Life Lately

A bit of life lately, since my blog gets no attention these days. (This seems to be the trend since having our second child 3.5 years ago. How I wish that when I only had one child I realized that I actually did have free time.)

1) We arrived back home a week ago tonight from our 6-week stay in Turkey, waiting on new visas (and all the paperwork that was required). We received work visas (or Shannon did, while the girls and I received accompanying family member visas) and the wonderful news about that is that we shouldn't have to leave the country again for visa purposes. Wahoo!


One of the positives of visa runs: hooking up with friends that you've known for forever. And letting all the munchkins play together.

2) Upon arriving we decided that it was high time to put Raye in the same room with the bigger girls. We have a lot of people coming in and out this summer and moving her bed back and forth from the guest room into our room just wasn't going to cut it anymore. So we moved her in a few nights ago and they've done pretty well together. Of course we haven't had anyone wake up in the middle of the night sick or anything yet (praise the Lord) but still...overall it's going pretty well. Much better than when we put Noel in with Lane for the first time! I did move the furniture around in their room so that Raye's crib is between the window and the chest of drawers, so she can't see the bigger girls' beds. While I don't love the set-up, it works well for a transition time because while she can still hear them, at least she can't look at them (and them at her).


Classic third child syndrome. One year old and finally getting her first toothbrush.

3) Today I started the multi-day process of cleaning off our balconies from their winter accrual of nastiness. Buckets and buckets and buckets of mop water later and they're still so gross. Tomorrow I'm going to get on my hands and knees to scrub, and maybe on Tuesday I'll vacuum the bit of stuff that's left. And then maybe on Wednesday I'll start on the smaller balcony.


One kid's getting teeth while another is losing them.

4) In June the city usually turns off the hot water in apartment buildings for about a month. Since tomorrow marks June I'm feeling pressure to do things (like clean the balconies) that will just be a lot harder with limited hot water. We do have a hot water heater that we have piped in to our bathroom pipes, so we'll have hot water in there, but no hot water in the kitchen is going to make for lots of simple vegetarian meals.


So thankful this girlie still takes a nap most days.

5) When we arrived back in town we got to see how beautiful it's all become while we were gone! Spring has come and with it is that wonderful rush of energy to get things done. It's come in handy for all the furniture-arranging and balcony-cleaning that I've been doing. I'm looking forward to purchasing a bookshelf and some more plastic bins to continue organizing our books, crafts, and homeschool materials that should arrive later this week. I bought some knobs and hooks to make myself a jewelry holder. And we got family photos taken while in Istanbul so I'm looking forward to printing a few more photos and hanging some prints on the wall. After five years of parenting we do finally have photos of our kids on the wall...I'm ready to get one up of our whole family.


Like one of these. This might be my favorite of all of us.

6) Raye turns 13 months old tomorrow and since we've gotten back I've been reminded over and over again how hard the first year with a baby is. I don't think it matters which number it is, just that the first year is hard. So many transitions, they can't eat by themselves, teething, learning to be mobile, and so on...it's just hard. In the last month Raye has gone down to one (glorious, three-hour!) nap a day. She's learning how to walk. She can feed herself a lot of foods. She has 11 teeth and number 12 is nearly through. And my life is so. much. easier. So mamas of young babies out there, take heart and push on: it does get easier. You will make it, and you will come through the other side of the first exhausting year (or so. There's nothing magic about 12 months...it's just around then). And you will be stronger for it.

And there are my thoughts for now. One of my goals for the month of June is to come up with a schedule of some kind that allows me some me time for things like blogging, reading books that have substance, exercising, and so on. I've realized that I haven't been taking very good care of myself over the past ten months or so. Part of that is because of point number six above...it's just hard to do anything (let along take good care of yourself) when you have a baby. But part of it is because I haven't been intentional or purposeful in these things. So I'm working on learning how to care for myself. I'll (hopefully) let you know how that's going when I figure it all out.

Life Lately

I keep telling myself that one day I'll actually write in this little space of my own. And it just keeps on not happening. But one day, when I'm not studying a language 20 hours a week and when I don't have a not-sleeping-well-at-night baby, perhaps I'll resume. Until then, if you're holding your breath that there will be posts here more than once or twice a month, keep holding it, because I doubt that will happen anytime soon. But one day it will. Just not today.

So, a bit of life lately.

1) A new home. Shortly after arriving here we began to look for a new apartment. We found one quickly and got all moved in the day after we signed the contract, and we had our internet up and running by two days later. We have a huge place (for here), almost 1200 square feet. It's three bedrooms and a storage room, and two bathrooms, which is practically unheard of here. The kitchen is a little lacking in the comfort department but I can make due. And our living room / dining room area is a little cramped but once again, not a big deal. Overall we're very happy with our place and it's turning out nicely. I haven't done much to make it feel "homey" yet but we have gotten most of the kinks worked out of the rest of the place, so hopefully soon I can get to the finishing touches.


