Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas! Even though we had a full week of parties and events and some kind of virus attacking every one in our family, we had a special Christmas. It's so fun as kids get bigger and understand more about the real meaning. We also live in a place where no one else is celebrating Christmas, so we have to try harder to create the spirit in our home. Here are more than a few pics from our week :

Our Christmas card this year. Thanks to Holly Kittle for taking our picture in the summer and for Becky Higgins free card download .
One of our favorite Christmas traditions - the Advent Calendar from Desiring God. My dear friend Erin parted with hers a few years ago so we could have one, and now they don't make it anymore! Luke loves this and almost had the whole story memorized this time.

Singing "Away in a Manger" with other expat kids.

We hosted a huge party on Christmas Eve and we had a blast , although exhausted when it was over! Miss Hollywood decided it was too sunny inside for her.

Christmas Morning! Luke was pretty excited! And plus this year, he can read his name and Olivia's so he was on a mission to give out presents.

The little princess enjoying all her jewelry and crowns and girly stuff from grandparents. She could not be more girly!

Christmas Day - a traditional brunch with friends. I should have taken this picture much earlier because everyone was tired at this point.

Today - the 26th. We stayed at home all day and had a family day. Although Olivia had a fever and was sick, she was still wearing her Cinderella dress.

Luke and Olivia got a tent to play in and some McDonald's toys from grandparents. Luke had a blast being the drive-thru guy in the tent. He's actually asleep in his tent in his room tonight and thinks it's the coolest ever.

And for your viewing pleasure, listen to Luke's rendition of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"

(This was about the 5th take , so he was getting tired of the camera. But still , you can hear his interesting interpretation of this carol. )

Merry Christmas!!

November Recap

Since I'm not so faithful in posting these days, I have to do a lot of catch up posts. But at least it's something! Life is full right now and often by the end of the day I just want to sleep and not be on the computer! Anyway this is a random post. Here's a bit of a November Recap:

Luke learned how to write his name! He was so thrilled and proud of himself. Sorry for the poor quality picture but I decided not to scan but just to take a quick pic.

Luke also one day started coloring like this. Up until now, he has not cared anything about coloring and just scribbled. But one day (in Luke fashion) he just changed his mind and decided to take it seriously. This picture is on our fridge and he regularly looks at it and says" Mom, I did a great job didn't I ?" Guess he has a high need for verbal affirmation!

This is a scrapbook page I made of Luke hammering outside. He loves Handy Manny cartoons and also is interested in anything to do with tools. While Forrest was putting up plastic on our windows for winter, Luke took the little hammer and went to town. He was so serious about working. He told me "I really need to go fix something."

Olivia just being herself while Luke was busy hammering away.

I'm not sure I'm very good at this digital scrapbooking thing ,but I do like this page! And even though it's trying at times, I am really enjoying Luke at age 4. It's so fun to watch his little mind go and try to figure things out.

Here are some other random things about us right now:

*Luke is doing really well in Russian preschool and loving it. He thinks he's hot stuff for knowing some Russian. Olivia basically repeats everything he says (and we've been told with a good accent!). I guess we won't have to pay for her to go, she can just learn from him! :)

*Luke is really into playing with our neighborhood kids and it's really fun to see him try to talk to them in Russian.

*Olivia is OBSESSED with jewelry, purses, headbands, lipgloss or chapstick, babies, feeding babies, putting babies to bed , etc. Wow. When she was being sassy the other day I said "Olivia , you are not he Mommy. I'm the Mommy. " Then she said, "BUT I'm Baby Ruth's Mommy. I'm a mommy and you are a mommy." (Baby Ruth is her beloved doll). And that girl has some serious emotions. Talk about drama. Luke is basically a copy of Forrest and I'm often told Olivia looks like me. I asked Forrest last night if I'm as emotional as Olivia. He just laughed and said yes. Oh dear !

*And last but definitely not least, I'm ready to say on here , that my belly is growing at a rapid pace. No , I didn't eat too much smoked duck on Thanksgiving, but #3 is on its way! I'm actually already 19 weeks , almost halfway there, due at the end of April. Because of my late miscarriage in March, this has been a different experience for me. But we are so thankful for this new life and gift from the Lord.

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a nice Thanksgiving with a few American friends here. Luke was thrilled as usual to have guests over. For days before he was talking about how much food he was going to eat!

As this year comes to a close, we are thankful that it's ending a lot better than it started! We experienced a lot of loss in the last 1-2yrs and now we are able to experience new life. So thankful for the Lord's faithfulness to us!

When asked Luke said he was thankful that Jesus would come again one day (we had just read that in his Bible) and Olivia said she was thankful God made Mommy. :)

Olivia ready for the party

Last year we had our first smoked turkey and it was so yummy. This year though, we had smoked duck! Long story short, he and a friend found frozen ducks and thought they were turkey. Anyway we still had it and it turned out ok. Olivia kept calling it "ducky" which made it quite unappealing to me.

The kid table

It's fall!

