Monday, February 25, 2013

Life Lately

It's been awhile since I did a Life Lately, so I figured it's about time to do one! Life is busy, busy, busy over here. Here's a few snapshots into what's going on on this side of the ocean.

1) Noel's Social Security card. A little over a year ago, we applied for Noel's certificate of birth abroad and passport. After we had received her certificate of birth abroad, we applied for a Social Security card for her. They told us it could take up to six months. Well, last July we called the Consulate in Istanbul because we still hadn't received it. They said to wait a year. So, this January, when we still hadn't received it, we called the SS Administration. After an hour on the phone we knew this: Noel did have a Social Security number, and they would not mail us a card. We'd have to apply for one in person. Sigh. Thankfully, after asking Shannon's mom to check our pile of mail again, she did find Noel's card. Now we can file our taxes!


Gotta love the attempts at a photo of both of them. This is so perfect, though, Noel smacking on Lane while Lane mouths off to Noel. It's so...real.

2) Dora the Explorer. I had really, really hoped to avoid the Dora phase. I mean, we do live overseas so I thought we had a decent shot at it. I was really happy with Mickey Mouse, and I find Dora, quite frankly, annoying. But some friends sent us a couple of great packages, and included were, you guessed it, a couple of Dora DVDs. And Lane loves them. So, here we are in the Dora phase.

3) Packages! I've been horrible about getting photos of packages lately, I think mostly because now we have a preschooler who wants to open them with us and then play with everything, and what she doesn't notice right away I hide right away, and then I forget what was in the package, and so on. But recently we have received some awesome packages. Coloring books, DVDs for the girls, pajamas, tons of cooking and candy-making stuff from my mom, spices, regular books, SOS pads, arts/crafts supplies, stickers, and so on. THANK YOU if you are reading this and have sent us a package. We really feel the love!


A month or so ago we took a weekend trip to another city a few hours away. Shannon went skiing one day, and on our way out of town we visited an old church on the top of a hill/small mountain. Thanks to some friends we got a decent family photo!

4) Class. One day I'll get around to a "Day in Pictures" post, but for now, my life looks like this:

Mondays and Wednesdays I have class in the morning. I rush home around lunchtime to relieve our nanny. I spend the afternoon playing with the girls, cooking, baking, etc. After the girls go to bed I wash dishes, hang or fold laundry, and then study for about two hours. If there's no laundry to do and Shannon does the dishes, every now and then we watch an episode of 24, but usually after I'm done studying and he's done with any work he's been working on, we fall into bed around 10:00. I feel so old going to bed exhausted at 10 p.m. OLD, I tell you.

On Tuesdays Shannon teaches a class at a local institute, so he's gone nearly all day. I bathe the girls on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We play, hang out, eat lunch, get Noel in bed for her nap. Our nanny comes after lunch and I head to class. I rush home, we all have a snack, and then I work on dinner. The evening looks about like Monday and Wednesday's evening. Thursdays I watch the girls until around 3:30 when Shannon stops working and takes over. I go to class from 4-6, then head to a Zumba class at 6:30. I usually get home around 8 or 8:30, when I eat dinner and try to study for an hour.


The first time Lane wrote her name on her own, on Valentine's Day. This is the inside of the card she made for Shannon...you can see that she traced the "I love you," but when I asked her if she could write her name, she did without looking at anything. Child prodigy, I tell you! =)

Fridays are our family day and we try really hard not to work on Fridays, but inevitably I end up doing homework, or Shannon ends up working a bit, or he has a meeting, and so on. But we try to spend some good time together. Saturdays are usually full of miscelaneous errands, grocery store runs, a trip to the market, meetings, and so on. Shannon usually works some, too. And on Sundays we go to church, eat lunch there, and spend a lot of the day with the people we fellowship with.

5) Winter. Is it not. It's been in the 40's for weeks. I find it incredibly depressing that we bought Noel a snowsuit for Christmas that she's only worn once, maybe twice. It's been gloomy and grey and rainy. I miss the snow and cold.

6) I bit the bullet and went to get my hair cut here. I learned a valuable lesson: when they ask "is this a good length?" you always say "yes," even if you actually want it shorter. Because they'll keep cutting. I ended up with a cut so short that I thought she shaved my neck. Thankfully it's been a month or so now and is more to my liking. It's good that when your hair is really short, it appears to grow quickly.


Yikes, so short! Glad it's grown a bit since then!

So, that's a bit of life lately. It's super busy, and super crazy. I keep telling myself that even if we lived in America that we'd still be really busy, right? It's just the stage of life we're in...little kids, lots to do, etc. So I'm trying to just be grateful for the girls and the chance to be busy, instead of longing for our pre-kid days when we could sleep all day on Saturday if we wanted to!

2 comments:

  1. One year for her Social Security Card? Oh my! We got ours in about 2 months after applying for the birth abroad. How are the language classes coming along? They must be coming along well if you were brave enough to go to the beauty salon! It took me a year before I built up the courage to attempt going to a hairdresser in another language.

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  2. Matt and I just had a "remember when..." conversation about sleeping in on Saturdays. Miracle of all miracles, both kids slept in until 9 am today! Foreign country or not, you sound just as busy as the rest of us over here and you're right, it's just the season of life that you're in. At least that's what I tell myself when I get a little worn out. I enjoyed getting a picture of what your week looks like!

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