And for my next trick....

One afternoon Jane, Harry, and I are sitting down to lunch and I see that Harry needs some water.  I fill a cup with a little water and set it on his highchair tray.  He looks at it, takes a sip, and then starts looking around for something.  He slips his hand to his side, feels around a little, and pulls out another cup from his seat.  It reminds me of the scene from "Elf" when Buddy pulls out a small bottle of maple syrup from inside his sleeve. Anyway, Harry then uses the second cup to pour water between the two.  It was just so funny how he found the second cup and knew exactly what he wanted to do with it that I did my best to capture a few pictures of his cute little trick.

Harry produces his second cup.

Harry enjoys the sport of water pouring.

Harry cleans up afterward.

Halloween!

This year for Halloween I wanted to make it extra fun.  I decided to make up little witches that would leave things behind for Jane, either little treats, games, or activities.  But the witches were scared away by children who were not nice or screamed too much.  You had to be gentle and kind if you wanted the witches to visit.  Kind of different from what Halloween usually is, but we had a lot of fun.

We also got to host this year's children's Halloween party!  Local friends came and I created stations around the house for kids to go through some obstacle or do some activity.  Then we played a few games and read stories.  I really enjoyed putting it all together and appreciated the contributions and help from the other moms.

As for our costumes this year..... a big "thanks!" goes to Aunt Sharole and Uncle Toby!  They passed on some of the costumes their children wore and that's exactly what we used.  Harry dressed up as a pumpkin and Jane was a witch.  Spooktacular if you ask me, especially since I didn't have to buy or make anything (except for Jane's witch-hat barrette)!

In addition to the Halloween party we hosted, the embassy put on a Halloween party as well.  I volunteered as a face painter and got to do a range of fun things like dragons, skeletons, an airplane, and butterflies.

Here are a few picture highlights from our Halloween holiday!

In our costumes for Halloween.

Jane plays the cake walk at the embassy Halloween party

Jane is so silly whenever I try to get her to pose for a picture.

Jane and Harry before our little Halloween party.  They are standing in front of the Haunted Pumpkin Patch station.

The kids playing a game - "don't-let-the-balloons-touch-the-floor". It seemed to keep them busy for a while!  I need to come up with a better name though....

My sign to the Spider's Lair.

Kids inside the lair, trying to find the black widow spider in the upper right-hand corner.  Make sure you don't touch the randomly placed little spiders or black spiderwebs!

The Witch's Cauldron station, bean bag toss, where kids got to add "ingredients" to three cauldrons.  I had little pots of  bean bags labelled as items like bat wings, frog eyes, and worms. 

The Haunted Pumpkin Patch where kids decorate a ghost, put on a blindfold and place their ghost somewhere in the pumpkin patch.

Decoration hightlights

Beautiful Kazakh Wedding

We attended a beautiful Kazakh wedding back in September 2012.  It was simply amazing!  We got to enjoy Kazakh culture up close and so soon after our arrival.  As you can see it's taken me quite a long time to catch up to posting about this, but it's still worth sharing.  Most of the delay was because I made sure all of the people who appear in these pictures are okay with their appearance on our family blog.  I had also forgotten to bring our camera, so I gathered pictures taken from a variety of sources.  Thanks to everyone for sharing and allowing us to tell about this experience.

The wedding couple.  Just look at that gorgeous dress!

First, I should explain that we were attending a party given by the bride for her friends and extended family.  After the wedding ceremony took place there would be another reception for the groom and his extended family.  Throughout the celebration we had a friend explaining the various elements of the reception since most of it was conducted in Kazakh.  At this point, Nils and I were equal in our understanding what was going on.  The program was conducted by a Master of Ceremonies, a well-dressed young man in a navy blue shiny suit.  He would call up groups of guests and allow them time to publicly shared with the couple their advice and good wishes.  Mixed among the well-wishers' words, the evening included singers and dancers who performed traditional dances and modern songs.  We also played a few games, one in which Nils was called upon to participate as a "camel" where the emcee asked him to pantomime riding a camel and then produce a "camel sound" for the couple.  Other animals included a horse, a bull, and a donkey.  There was a small dance competition between couples selected randomly by the emcee.  Two of the contestants were family members of the bride and it became quickly clear that her family has a talent for dancing!