The sunrise out our living room window.

2) Sickness. Seriously, two weeks ago I woke up absolutely freezing. I took a shower and went to my language lesson like usual (well, usual for the previous three days) but by the time I came home I had a huge headache. I let the girls watch television all afternoon while I just moped around in misery, and I went to bed at 7:15 that night, right after I had nursed Raye. I woke up the next day feeling better, but then on Monday Shannon woke up with the same thing. And mine seemed to come back. Add into it a mild case of mastitis, a hangnail-turned-infected-finger on Raye, and colds that we all got right after moving here and it's been a long six or seven weeks.

3) Packages! My mother-in-law did some shopping for Lane for some fall/winter clothing since there was nothing out when we were looking in July and August. So she sent some fun packages with clothes for all the girls and new Auburn hair bows and sticky-back velcro (for do-it-yourself window screens) and a cheese slicer for me. It was a load of fun opening the packages. Thanks, Sharon and Milton!


Whoop whoop for new clothes for the girlies!

4) A visa run. Raye's visa expires in about a week and Shannon's and the girls' expire at the end of this month, with mine to follow in early November. So tomorrow we're taking a little trip out of the country.  We should be gone about two weeks and then will (hopefully!) be coming back with brand-new visas valid for three years. Until then…we'll just be road-tripping it with three kids in tow. Loads of fun. At least we'll get to see someplace new, and we don't have to check any bags or deal with airport security!

5) Parenting. Ok, maybe I shouldn't go here, but just in case there's some mom out there who has some kids fairly close together and is feeling like she's drowning…I hear ya. I was totally there. I think I had about 3.75 years of parenting…stress. Like, major stress. But stick with it. It passes. Kids get a little older and start to actually like each other and play together and life gets easier. So I feel like life now is actually easier, parenting-wise, than it was a year ago. And I have an extra kid now! So hold out hope and stick with it.


Me and my girls.

So there you go. A bit of life lately. And now, I'm off to continue what is so characteristic of my life: packing.

Life Lately

When was the last time I wrote a real post on here? I feel like it's been forever. I mean, I love my kids, but gosh, they take up all my free time! But like a friend who's a mommy of six once told me, "If you have one kid, they take up all your time. If you have two kids, they take up all your time. If you have five kids, they take up all your time!" So I don't really feel like I'd have a lot more time if I had fewer children. Maybe if I had older children, but not fewer…

Anyways, life. Life is crazy up in these parts. Here's why:

Playing in the pool at the Memorial Day gathering with Shannon's stepmom's side of the family.

Lane. Ahh, my dear Lane. Smart as a whip and stubborn as a mule. Still. We have moved past the tantrums stage, past the basic disobedience stage (mostly), and now we're in the manipulative shrew stage. This girl tries to talk her way into whatever she wants. She's also getting some sass and attitude, which is not acceptable. So we're giving her a drop of vinegar on her tongue when her mouth says something as nasty as vinegar tastes. Not sure if it's working, but we're working on taming the tongue.

Checking out the fish at the aquarium in Gatlinburg.

Noel. Dear goodness I love that girl but she is oh. so. two-years-old these days. She's super smart and very verbal, but she is so stinking emotional. Hence lots of fits are being pitched in the Scarbrough household these days. She cries when she doesn't get her way, and then she cries more when she gets in trouble for crying from not getting her way. She has become more work than Lane, and that's saying a lot since she's always been the easier of the two of them.


Love the look on her face.

Raye. Well, let's face it. All newborns are a lot of work. Raye is pretty easy-going and mellow but she still requires the basics. I'm so thankful she's a quick eater. Most of the time we can be completely finished with a feeding session in 20 minutes, including changing a diaper and burping her, and even changing her clothes if necessary. She's sweet and calm but she is still a baby, so adding in the unknown of her schedule and needs on a daily basis and it just helps things be a little crazier around here.

Shopping. Since we're getting ready to head back overseas we're stocking up on stuff for the next three years and replacing what's worn out over the last four years. Clothes and shoes for me and Shannon (he actually needed more clothes than I did…I needed mainly clothes to get me through the 10-pounds-heavier-than-normal-because-I-just-had-a-baby stage. But I needed more shoes than him…I've only had one new pair of good shoes in the last four years). Random spices, medicines, kitchen supplies. Sheets and mattress protectors, luggage, and so on. I'm so tired of shopping!

