16 Months Old

My baby girl is getting so stinkin' cute! I can't even believe it. In the past month she's started:

*saying new words: ok, no way (doh way), chicken (keekin), booboo, bonk, flower (fwuh-wuh), apple (up-uh), five, amen, say, these (deeze), sit, pants (pence), shirt (sirt), Elmo (ehmo), peacock (cock), sun, bee, potty (pah-ee), pee, eyes, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy. And more that I just can't think of right now.


Easter.

*saying "cock-a-moo" when referring to farm animals. It's so, so funny.
*just being sweet. She loves to sit on your lap and let you read books to her. She loves to snuggle. She loves to sit on your lap and watch television or basketball or her sister playing.
*babbling a ton. She frequently will just look at us and babble, babble, babble, just to finish it all of with "OK!"


What? Just another day sword-figting in necklaces and shiny shoes.

*getting even when she gets picked on. Lane frequently takes things from Noel, and Noel will chase Lane down and start smacking on her or pulling her hair. She is definitely not afraid to stand up for herself!
*"singing" Jesus Loves Me with us when we sing to her at nap/bed time. She, of course, doesn't get many of the words right, but she babbles for the whole song, sounding about right at "Jesus" and ending right on cue with "so."
*running. I actually think she's been able to run for a few months now, but she's pretty quick now.



*referring to all drinks as "muk" (milk). If it's liquid, it's "muk." She doesn't seem to care which "muk" she gets (milk or water, and every now and then, juice).
*always confusing "yes" and "no." Do you want more banana? "No." So we give her some more and she's happy. Hilariously confused.


More Easter. Shortly after this she sat down in the dirt to play with rocks.

*being a picky eater. She definitely loves fruit and bread and eggs and cheese. Beyond those things, it's always a toss-up as to if she's actually going to eat. One night she'll eat a pound of carrots and then she won't touch them the next day. She is not a fan of meat, anything too cold (ice cream or smoothies), or potatoes. She'll usually eat vegetables, fruits, and carbs with no issues, and of course on the rare occasion that we give her a cookie, she gobbles it up.
*saying "baaa" (with her voice reverberating) when asked what a sheep says.



*identifying her: belly button (she bends over looking for it since her flab usually folds over and she can't see it), feet, fingers, cheeks, arms, eyes.
*wearing all 18-month clothes. I guess we still have a few pairs of 12-month pants and a few long-sleeved onesies out, but she's nearly completely into 18-month clothes.

Desperate

Yesterday I babysat three other children for four hours, along with watching my own. These kids' ages are just-turned-eight, almost-six, and three. Along with my three year old and 16-month old, it made for a fun few hours. But the beauty of it was that it gave me a glimpse out of the "little years." And it. was. glorious.


Playing with the laundry (hanging over the doorframe since it started raining today, about an hour after I decided to wash our sheets...).

Everyone says that it gets easier. That it gets better. But it's hard to imagine when you're stuck in the middle of temper tantrums, sleep strikes, the millionth diaper change, and so on. Yesterday gave us a glimpse of what life might be like just four or five years from now (although maybe not with five littles...). A few months ago I read somewhere (sorry, no idea where exactly) that being the mother of young children can feel like you're stuck in the movie Groundhog Day. Every day you wake up and life is the same. The same sleep deprivation. The same meltdowns and temper tantrums. The same battles. The same discipline. The same, the same, the same.

This is so true.



Because, well, it is. Every day is much the same. Every day I will have to tell Lane not to lay down at the table, but to sit on her bottom and eat her food. Most likely I'll have to feed her some of it, unless I want to sit at the table for an hour. I will, most likely, have to discipline her for not staying in her bed at bedtime. I will have to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I will have to do a load of laundry or diapers, hang them, and fold whatever was on the rack before. I will have to vacuum, make beds, sweep floors, clean toilets, and so on. I will build block towers, wipe up spilled (or thrown) milk, do my "silly dance" for Lane, tell Noel not to pull her sister's hair, wipe bottoms and change diapers, and wipe noses and comb hair and clip fingernails and toenails and hold Noel's arms by her sides with my legs to get a ponytail holder in her hair. I could go on, but I think you get the point. At the end of the day when the girls are in bed I keep pushing on, exhausted, to wash some dishes, wipe off tables, fold laundry, write emails, study language, and maybe, if I've finished all of my other chores, I'll watch a television show with Shannon or read a chapter in a book.

