December in a Nutshell

December has been a crazy month. The month started off with a biopsy. And that biopsy came back suspicious so to say my nerves and psyche are rattled would be a severe understatement. I also got that news on Ruby's 2nd birthday just made everything worse. I have been trying my darnedest to be calm and not to ruin the girls' birthdays or holidays. Keep your mind off things like this is a feat though. Mood swings don't help either. But we've done our best and the girls and Steven have been amazing patient and caring with me. I have truly been blessed with the best kids and husband in the world.

Now when did Ruby think it was okay to turn 2 and then the next day Sadie turned 4 to boot. I have no idea where the time has gone? It seems like just yesterday we moved here with a 3,2, and 2 month old. Now we are about to leave and have an almost 6, 4, and 2 year old. The girls had a lovely and quiet birthdays at home. We got Ruby a battery powered quad that she loved. She put on her helmet and was riding it all around the living room. It had rained for a few days straight so there was no way that we were going to let her outside with the thing. She had a blast anyways. Lilly and Sadie picked out a Lalaloopsy doll for her too and she has loved the crap out of the thing since it came out of the box. She named it Cutie Pie and dragged it everywhere for at least a week and a half. She also got some pretty horses from Memaw, Papop, and Shelby. She was so excited for her cake and candles to blow out that she blew the candles out the second it was placed in front of her. So, we had to light them again and she got to blow them out twice :)

Sadie's birthday was very chill. Daddy had to work so we played Disney video games all day. She is definitely the gamer out of the three of them. Her favorite thing to do is just to sit with Daddy and 'help'/watch him play video games. Whenever I had to go out into the city for doctor's appointments he would stay home with Sadie and Ruby and they would just sit around and 'play' video games together. So if you think the child had a boring birthday and had no fun at all, you're sorely mistaken. She had a blast and when I told her it was time for a break, she pouted and got all whiny. Instead of having cake 2 nights in a row, she opted for some birthday ice cream sundaes and then have cake the next night. She got a Nintendo DS for her birthday, a Disney Princess game, and a Hello Kitty carry case for it. She also got a pink camera from Memaw, Papop, and Shelby! She was in heaven. She had a blast playing with everything. So much so that she killed the batteries on both the DS and camera in less than a day!

Yiayia and Papou sent gift cards so the girls could 'do their own shopping', which they love! They even get to swipe the cards like credit/debit cards. Ruby picked out another Lalaloopsy doll. She carried the box around all by herself until we got home and she needed me to open it for her. She promptly named her Cutie Pie and went off to show her other Cutie Pie the new Cutie Pie. Lilly and Sadie desperately tried to change Ruby's mind on the name. The really didn't like her giving the doll the same name as her other doll. Sadie found a Disney Princess game. It's like those electronic poker games but with Princesses, for kids, and in pink. She loves it. I told you, the girl loves video games. They were both so happy to 'pay' for their own things. They just keep growing too fast.

Then came Steven's trip to Landstuhl. He was there for a week for a sleep study and sleep testing. He doesn't sleep very well and on top of it had been on night shift for over 9 months and finely a few weeks ago got back onto to day shift. But it didn't last long. When he returned home from Germany, he was informed that starting in January he would be back onto nights until we PCS is February. PCS means permanent change of station, also known as moving to another base. Anyways, he had to wear a monitor on his wrist for a week that was very similar looking to a watch. The doctor checked the readings it was getting and was not too pleased because he hadn't actually slept much. He doesn't sleep very well to begin with but the boy can't sleep at all when I'm not with him. Sweet man I have. Well the day of his overnight study she told him that if he didn't sleep than he would have to stay for another 10 days and wear the monitor again. Way to put the pressure on. If that happened he would have missed Christmas with us and would still be up there right now. Thankfully he slept, despite several vivid dreams in which he didn't sleep, and got wonderfully normal results. Had any abnormalities shown up, we risked Steven being medically discharged and out of a job. Praise the Lord, the guy is fine. When it rains in our house, it pours, huh?!

Despite everything, we had a great Christmas. It was awesome to be able to spend time together. We decided that next year we will go all out with home cooked, from scratch food for Thanksgiving, but Christmas we are just going simple and maybe even take out. We wanted to spend time with the girls and not standing around in the kitchen cooking and doing dishes. The girls got some great gifts this year. Lilly got a vanity, Sadie got her coveted cleaning cart, and Ruby got a pirate ship play set/ride on from Santa. The biggest disappointment, Lilly and Sadie's Huffy scooters. Steven was so excited to get them for them and when we took them out of the box to assemble, the back wheels for both scooters were not there. The boxes were sealed shut and we had just opened them and the wheels were no where to be found. I'm hoping the company will just mail us some. I have to give them call but with the time difference it's a little hard to find the right time. The girls got some awesome presents from Memaw, Papop, and Shelby. Lilly got a battery powered horse and a basketball. Sadie got a full doll house that she was ecstatic about. And Ruby got a Baby Alive. The girl loves her some baby dolls. What she doesn't know that we will be donating all other baby dolls except for her Baby Alive and Lalaloopsy dolls. We've had to hide them for now because she will line them all up and try to take every. single. doll. everywhere with her. They also got some more gift cards from Yiayia and Papou so that when we get to Nebraska in February they can buy some new toys to tie them over until our household goods get there.

