And Friday Came

But I forgot to announce who won our little guessing game.  Not many people guessed, but that doesn't make Erin Hurley any less of a winner! :)

So, Erin, I have an idea for your prize.  Shoot me an email or message on FB with your address!  I'd also love for you to write a guest post for me about I Will Come To You.  I think my friends and family would love to know more about how your family is growing.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!  Ours was so good and busy that I hardly took any pictures, amazingly enough.  We enjoyed our time with family in Baton Rouge, and are settled back into our townhouse in MS now and ready to start the next week.

I have several posts in my head, but we'll see if anything makes it to the world wide web this week.

Have a grand day!

Let's Play

In honor of our little girl's half birthday, I thought we could play a game.  I find it interesting the many different opinion on who our children look like.  Guess which baby picture belongs to which person in our family, get the most right, and win a little something fun!

Oh, and to be fair, I suppose I should tell you that while facial features have not been altered in the least, I have played with the photos to hide age.  Not all of us have digital photos from our past.

Leave a comment with your guesses, and next Friday I'll announce the winner!  Oh, so try not to look at other the comments others have made before making your own guesses. :)

Any Guesses?

Well, Nadia and I have almost made it to 36 weeks, so I think it's about time we have a baby poll.  Leave a comment with your guess of date, time, weight and length.

I'll see what I can do to come up with some creative prizes to send home with my mama so that you can actually receive them!

Here are some interesting facts to either totally mess up your guess or help you along the way:

~Isaiah was born at 34 weeks, 2/6/06 at 6:37pm weighing 4 lbs 12 oz and measuring 17 3/4".

~Isaiah dropped on a Wednesday and was born on the following Monday.

~The tentative date for our scheduled c-section is June 9, when we'll be 38 1/2 weeks.

~I'm sleeping worse and worse, getting bigger and bigger.

~Monday (5/17) when I saw the doctor, she said that Nadia is not in the birth canal yet, but that she is close.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but she feels like she's getting lower.

So what do you think?  I'll leave a link on the sidebar to come back to this post to play in case I write some more posts above it.  Have fun!

Oh, and here's the latest picture I have of us, taken at 35 weeks.

Thank You!

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Last Thursday (yes, please forgive the late expression of gratitude, but know that the gratitude was there since Thursday) we found out that we won the Blue Bunny Ice Cream contest at 5 Minutes for Special Needs! We are so excited! And when Isaiah starts getting to eat ice cream cones every day, he'll be really excited in lots of different ways.

Also, a general update post is on its way, but here's a little hint as to why it hasn't happened yet:

(last Thursday--Urodynamics study on bladder; Pediatrician and Urologist at special clinic for kids with spina bifida; x-rays in preparation for surgery next week; Orthopedist; Nutritionist; Physical Therapist)

Saturday--Day trip to meet our new nephew and celebrate our his older brother's birthday

Monday-Physical Therapy evaluation

Tuesday-Neurologist appointment

Wednesday-Pre-op visit with Orthopedist in the AM; Occupational Therapy evaluation in the PM

Thursday--Back specialist to get a baseline on Isaiah's spine

Friday--Neurosurgeon in the AM; Physical Therapy in the PM

And in the midst of this, I'm working on our house here and there with some special touches in Isaiah's new room with the wonderful assistance and guidance of my mom. Although it's probably more accurate to say that I'm assisting her. So, when we slow down to only 2 or 3 appointments a week, I'll try to post some updates and get back into Tot School and our weekly picture sharing.

But until then, if you think about it, please pray for stamina for all these appointments and our period of adjustment to being back in America again for a while. Isaiah has surgery a week from Thursday (Aug 27) on his left leg. I'll try to post more details about that after our pre-op visit with the orthopedist tomorrow. Thank you for your prayers!

We Made It!

Well, after 28 hours of traveling, we safely arrived in Charlotte, NC and were speedily (but lawfully, I'm sure) driven by my wonderful mama to my hometown about 2 hours north. And now we're sitting in my parents living room trying to stay awake and put 2 coherent thoughts together. With that in mind, please be kind in your reading of this post. I'm not sure that I want to be held accountable at a later date for what may be written at this time. :)

Thank you so much for praying for us! Our trip went quite smoothly. Isaiah only cried once when he was fighting sleep that he desperately needed, and the kids sitting behind us fell asleep and stopped kicking our seats. Thomas had wisely booked us a hotel room not far from JFK, so we were able to get a few hours sleep, well, a 3-hour nap really, before finishing the last leg of our journey.

