I had a date today . . .

with this little stud!


We had a tea party on the balcony. Yes, my son loves to have tea parties! Colson isn't taking a nap everyday anymore, so on the days he doesn't nap we get to spend some one-on-one time together while Vienna is sleeping. I love it! Colson's "tea" was really just hot water with a little honey in it, but he loved drinking it in our çay glasses.

Weekend happenings

Boy, what a weekend! It was busy, but lots of fun.

On Friday night Adam and Melanie and Joel and I hosted some of our Turkish friends for dinner at our house. I was nervous because Mel and I tried our best to make some of our favorite Turkish dishes and I wanted everything to be just right.

This is Kuru Fasulye; I forgot to take a picture of my finished product, so here is one via google. It's a white bean and meat dish. You serve it with rice and it is SO yummy!



Mel made Patlıcan ve Köfte, which is like a meatball dish with eggplant. It was also delicious! I love me some Turkish cookin'

Our friends came over at 8pm, which is normally Colson and Vienna's bedtime. I put Vienna to bed before they came, but Colson and the rest of his cousins got to stay up late and have fun and even eat some cookies.

Everything turned out great and our friends all liked it (at least I think they did). The only awkward moment was when they asked us if the meat was pork. I'm not sure where they thought we would have bought pork, but we reassured them it was beef and all was good :)

I was also nervous because it was a night of only speaking in Turkish. Ahhhhh! I feel like I can understand a lot of what is being said to me, but trying to think fast enough to formulate an intelligible sentence in response is so hard!

But no one said learning this language was going to be easy, it's actually quite humbling. And because we're living in another culture, I'm constantly worrying about if I'm doing something the right way or saying something the right way. But it was a fun evening and our friends are already trying to plan our next get together!

Melanie and Adam actually spent the whole weekend at our house. It was lots of fun! We played at the park with the kids, ate lots of leftovers (we made WAY too much), prayed together, talked a lot, laughed a lot and broke up a lot of fights - between the kids of course ;-)

Our kids ages are 5, 3.5, 2.5, 22 months and 13 months, so there's always lots of craziness when we're together.

Here's all the kids in our van, affectionately called "Big Blue"




This is my oldest niece, Joanna.



Colson absolutely LOVES Joanna, she's so motherly towards him.




This is my nephew, Andy. Colson and Andy are only 9 months apart. They don't always get along well, but I think they will in a year or two.




This is my niece Katie who is exactly 9 months older than Vienna.






After Adam and Mel left we decided to scour the city and try to find a Christmas tree, not such an easy find in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas. But we succeeded, thank you Ikea!

Joel and I put the Christmas tree together, listened to Christmas music, drank hot chocolate and ate cookies while the kids napped. The kids had so much fun looking at the tree (and trying to touch it) when they woke up from their naps. Now I have my work cut out for me trying to keep Vienna away from it for the next month!

We finished off our afternoon by taking a trip to the local bazaar and bought our fresh fruits and veggies for the week and then came home and made homemade pizza! The kids get so excited about pizza and love, love, love to watch it bake in the oven!

Since Colson had a nap today he got to stay up a little bit later than Vienna. He knows that on the nights he stays up late we make popcorn. He looks forward to it so much and can hardly wait for Vienna to get to bed. He keeps asking her, "Vienna, can you go to bed?" We make it on the stove top and he has a blast watching it pop!

Now Vienna is fast asleep and I am sitting on the couch relaxing beside my two boys, one of whom is fast asleep, can you guess which one??? : -)

Good News!

Last night I got an email from our case worker at AAI and she told us that our Dossier (you know, that huge stack of paperwork that took us 3 1/2 months to put together) had been sent to Ethiopia on November 12! YAY! So now we are officially on the waiting list! Soooo exciting!! The normal wait time for an infant boy is 6-9 months. Even though we have a long wait ahead of us I am beyond excited!!


This was how excited Colson got when I told him that his baby brother is coming from Ethiopia soon.



Okay, I'm just kidding. Colson doesn't really understand it all yet, although he knows where Ethiopia is on the map and he always wants to pray for it. It's so sweet!

So here is why he was really laughing so hard . .. see that toy in his right hand? He was having fun hitting it on the shelf in his room and bustin' up laughing. It was quite entertaining for him (and for me) for at least 20 minutes. I love this little guy.

I ♥ Faces "Autumn Beauty"

This is my first photo challenge from I ♥ Faces. I've been enjoying taking pictures of the kids and I stumbled across this photography blog and thought I would enter just for fun. The theme for the week was "Autumn Beauty."

We don't have much of an autumn here in Turkey, so this is the best picture I could do - Colson with his one lonely leaf :)

Go check out some more autumn beauties at I ♥ Faces.

Winter usually brings lots of rain here, so the kids and I have been enjoying the park as much as we can while the weather is still nice. Living in the city is fun because there are more than a dozen parks to choose from that are close to home. I don't venture further than a 10 minute walk from our apartment because:

a. everything we need is SO close

b. I get lost easily (hey, it's a big city, and in my defense, there aren't many street names and buildings tend to look the same)
c. there is no way I'm ready to brave the streets of Turkey in a car, let alone in a big blue 10 passenger van like the one we own together with Adam and Mel! There aren't many traffic laws that are obeyed here. I feel like I'm in some sort of video game whenever I ride in the passenger seat; you just never know what's going to pop out in front of you. It could be anything from a motorcycle, to a dolmuş (a big, shared taxi), to a horse, to a man on a bicycle wielding a large array of fruit for sale :)

Anyway, going to the park is one of our favorite things to do. The kids love to swing and I get an opportunity to meet other moms and practice my Turkish.

It is always an adventure because you never know who you might meet or what kind of questions you might be asked. I'm always asked so many questions about who we are, what we're doing here and, of course, about my children. Since blue eyes aren't very common here, everyone thinks Vienna is just adorable.

I'm usually asked if Colson and Vienna are mine followed by a look of shock when I say yes. They always tell me I'm too young to have kids. In our city, people usually have one maybe 2 kids. If they do have 2 kids they are usually spaced pretty far apart. Then there's all sorts of unsolicited advice on how to dress my children. Today I was told that Vienna's pony tail was too tight and it was hurting her head. Umm, okay?

But I really do love the friendliness and hospitality we've experienced here. Turks are so warm and welcoming! One of my favorite traditions in Turkey is that whenever you visit someone's home you are ALWAYS offered slippers to wear. I love it! You are also always given Turkish tea and something to eat no matter what time of day you come. Another one of my favorite things about Turkish hospitality is that you must never return someone's plate empty. If your neighbor gives you some food on a plate, you must make something to put on the plate and return it to her. At least once a week my next door neighbor makes us something and brings it over. I actually have 3 of her dishes that I have yet to return; I better get busy baking!

Kemeraltı

Last Saturday we went to Kemeraltı, a must-see in our city (and it only took us 10 months to get here!). Yes, I realize it's been a whole week since we went and I'm only posting pictures now, but I'm still learning how to be a good blogger :) Kemeraltı is the largest bazaar in the city and you can find just about anything there. From food to traditional Turkish handicrafts, you name it, they got it!



Colson and Vienna were just thrilled



All kinds of nuts









I just love all the colorful buildings!



a mosque





The bazaar is HUGE and you can easily get lost. We could have walked around for hours but it was a cold day and the kids lasted about an hour and a half. Well, at least now we can tell all our neighbors that we've finally experienced Kemeraltı.