My life is boring. And repetitious.

But, at least today, I'm ok with that.



I've been reading (on my Kindle, in fairly large print, with one hand while I blow-dry my hair with the other) the book Desperate, by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. And I have to say, it's pretty good. I happen to be reading it in a break in my "desperateness," but just a few weeks ago it would have been SO good to read, as I did feel like I was drowning in motherhood (along with everything else that living overseas entails). If you are feeling overwhelmed in your mothering, I'd recommend it to you. 



There is one quote that I really, really appreciated and needed to read:

"My ultimate encouragement to you so that you don't feel defeated? Give in to your season of life. You will feel desperate sometimes, I know, and it's scary some days. But the more you allow yourself to be fully and completely invested in the discipling of your children, the less defeated you will feel."

So that's what I'm doing. I'm giving in. I'm a mother to young children. My house will not be spotless. (I've mopped my kitchen once [with an actual mop] in the last 5.5 months.) My children may watch television nearly every day. (A mom does need a few minutes to cook dinner or take a shower, after all.) And I will mess up, lose my temper, not know how on earth to get my child to sleep, and feed my children more crackers and bananas than is actually good for them.



But really, if my kids watch television every day and my floor isn't mopped and my kids eat too many bananas and crackers, and they don't take great naps, and they end up in time out more than any of us would like, but I can play with them and take them to the park and buy them ice cream when they do something great and we can eat breakfast for dinner a lot (since it's the only thing both of them will eat every bite of), is that so bad? 



This time is only a season, one that will pass quicker than I can imagine. So I might as well embrace the insanity: the less-frequent-than-I'd-like nights of interrupted sleep, the spills, the laundry, the gashes in my kitchen table, and the meltdowns at the completely wrong time. Because with them come kissing every boo-boo, hugs and kisses and snuggles willingly given first thing in the morning, excitement over ladybugs and big sticks at the park, milk being "so good,"and giggles and screeches over what is, to most people, absolutely nothing. All the sweetness of the "Groundhog Day years" is accompanied by all the inconveniences. And I'm going to try my darndest to embrace this season and not to wish it away. If you're a young mom struggling in motherhood, I'd encourage you to try to do the same.

Any tips out there that help you to embrace the insanity instead of want to run from it?

Easter 2013

How is it that time goes so fast? I think I read once that the older you get, the faster time goes, because days and weeks and months and years are a smaller percentage of your life than when you're little. When you're five and your birthday is a year away, it's 1/5th of your life away. When you're 30, it's 1/30th. When you're 60, it's 1/60th, and so on. It makes me wonder if the rate at which time passes is exponential...

Anyways, all that to say, WOW, how is it already April? Today is my little sister's 30th birthday. Also unbelievable.

Easter for us was, in one word, unforgettable. To start, we spent the morning dying eggs, reading telling the Easter Story over lunch to Lane and some guests of ours, and getting the girls down for naps. We finished up our cooking and after the girls woke up we headed out to "the farm" (some friends of ours live in a village where there are lots of cows, chickens, goats, horses, and sheep wandering around. Since it's the closest thing to a farm that Lane's ever seen, and she loves the farm, we call it, affectionately, "the farm."). After 60 or so expats showed up, we all stuffed ourselves silly and then headed outside for a huge Easter egg hunt. The girls had a blast. Lane was so, so excited to hunt for eggs, and Noel managed to find a couple, too (with daddy's help).


Hunting eggs. Love the boots...they remind me of hunting eggs in the snow/slush while growing up in Alaska.


Chasing bubbles with friends.

After all the eggs were found and prizes distributed (awesome idea: give a prize in exchange for real eggs, so that kids are just as excited about finding them as they are the plastic ones), we gathered outside to sing songs about the Risen King. After worship time, the girls and I headed inside, along with almost every other mother and child under the age of six (it was getting chilly and nearly bedtime for many). I helped clean a bit while the kids were entertained in "Sunday School." And we all headed home around 8:30. Seven or so minutes down the road we got a flat tire. Ten people in a van on Easter Sunday at 8:30 p.m. and we got a flat. We didn't see a spare so we called a friend. He drove over and found the spare (under the van) and helped us get the tire fixed. He left, we all piled in the van, and...the van wouldn't start.