We have been loved on and treated to real NC bar-b-que and watched Isaiah drive his new toy, which we have dubbed the iCar, a present from his great grandma--pictures and video to come soon! He's too adorable!

And I'm sure that you are all waiting with immense anticipation to know about the ice cream contest that I've been begging you to participate in by voting for us....well, it seems that we are doing well! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy lives to help us try to get some ice cream for Isaiah. However, the voting actually continues until August 13 at 12:00pm. The first stage was what ended yesterday, and for some reason that date just stuck in my head! So, if you've been wanting to vote and haven't done so yet, now is the time! Or if you want to be like my husband and post about the contest on your blog with a picture of Isaiah, you still have time. Or if you want to be like my parents and send emails to all the people you know with a link to my post explaining how to vote, you can do that too! I love my family!

Have you hugged your parents lately? I got to today! Thank you again for your prayers for our travels. We are looking forward to seeing more friends soon!

Today is the Day (well, tomorrow, too)

Today we head to the airport to begin the trek to Planet America, as one of our missionary friends laughingly calls our home. We have passed our 2-year anniversary in St. Petersburg, which in some ways seems really hard to believe.

This time as we prepare to go we have mixed emotions. Don't get me wrong, we are really, REALLY excited to see our families and to spend time with friends, but this time it meant saying goodbye to good friends here, and adopted family (which is something you do when you don't have "real" family around).

Yesterday at church I actually gave hugs and told people I would miss them, and they said the same thing, sometimes even before me! That might not sound like a big deal, but it really is. This time last year, and even in January when we had a short trip home, I really didn't even think about leaving the people at church behind. I didn't have friends there. I couldn't really have conversations with people. Yesterday I felt genuinely sad that I wouldn't be seeing my friends at church every week! The Lord has done so much for us this past year, so much for me. And I am grateful.

Maybe in the weeks while we're in the States I'll have time to do a post about this past year. I mean like this one from last summer where I listed some things I learned. I'm not promising anything though! But it is helpful for me to look back and remember what the Lord has done. He is an amazing God!

So now we are thankful for Skype in reverse. We exchanged Skype ID with friends here before our departure, which I find somewhat humorous.

We leave this afternoon around 12pm to go to the airport for our afternoon flight. We'll be stopping in Warsaw, Poland and JFK in New York before finally getting hugs from my parents in Charlotte! Please pray for our safety and for rest on the plane as much as possible. Isaiah is normally an exceptionally good traveler, and we are praying that he will continue to be so on this journey as well!

Oh, and since we'll be in the air, we won't know the winner of this contest, because it will be announced on Tuesday. So.....I think you can still go vote, or tell your family and friends and neighbors to go vote because Isaiah really wants ice cream! I mentioned ice cream the other day, and he went nuts! He started saying ice cream in as many different inflections as you can possibly imagine, but all of them very excited! If you have a second, he would really appreciate your vote for our picture, and so would I! After all, who doesn't love ice cream?!

But even more importantly, who doesn't love family and friends--which is what we're really excited about! I hope we get to see as many of you all as possible! С Богом! (one of my favorite Russian farewells, with God)

Tot School--OUTSIDE!!!!!!!

Isaiah is 42 months old (well, almost)

Well, we've been quite busy the last 3 weeks or so, and not much official Tot School has been happening. But technically we are on the letter O, so I think that a bunch of our activities can definitely qualify for Life School because we have been OUTSIDE as much as possible the last 3 weeks, which makes one little man in our house just dizzy with happiness and glee!

First we had family come to see us! Isaiah was outrageously happy to play with 4 of his cousins for 10 days! Unfortunately that also means that he was incredibly sad when they left, but thankfully we'll see them again soon!

One of our favorite treats while his cousins were here was getting ice cream almost every day while we learned lots of history about St. Petersburg! And have I mentioned that Russia has some of the best ice cream?!

And speaking of ice cream, here's a shameless plea for you to go to 5M4SN and vote for us to get a year's supply of Blue Bunny ice cream! Of course, if you like one of the other pictures better, then you should vote for it, but we would appreciate your vote as well! They announce the winner Tuesday, so if you're going to vote, do so quickly!

Isaiah got to learn about grilling and sitting on uneven ground, which I'm proud to say he did very well!, when we grilled out in one of our local parks with our good friends.

Then life got even better for our outside lovin' man when we got to spend a day outside the city with our good friends Юля and Костя (Julia and Constantine). We had so much fun!