Surgery. About two days after bringing home a certain 8 lb., 5 oz. chunk from the hospital, I developed tendonitis in my left wrist. Of course I didn't know that's what it was until this past Wednesday, when I found out and scheduled surgery for Friday. It was a last-minute decision in order to fix the problem the quickest so we can still try to make it back out of the country by the end of July. I did it without sedation, and am recovering nicely, although I feel a bit like a gimp with my wrist in such a huge splint. I am grateful to have more capabilities than I thought I would, though!


The girls attended Vacation Bible School a couple of weeks ago. In order to earn some money to put in the offering plate I set them to work gathering sticks out of the yard (it has stormed SO many times here this summer…it's crazy how much it's rained!). I think they did a pretty good job for 2 and 4 years old!

Doctor's visits. Since Raye was born we've been to the doctor…too many times. Three times for Raye, plus a hospital visit for her hearing screen (that they forgot to do while we were actually staying there). Twice for Shannon (basic physical and bloodwork). Four times for me (basic physical, six-week postpartum checkup, initial visit to the orthopedic surgeon, actual surgery). Once for Lane (double ear infection and strep throat). And we've been to the dentist, too. Both Lane and Noel have been for a cleaning, and I went twice for the two stages of a crown (gotta say that as much as it stinks, I'm grateful that after four years overseas the only thing that Shannon and I needed was one crown each…not too bad when the only work you need done is to fix old work that's just…old.). Anyone counting? That's eleven visits just to the doctor and four to the dentist in the last seven weeks. And there's more to come: Raye's 6-week check-up and immunizations this Wednesday. Noel still needs the last booster in her rabies vaccination series, and she needs her hepatitis A booster shot. These involve driving almost an hour to the department of health in downtown Birmingham. I'll have a follow-up visit from this surgery in two weeks. And surely between now and then someone will get sick and need to go to the doctor for a prescription. Yikes.

A rare photo of all of us on the train at Dollywood.

A bit of fun. *I went to the movies for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long without Shannon. I went with some ladies from church and we saw "Moms' Night Out." It was definitely not quite a mom's night out for me since I had Raye in tow, but it was a cute movie and I definitely enjoyed it. *We bought year passes for the Birmingham Zoo and we've taken the girls three times so far. We're looking at taking them again today if the rain will hold off. It's so nice to be able to go for just a couple of hours and not feel like we have to stay all day to "get our money's worth." Even Raye has been to the zoo. *I went shopping a couple of times and got some new summer clothes that will hopefully fit me after I've lost the rest of my baby weight: maxi skirts and a dress and modest tank tops. It's so great to be wearing something other than maternity clothes! *We spent a week in  Gatlinburg on a much-needed vacation: we just swam and let the girls watch a few more shows than usual, ate special treats, spent a day at Dollywood, and just got to be together without other things pulling us in a million directions. My dad and stepmom and sister and her family came for our weekend there, and Shannon's dad and stepmom and the girls' cousin Alexandra came for the rest of the week. It was a good break for us all.


Daddy in the pool with both his girls.

Getting healthy. Shannon's cholesterol is too high, he has about ten pounds to lose, and I have at least ten pounds left to lose, really more like 15. So we're on a diet…lots of fruits and veggies, not many carbs or sweets. It's so nice to feel like cooking, because that last month or so of pregnancy was just miserable and I did NOT want to be on my feet cooking anything. Now I want to be in the kitchen, especially with it being summer and there being lots of good, fresh produce available. We joined a gym and Shannon's been going regularly for a couple of months now, and on alternate days he exercises his shoulders and upper back (as prescribed by the PT he saw for six weeks while we were in North Carolina in response to his injuring his shoulder last summer). I went three times this last week and am doing the Couch-to-5K program. Now that we think we're done having babies I actually see the point in getting back into shape. =)

So there's a bit of what's been going on around here. I'm headed to Texas on Sunday to visit a dear friend and the bigger girls will probably spend time with their grandparents while I'm gone so Shannon can get some work done. After that we'll be mostly just trying to get ready to move back overseas and keep our sanity!

Life Lately

I'd like to pretend that our lives have been oh-so-interesting as of late and that is responsible for the lack of updates. But that is not the case. What is the case is that life has been oh-so-busy, and oh-so-tiring. I have a feeling that this is a trend that will continue until we decide we are done having children and our youngest is around the 2 or 3-year old mark. Add the wild card of a long trip to America every 3-4 years into the craziness of having young children and living overseas, and I predict that this blog will resume normal posting in approximately 3.5 years. But I could be wrong.

Let's recap a bit of the past three months for those who are still around.

1) Birthdays! We've celebrated eight, I think, since being stateside. Noel's, Jesus', mine, my step-mom's, Lane's, my niece Denali's, my brother's, and then a joint party for my dad, sister, and aunt, who all have birthdays in the next few weeks. Oops, that makes ten birthdays. Add in my other brother's upcoming birthday and you get 11. Add in the addition to our family due to appear four weeks from today and you get 12. I love me some May, when birthday season is over until October!


