and so they expect kids to walk too. (I did tuck my Ergo Baby in my bag just in case, but glad I didn't need to use it.)
But I digressed, on the melting part. We got off at our stop and we have to walk between a couple of apartment buildings that look just like ours and once we got around the buildings and saw our building Calvin says, "My House." So sweet, and glad he knows it's home and for a minute I thought I was going to cry.
I snapped this one of him playing in his "house" made out of pillows.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A Christmas Collage
Here are a few more shots of our Christmas this year. We had a little gingerbread house making party with some other ex-pats. Calvin did a nice job at eating the candy, then he got bored and ran off to play. Ours is a little local house, we used all local materials to build ours, since I didn't get around to making gingerbread, maybe next year. (our is the "log cabin" with pretzles for logs.)
An afternoon with Father Freeze
The families in our company were invited to attend a New Years Program at a school that is run by the same man with whom our business is partnered with. I've had the pleasure of touring this school before and yes the scary medical equipment is still there and still used.
They had quite the show arranged for the children. I was a little nervous because it was during Calvin's nap and just didn't know how it would go. I held on to our coats just in case we needed to make a quick exit. I was even more worried when they had seats set out for the kids, far away from my reach. Thankfully some other kids on our team sat by Calvin and helped him the whole time. He did awesome, however he wasn't sure what was going on. The looks on his face were priceless.
It was the first time he got to see Father Freeze, the name they call Santa Clause here. Of course throughout the course of the play the children had to get up and move in a circle or dance. He just followed along. Some day this will be normal to him. Our favorite part was when they did the Marcarena and the Chicken Dance, it was a nice touch. However Calvin's favorite part had to be when they gave all the children candy at the end. It was a fun little outing. Calvin's been very bored lately, which also means he's been very curious and doing everything he's not suppose to do so we were glad to have something for him to do.
Any ideas on children's activities that can be done inside an apartment would be welcomed.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
"Meat" our Market
We thought you'd enjoy a few shots of our meat selections at our neighborhood market.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Merry Times
Loving his new blocks. The poor boy was going a little crazy without anything to build with. He certainly loves blocks and has been busy since he opened them. (No more snagging my spices to build something!!)
Hope you had a great Christmas too!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Things we’re learning…or relearning
It’s been a testing couple of weeks at our house. Calvin’s tested all the waters, just to see if they were the same. Obviously his entire world has changed it only makes since that he would have pushed the boundaries a bit, to see where they were at. If we had thought about it more we wouldn’t have been surprised about this and would have been a little bit more understanding from the start.
We’re relearning the value of a plastic bag. I bought some bread with seasame seeds on it the other day and after I unloaded my groceries there were a few on the bottom of the bag, Marvin wanted to just throw it away. But it was a nice one, the kind that cost around .20, they make great trashbags, and there’s no way we’re throwing that baby way, so he dumped the seeds out and it was as good as new. I’m a little funny about my “packets”.
We’re learning how to get around with a toddler on public transportation. It’s gone well but I haven’t ventured off without Marvin. That will be a story for another day. We have a great new grocery store near our house, it’s about a 20 minute walk. It works great to push Calvin there so I can put my bags of groceries on the back of the cart. This is a great grocery store and they have car carts that he fell in love with during our days shopping at Dillons plus they have an escalator which makes his day. But the only problem is the grocery store is in the lower level and I haven’t figured out how I’d get my groceries, a stroller and Calvin up the escalator on my own. So I’m learning how to get around.
I’ve finally learned why people dress small children in tights here. It’s so ingenious, less laundry! Especially when it takes things a day or two to dry in the winter time. I will say I’ve converted. Calvin now wears tights around the house. If we go out we just throw his snow bibs on and he’s a warm kid! I love it. I just need to find him some house shoes so he doesn’t slip so much when he’s not on a rug.
Since we’ve been gone they’ve covered most of the market, so I’m relearning where everything is located. It’s very nice to go shopping and not having plastic tarps dripping water on you. But I’m wondering how nice it will be in the hot summers? I’ll update you then.
There’s plenty more but that’s it’s for now.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Welcome to the Hood
We have a great playground right outside. I can’t wait for spring and summer because it’s pretty dead right now. We hope to meet several new friends through this playground. So far there’s just been a grandfather and his grandson come play at the same time Calvin has been out there.
