Russian Mother's Day

Apparently Russia decided that they needed yet another holiday.  But I think that this latest holiday is a great addition!  (at least I think it's a new holiday because I sure didn't know about it last year)

November 30 is now День Матери.  And in case you don't read Russian, that means Mother's Day.  All over the city there are posters and billboards with a picture of a baby carriage sitting on a bright green hill under a beautiful sun.  The slogan says something about natural transportation being the best.  I'll work on that translation for later. :)

Anyway, on this Russian Mother's Day, I thought that I would get in the spirit of things and tell you about my wonderful mother-in-law.  Actually, that isn't very Russian because normally mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are pretty much arch-enemies--so here's for going against the flow!

My Mother-in-law

I met Thomas' parents for the first time on the Sunday afternoon of the special choir Christmas program at First Presbyterian Church, Yazoo City, MS, 2002.  They had driven from Slidell, LA (just outside of New Orleans) in order to attend the program that their son had arranged and to hear the choir that he was conducting.

With the special program that night, Thomas was pretty busy that afternoon after lunch, which meant that I got to spend lots of time with his parents all by my lonesome.  Was I nervous?  Um, yes, but not for long.  Mr. and Mrs. Slawson came quite prepared, and we were soon enjoying some games after lunch until I excused myself to help Thomas with some finishing touches.  The program went very well, and this first meeting was over.  I even got hugs before they left.

I think the next time I saw his parents was Easter of the next year (naturally).  We went to Thomas' grandmother's house near Raleigh, MS.  This time I got to meet the whole clan:  all 12 of them (now there are more!).  I watched as Thomas' mother organized the meals and made sure that her husband, children and grandchildren (and even I) had exactly what they wanted--that special drink or dessert or an extra helping of their favorite dish.  "Doesn't she ever get tired?" I remember thinking to myself.

Since those first meetings, I have had many wonderful opportunities to watch Mom G work her magic; though she would be the first tell you that it's not magic of any kind, as she feeds a small army, cleans, does laundry, loves on everyone, takes the time to listen to what happened in everyone's day as she prepares more food, whips up that special dessert, goes to the store to get me tea last summer after becoming addicted to it in Russia, pops some popcorn, writes her list of everyone's favorite things and hangs it in a cupboard so she'll always have ready what they like....

There's more, too, 

like playing outside in the sweltering heat of LA with her grandchildren...

...or, first thing in the morning, taking the time to color...

...or taking a grandchild in her arms at any moment to give the mamas a rest, or a moment to take a picture :)...

...but I don't want to embarrass her.  I am very thankful for my mother-in-law.  God has given my quite a beautiful gift in her.  And the most beautiful thing about her isn't her love for her family, but rather the reason that she loves her family so much:  She has received the saving grace of Christ and loves Him with all her heart, soul, mind and strength and therefore she can and does live for Him and lovingly serve those around her.

"But I don't want to say goodbye to Grandma!"

I love you, Mom G!

We Did It!

It's almost midnight here in Russia, and about 8 minutes ago, we finished cleaning up from our Thanksgiving dinner.  (we didn't start eating until about 7:20pm, in case you're wondering--for some reason everyone over here had to work today!)

Isaiah excited about Thanksgiving

Thomas and I had been planning and anticipating this day for several weeks.  We originally planned to invite about 18 people, but in God's providence, we had 7, which turned out well for our seating, but left us with tons of leftovers.  But after all, what would Thanksgiving be without leftovers?

Our menu

Turkey--quite the find!  (I promise that is turkey, it's just a boneless fillet and then a big leg underneath)

Sweet potato casserole--another first for us over here

BBQ Green Beans

Dressing

Baked Corn

Black-eyed peas (not a big hit with the Russians)

Mashed Potatoes

Yeast rolls

Salad with homemade Italian dressing

Apple pie for dessert

My wonderful husband took care of the sweet potatoes, baked corn and black-eyed peas.  We cooked as much as was possible at the beginning of the week, which made for a fairly stress-free day!

We took this opportunity to invite one set of our neighbors, Irina and Jena, a mother and daughter who have recently moved to St. Petersburg.  We have been praying about ways to begin building a relationship with these ladies, and we think God definitely used this meal!  Please pray with us as we seek to take advantage of this beginning.  Irina (the mom) even offered for Jena to come and play with Isaiah while I went to the store and such!

