Freezing outside, Roasting inside

We’ve been having a cold winter.  It reminds me of the winter when we first moved here 6 years ago.  Lots of snow, low temps, icy paths.  We had a couple weeks were the temps never made it out of the single digits.  It was cold.  Thankfully it’s warmed up some but it’s still cold.

Apartments here tend to have two extremes, cold or roasting.  Our apartment is in the roasting category.  Although I’m thankful for a nice warm home.  We leave our windows open to try to cool off our apartment but even with them open, it’s still usually between 75-78 degrees F.

Our bathroom is literally a sauna.  The other night Marvin said, I bet it’s 90 degrees in there.  So we stuck our thermometer in there and within 5 minutes it was in the 90s.  We left it in there a while with the door closed and right before I headed to bed it reached 98 degrees.  Neither one of us had taken a shower either, which I can only imagine how hot it gets when we have the shower on.

The funny thing is, my body has gotten used to this temperature and whenever I’m at a place with normal temperatures I make sure I have a sweater on.  Either way I’m very thankful we’re blessed with good heat, so many in our city are not at the moment and many of them are struggling to keep their pipes from freezing.  We’re so blessed.  Plus our laundry dries so quickly.

Out numbered

At my 16 week ultrasound we found out another little boy will be joining our family come July!

Marvin was shocked; I thought it would be a boy.

Not that I wouldn’t love to have a little girl someday, but I love being a mom to boys.

The other day Calvin was sucking up the peanut butter from his lunch with his straw and blowing “peanut butter bombs” on his plate.  Girls don’t do that.  It’s fun to explore the world with my boys through new eyes.  Our house is definitely filled with lots of sound effects and Micah loves to add in all his grunts too.  We’re thrilled to be blessed to have the opportunity to shepherd another little boy.

Plus the frugal side of my heart is a bit relieved that we already have all the clothes we need with the exception of a few summer things we’ll need at the start.  It’s such a blessing because things are crazy expensive here and it’s so stressful trying to figure out what to order and what sizes, if that brand runs small or big, etc.

Calvin’s growing to the idea.  Although he’s still hoping they were wrong, he has a bigger need for a sister because he already has a brother.  Plus he needs another princess around to rescue, maybe someday buddy.  Although he did make a suggestion for the name if it was a boy baby, Charge.  What do you think?  

I’m 18 weeks along now. I’m ready to be done with the whole nausea stuff; surely it has to end soon.  I'm feeling this little fella swimming around, so that's been fun.

I’m beginning to show, yet still feel that I’m in that awkward, feeling thicker in the middle stage (aka fat).  Although a neighbor told me the other day that I looked thinner, weird.  I guess it’s not saying much as this specific neighbor is often tipsy when we see him and this day  he was not.)

Overall I’m thankful for a so far healthy pregnancy and that our little guy keeps growing and growing.

Sweet 16

This little guy keeps me on my toes.  

There’s never a dull moment in our house.  In the process of tidying up the boys room the other day.  Calvin comes running in their room and told me to come quick, “Micah was doing something very, very dangerous.”  I was very thankful Calvin was home because the little man got into the cleaning supplies under the sink.  In case you were wondering he broke yet another child safety latch.  I seriously think they need Micah to come test those things out before they put them on the market, I’m certain most would not make the cut.

He is a busy little fella, but I’ve been enjoying getting him to giggle a bit more as he gets older.  He loves to dance with me, and that will usually get a good giggle out of him.

His attention span is lengthening.  Currently he loves duplos and stacking cube blocks.  Sometimes he can barely contain his eagerness to knock the tower over though. 

He also loves balls, his favorite game is to throw all of his balls into his crib and attempt to climb in or bring you by the hand to his bed to retrieve them all, and then back in they go. 

I’m still so amazed at how much this little boy can eat, although still refuses to drink milk.  It’s not surprising that he weighs 26#s now.  He’s a solid little guy.