And here is our door, well our first one. We have two, we share an entrance door with our neighbor and then we each have separate doors to our apartments. But I’ll save that for a later post.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
A Big Boy Already?!?!
The next night was a completely different story. He woke up at 1:00 ready to play. Marvin gave him a snack and told him to go to sleep and when he was done he could eat breakfast. It was quiet for a few minutes then we heard. All done, all done, all done…..for the next 5 minutes.
I saw that he wasn’t too sleepy so I did what any good mother desprate for sleep would do, grabbed our portable DVD player and popped in a Veggie Tale. It occupied him until he figured out how to escape the pack-n-play. The next thing we knew we had a little guy at our bed excited about watching his movie. We kept taking him back to his bed, until after the second DVD was finished and I finally gave up. By this time I was also awake. So I folded up his bed because obviously that wasn’t going to work anymore and I unpacked his suitcase while he played for a bit.
He’s done pretty well with the transition. He loves his new bed and he is sleeping through the night. I can’t believe my son is big enough for a big boy bed!
Friday, December 18, 2009
First Friend
I am so proud of him though he has already learned how to say thank you, and he actually says it better than he does in English. Today we were playing and he gave me a toy and I said thank you in this language. Then he went back to coloring and he started jibber jabbering like I have never heard him do before. He came back over to me and said something to me in the same jibber jabber. I finally made the connection he was talking to me in our new language. I know what he feels because I thought this language sounded like jibber jabber when we first got here too.
He certainly does better with children. We had our friends Ute and May over for dinner and he loved their little girl. He wasn’t the least bit phased when they spoke to him in a different language. Today he was even talking about their little girl. I’m so thankful for a first little friend for him. We live very close to them and can’t wait for our future walks together.
Our Trip Over the Pond
Our flights were great. Calvin was very excited. Partly because we told him there were cookies on the airplane. He slept most of our long flight which was nice because both Marvin and I were exhausted from packing all night long. We had a little pit stop overnight before we headed to Nineveh. Of course they slammed us with baggage fees again and we were so thankful we eliminated two suitcases.
It was fun to immediately spot our flight check in. It was the one where everyone was wearing black coats and holding plastic bags wrapped in saran wrap. We knew we wanted to go where they were going. Our flight was much better than our first entry to Nineveh. But for some reason after we landed we waited for about 15 minutes for the bus to pull up. In this time there was no air and one lady fainted. Then I’m not sure why but everyone must board the bus to go about 20 meters to the building. So Calvin and I were literally shoved through a sea of people to take our seat for mom’s with small children. A similar event also happened as we waited to go through passport control. We really made it through two lines very quickly thanks to Calvin.
Now customs is where we were delayed considerably. The problem is we had 12 suitcases and no one knew what to do. Did they charge us a custom fee, if so how much? This went on for several hours. Calvin was exhausted and everyone was really nice to us. They even took us to the back where I could sit down. (Can I just tell you how much I have loved having our Ergo baby. It is the only way Calvin would have fallen asleep in that madness.) He finally didn’t have any more steam and crashed while we waited for Marvin and the customs agents figure out the correct paperwork. But that’s life here! It’s so good to be back.
After a restless night of sleep our first night here. Calvin eventually took over my bed, and I slept in his toddler bed. He was so exhausted that next morning it took some major coercing to get him out of bed.
Because I just couldn’t wait till we had internet to blog
Enjoy!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
1 WEEK!!!!
We decided to eliminate two of our suitcases so this means we're back to square one and square one can't be started until Friday, since all of our bags are at Marvin's folks house. I guess black Friday will have an entirely different meaning for us. We really do want to enjoy our last days with family so let's just hope we can get everything done on Friday when we'll be back at Marvin's parents house. We already have a mental list of what we are taking out of our suitcases, but we'll see if it totals up to 100 lbs. We just don't want to be killed with baggage fees when we get to our flight to Nineveh. We'll be having an overnight pit stop, flights to our city cannot be purchased from the states and this means the airlines cannot route them to our final destination. In short it means we have to check all our bags again and pay for them again, so we're just praying we're not going to be pounded by fees (sometimes they do that). Thankfully there is storage at the airport and we won't have to luggage 12 suitcases to where we are staying for the night.