Celebrating my youngest brother's 21st birthday.

2) Traveling. As of Monday we have visited seven states in three months. We've put just under 7000 miles on our temporary vehicle. We've spent about $1300 in gas. While living in North Carolina we traveled as a family to: Virginia, Charlotte, Asheville (2x), RDU (2x), Greensboro (2x), and Boone. Shannon traveled to Ohio (make that eight states for him), Virginia, and Atlanta alone. Shannon and I traveled to Virginia and RDU once each without the girls, and we took a trip to Knoxville before Christmas without the girls. Next weekend we'll head to Nashville for a marriage retreat. And this week we're in Florida on "vacation" (meaning we're all here with no plans but Lane has been puking off and on for four days, so we're not getting to enjoy the beach much. Don't expect many pictures of our fun times lying around on the couch watching March Madness). After next weekend we have no plans to travel outside of Alabama, other than a family trip to Gatlinburg in late May. I am so excited to not go anywhere.


The girls at the Virginia Aquarium, what we had planned to be a short detour on our way home from a conference. Instead we ended up lost in Virginia Beach on our way home. East coast roads are so confusing for those of us without iPhones or a GPS, and mapquest does not give good directions these days!

3) Snow. Dear goodness has there been some snow in North Carolina this winter! And when you're driving a rear-wheel van, and your driveway is sloped, any time it snows it means you are definitely stuck at home. We had many plans get canceled due to the snow. Shannon jokes that it snowed more in the 11 weeks we were living in North Carolina this year than it did in the five years he lived there while in grad school. Seriously. So. much. snow.


The only really good thing about the snow and cold is that it completely justified in my mind the fact that we brought the girls' snow gear and boots with us to America.

4) Doctor's appointments. Well, obviously I'm quite pregnant. I've been to the doctor three times in America…once for an ultrasound at 23 weeks in Alabama with the doctor who will deliver this baby. And twice in North Carolina, once because I needed that lovely glucose screening test, and the second time because I figured that since I'd already gone to all the work to get myself in the system for the glucose test that I might as well go for the following monthly appointment. I'll have my second appointment with the doctor who will deliver this baby in about ten days, when I'll be 37.5 weeks. I think then we'll tell her that we caved and opened the envelope in which the ultrasound tech had written this baby's gender.


I think this officially makes me a girlie mom!

Also, Shannon injured his shoulder back in August when he was on his way home after his 3.5-week trip to America. It's been bothering him for months, so he saw a doctor, started some physical therapy, got an MRI, and continued the therapy. Three times a week for the whole time we were in North Carolina. While we're glad he didn't need surgery, driving 40 minutes round-trip to go to therapy for an hour three times a week gets old really quickly. So thankful he can continue the exercises at home and not have to leave so often!

5) Sickness. Shannon caught a cold in early February. Then Lane got it. Then Noel. Then me. Then Shannon again. Then me again. I don't think the girls have ever really kicked it, as they're still congested and coughing. I know that I was so relieved when I finally got a whole night's sleep in the midst of our travels and sicknesses during the month of February. Between my being sick, the girls being sick, all the traveling, and my being quite pregnant, a whole night's sleep hasn't happened much in the past three months. I am oh so grateful when it does happen!

6) Family time. Most of my family lives in North Carolina at this point in time. We were 25 minutes from my sister, brother-in-law, and their kids. My mom was 5 minutes from them. My brother was about an hour down the road. My dad and step-mom were in Asheville, a 2-3 hour drive away. And my other brother was up in Virginia, so he trekked down to see us for Lane's birthday. We may not have gotten to see each other a whole lot, due to various work and school schedules, but it was certainly more than we've seen each other over the past four years!


All the cousins on my side of the family.


My mom, doing crafts with the grandkids.


My sister, with her oldest and my oldest on a hay ride at Lazy 5 Ranch.

7) Fun stuff. We went to the Greensboro Science Center, where Lane pet a skink (and a snake) and we saw tigers and got to pet goats. My sister and brother-in-law took us to Lazy 5 Ranch, where we got to ride in a wagon and feed llamas from our hands, emus and ostriches and giraffes from a bucket of feed, and see pot-bellied pigs, zebras, Texas Longhorns, and camels wandering around the ranch. Lane finally got to get an ice-cream cone at McDonald's and play in the play-place, only to have another kid drop her drawers and poop at the top of the slide, forcing us to leave after playing for less than five minutes. We've eaten at Chic-fil-a numerous times, had some good barbecue, and taken the girls for hot chocolate at Starbucks. We went to the Winston-Salem Children's Museum and let the girls make Krispy Kreme doughnuts, milk a cow, catch flying scarves, go shopping at Food Lion, and climb a giant beanstalk. We've been trying to take advantage of all the fun, kid-friendly things that America has to offer!