He started using his spoon just in the last few weeks, but has decided that he is the only one who can feed himself now that he has “mastered” the spoon.  Which makes certain beloved foods like yogurt, oatmeal and applesauce pretty much torturous to clean up, but he’s so proud of his accomplishment of using his spoon.

He’s been enjoying books more and more.  His big brother also loves reading right now and if I’m reading a book to Calvin he’ll bring his over and bulldoze himself into my lap, plop down and try to get me to read it immediately.  Waiting and patience are skills that he possesses none of, any tips?

His vocabulary is growing he says “Mama” “MoMo” more “Go, Go” “Hi”, “Bye, Bye”, “Ba” for ball.  When someone says “Paka, Paka” the local equivalent for bye-bye he’ll wave as well.  He’s become a fabulous greeter and generally does a happy spin when his nanny arrives in the morning.

He’s down to one nap a day, and thankfully it usually is a long one 2 ½ to 3 hours.  Our busy little guy needs his sleep.  Most nights he’s sleeping through the night but every week we still have a few nights where he’ll wake up.  We moved the boys room around a bit and put the sound machine next to his crib, which I think is helping a lot to keep him asleep at night and not being woken by noises.

He’s warming up to Daddy a bit more.  He gets to spend an hour with only daddy each week day morning while I take Calvin to preschool.  He actually let Marvin put him to bed without screaming his little head off, but we have a ways to go with the middle of the night thing.  It must be mommy.

Even though I’m completely exhausted at the end of the day, I can’t imagine my life without my Micah man.  I’m blessed by my boys.

What a Week

We got a call from a friend two Saturdays ago telling us an expat friend had fallen while they were hiking in the mountains and was badly injured.  They were on their way to do see frozen waterfalls and our friend slipped and fell off a cliff.  It is truly a miracle he is still alive. 

Marvin and the guys went to see the place he fell from last weekend and it was a lot farther than they initially guessed.  Thankfully they were eventually able to med evacuate him to Turkey, where he’s undergone three surgeries.  He has a long road to recovery and there are still lots of questions about the future mobility of his foot and wrist.  The doctors here told him a different bone was broken and the bone that was actually broken is very important to perform surgery immediately or there is a risk of the bone dying.  We’re very thankful he’s out of the medical system here and in the hands of qualified and knowledgeable doctors.

Our friend fell from the tree line and landed a little above the road.

I’ve been amazed by the body of believers here, both local and expats.  It truly is a blessing to be able to serve each other in times of need.  We all understand how tough it is to be away from familiar support in a crisis (family, language, hospitals, etc) so when something happens everyone is more than willing to help any way they can.  His fellow patients were also extremely helpful and concerned.  A couple of guys who stayed with him at the hospital are still getting calls a couple times a day from other patients who shared a room with him, to check in on how our friend is doing. 

Amidst that craziness we hosted a friend who was in our area.  (Not many people make it to our corner of the world so when we have guests it’s extra special.)  Calvin loves, loves, loves having guests so our friend’s visit was extra special for him.  In fact when it came time for him to leave Calvin told me he wished he could stay for 7 days instead of 3. 

When we have guests the boys come and camp out in our room at night.  During these times Micah generally tends to wake up in the middle of the night and stays awake for an hour or longer before he’ll fall back asleep, so that was rough on my already exhausted body.

We’ve tried to Micah proof our house the best we can but his climbing abilities are growing each and every week.  I find him like this about a million times every day. 

His newest trick is walking backwards while he is on top of the table, that boy loves to live on the edge and has no fear.  He loves to pull anything and everything off of tables, counters. Last week he even pulled a small wardrobe down, thankfully his nanny caught it before it came toppling down on him.  He also has been mastering the “move the chair and get whatever he wants” trick, so this has limited where we can keep things out of his reach.

I saw the doctor last week (mainly to get slips to do blood work here) and we had another ultrasound.  Everything looks great; I’m so relieved after our first ultrasound.  Every 1^st trimester ultrasound I’ve had here they always tell you things that could be wrong.  So we headed to a different place this time and everything looked normal.