Next week I'm headed to Germany for another biopsy and a consult with the Endocrinologist there. Hopefully the test will be easy and pain free and I get the results before I leave. I am having some anxiety over it all, not only for the test and implications but traveling internationally by myself. Traveling is kind of difficult for me, especially when there is more than one language barrier to get past. I know I'll get through it and I'll be fine but I have a hard time coping with change that I can't control. If you know me you know I'm a huge control freak. But say a prayer for me anyways. I can always use an extra prayer.

In better news, all of our PCS paperwork is submitted and we are now waiting on dates of plane tickets and a set of orders so we can pack out. We still have to clear our car and beyanname. A beyanname is a form with all of the furniture and electronics we brought into the country in our household goods shipment. It's because there is a huge black market here, the beyanname is the Turkish governments way of trying to contain and control it. Luckily we had a great guy do ours and he only put a handful of things on it so it'll be no problem to clear it. Hopefully it won't be as difficult to clear the car as it was to get the car. Either way it'll work itself out. The biggest thing we really have to worry about is what to separate into the suitcase pile, the unaccompanied baggage pile, donate pile, toss pile, and household goods shipment. I'm really not too worried about the housing inspection. Every time we've moved out of base housing we've had to pay something and since the exchange rate is in our favor here and it will come straight out of Steven's paycheck, so we don't need to worry about making a payment, I'm really not stressed about it. It feels like everything is finally coming together and in  2 short months we'll be in our own house in Nebraska. Hopefully 2012 is a much better year for us.

Here's hoping that everyone has a happy and healthy 2012!

-K

Golf Weekend

So last Saturday was a whole lotta golf! Steven played in the clubs Turkey Trot tournament with some guys from work. He went to have fun and get some practice in. And even though his team didn't win, everyone got a free turkey for participation, ha! This year will be our first Thanksgiving in which we actually will have turkey. Steven's not a huge fan of turkey so we usually do chicken or ham, so hopefully I don't mess it up!

We also had Lilly's 4th week of golf lessons. And since Steven was playing golf, the girls and I got to go too. We had rain clouds and wind all morning so we weren't sure if we'd still have it, but the weather started turning as soon as we got there. There was still a lot of wind but it started to warm up as soon as the sun came out. Sadie was a little bored but managed to keep herself entertained using my iPod camera. Ruby was very annoyed that she had to sit in the stroller and I wouldn't let her out.

Lilly did really well. I could tell it was hard to get any good hits on the driving range, mostly because the golf club she was using was too small for her and the next size up was way to big for her. But when she got to the putting, she was a pro. She did so good and kept moving the ball further and further away from the hole. No matter how far away she was from the hole, she just kept sinking the putts.

Her next lesson won't be for a few weeks, but they are going to go out on the course and play few holes and drive golf carts. She loves the golf carts!


After her lesson we noticed how great the sun looked on the mountains so we stopped to take some photos. And then we headed to Starbucks to get a much needed hot chocolate for Sadie and Lilly and a peppermint mocha for me :) I ♥ Peppermint Mocha!


-K

Thursday Market

Thursday morning, after Steven took Lilly to school, we headed out to the Alley for the Thursday market. I don't think we will ever have the opportunity to purchase fresh produce for so little money. I really will miss this part of Turkey. The best part of going this early, we didn't get asked by every vendor, multiple times, if we wanted what they were selling. We always go with the intention to buy more vegetables than fruit, but it's really hard to resist.

They have many other things there, but we usually just go for the produce. They have clothes, shoes, household items, rugs, and even fresh olives. The man with the olives kept asking if we wanted some to take home to make fresh olive oil. I would love to try that one day, but I'd have to do some research on what to do. They offered Steven an olive one time, the man does love him some olives, and didn't realize it wasn't prepared. He took a bite and made a face and the men at the cart just started laughing. He walked away with the feeling they were saying 'dumb American". We had a good laugh about on the way home.

The girls found some wall stickers that they liked. They were Disney Princess ones, and they wanted. I would have loved to get them some for their rooms. For 1) I wasn't sure if they would be easy or not to take off the wall when we move, 2) we tried them when Lilly and Sadie were younger and they kept pulling them off to play with them, and 3) we tried again when we moved here with vinyls and Lilly still tried to pull hers off again and ripped it. Maybe one day they'll work.