This girl would not let go of that bucket of feed at Lazy 5!

And there you have it. The past 2.5 months, in a nutshell. It's been a good, although very tiring and hard, couple of months. Here's hoping for a bit of "normalcy" over the next three months!

Life Lately

Life is crazy like always. But that's not why I haven't been around…I just haven't felt like blogging. Maybe my blogging days are coming to an end? I don't know, though…I really enjoy reading over past posts. Maybe that will motivate me to keep on posting. Maybe a new blog look would do it. Maybe I just need some rest to refresh me. I don't know. What I do know is that today I'm going to update.

So, here's the deal.

1) I'm 16 weeks pregnant with our third little miracle. I had a month or so, between 7-11 or 12 weeks where I was exhausted and didn't feel spectacular. But overall I've been feeling alright. We'll have this baby while we're in the States, and I think we're going to let it be a surprise baby, since we'll be able to buy whatever we need in the States. I'm guessing it's another girl, just because I feel similar to how I felt with both the girls. Who knows, though! We haven't spent much time thinking about names yet…we have a boy's first name picked out, but that's it. We need to spend some time working on it.


Our Facebook pregnancy announcement.

2) We will be here for about six more weeks (give or take a few days…we haven't booked our tickets yet) before we head to the States. We are very excited to spend the holidays with family, to take our kids to the zoo, to Chic-fil-a and the movie theater, and so on. I already have a HUGE running list in my mind of places to visit, places to eat, and so on. Before we actually leave I think I'm going to type out a "bucket list" of things to do in the States. And this time in the States is going to just be different…we've never really been parents in America. When we left we had a 5-month old. So we were just getting started in the parenthood thing, and let's face it, having a newborn is about the same wherever you are: you're exhausted, they eat, sleep, and poop, and you're just trying to adjust to life with them. So we're excited to be parents of little girls while in America. I'm so excited to experience the States through their eyes.



3) Our past few months here have just been insane. About a week ago we learned that our visas had been renewed, so that answered quite a few questions in our minds about our future. Before that we had thought we might have to leave the country and that if we didn't that we would definitely have to move apartments. Turns out we didn't have to do either, but of course we didn't know that until the last-minute, making life oh-so-stressful for awhile. We've also had two colds and a stomach bug. Add that onto morning sickness / pregnancy exhaustion and the result is that September and a large chunk of October are barely memories in our minds, because we barely survived them.


Just for fun…this was Shannon's birthday cake. We made it for him in late August or early September since he was in the States without us on his actual birthday. I don't know what happened to the cake but it obviously didn't set right. I dumped it on a plate and covered it in frosting. Ugliest cake I've ever made in my life, but Shannon still thought it tasted great!

4) Our kids have been so cranky lately. Seriously. Noel is cutting her third 2-year molar and is just. a. grump. All day long. It's miserable. I wish I hadn't lost our amber teething necklace because I really think it helped but…it's gone. So we're all pulling out hair out around here. Lane has had a virus or something…I thought she had the beginnings of pink eye but her eyes never turned pink and the goop in her eyes let up. But then she was saying her ears hurt and they were oh-so-red around the eardrum but not the eardrum itself. And she had a fever. And then she fell and busted her chin open, large enough that it made me slightly panic but not large enough to actually need to go to the doctor. The girls are just cranky and it's making me batty that we're cooped up indoors due to not-so-great weather.



5) Last Sunday the ex-pats in our city had a Harvest Celebration party. We all dressed up, ate yummy food, and played some games. We were going to carve pumpkins but didn't because it got dark and then we had cranky kids who needed to sleep. So I still have a pumpkin and am trying to decide if it's worth roasting…it probably is, I just need to get off my lazy tired bum and do it. One of the games that we played at the party was that game where you put your head on the end of a baseball bat, spin around X number of times, and then run to a marker and back. I was last for my team, and Shannon was last for his. He got a couple-spin head start on me, but as soon as I stood up from spinning myself around I took off…right for the wall of the house next to me. I don't think I actually went forward at all, but totally just crashed into the wall. After things had stopped spinning and friends had helped me up, I learned that Shannon had also crashed into the house, albeit five or six feet in front of me. So, I don't think anyone will ask the Scarbroughs to be on their team for that game again! (Although in my defense I did ask before we started if pregnant people got to spin fewer times…I was dizzy already from the 3-legged-race!)


Our crew in their costumes. Bonus points if you can figure out who I was.