The Emcee demonstrating how to ride a horse... or was it the donkey? 

Nils, receiving his instructions and giving responses to various questions.

You can see behind us the beautifully decorated platform where the wedding party sat.

 The food was very delicious.  Upon arrival the tables had a wide variety of hors d'oeuvres including pickled herring, salmon, carrot salad, and vegetables and vinaigrette.  Once the wedding party arrived and were seated, and after a few toasts, the servers brought out the traditional Kazakh feast of Besbarmak, boiled horse with noodles and onions.  They also brought out huge pitchers of milk - mare's milk that is.  Because mare's milk is so strong, the only way to drink it is fermented.  Nils and I tried some.  It's definitely an acquired taste.

As we left the sister of the bride gave us parting gifts and explained that traditionally you also send guests home with a package of leftovers from the dinner.  We had to leave early because of the children's bedtime, but I was quite impressed with the hospitality and generosity surrounding their wedding.

Jane had a great time dancing and attracting lots of attention.

These hats were the gift for each of the guys.  The ladies received a beautiful scarf.

Owl Shirt Project

For a friend's baby shower, I decided to attempt to make a little 12-month T-shirt.  I had a pattern and figured it couldn't be that hard, especially with the help of my new serger.  Turns out I had to make it twice because I didn't follow the instructions very closely.   So after much time and persistence, here's the result.  Now I understand why people just buy clothes!

Nils did a great job complimenting my work and helping me feel good about all the effort that went into it, in spite of the flaws.  Then he made a really good suggestion to create more woodland creatures to decorate the children's room.  Hmmm... I may just have to get to work on that....

Adventures in India - Delhi

Our trip to India back in February was amazing.  Because we took over 1,000 pictures (between our camera and Maren's), I've been working to organize our trip into logical segments.

The format for our India trip is going to be slightly different.  Since pictures say a 1,000 words (hmm... 1,000 pictures times 1,000 words would be....) the majority of our story-telling will come from our picture albums and the captions made to particular photos.  Just click on the links below for the different parts of our Delhi tour.   Once you're on the webpage with the photo album, click on the first photo and you'll see the pictures and comments, as well as have the option to view it as a slide show.

The streets of Delhi spoke a lot about the people's energy and how well they could cram things in.  Included in these pictures is the outside of a Hindu Temple where we were not allowed to take pictures.  We'll show pictures of other temples we visited later in our tour which look similar.

The Jama Masjid Mosque was one of the first places we visited after arriving into Delhi.

The Mahatma Gandhi Memorial was the highlight of the trip for Nils.

The Qutb Complex included several ancient memorials and monuments. Click here for more information on the Qutb complex.

Humayun's Tomb resembles the Taj Majal without all the people.

We spent the end of our tour in Delhi as well.  We managed to visit the Red Fort and the Zoo.  Hoping to see a tiger in captivity since we had missed being able to see one in the wild, we spent most of the afternoon at the zoo.  We still didn't get to see a tiger, even a caged tiger!  Ah, well.

As you can see there's a lot, and this is just Delhi.  I'll work on organizing the other parts of our trip and hope to share those with you soon.  At the end I'll give my lessons learned and other little anecdotes that didn't make it in with the pictures. 

Everybody helping

This was just so cute, I had to share.  It's so fun when everyone works together, even if you have to do it over again... :)

My little fairy

A while ago, I made fairy wings for Jane.  They didn't last very long, and I hadn't quite figured out the mechanics of attaching them comfortably.  This morning she found them on the play shelf and decided she wanted to put them on and be a fairy.  I found some soft ribbon and managed to secure them so we could run around the house and play.  She looked so cute!  Here's a little picture, adjusted for artistic effect.