The week ended well by getting a chance to see so many amazing ex pat women who live in our city.  Many of these sweet women I haven’t seen in over half a year so it truly was such a great way to end a busy and emotionally draining week.  I’m so glad I finally got around to hosting a waffle brunch.

Here’s to a new week!

Top 10 of 2011

This post is funny considering my specialty recently has been grilled cheese sandwiches.  I’m still not feeling too great, nothing sounds appetizing and currently have no desire to be near food, which has led to me making a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches recently.  So rather than dwell on our lack of exciting meals in our home I thought I’d reminisce on some happier memories.  I have enjoyed several blogs who have posted their top 10 recipes of 2011 and thought I’d follow suit. 

Here’s my little happy eater.  He loves spaghetti.  With a passion.  Unfortunately spaghetti didn’t make the cut this year.

1.     Chicken Paprikish.  This was so good, oh so good.  I remember wanting to just eat the sauce with a spoon, it was that good.  I’m pretty sure I was already full by the time we sat down to dinner from all my “test bites”.

2.    Goof Proof Coconut Curry Chicken.  It’s a cinch to throw together. I’m so thankful we can get curry sauce here.  You’ll love this easy recipe.

3.    Thai Peanut Salad.  Amazing blend of sweet and salty.  The last time I made it we just added the sauce to our own salads and the salad portion of it stayed nice and crisp for leftovers the next day.  I had to make lots of substitutions to the dressing, but it was a winner.

4.    Cashew Chicken.  This one was amazing. This is where I learned a trick to toss your chicken with a little corn starch before cooking it and it really does give it the same texture as in Chinese restaurants and it keeps your chicken from drying out.

5.    Fresh Strawberry Limeade.  I know weird to include this one but it really made my year to find this recipe.  Since we live in a place without sonic drinks during the hot summer months, this recipe saved the day this summer when I was craving a limeade.  I was able to find all the ingredients for at the store just up the road.  I even got a little wild and crushed the ice for a nice strawberry limeade slushy.  Heavenly.

6.    Chicken Picatta.  We all gobbled this one up. I actually used this recipe minus the capers as my sauce and chicken for a dairy free version of chicken pot pie.

7.    Eggplant Dip.  I could live off of it in the summer time.  I’m counting down the days until eggplant reappears.

8.    Pumpkin Waffles.  Since my fabulous husband bought me a waffle maker it’s been a treat to have waffles for breakfast.  I tend to make a bunch and freeze them, and then just pop them in the toaster in the mornings.  It helps this non morning person make breakfast choices easier.  FYI this recipe makes a ton.

9.    Perfect Cupcake Frosting.  After my first attempt at this recipe was a complete flop but I decided to try it again, this time I bought the expensive imported butter and it worked like a charm.  I’m not a frosting gal, so intensely sweet butter cream frosting generally gets dumped to the side of my plate.  This was more of a whipped cream type of frosting.  It was worth the stomach ache I experienced after eating it.

10. Peanut Butter Granola.  It’s become a favorite at breakfast time in our house.  I love this on plain yogurt.  The sweet granola on tart yogurt is so good, and not to mention it’s a very filling breakfast.  I just love it and Calvin begs me to make this.

So I hope I get to enjoy a few of these sometime soon.  Did you all find some new recipes this past year that you’ll make for years to come?

Smitten

Our washing machine finally died.  For the past two years, every time we did a load of laundry it leaked, which meant if I forgot to throw a towel down before the final rinse chances were we’d step in water.  Never a pleasant experience, especially first thing in the morning.

So I’ve been dreaming of a new washing machine for two years now.  Finally ours started making some new, not so great sounds, and then it stopped and refused to empty the water, but unfortunately not at the best time, a day before a trip and I still needed to do a few more loads before we left.  Thanks to two friends I was able to get my laundry done in 2 hours and we decided to do our research and get a machine when we came back.

Once we returned from our trip, we decided it was time to make the big purchase and oh how I love this machine. 