6) There are just days when the culture here just drives me nuts. Today was one of them, and I wasn't even out much. I drove to my favorite grocery store, and they have one of those parking lots where the parking spaces are slanted, indicating the direction you are supposed to park, drive, etc. Well of course the parking lot is packed. So I see some guys getting into their car (which is of course parked the wrong way) and figure that I'll wait for them to pull out and then I'll take their spot. They just sit in the car looking at me for probably 3-4 minutes. I'm thinking, "What, you think you can pull out this way? There are cars behind me." So they attempt to pull out and turn around but are completely incapable of doing so, which was just so annoying because they were in a little car. I could have done it. Eventually someone else pulled out, they were able to pull into that spot (going the right way), and then back out and leave and I could finally park after waiting for 6-7 minutes on a spot. This might not seem like such a big deal to you, my reader, but trust me when I say that all I think about in situations like that is about how I live in a country full of people who think of nobody but themselves, especially when it comes to driving. I cannot wait to drive in America where people actually follow traffic rules and for the most part are respectful drivers.

And…there you have it. It's not even 9:00 yet and I think I'm going to head to bed. This has been the theme of my life lately…always in bed before 10:00, often before 9:00, and frequently before 8:00. This pregnancy is wearing me out.

Life Lately

It's been a busy, busy few months. We left today for vacation and are enjoying a break back in our old stomping grounds of Istanbul before heading to Cyprus next week. So I thought I'd take the chance to update the ole blog since I rarely have time to anymore. What's been keeping us so busy?

1. The Circus. We took the girls to their first circus. It was small and slightly rinky-dink, and about a thousand degrees inside the tent, but they loved every minute of it. There were lions and poodles that did tricks, a man who breathed fire and a clown. What's not to love?


Before the circus began, when they were giving pony rides and letting people hold snakes and stuff.

2. A cold snap. Back in April it got so warm that they turned our heat off about five days early. We were all glad because we were sweltering. Of course, a couple days later it got cold. Like, really cold. So cold that Noel had to wear her snowsuit for trips to the market. So cold that we were wearing multiple layers of clothing inside the house and drinking hot tea and coffee all day long. So cold that we had to dry our clothes on the oven because they wouldn't dry just hanging on the rack:



3. A girls' trip. A few of the other ex-pat ladies here and I took a short trip to another city. We got to sleep in, eat our dinner without having to feed anyone else theirs, linger at the dinner table, and swim in an awesome swimming pool. It was my first night away from both girls and while I missed them, it was great to have some girl time.


The awesome pool where we ladies stayed.

4. Laundry. Sometimes I feel like it never ends. But at least in the summer I can hang it out to dry and it dries in an hour or two.



5. Camping. A few weeks ago we took our girls on a camping trip with some other ex-pats. The first day it rained all day and we were wet and miserable and sure we'd made a mistake by going. The second day the sun came out and made it all worth it. We ate s'mores and picked wildflowers, ate shashlik grilled over a campfire, climbed rock walls, and just enjoyed being out in nature.


Staying dry in the tent while it was pouring outside.


Playing with a beetle. This girl loves bugs.


Rock climbing for the first time.

6. Visiting friends. We headed out to some local friends' "farm" one day. The girls enjoyed fresh raspberries, currants, cucumbers, and saw other fruits and veggies that weren't ripe yet. They loved all the plants and the berries, and Lane enjoyed "swimming" in their small pool. While we're still learning the cultural rules around here, we're grateful that we're starting to make some local friends and acquaintances.


The girls exploring the tomato plants.

7. Canning stuff. One friend loaned me her canning equipment and another friend showed me how it all works here, and I've started canning some stuff. So far I've done some strawberry jam, strawberry-rhubarb jam, apricot jam, strawberry syrup, and one jar each of barbecue sauce and salsa. I have no idea how any of them will turn out (if my seals sealed correctly), but it's been fun and neat to know I'm making this stuff on my own, and hopefully making my life a little easier come winter.



8. Playing outdoors. With summer and warm weather have come lots of mornings and evenings to run around, pick mulberries, play in the dirt, ride rides at the park, and burn off energy. I've greatly enjoyed letting the girls run wild in the many awesome parks (not playgrounds, those stink, but the parks are awesome) here.


Riding the kids' train at the "big park" here.

9. Cooking. It's always an adventure around here. Last week I bought a couple of chickens to roast. The first one was completely normal. The second one looked like this when I took it out of its package:



So there you go. One long, long-overdue blog post. Hopefully now that I'm not studying every evening for the next few weeks (hooray for vacations!) I can update a little more. But no promises...

More of Life Lately

Just because I can. =)

1) Single-mom'ing it. Shannon's out of town this weekend. He and some friends went skiing, back to the same place we all went in January. They drove over today, will ski tomorrow, and will come back on Sunday. I'm hoping he doesn't come back with one of these, which is what he came home with after his last skiing adventure.