After rolling my eyes, I called our friend back. He came and we all spent the next hour trying to a) jump start the car, b) pull start the car, and c) keep the girls from melting down. At around 10:00 I finally told our friend that I was sorry but I really needed to get the girls in bed. So he ferried us all home, leaving a couple of singles with the van. We got home and I laid Noel in bed (we had put her in jammies before we ever left and she had fallen asleep in my arms on the way [p.s. awesome that car seats are not mandatory over here in situations like this!]). I got Lane into jammies and laid in bed with her until she fell asleep. Before she fell asleep she looked at me, snuggled next to her in the bed, and said, "Mommy?" "Yes, Lane?" "Happy Easter." It was the sweetest thing ever. After she fell asleep I headed to the kitchen to start some massive clean up, and Shannon came home around 11:30 after helping our friend tow the van into town and park it.


Lane's first spin on a tire swing.

All in all, the girls did very well being up so late. I was very glad we had made Lane take a nap (since she usually doesn't), and also very grateful that it doesn't phase Noel that much to be up past her bedtime. The girls both slept in a bit yesterday, Noel took a long nap, and we had Lane in bed by 6:00.


We have a photo of Lane at about this age in nearly the same pose, in Ephesus. You can see it here.

It was a good Easter. It was so fun to celebrate Jesus and his resurrection with fellow believers in place where most people don't believe. Lane had a blast running around with all her little friends, Noel enjoyed getting a dinner of rolls and strawberries, and we enjoyed fellowshipping with expats from many different countries. Next year will look quite different, as we'll be in the States for Easter. I'm looking forward to it. And to these two yahoos maybe looking at the camera at the same time?

Random Smatterings

*When we lived in Istanbul, I could've cared less if we owned a stroller. The sidewalks there are horrible and public transportation is pretty good. I used our old Graco stroller some when we lived about a 20-minute walk away from a nice park, in a nice area of the city (and therefore decent sidewalks), and other than that, I never used it. It was just easier to wear Lane in the ERGO. When we went to the Canary Islands a year and a half ago, we bought an umbrella stroller for the airports. Then after Noel was born, if I really needed to go somewhere with both girls and without Shannon, I'd push Lane and wear Noel. We planned on making Lane walk when Noel got too big for the ERGO. We always said we'd never buy a double stroller.

Well, then we knew someone who got a Phil & Ted's and loved it. And then we moved here. Also horrible sidewalks. Parks within walking distance for Lane, but not for her to walk there, play, and also make it home. Wearing Noel in the winter (with bulky coats and boots and scarves and hats) is just no fun. Lots of potholes in the roads and sidewalks here. So we decided to bite the bullet and buy one. And I love it. I've had it less than a week and think that no one should ever bother buying any other stroller, except maybe a light umbrella stroller for traveling. And even then...I'm not sold that you'd want it after using this one!


Phil & Ted's Explorer. I'm in love. With the girls, too. =)

*I think this may be the first year in a very long time that our taxes are not done by this late in the year. I told Shannon last week that I need to finish them next week. No excuses...it has to be done. Once again, blech. I also find it highly...interesting...that while Shannon is the one who handles all of our day-to-day finances (balancing the checkbook, checking accounts online, making transfers to savings, etc.), I'm the one who does our taxes every year.


*We bought a car last week. Here, you pay in cash. Hence, Shannon paid with this:



That's our Jesus Storybook Bible on the left, just for comparison's sake.

*Last week there was a bit of outdoor construction going on in our parking lot. Some diggers and cranes and other large trucks come, and they dug up the ground and replaced the pipes. They turned our water and gas off one of the days. And then, after three days, they covered it all back up and left us with the large pile of dirt you see on the right. Yup...we still have it, sitting in the grass/parking lot. How kind of them.



