It's been a while...

I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in over a month. Things have been crazy yet again! First of all we had an amazing time with our families! It was so hard to come back here to Turkey after all of the fun we had. We had a crazy 30 hours of traveling and so serious jet lag. I wasn't able to sleep at all until the last flight which was only about an hour long flight. Steve was able to sleep in cat like increments so we were exhausted to say the least. We were so tired that when we got to Istanbul we had to collect our bags and check in, because we had to change airlines, that when we got our bags we forgot our carseat and booster seat. I remembered about 20 minutes before our flight started boarding. Steven thought about running over there to get it, but he was wearing brand new boots that probably would have really started hurting, we were in the doemstic terminal and it was in the international terminal, he would have to have gone to the check-in desks and asked to get it instead of just going to baggage claim, and he would have had to go through at least one security check point. I didn't want to risk him not making it back on time or us missing our flight. It wasn't really that big of a deal to just leave it there, we just bought Lilly a new booster seat and gave Ruby her carseat. We just feel dumb to have left it, but that's what exhaustion will do to you.
It took us a little over a week to get past the jet lag. The girls had it the worst and it made it bad for me. They would fall asleep and I would fall asleep with them. Poor Steven had to go back to work the next morning so he never had a chance to get any extra sleep in. I would have liked to just force myself to stay awake for a day and slept that night, but i was harder to keep the girls awake so they could sleep during the night too. But I'm happy to say that we are now just about back on a schedule!
I was waiting to go Christmas shopping for the girls so that I could go by myself and not have to worry about them seeing. Steven and I had talked about what we wanted to get them so we had a general idea what to look for. We decided to get books, movies, and coloring things. The girls had gotten so many new toys while we were in the states that we really did not want them to have any more. We also asked Sadie and Lilly to show us some of things at the BX that they wanted us o tell Santa about. One day last week I was at the BX with Sadie and Ruby and noticed that a lot of the kids books, not that they had a lot to begin with, were gone. I grabbed a gift bag and ever so discretely started putting some in the bag so that Sadie could not see. It worked pretty well so I was able to get a few more things for her and Lilly without her knowing. We are now done Christmas shopping and now I just need to wrap everything. I am sure that I'll be wrapping everything on Christmas Eve while Steven puts together the big toys, ha! Lately I have been falling asleep so early that I haven't been able to do anything, as soon as the girls are asleep I'm asleep too.
Steven is working today and then has a good few days off for Christmas. We are getting really excited for Christmas. The tree is up and decorated, the house is decorated, the stockings are up, and we've made more cookies than ever and have even more to make. The girls even got to see Santa this past Sunday. We got each of them their own photo with him instead of one photo with all of them in it. The past few days we've been eating cookies, drinking hot chocolate, and watching every Christmas movie we have. It has been nice to just rest and spend some time together. The only thing missing is our families in the states. It's going to be so nice when we live in the states to have family come for holidays.
Oh and the girls keep asking, "When are we going to Memaw/Yiayia's house? We've been here a really long time." They're ready to go back now, but Lilly is very happy to have her things and her house back, but she just wants to take the house back with her next time. We're all ready to back again!
♥K