Not the best picture, but it gives you an idea of our evening--of course, Isaiah knew the camera was out, always the ham!

We also hosted our pastor, a lady from church who hosts a weekly Bible study that we attend, Thomas' former language teacher, our friends Luda and Deanna.  We ate, talked, sang, laughed really hard, enjoyed Isaiah's flirtations and all in all had a marvelous time.  In fact we were having such a great time that I don't even have that many pictures of the actual meal to share.

Visiting with Baba Galina, Thomas' former teacher

Finishing the day with Aunt Luda

Now I'm ready for a nap, or just plain ready for bed!

Unexpected Reaction

So, what's the last thing that really made you cry?  I'm not talking about tearing up; I mean really letting the tears flow.  Probably something sad, I'd imagine.

I recently had a good cry.  Can anyone guess why?  Check out the Thanksgiving dinner post above for a hint.  The person who guesses the closest will get something special from Russia.

Oh, but my parents and Thomas' parents are disqualified because they already know--sorry!  Y'all will get something special from Russia anyway--US! :)

Family Snow Day

After our blizzard on Sunday (I erased the video from my camera by accident--aargh!) we had a fun Monday morning in the park all together!  Here are some pictures from our fun, before my batteries went dead in the camera.

Really deep snow drifts in places.  I think we got about 5-6" on Sunday, and it snowed all day on Monday!

Happy Little Man!

Nobody pulls the sled like Daddy!

Someone had made this amazing snowman!

Then we made a little one. :)

And then the batteries died.

Scroll a little further down to see more snowy pictures from the first snowfall!

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

First Snow

We had our first snow of the season on Thursday, November 20.  I was thinking about holding off on the snow picture until after Thanksgiving because they really make me think about Christmas, but then I thought, "I can dream of a white Thanksgiving, too!"

Since I had my lesson on Thursday, I didn't get much playtime in the snow with Isaiah.  Friday morning though we took advantage of the snow and the sunshine!

I love that I've finally figured out the timer on my camera!

My Little Gentleman

At Isaiah's bedtime we follow a normal (not rigid) routine:

Daddy comes in and "scares" him, much to his hysterical delight...

Daddy sings him a song and gives and gets lots of lovin'...

Then Daddy passes him off to me...

I stand by his bed, holding him in my arms and singing to him while he gives me kisses or tries to pull out my barrette or turn my head in a complete circle...

I lay him down and say the same thing every night, "Night, night, Isaiah.  Mama loves you, and Daddy loves, now go to sleep and sleep all night."  And if he's being particularly cuddly and I haven't actually laid him down at this point, I steal a few more kisses.  Yummy!

Twice now Isaiah has altered our little night-night tradition:

I lay him down after saying my nightly loves and he reaches up and takes my hand and brings it to his lips for one last kiss, as if saying, "Thank you, Mama, for such a wonderful day.  I love you!"

Something New--Gotta Start Somewhere

A while ago, Thomas and I talked about homeschooling Isaiah.  I'm very excited about helping Isaiah learn, but I didn't really know how to start.  I recently found this blog by a homeschool mother starting preschool with her second son.  Her older son named it "Tot School" and that's what she's been calling it ever since.  I've picked up some tips from her and others, and I decided to start a Tot School of our own.  So any of you homeschoolers out there that have great ideas for little ones, please share them with me!

Well, this was my first week to begin "official" activities for Tot School.  We started very simply so as not to overwhelm Isaiah or me!

We worked on the numbers 1 and 2, but I think next week we'll just focus on one number.  (Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!)  I drew some 1's and 2's for Isaiah to color with his markers.  And I decided to try to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, so we did some Tot School while we did therapy.  I think Isaiah enjoyed coloring.  He did well repeating the numbers, and he even handed me the 1 and 2 from our little wooden puzzle when asked for them.  I don't know how long it stuck, though, because later in the day he didn't do as well for Daddy, but we'll keep on working.

Tuesday we had a special treat.  We were invited to join a couple other kids and their moms for some music time!  Isaiah loves, loves, loves music and being with other kids, so it was perfect!  We sang lots of songs about being thankful and got to act like monkeys, bears and crocodiles--tons of fun!  Thank you to Mrs. O'Byrne for including us.  