We did pretty darn good money wise. The best deal of the day, the eggplant. We got 1 kilo, about 2.2 lbs, for only 1 Turkish Lira. That's only 55 cents. Now that I think about it, we probably should have gotten more to freeze. Maybe they still be that price next Thursday. We brought home some persimmons, plums, bananas, peaches, pomegranates, eggplant, potatoes, and red onions. All of that was only 18 lira, about $9.83. You can't beat that price anywhere. And it was so good! The second we got home, Ruby had to have a banana. Poor girl was in agony over not being able to eat a banana the second she saw them. We've tried everything but the potatoes- hopefully tomorrow- and it was all so good.


Here's hoping that next week is as good as the last!

-K

Happy Birthday Steven!

This past Saturday, my sweet hubby turned 27. We celebrated with some movies, a rib dinner, and some cupcakes.

This year he picked out his own present about a month ago. The BX happened to have a new Sony tablet and since he had just lost his ipod too, it was an easy decision. The girls still wanted to pick out some things for him as well. His parents, Memaw and Papop as we like to call them :), sent him some money for his birthday. So to keep the surprise effect he tasked us with picking out some goodies for him. If you know the girls, you know they like to pick out toys for Daddy so that he can play with them. One year it was play dough, for some reason I can't remember last years, and this year it was a sword. Not just any sword, a Star Wars light sabre! They were thrilled to show him what they picked out and after it was opened a rather large sword fight erupted.

The thing I picked out was a trolley for his golf bag. That way when he golfs he doesn't need to rent one or a cart unless he wants to. And it's one thing that I knew he wanted eventually. And it was the only one at the BX. And the man is hard to shop for. So golf trolley it was. Lucky he really liked it. Did I mention he's hard to shop?

I made the mistake of saying that the light sabre reminded of Howard Walowitz from Big Bang Theory. He has a pair of light sabres displayed in an x above his bed. Now he has his sitting on the headboard to our bed. I kid you not, it's been there since Saturday.

We made ribs and cupcakes and had a wonderful dinner. The girls sang "Happy Birthday" twice and after the second time, Lilly and Sadie squealed in unison, "Blow out your candles Daddy!" Steven started laughing and blew out the candles. I was lucky enough to catch that on camera! After we took a minute to take a picture of us and the girls wanted in too. So Daddy took a picture with each of them, including his other girl Sophie!
And after dinner we got a treat, a college football game that wasn't on in the middle of the night here. Unfortunately it was the Texas/Oklahoma game. We were rooting for Texas but seemed completely apparent that they weren't going to win early on, so we called it a night. Other than the football, I think he had a pretty good birthday this year!

-k

Our Christmas Tree - 2010 Edition!

This is how our tree started out this year. We bought it in Texas and put it in one of our suitcases to bring back. Silly me forgot to pack the new LED lights in the suitcases and didn't get them until this past Friday. The night we got back the girls went to sleep and were up and ready to play at 2:30am. So...instead of feeling sorry about myself and my extreme lack of sleep, I put the tree up at 3:00 in the morning. It stayed like this until this past Sunday when we were finally able to decorate it. Ruby did so good with leaving it alone like this, that I thought we wouldn't have to worry about her and the tree.

The first year we actually spent Christmas together we had to buy all of our Christmas decorations at once. We bought a pre-lit tree and some really cheap bulb ornaments that are amazing. They are shatter proof and have dealt with the abuse of moving twice, three monsters children, and a cat that thinks the tree is one giant cat toy. Anyways, that year we decided to start a tradition of buying a new ornament every year for each of us. One of these  years, when we have the opportunity, I want to buy 2 more cheap Christmas trees. One for the playroom with all the handmade ornaments the kids have made, one for the living room with all of our tradition ornaments, and a very formal one for the dining room.

Lilly picked out a brown horse ornament from a store in Texas.

 

Sadie picked out Rapunzrl from the Disney Store. We saw Tangled with Memaw, Papop, and Shelby and she just fell completely in love with it.

 

Ruby loves Minnie Mouse, so when we were at the Disney Store she picked a Minnie ornament out.

 

Steven picked out his ornament at the same store Lilly got hers. He found a bought with the Texas state flag on it so he had to get it. He also found one more as a "family" ornament. It's a horse shoe that 

says "Life is Good". We think that pretty much sums up our lives.

 

I found mine at a store in San Antonio. When we got to Texas it started getting colder in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and soon started to snow. Knowing we didn't see snow at my parents house and we wouldn't see any in Texas or in Turkey, I got a little sad. I have always loved snow. My ornament is a beautiful snowflake.

 

The big girls helped putting the rest of the ornaments on.

We got some fake poinsettias from Walmart for a $1. The just clip onto the tree branches. I REALLY, REALLY wish I had bought some more. I LOVE how they looked on the tree. And no more than a minute after the tree was done, Ruby started to take as many ornaments off as fast as she could before one of us notices.

The blue and purple on the tree are the poinsettias. They had them in a few different colors and I love them all.

 

Oh and by the way Ruby is constantly pulling ornaments off. She will even drag the tree towards the kitchen. AND, she is the only one of the 3 girls that has managed to pull the ENTIRE tree down last night. Maybe next year we won't have to worry about kids tearing apart the tree?

♥K