My favorite features

• If I want I am able to wash something in 20 minutes, verses the typical 2 hour cycle of European washing machines. 
• I can add my laundry at night and set it to start before we wake up.  Beautiful. 
• Not to mention it’s 1,000 times quieter than our old machine, which is helpful since our machine is in our kitchen, very common in our part of the world. 
• It also holds 2 more kilos of clothing, which means less loads of laundry.

I’m still so very smitten.

Why is it that new appliances are so thrilling?  Micah also loves all the fancy new buttons that make noise when you press them.  Thankfully it came with a child lock feature, which is quite helpful in our house currently.

Painting

I usually pull out the art supplies for Calvin when Micah is sleeping but we had a dreary wet and rainy day recently and we needed something new, so I decided to give it a try.  Micah loved the brush and loved spreading the paint around.  I think this activity wins the prize at captivating his nonexistent attention span for the longest amount of time EVER, for 10 minutes this little guy sat in his high chair and painted.

This is a classic Micah look, I love his little expressions.

1 down 2 to go

Well this pregnancy is certainly different, having a little toddler to chase around has added to my energy level during my 1^st trimester.  In short, I’ve been exhausted.  Occasionally I’ll muster up some energy and spend a day being very productive but then it takes me at least two days to recover from it.

I haven’t been as sick this time around, which is a blessing, although I feel nauseous all day long.  I’m not sure what to eat, nothing sounds appetizing but it’s best to keep something in my stomach. I’m ready for eating to not feel like a chore.  Thankfully I’ve been less gaggy this time around, so I’m celebrating these little things.

So far my middle feels like it’s growing, but things are still fitting, but I’m sure it won’t be long before I must pull out my maternity clothes.

This time around I’m going to work hard at exercising and eating smart.

Since there really isn’t much to show, here’s a fun 12 week photo we were able to get before we flew back home.  

Dairy-O

After having Micah I developed a huge sensitivity to dairy products.  Thankfully I can still tolerate certain yogurts and kefir but cheese, butter, and milk are just pure torture to my stomach.  I tired some enzyme replacement pills to help and well they didn’t.  I tried the pills you take before you eat dairy and that ended very badly.  Like feeling like I was hit with the plague.  So I’ve basically been avoiding most dairy since May.

I’ve had to change how I cook a bit and adjust my taste buds a bit, but it was much easier than I thought it would be.  At first it was tough since we don’t have all the fabulous replacements you can find in America, but I’ve been thankful for a few things I’ve found here that have been key ingredients in many dishes, like coconut milk and avocados.  We’ve also enjoyed exploring several new Asian dishes this year.

Not only has dairy been an issue but recently beef has started producing some of the same problems.  I haven’t found much research or correlations between the two, so I’m curious if pregnancy or child birth caused any strange things for you?  Maybe after the birth of this next one things will reverse itself, until then it’s trying out new recipes for our family.

On a sort of related note, we watched Forks over Knives this past weekend, and it’s left us really thinking about what we eat, which is sort of ironic how the two things that cause me the most problems are things they recommend avoiding or consuming in very small quantities.

 The research is pretty amazing, both Marvin and I were shocked and this is coming from Kansas kids with families in the cattle industry.  It’s certainly controversial, and while we have not decided to embrace a vegan diet, we certainly have decided to make a few changes to our diet as a result of it.  I’d highly recommend it and would love to hear what you think of it.

Still

Still nauseous all day long, not so fun.  I’m ready for this stage to be over, but I’m thankful for these hormones that are helping our little one grow.

Still working at this language and man do I ever have a long way to go.  Today my teacher joked as we started to see if I left my brain in Turkey this time.  (After Micah was born it took a while for my brain to return to normal functioning in this language.)

Still trying to keep up with our crazy little Micah man.  Last week I was hanging up laundry, and heard a clink, clink, clink so I immediately came running to the kitchen.  I found Micah standing on the table, holding two of my Turkish plates and at the sight of me he dropped one.  Thankfully a little super glue helped mend my broken plate.  But some days it’s hard to keep up with that curious little one.

Still exhausted, I’m ready for that 2^nd trimester boost of energy.  It’s welcome any day.