Isaiah and I dipped our feet in the озера (that would be lake, but I needed some more O words!). And, incidentally, I've recently been getting all mixed up when coming up with words for Tot School. I'll think of a word that starts with our letter, and then realize it's not an English word but rather Russian. I hope that's a good sign for my schooling.

Then Юля took him for his first swimming lesson! He wasn't too sure at first, but then he didn't want to get out!

We watched Papa fish on the dock.

And we sat around and ate and ate and ate the yummy шашлык (shashlik) that our friends made--oh so good!

Such a great day spent with friends!

And now, you should know that we're taking an official break from Tot School. The previous break was not really planned, it just sort of happened. We'll pick up again when we're more settled in our home in MS for our 3-month stint in the States! We'll probably pick up with O again, so we can have some more fun activities, perhaps while singing this song that Papa wrote for Isaiah:

But you can keep following the other Tot Schools at 1+1+1=1 and get tons of great ideas from the other moms out there!

We would appreciate your prayers for our travel starting on tomorrow (the 3rd) until we land in NC the morning of the 4th and throw ourselves into the open arms of my parents!

To the Polls!

Update: Voting actually ends August 13 at noon. The winner will be announced on August 13 as well. Sorry, I had the dates mixed up--you still have time! ;)

Well, sort of. Remember this post where I told you about the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Giveaway at 5 Minutes for Special Needs (5M4SN)? I'm not usually a real go-getter when it comes to this sort of thing, contests online that is, but I can't tell you how much I would LOVE to win this contest. And multiply how much I want to win by, oh 1000, and you will begin to understand how much Isaiah LOVES ice cream. One day Thomas treated us to some ice cream bars, and before I could even open the package, Isaiah was pulling on my leg from his stroller to get me to come down to his level and share with him! And he now recognizes the ice cream carts scattered about the city and even asks for ice cream when we walk by them. I'm tellin' ya, this boy loves ice cream!

Thank you to those of you who left comments so that we could become finalists! Now there's one more way that you can help...

Head back to 5M4SN and VOTE for our picture! We are #6 Random Thoughts, just in case you forget when you're looking at all the other cute kids with their ice cream. :)

And here's our picture again, just in case!

And although I know that you will want to vote for us lots and lots and lots because you're such dear friends who want us to have ice cream, please only vote one time per ip address. And if you don't know what that means, then just don't vote more than once from your computer, that should cover it. But you can tell all your friends to go and vote for us, too!

Thanks so much, and may you all have summers filled with all the ice cream that you want!

The Winner Is...

Y'all are good guessers, since I'm assuming you don't know Russian.  This product was correctly identified as liquid smoke by SimpleBeauty!  But good job to ForHisGlory, who also wanted to guess liquid smoke as well.  Maybe you'll get the next one first!

And, SimpleBeauty, if you don't mind waiting until August, I'll be happy to reward with you an authentic матрёшка upon our return to the States for a couple months.  I would mail it here, but we would probably be in the States before you got it, so I figure I'll save myself a couple bucks, and get it to you just as quickly.  Email me your address at the slawsons (at) siberiangrits (dot) com and I'll save it for future mailing purposes.  (without the spaces and parentheses, of course, but I'm sure you know that)

Reading your guesses was lots of fun, but I must confess not as fun as actually eating hotdogs that tasted like they'd been grilled outside and washing them down with Dr. Pepper while watching the Braves play baseball.  Yeah, that was grand!

Recent Vacation

Saturday we took a little vacation after my language lesson.  Where did you go?  You might be asking, considering that I made no mention of us going anywhere beforehand.  Well, we took a little trip to America, while never leaving the comforts of our own apartment.

This little adventure was prompted by a few special finds at a store that we recently found, though it's been there for a long time.

Any guess what this is?

I'll give you a hint:  It goes well with what's in the frying griddle, so that the food on the griddle doesn't taste like it's from the griddle but rather from somewhere else entirely.

Now can you guess?  Hmm, I'm so tempted  to make this a contest of some sort to see who can figure out the mystery of the Russian product that sat on our kitchen table.  If people want to guess, I promise to come up with a fun prize!

The next "find" didn't come from the store near our apartment, but rather via the Internet:
Yes!  We got to watch BASEBALL!  Real American baseball.  And even though the Braves lost, it was still fun.  (and we're enjoying a month of baseball thanks to mlb.com, though unfortunately I receive no benefit by mentioning them here)

Naturally, we couldn't eat our hotdogs and watch baseball in our kitchen!  Oh no!  I set up a couple little tables in the living room while Thomas cooked the dogs.  Isaiah was wondering when he was actually going to see something on his plate.