*I'm in the process of "training" my hair to only need to be washed every other day. It's involved about a week of somewhat-greasiness, but it hasn't been that bad. I like having my hair short, but I really don't have time to blow-dry and straighten it every day. And I'm really dreading summer, when I'll be blow-drying and straightening it with no air conditioner. So I'm trying to train it to not be washed (and therefore styled) every day. I think it's working. If you see me and I'm slightly greasy, well, forgive it for another few weeks. After that, tell me it's not working and to wash my hair.

*Every evening (and morning, for that matter) around sunset, the buildings and trees around us are flooded with birds. I mean, thousands of birds. The sky practically gets black from all the birds. It's straight out of Alfred Hitchcock.


This photo doesn't do it justice at all, but if I waited until all the birds were there, it would be too dark to see them.

*I've been spring cleaning, when I have a few minutes. A couple weeks ago, I cleaned out the kitchen pretty well. I wiped down the insides of all the cabinets, the top of the fridge and cabinets, and organized random grains and beans and flours into better containers. I vacuumed behind the fridge and cleaned the stovetop and microwave. Last week I cleaned most of our windows, inside and out. I vacuumed off all the blinds. I washed our comforter covers. Up next: wiping down all baseboards, the tops of door frames, vacuuming cobwebs out of the corners between walls and ceilings, and cleaning Shannon's office. It's the room that gets the most neglect, since he's usually working in there when I'm cleaning, so therefore I don't clean it. Blech.


At least my helper is cute.

*We're back on the cloth-diaper wagon. It was nice having a break from washing diapers for oh, six months (three in transition and three of nasty teething diapers), but I'm glad to be using them again. If nothing else, here diapers cost around $23 for a pack of 60ish size 4's, which means that we were spending around $60 a month on diapers. I'm looking forward to getting that number back down to $15 or so (one per night and Noel wears 'sposies on Sundays, since we're gone almost all day).

*A week or so ago we went out with some friends to a place where they camp, rock-climb, hike, and so on. I played ultimate frisbee for the first time in about six years. Unfortunately we couldn't stay all day, as Shannon had a meeting that afternoon, but we had a grand time that morning, and we're looking forward to going more often this summer. I'm looking forward to rock-climbing. And Lane...she's looking forward to zip-lining again. I can't remember the last time she was that excited about anything. "Do it uh'gen, mama, do it uh'gen. I wanna fly uh'gen, mama, wanna fly uh'gen."


I mean, check out that smile. If that's not the face of someone who had a good time, I'm not sure what is.

15 Months Old

At 15 months old, Noel:

*says (new words): hello (heh-doh), kitty (key), help (hep), baby, clap (cap), hi, uh-oh, wow, banana (me-ah me-ah), cracker (kacker), poop, yuck, duck (duh), balloon (ba-oon), hat, shoe (soo), socks, Dora (do-wah), boot, yes (ses), no.
*can identify (in addition to last month's list): her hair, nose, teeth, hands, mouth.


Playing in the sink with Lane.

*loves television. I'm not sure whether I should be happy about that (hey, 22 minutes of both of my children watching TV so I can cut chicken, wash dishes, cut veggies, or whatever) or ashamed of myself. Her favorites are Dora and Minnie/Mickey.
*is weaned from her pacifier.


She's getting pretty good at using a spoon, although she still makes a huge mess most of the time.

*has learned to climb. She can pull the stool over to the kitchen counter and climb up onto the counter. Scary. She can't get onto beds or couches yet, but she can get onto chairs and our stepstool, and she can get herself down from couches or beds.
*knows animal sounds for cow, rooster, horse, chicken, elephant, cat, and dog.
*knows when she's pooping and says "poop" before she goes. She is completely opposed to going on the toilet, though.
*loves to stand on our windowsills, looking for cats outside.


This girl loves to be outside!

 *is officially down to one nap a day. She sleeps around 11 hours at night and then takes a nap for around 2 hours at noon or so.
*gives us big, long kisses, complete with the finishing, "mm-ah!"
*loves to play with Lane, although a lot of the time Lane is not so keen on how Noel is "helping." Noel likes to hand Lane blocks, play chase (where Lane teases her with her blankie), and just do anything Lane is doing. She is quite good at playing by herself a lot of the time.


Playing in our bed...one of her favorite things to do.

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!