Still love Calvin’s zeal for super heroes.  We’ve spent many days recently where I was not known as Mommy but “Flash girl” and Daddy was “Aquaman”.  Let’s just say we’re pretty good at saving the world.

Still so blessed.

Fun Company

We had the opportunity to host our company’s Christmas party this year.  Our living room was filled with tables, but we made it work.  I continue to be surprised at how many people can fit comfortably in our small apartment.

Our amazing team helped create a great meal, I truly got the easy part a cheesecake and cooking the meat which involved next to no work, plus our nanny helped me with that one.  One of our fabulous teammates was able to make her portion of the meal without any running water all day long.  (She made mashed potatoes, which I’m still amazed she decided to make them with no running water.  Thankfully we’re all prepared for no water days with jugs filled with water tucked away, but still she’s AMAZING.)

I stumbled on a fun game and we engaged in some friendly competition, Minute to Win it style, (Confession:  I didn’t know it was a television show when I found the idea, seriously you all have to keep me to speed on these things.)

Balancing ornaments on a stick lying on a paper towel roll

Cup Stacking

Marshmallow building

And the classic opening of the present with ski gloves before the person beside you rolls doubles.

*our office manager barely pulled out that win!

Everyone had a good time.  Lots of laughs.  Lots of memories.

My least favorite part about hosting, the clean up.

Oye!

But it goes much faster with several dish washers.

We’re so blessed to have such a fabulous team.

And yes the next day did require a long nap.

Happy New Year

Today as we head to a place with a little more sunshine than we typically experience, we wanted to wish you a very Happy New Year.

We hope that this coming year is filled with Christ’s sweet blessings on your family.  May your faith grow stonger and sweeter this coming year.  Thanks for being a part of our lives.

Much Love,

Marvin, Erica, Calvin Micah and Baby on the Way*

*Coming July 2012

Celebrating Christmas 2011

We had a nice and mellow Christmas this year.  The boys were up past bedtime on Christmas Eve due to our ex pat Christmas get together.  We had a lot of fun, Calvin had a blast, but Micah was pretty grumpy, so I figured he’d sleep in. 

 WRONG 5:30 he wanted up, after many attempts of getting him back to sleep I feed him breakfast, in the dark in his room and put him back to bed.  He eventually fell asleep.

Right after that I got a drink of water around 7:00 a.m. a sleepy little 4 year old comes strolling in, we enjoyed a Christmas cookie and some water together then we went back to bed until 9:30.  Beautiful.

I haven’t slept that late in forever.  A Gift.

Calvin of course woke up first ready for some waffles, begging to wake up Micah because he really loves waffles, so eventually his pleas won me out of bed.  Waffles it was, although we let Micah sleep longer. He finally woke up around 10 a.m.

Then it was on to our last Jesse tree reading, we sang a few songs and then added the pieces to the nativity scene on our advent calendar.  A certain little guy was bouncing up and down with excitement and eagerly turned around and right into the corner of the TV.  Ouch.  A HUGE goose egg appeared and we spent the better part of 20 minutes snuggling with a boo boo bear on his forehead.  Thankfully that didn’t ruin his day.  A little ibuprofen and some recovery time and he was ready to see what was in his stocking.

He loved all of his stocking.  All of his favorite things were piled into one place, what’s not to love? Chocolate kinder eggs, stickers, glow sticks, puzzles and a new movie.  He loved it and kept expressing his gratefulness.

Micah loved his new blocks.  They sort of distracted him from all of Calvin’s cool new toys.

Then we surprised Calvin with presents. He thought all the presents under the tree were for other people, so that rocked his world. The gift that left him bouncing around the house the rest of the day was his new spider man costume.

We consumed candy for lunch. Except Micah and me, he had crackersi had pickles.

I put a ham in the oven and mixed up some frosting and let the sugar fest begin:

Sugar cookies, then we decorated our gingerbread house. 

Which brought about more bouncing off the walls.

We skyped with our family.