Around here, fall seems to last about 5 minutes and then the cold comes. We had some great fall days this week and now it's really cold! I had planned to take some pictures of L and O for a specific scrapbook page, so I was able to catch a few others too. I'm glad they are willing to cooperate with me a bit!

Little Woody and Miss UT

So I'm a little late to the "see how cute my kids are" post-Halloween party, but even so here they are! Luke and Olivia had a blast dressing up and even though Halloween is not celebrated here, we still had a little fall party with some American friends. The kids had a blast playing games, eating homemade caramel apples (my first time making them!), and celebrating fall.

Luke is dressed as Woody or a pirate most days of the week.

If you are interested in scrapbooking...

A few of my digital pages...

I started scrapbooking in 2000 (that first album was horrible!). I like to start projects so I have to make myself finish them because I usually have several going on at the same time. As you can imagine, wanting to scrapbook (as a hobby and creative release, and to record our family story) can get expensive plus a pain to take all the way across the world. About a year ago I discovered digital scrapbooking. Forrest got me an excellent program called My Memories Suite for Christmas last year and I really do love it. It's way easier to use (and cheaper) than Photoshop but still makes great pages. It's way cheaper than paper scrapping, plus I can easily duplicate a page for each kid's album. I won't bore you with more details but if you are interested I can explain more). Here's the link to MMS.

About Olivia (27 months old)

This little girl never stops making me laugh (and pray!). She is a total mess and is determined that she is as big as any other kid. She's been on the fast track since she took her first step at 9 1/2 months! Anyway I forgot to share this summer that she potty trained! She did it right after she turned 2 and got it super fast. And right away , she got the nights too. I don't understand it but I sure am thankful!!

Thoroughly enjoying her ice cream , every last drop. And don't you think I need to put away this jacket from last year? She is having a hard time parting with it, but check out those sleeves!

She is a little momma! She discovered the booster seat in the closet one day and got so excited. Oh , she gave up that seat a long time ago ("mommy, no more baby seat! ") She was thrilled to be able to feed Baby Ruth in it. And check it out, that baby is getting french fries, tea, and chocolate cake too! Also, these days anytime we are leaving the house and she sees me get my purse, she says " wait , I need my purse too! " What a girly-girl !!

Preschool Time

Luke is now in his 2nd week of Russian Preschool and is loving it. It's only a few hours a week and he told me wishes it was a lot more. It helps a lot that his best American friend is in the class too. He takes it seriously and the night before the 1st day he wanted to pick out his clothes and get his backpack ready. To get him to cooperate for a 1st day picture, I told how Pop and Gran would always take my picture on the 1st day of school. I didn't know I would get such a funny picture out of him! He 's already learning some Russian and his teacher (who knows English) said he keeps asking what everything is in Russian. And today he was practicing a new word as he went to sleep. It's scary how many similarities there are between him and Forrest!

Look at that pose!

Traveling and our first few weeks

Here are few pictures from the last month. I will try to post more this fall as I can.

Saying goodbye to grandparents in the Atlanta airport. It was interesting to see Luke as we said goodbye - after that he switched gears and starting to talk about our life here. He really does understand the 2 worlds , as much as a 4yr old can.

Thankful for a free hour, place to plug in our computer, and Toy Story 2 in the DC airport. Gave us a few moments to just breathe before the trek across the ocean.

I've started doing some preschool at home with Luke. He's doing really well and getting a lot better at writing his name. He has improved so much since last year. He will start local preschool soon.

Luke loves his Daddy so much. He wants to be big so badly so he can do stuff like Daddy.

Reunited with his buddy Madi. What would we do without her?

Luke and Olivia with the neighbor kids.

Luke is 4!!

It's never too late to post some birthday pictures. September was a bit of a whirlwind for us - packing up again, flying across the world, returning to a forever changed city, getting back into life here, and going to a conference. Now, things might return to "normal". Well, whatever that is!

We were able to celebrate Luke's 4th birthday in the US before leaving. He was thrilled to have his party at the park and all he cared about what a brown cake with Buzz and Woody on it. Lots of fun, lots of sugar, and a special boy. Luke brings laughter and joy to us and as he's getting bigger, he has LOTS of questions. It's so fun to watch his little mind work and try to figure things out. He's a smart little guy with a sweet heart. And, he loves his sister . They are quite the pair these days. I wonder who this little guy will be one day?

All the kids....cousins Hannah, Jacob, and Sarah Katherine came as well as our new friends Hudson and Shelby (we went to UT with their parents); also there was a "random" girl from the park who decided to join in on the party !

Summer Recap

Our summer flew by! That is exactly why I have so poorly updated our blog. Sorry for that! This summer Luke and Olivia got to experience a lot of "firsts". Here are a few pictures of those firsts, in no particular order.

1st Amusement Park

1st time picking blueberries

1st splash park

Luke's 1st swimming lessons

1st ride on a real train

1st VBS experience

1st water park

1st time fishing

1st trip to the Aquarium