Yeouch!

2) Adventures. The girls and I are living it up over here while he's gone. This morning we went to the grocery store. Yes, all of us. Shopping with two kids alone is something that I try really hard not to do over here. I either have to carry Noel in the ERGO or I have two kids in a cart that's not more than half the size of one in America. Today I opted to put both kids in the cart and carry my cloth bags and purse. Noel sat in the seat, Lane in the basket as I piled food on top of her (I wish I had a picture, but no iphone here!). After one juice box, one chocolate milk box, $55 worth of groceries, one fit pitched, and one pair of pants removed, we left the store with my sanity mostly in tact, even if I did get stares while leaving with a pants-less child (who just happened to squeeze chocolate milk all over her pants while I wasn't looking. Since I had to carry her in the ERGO to the car [since there are no elevators to bring my cart to the main level and then to the car] I didn't want chocolate milk all over my own clothes as well).

3) Weaning. We've officially weaned Noel from her pacifier. We had one rough night (the first one...she cried for an hour before falling asleep), one really early morning (she woke at 5:30 the second morning and couldn't get herself back to sleep), and other than that, she's been doing pretty well. She still has trouble falling asleep for some naps, but overall, she's doing great. And I'm glad we pulled the plug (haha) when we did. She only used it for sleeping, anyways, and I had said that we were going to take it away at some point when she wasn't teething, and here we were. That being said, I'm pretty sure she's cutting her eye teeth now. Sigh. Poor girl. She got four molars and two other teeth within two months...now come the eye teeth, probably all at once if I know her. At least we'll be done afterwards, though! (Until the 2-year molars come, that is.)


She's getting better with a spoon, and better with a cup. She still likes to dump her drink out when she's finished with it. So we've reached the 6-months-or-so-long phase of eating most meals in nothing but a diaper. Saves me from unnecessary laundry. Now if only we could get her to keep her hands out of her hair...

4) Menu-planning. It's been interesting, moving to another country after living in Turkey for over two years. I think I had taken for granted how familiar I was with what's available there, how much it costs, and so on. I spent the first three or so months here trying to figure out what I could cook, how much it would cost me, what wasn't too much work, what Shannon could complete on Thursdays when I'm not home for dinner, and so on. After three months of work, I finally came up with a menu plan. I've made a document with four weeks' worth of menus, links to the recipes, and an accompanying grocery list. By then end of April I hope to have enough meals collected that I can make another document. Then, next winter, I'll have two months' worth of menus. I can rotate them during winter. And I won't have to make a grocery list, other than for snack foods, breakfast items, toiletries, and the like. Although eventually I'm hoping to get the breakfast menu added into the dinner menu, too. It's a lot of work now, but I'm telling myself it's going to pay off in the long run...


Having a picnic on the trampoline. Notice how the dolls don't have clothes on. Do all children go through phases where they think everyone all their dolls should not wear clothes?

5) Oddities. There are just some funny things about living in a country that's not your own. Just things that you notice that locals probably would never think twice about. Like... *Speed bumps always come in pairs here. There is never just one. *Cows just wander around certain parts of town, looking for some grass, with their owner kind of herding them along to make sure they don't run off. *Older people here always have candy ready to give to your children. Yesterday we actually had someone give Lane a piece of candy in the elevator as we were heading down and then make us wait while he went to his car to get her some more. Umm, thanks? *It is rarely cheaper to buy products in bulk. It's generally cheaper to buy them in the smaller containers. Drives me nuts. *If you go to the local market, you'll find all sorts of animal products for sale, and all sorts of people clamoring for you to come and buy their chicken feet, pig feet, chickens-with-the-neck-and-head-still-attached, etc. *Speaking of chickens with their heads still attached, for New Year's people here eat turkey. So you can find turkeys at the local malls. On tables in the foyer (or whatever you call the big open spaces in shopping malls), laid out all pretty-like, with their necks and heads hanging down off the side of the tables. No plastic wrap, no covering. Just some good-ole dead turkeys on the table at your local shopping mall for you to peruse, much like you might peruse crafts at a craft fair.

6) Glimmers of hope. I catch these sometimes. I'll see Lane and Noel actually playing together for a few minutes and I'll get a glimmer of hope that soon they'll play together nicely and for more than two minutes. I'll see Lane apologize to Noel and hug her and tell her she loves her, all with very little prompting, and I'll get a glimmer of hope that she will learn to be empathetic, loving, and to accept responsibility when she's wrong. I'll chat with someone for a few minutes and realize that I really do understand more than I did four months ago when we moved here, and I'll get a glimmer of hope that I can actually learn this language and that I won't have to study forever am improving.


Playing on mommy and daddy's bed, or dancing on it. Never gets old.