I hope to conclude my sewing projects this evening. I'll post some pictures tomorrow, I promise. I've finished two aprons, started two more, and am about to finish Calvin's duvet cover here during nap time. I still have a couple more Christmas presents to finish up today and because I'm crazy decided to make some baby legs for Calvin out of long socks. Kids must wear tights there, but I'm going to bend that rule and use baby legs instead.
So I guess I better get to work, rather than waste time blogging.
P.S. Anyone know how to get the music from your ipod to your computer? I've seen lots about how to do it the opposite way but since the little punks stole our computer we can't do it that way. Any thoughts? It would save us hours of loading Cds.
Monday, November 16, 2009
What a Rock Star
Another huge answer has been our housing. Thankfully he's opened up the door for us to live here! I can't wait. Our timeline is clicking away tomorrow we leave in 2 weeks! Awesome. Our God certainly Rocks.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Love It! (With lots of exclaimations points)
We offically have VISAS!!! We can be officially ticketed on Monday for our December 1st flight!
We have 8 bags packed, at weight and ready to go!!!
We got our pictures back from our photographer. She did a beautiful job. If you are in the Wichita area I highly recommend her. She was professional but very laid back and with a 2 year old you have to just go with the flow. Thank you so much Pampering Beki! (She also has the sweetest jewlery for sale, she's quite a talented gal.)
Friday, November 13, 2009
When life gets stressful....why not take a sewing break
So here are a few projects I whipped up in the moving process. They were for my trade secret swap partner. Since it's not a secret anymore I'll share them.
I experimented with scalloped edges! I love them. I have a few sketches in my mind that I'm dreaming up for the aprons left to complete. It will come as no surprise to a few of you that most of my Christmas gifts will be aprons this year. I'm also working on a few matching pot holders too. I know I'm nuts but apparently I thrive in chaos.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
What's it worth to ya?
We're trying to thin our bags at this point and man is that a tough thing to do. We're making the hard calls right now, today I pulled the Velveeta because what good is Velveeta without any chips. I talked to the airline and we get 6 free bags between the three of us. Every bag after that is $250 each, plus another couple hundred a piece for our second leg of our trip. Thankfully we're graciously given the funds to compensate for that. It's given a better direction to our packing. It makes us evaluate how valuable each item is in our suitcase. So what would you take? I'm curious!
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
The Winner is....
Monday, November 02, 2009
Goodbyes Stink
Then there's this one goodbye which brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it. Our friends, who are closer than anyone we know, they've been our family for the past four years. It's sort of ironic we moved on Halloween because we started this journey together 4 years ago exactly as we headed off to training together.
They've been a huge blessing over the past year and a half. It was such a relief that in the midst of all the craziness surrounding our return to the states that Dan and Jamie would be in Wichita. We could laugh about flannel shirts, reminisce about the good times in Nineveh and be sad together that we weren't there. We've watched our boys grow up together become best buds. I love seeing Calvin's face light up when he sees his best buddy. I love how his loves his Aunt Jamie and Uncle Dan.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Birthday Bash
We went with a Sesame Street Theme because that's Calvin's love right now. The cupcakes turned out really cute and Calvin was so excited when he woke up to find Elmo, Cookie Monster and Grover on the counter.
I didn't do a lick of decorating, just plain ran out of time. For me that was huge, I love to have everything perfect, but lately decided that it's better for me to just concede and go to bed, rather than have a grumpy momma with cute decorations. I'm working on it.
Meet Grover, Elmo & Cookie Monster
Present Time
Even though we specifically said no presents. Everyone blessed Calvin by helping to replace all his DVDs that were stolen. It's amazing he had no duplicates!
It's a neat picture to see most of the people who've meant so much to Calvin all in one room. We are blessed.
I still can't believe two years went by so quickly! I'm certainly enjoying all the snuggle time and hugs I can get right now, before we know it we'll be sending him off to college.
Yet Another Reason I Love ETSY!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Choices, Choices
I love this green. It's calming and sweet. It reminds me of a good friend your always glad to see.
Here a nice sleek chrome. It looks ultra modern and would be fun to have around my kitchen. It seems sophisticated and I'd feel blessed to use it every time. (not sure how well it would clean, how to keep it nice and shiny because let's face it I'm a messy cook, anyone have one like this?)