This picture isn't of the actual music time, just the silliness afterwards as we were preparing to leave.

I don't have a picture of the next two activities, but we also worked on colors, and read tons and tons of books identifying objects and naming colors.

I have a medium-sized beach ball with the color stripes.  I wrote the names of the colors on each strip. We played catch (also working on his coordination!), and I named the colors and had him repeat them when we touched the stripes on the ball.  He did very well with this and enjoyed playing, too.  This idea is not original to me, but I'm afraid I can't remember where I first heard it in order to give credit.

And then we did a little PE on Friday. :)  Ok, this might be stretching it, but we sure did enjoy playing in our nearby park!  Isaiah loves being flung around in his sled!  I managed to catch him right after a really good pull and sling in this photo!

We're working on finding more physical activities that Isaiah can do on his own, or at least more on his own (I'm definitely still supervising!).  Sliding has become a favorite!  (I'm sorry, but for some reason this picture just will not rotate!  I've tried rotating it several times with no success.  This was the only one in the roll that wouldn't work--I don't know!)

I think our first week of Tot School went pretty well, overall.  We'll keep on trucking!

If you're also homeschooling a little one and would like some ideas, check out the other Tot Schoolers here.

Sewing Projects

Just found this post that I had started and never finished!  Before making Isaiah's Peter Pan costume, I made him these lined dress pants.  (again, thank you, Sandra!)

I bought this tan material last year to make him some pants, but I never seemed to get around to it.  Now as the weather is colder, Isaiah doesn't have many warm dress pants.  I had this flannel that I bought, sort of by accident (long story!), but it turned out to be quite handy for lining these pants.

The rounded area at the inseam is to make room for him to wear his braces under the pants.  And as it turns out, this really helps with winter boots as well!  This wasn't in the original pattern, but it wasn't too hard to make it work.

I just love this pose!

And now Isaiah has some nice warm pants to wear to church!

Better With Two

Isaiah doesn't really like to be alone.  He'll do it, but he doesn't like it.  I try to let him have some alone time for a little while every day because I think that it's important for him to know how to entertain himself.

Friday mornings I try to get some major cleaning done, you know, the big stuff like mopping floors and cleaning the toilet and the tub and such, things that are better done in a block of time.  I often clean Isaiah's room first so that he can play in there while I clean the rest of the house and therefore not be crawling around on wet floors.

So where am I going with this?  One morning I woke up late and wasn't able to get my quiet time in before Little Man was up, so I put him in his room to play while I did my reading.  He was not thrilled about this situation, and by the time that I was done reading, he was more than ready to be OUT OF HIS ROOM!

We were having company, so in my mind, "not cleaning" was not an option.  What do you do?  Well, I don't know what you do, though I'm sure that you have some wonderful ideas.  What I do, however, is this:

And Isaiah loved it!  We got this Kelty Kids TC 3.0 thinking that we would use it for traveling purposes to have more hand carrying capabilities in airports.  I have now found another use for it, and both of us were quite happy.

Don't worry, he's completely secure!  We even dance around to the music that I must have playing while I'm cleaning.

How Low Can You Go?

At the end of the recent Harvest Festival, (see post below), there was a limbo contest.  Even though we missed most of the festival events, I'm so glad we were there for this one!  Isaiah laughed and laughed and danced and laughed some more!  Too fun!

Here's Thomas' attempt at the limbo.  He made through a few rounds!

And here's Isaiah enjoying himself to the fullest!

All in all a good day!

Harvest Festival

Today we had a special treat.  The school where Thomas directs choir and speaks in chapel has an annual Harvest Festival.  This event is probably similar to some Halloween festivities, in that anyone who wants to can dress up in the designated theme.  The Harvest Festival is in actuality a fundraiser for the school, just in case you were wondering.  There are games that you buy tickets to play, food, and a costume contest.  This year's theme was The Movies.  You could come dressed as any character in a movie, though they did request no scary costumes.  

Having been the wonderful recipient of several incredibly-made costumes by my magnificent mother, I really wanted to make Isaiah a costume (this also gave me a chance to see something accomplished!).  I decided that Peter Pan would be a nice easy costume to make (and here is a special shout-out to my sister-in-law, Sandra who gave me the simple pattern book that I used as a basis for the costume.  Thank you Sandra!!!!!).