Had some ham sandwiches for dinner and went to bed.

It was a beautiful day. 

One we’ll remember forever.

Father Freeze's Gift

Father Freeze, local version of Santa Clause was part of Calvin’s school performance and of course he brought each of the kids a present.

This is what he brought to all the boys in Calvin’s preschool class.

Yep, a gun.

At least it's not an automatic, although it does say sniper on the front of the box.

What are the chances of preschools in the states giving these to all the little boys this year?  I’m guessing the odds are pretty slim.

Happy New Year!

Cute Little Snowmen

Calvin’s preschool had their New Year’s party this week and this year all the little boys had to dress up as snowmen, the girls got to be princesses.  A friend finally spotted a snowman costume at the market so we had to make a trip there after preschool one day to scoop one up.  I am so thankful I found one, I had no idea how to sew this crazy rendition of a snowman.

As part of the culture children’s concerts usually involve lots of singing, dancing, reciting of poems, drama and gifts for children.  It was so fun to watch his first real school program.  A weird sort of mama pride swells up in you as you watch your child clap, stomp, spin and sing.  That was very unexpected for me.  It was a very cute performance.

I’ll be honest I was very nervous for Calvin to recite his poem.  He knew it but I also know how shy he gets in front of crowds.  This isn’t the greatest video, but here he is quietly reciting his poem, he did it!  


I’m impressed, how many 4 year olds in America have to recite poems in front of a room full of people?  But everyone one of his classmates had a poem to recite and they were all different.  I have to come clean because this is the first poem I’ve had to memorize in a LONG time.  If you are curious his poem was about a Father bringing home a tree and how fluffy and fragrant it was, and in the end the Mother quickly decorated it.

Here is one last video of his performance.  This song was about a Rabbit and a wolf.  Adorable.  See if you can spot our “Snegavik”.  (Snowman.)

Actually

Actually…..(don’t you just love it when that word comes out of a little kids mouth?)

Calvin’s recently added “Also” to his common speech. 

Here’s today’s conversation.
“You can either choose to have a cookie with M&Ms later or have M&Ms now and no cookie later.

“Okay I’m choosing to have a cookie later, and also M&Ms now.”

I tell you this kid’s on the road to becoming a lawyer.

He often changes his “remind”.

We’re still working on the polite way to say a few things,

For instance he’ll stay “Don’t you want to play games with me?” Instead of “Do you want?”

And when given a compliment he’ll say, “Yea I know.”

When he started school I made him a little draw string bag to keep his P.E. clothes in, and I told him it was for P.E. and he said, “Mommy I have to pee in there?”

He often requests, “scrambled toast.”  Any guesses what that may be?

This request is usually followed up by this, “You know the one with the powdered sugar on the top.”

Yep French Toast, although I think I like scrambled toast better, it may just be known as scrambled toast forever in our house.


When we race he tries to get to "basement" before you do.

There are so many things about this age I just don't ever want to forget.  This parenting stuff is tough some days but other days a simple "I love you mommy" makes up for all those tough days.  It's so worth it.  This little guy is just too special.

our Jesse Tree

Marvin made our Jesse tree this year, and did a fabulous job.  It’s one of only a few ideas I found on pinterest that we didn’t have to modify in the slightest, what’s more basic than branches?  

Calvin’s loved the stories every night, and it was fun for him to guess which story it would be,it really helped to grab his attention.

We’ve enjoyed Ann’s version this year.  Last year we used a guide that had A LOT of scripture, while this was good for Marvin and me it was too much for a certain little boy.

I'm excited that this little tradition will help us focus our hearts to anticipate the real reason we celebrate each year.

Kathy we love, love, love our advent calender.  Calvin particularly loved watching Mary & Joseph move along the numbers.  Thank you so much for all the work you put into making it for us, it will be treasured for years to come.

 **For those of you who are unfamiliar with a Jesse Tree, each day of advent you travel through a different old testament story with the anticipation of a the promised Savior, and ending with the birth of the long awaited one.    It's been such a blessing to our family.