And when everything was complete, Thomas brought in the guest of honor:
After almost 2 years of searching this country (wherever we happened to be in this country that is), we finally found Dr. Pepper, not more than 100 yards from our apartment!

Here's a closer look at the beautiful cans containing that delectable beverage:

This was the first time since moving to St. Petersburg that we have been able to buy Dr. Pepper in this country.  We've bought it in Finland.  We've bought it in Germany.  Friends brought some to us on their trips to Finland.  Our parents thoughtfully had a supply in their fridges for our trips home.  But we had never, until Friday, bought Dr. Pepper in Russia.  And. It. Was. Good.

So, the table was set; the game was cued; and we enjoyed every moment!

It's meals like this that make me proud to be an American!

I've Got Something to Tell You

Ok, so there's something that I'd like to share from the world of bloggers:

Unfortunately, this is incredibly late in the game on my side of the pond, but there's still time left for you on planet America.  In our Tot School adventures, Isaiah and I have "met" Esme and her mommy (sorry, I don't know how to type the accent mark in there, Esme).  

Esme and her family have been living in Mozambique, though they're in the States for now between missionary assignments.  You can check out the details about that on her blog, because right now I want to tell you about something else on her blog.  You might have noticed a button on my sidebar for Operation Love Zimbabwe.  See, Esme lived in Mozambique, but she was close to Zimbabwe and visited there a lot.  The political situation in Zimbabwe is, well, the pits; which means that life in Zimbabwe is beyond difficult right now for the people trying to live there.

In an effort to raise awareness of the needs in Zimbabwe, Esme and her mommy have been hosting giveaways for a the past 2 weeks.  I know, I know, how could I keep all this great stuff (like this) to myself?  Well, I've been meaning to tell you about it long before now, so please forgive me.  The point is, you should go read some of the posts that Esme's mommy has written or posted from other writers because more people should know what's going on in Zimbabwe.  Then you can also enter in the giveaways.

Please go check it out and say hello to Esme for us!

I'm Sure That You've Been Wondering...

I'll finally relieve you of the terrible suspense that I know that you've been enduring.  Though I don't have the exact numbers, you can trust me when I say that Daddy kicked my butt in our bowl picks.  Um, yeah, I can safely say that this year was the absolute worst that I have EVER done in picking the college bowl games.

So there you have it.  Now you can rest well again.

What a Guy!

After reading my post about displaying my College Bowl Game record in our little competition, my Dad sent me his picks, so that I could include his record on my sidebar once I learn the game results.  Isn't that the sign of  a great dad to join in on the extended fun!

And on a side note...I do plan on posting some about our Christmas, but we're still relaxing a bit and taking a break from normal activities such as blogging in order to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, which I also plan to write about later.

I hope your New Year's preparations are half as fun as ours over here in St. P!  I'll be back later...

The Most Wonderful Time of Year...

...COLLEGE BOWL SEASON!

Ok, I'm kidding, but I do really like College Bowl Games.  Every year my dad and I have a little contest in picking the games.  It's a great deal...If I win, then he buys me a prize; if he wins, then he has the honor of buying me a gift.  (see, no gambling involved)

We are so excited to be able to actually watch some bowl games again this year.  My smart husband found ESPN 360 Europe.  We were able to sign up for just a month, which is perfect.  We've already watched 2 games and have almost finished a 3rd.  It's great because you can watch archived games.  I love football, but come on, I've got an almost 3 year old, I don't need to be getting up at 2am just to watch football.

I'm not doing so well in my picks thus far, but at least I have a good excuse:  American College Football doesn't exactly get airtime in Russia.  Since I really have no idea what's going on, I just pick who I want to win.

But in an endeavor to prove that this really is for fun and not about winning, I think I'll put a widget on the sidebar with my running total.  Yeah, I'm into public humiliation at the moment.  But who knows?  My picks could come through for me in the end.

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! :)

A Fun Give Away

I found this contest on my cousin's blog--she's always a wealth of information!  Of course, she didn't encourage me to participate, wanting the goodies all for herself, and who can blame her!  However, I thought that I'd ignore her pleas for monopoly on the contest and participate as well. (you know I still love you, cuz!)

This is one of the "mommy blogs" that I've recently had the pleasure of discovering and reading along with Mommy Who?. So hop on over and check out these great resources for moms. And if you're not a mom, there are some really funny stories and such that you would still find quite enjoyable, I think.