And I could go on. But instead I'm going to go wash the rest of the dishes from our daddy's-not-here-so-let's-eat-pizza-for-the-second-time-this-week dinner. And then I'm going to go to bed before 10 p.m. Because I'm 33 and have two kids and I roll like that.

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!

Life Lately

Ahh, where to begin?

Why doesn't anyone tell you that once you have more than one child that you'll never have free time again?

Ok, that's not fair. Since we've had two children we've moved twice, one of those times to another country. We've traveled internationally regularly. I've been studying some language or another the entire year. I just keep praying that the pattern of this last year is not the pattern of our lives in general, or I'm going to burn out by the time I'm 40.

Where was I going with all that? Oh, yes, free time. Just so you know, I have virtually none of it. The little bit that I do have is spent writing emails (does that count as "free" time?), watching one or two episodes of 24 with Shannon each week, and...that's about it. I do pop into Facebook every day, but I've managed to do ok with only checking it when the girls are asleep and I'm not doing homework.

So, a bit of life lately:

1) Home: You all know we moved. Our apartment is gradually getting set up. Just last weekend I finally got to a market and got someone to fix a set of black-out curtains for the girls' room. It cost me $6. It just takes so much time to do things here, especially if I don't want to have to haul two kiddos around with me, then I have to wait on a time when Shannon can watch them... Anyways, we're getting set up. We borrowed a drill and got pictures on the wall, hooks hung, etc. We have an IKEA list that we're going to go have ordered hopefully this weekend, and maybe we'll actually have the stuff by the end of January and have it all put together/hung up on the walls (a shelf and mirror) by mid-February...


    Brown curtains behind the pretty ones. Only took me almost two months to get them fixed!

2) Language: Blah. Will I ever not have to study another language? I go to a private lesson for six hours a week, have someone come to my house for conversation practice for eight hours a week, and then I do homework and try to study for another six or so hours a week. That, my friends, is where all my free time has gone.

3) Snow! And cold!: Oh my goodness we get a real winter here! It's -8 Celsius right now (about 17 Fahrenheit) and we have snow. I love it. Lane loves it, too. And, Shannon let me buy a new winter coat before we left Istanbul, so I'm all toasty warm in my mid-thigh-length, down coat. And I bought new winter gloves at the aforementioned market, and they actually have fur on the inside and are long enough for my crazy-long fingers. So much warmer than the cloth gloves I had. Win.


    View from the girls' window.


    Lane's favorite thing to do in the snow? Eat it.

4) Girls: Ahh, yes, the girls. I've already mentioned how Lane broke her collarbone and then had an ear infection. Well, now Noel is in the process of dropping her morning nap and is cutting two molars, and I think an eye tooth as well. She's a crab. Ibuprofen three times a day, an average of 4-5 nasty diapers a day (we've switched to 'sposies for the time being...with no diaper sprayer, nasty poops are hard to clean off of the cloth ones!), and just a general crankiness is making her...challenging to deal with. It's hard to be frustrated with a baby/toddler whom you know just doesn't feel good, but still...I'm ready for my happy baby to return.


    Taking a snooze in our room. Totally zonked.

And, yesterday we put the girls in the same room for the first time since August (I tried it for a week while Shannon was gone and it was a major fail). It went alright...better than in August, but we still didn't get a good night's sleep. Here's hoping it just continues to go better and better and that by the New Year (at the latest!) they're completely used to each other. Our apartment had some remodeling done on it before we moved in, and one of the things they did was extend the rooms into the space that used to be balconies. They installed closets, cabinets, and so on, but they didn't insulate them all very well, so Shannon's office (where Noel was sleeping) is by far the coldest room in the house, and now that it's gotten cold, well, we just couldn't leave her in there!

5) Menu-planning, shopping-list planning, cleaning-planning: Otherwise known as, organize-my-life. Sunday night I spent about two hours chopping veggies for the week, cooking chicken and beans and rice, and just prepping meals for the week. It's been fabulous. I think I've saved time in washing dishes, too, as I'm not having to wash the same knife and cutting board (and my poor, dry hands) over and over and over again. I've been trying lots of new crock-pot recipes (here's a new favorite!) and am hoping to have a solid month's worth of dinner menus (with accompanying grocery lists) planned by a month from now. After five weeks of planning and trying new recipes, I think I have two weeks' worth of good recipes. It's discouraging to think of all the time I've put into planning our meals, just to have half my recipes turn into duds. But I'm pressing on, hoping that it pays off and that next winter I have some great recipes and grocery lists already compiled.

So, there you go. Life is busy. But good. I'm excited for next week, for Christmas. No classes. Shannon won't be working as much. Maybe Noel's molars will be through by then. And we'll hopefully just get to spend lots of time together and do some fun things while we remember our Savior's birth.