Here's the first try-on session. Isn't he a cute Peter Pan!  Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic on our way to the school, so he wasn't able to be in the costume judging, but that's ok.  He was still stinkin' cute, and we had fun!

Posing for his daddy

My friend Deanna was Tinkerbell.  I don't know why we have a serious Peter Pan in this shot.

Isaiah and Lydia, naturally!  Lydia was an adorable fairy all in pink!

We decided to skip the dagger part of the costume, in case you were wondering, maybe when he's a little older.

My little Peter Pan is keeping me young. :)

My Favorite Handyman

I love my husband.  A LOT!  He helps me keep things in perspective when I get all out of whack, he plays and cares for Isaiah beautifully, he's amazingly creative, he plays the guitar and sings (which I find quite attractive!).  But on top of all these things, and many others, as a matter of fact, he can figure out how to fix things.  He's a great handyman.

For example, our toilet room (yes the room with the toilet, not the bathroom, not even a half-bath with toilet and sink, just the toilet) was in pretty pitiful condition.  Someone, not a professional, had tiled the walls.  The tile was falling off.  Every time I sat and did my business, I wondered if the tile would make it through my necessary time.  Thankfully the only tiles that did fall were low enough to not harm anyone.

Thomas decided that something must be done!  

First, he cut down all the tile.

Second, he created a great dust cloud while sanding down the walls and getting rid of the 3-inch thick mortar (or whatever that grey stuff is that the person used to stick the tiles to the wall).  He kept us safe from the dust cloud as best he could, while subjecting himself to the worst of it.

Third, he put up this really unique and lovely wallpaper.  The pictures don't make it clear, but the paper has a great texture.  When he first unrolled it, the paper smelled just like tea.

Fourth, he put these nice wooden strips down at the bottom of the paper.

And finally, he painted the wall above the wallpaper and then put up these really cool foam ceiling tiles.  We now have a safe and attractive toilet room.

Thank you to my wonderful, handsome, creative, intelligent, attractive and amazing husband!  I love you!

Isaiah's Special Friend

We thank God for the wonderful helper He has provided in Julia.  She is very good with Isaiah, and he really loves her.  I think he'll be so disappointed when he realizes that she's getting married in March! :)

This year Julia has been able to come about once a week to stay with Isaiah.  They go for long walks in the park and eat lunch together and play together while I study or go to a lesson or to the grocery store.  It's great to have some concentrated study time for me and some regular Russian conversation for Isaiah.  He really seems to understand her quite well!

What Do You Eat?

While we enjoy eating Russian food, we really don't know how to cook it, besides of course opening a bag of pelmini and dumping it into boiling water, then waiting 12-15 minutes for the ravioli-like pasta to finish cooking.

So we cook American food.  One of our friends in Yazoo City sent us his special sausage seasoning.  Wow!  We have been eating high on the hog, literally.  And we've even mixed it in with some ground chicken as well.  Quite tasty!

I've been trying to expand my cooking repertoire, and for that task, I often turn to the 2 cookbooks that I brought with me from the States.  Below you'll see the Better Crocker cookbook that I brought with me.  I LOVE this cookbook.  When I don't know how to cook something or cut something or separate something, I turn to this wonderful cookbook.  Here I can read all the technical cooking terms in plain language.  I've also found some great recipes, which is no small task considering some ingredients aren't here, or at least I don't know how to translate them yet!

The other cookbook was given to me at a bridal shower.  It is full of recipes from women in my family and Thomas' family and all the women who attended the shower.  It's very special and contains some of our favorite dishes!

And in that attempt to cook more entrees, I tried calzones from my Better Crocker cookbook.  Yes, one of them messed up because the recipe said to spread egg on top to help it brown, but the book didn't know that I have a communist stove.  Yes, really, I'm not kidding, check out the CCCP (that means USSR) on the front of the stove!  So, anyway, we've made lots of jokes about the stove, but the basic problem is that it only heats from the top, so unless I cover things, they burn, and quickly!  So I put egg on 2 of the calzones before I realized that this might not be a good idea, and sure enough, I was right.  Oh well, I know for next time.