2 months later

I generally try to keep our house picked up, although it’s a constant job with Micah around.  Since we have people in our home every week, and we have a small space, a small mess looks like a big mess.  So I’m trying new things that may help my housekeeping endeavors, like putting things away after I use them, probably not new to most of you but something I’m not so great at doing. 

This is not a big deal for some things, but certain things are a big problem for me, like all the clothes I tried on and decided against wearing, or my craft closest madness.

Now our bed has to be cleared every night before bed so that one is taken care of eventually, but my craft closet has been sometimes stuffed full of randomness, and disarray, since I can close the door and nobody can see it.

So I’ve decided to try to keep it tidy.  I added a project basket, which honestly has helped so much to reduce the chaos.  So the first picture of my craft closet was after some organization a couple months ago.  Thankfully Marvin came home right as I was putting the last things in, but he did get the full report of how there was fabric EVERYWHERE, from a little Mr. Calvin.

And................

Here it is this morning. I just opened the door and snapped the picture.

I feel like I’m making progress.  Please tell me I’m not the only one who struggles with silly things like this?

The Mega Carrots

It’s not uncommon to find carrots this size in our part of the world.

That’s right one of them is 3 inches wide.  These were a bit bigger when I bought them as they were caked with dirt, but after a lot of scrubbing this is what I found.  I generally avoid carrots this size and try to pick out the smaller ones because honestly when they get this big they don’t have much taste, but these surprised me.  They were amazingly sweet, much like the carrots from the bazaars in Turkey.  They were worth the work to scrub them, now the question is will the next bunch I buy be just as good?  It’s always a tossup.

Go Big or Go Home

Calvin is the perfect age to rediscover the wonder of Christmas I love it.  He looked like a pro decorating the tree and he really did a good job.  Since the initial decorating we had to do a little rearrangement due to the youngest member of our family.  He’s pretty thrilled over all the new things as well.  Unfortunately he loves to taste the decorations and try to unplug and plug in the lights.  Sigh......so that’s been keeping me busy as well as him him scaling things. 

We had been given some static cling window décor things, which Mr. Calvin was in love with.  He was excited to decorate his windows in his room.  He almost used every single one, but when he ran out of room he decided he better put a few in the living room.  He sure doesn’t understand the term, less is more.  He’s more of a “go big or go home” kind of guy.

We’re enjoying this season.  I hope you are too.

Thankful

We had a great Thanksgiving, it was very low key, but we did enjoy a fabulous meal with our team, just a day early.  I decided to try to pick up my list that I started well over a year ago.  There are simply too many gifts in our lives to not write them down.

#136 Two little boys on my lap

#137 Surprise Snowstorms

#138 Watching big fat snowflakes flutter through the air.

#139 hearing the laughter of children sledding outside

#140 A warm and toasty apartment

#141 Finding tortillas at the grocery store

#142 Also finding saltine crackers at the grocery store.

#143 The sounds of legos clinking

#144 squeals of delight and the pitter patter of little toes when I get home from class.

#145 Fresh roasted pumpkin

#146 Little Friends Birthdays to celebrate

#147 Creating for birthdays

#148 Pumpkin Pie

$149 Football Games on the Weekend

#150 Sleeping through the night

#151 Snuggly little boys

#152 Books before bedtime

#153 a Van that makes a big shopping trip possible

#154 a working elevator in our building

#155 Stopping to chat with our neighbors each day

#156 Sipping tea with friends

#157 Seedless Grapes

#158 Finding hard apples to make applesauce

#159 A pampered chef gadget that makes making applesauce a breeze

#160 Filling canning jars with deliousness

#161 A quiet house

#162 Being able to watch a movie in this language and actually understand it

#163 Finding treasures in Calvin’s pockets every day.

#164 The simplicity and wonder of the surroundi1ng world from the view of a child

#165 Running water

#166 The promises of Jesus

#167 Seeing Family and friends via skype

#168 A Sleeping toddler filling up your arms

#169 Excitement over Christmas

#170 Sledding with Friends

#171 Giving