Where are you spring?

 It is March and still snowing here just about every week! Turks say that March is half winter and half spring...but we have not seen signs of spring yet, with lows still in the teens and highs in the 20’s and 30’s.  The forecast says we will be warming up to maybe the 40’s this week, which will be a welcome change. In the meantime, we are enjoying the prettiness of the winter season. This is Nathan’s view of Lake Emir by our house, when he walks in the forrest. 

We are thankful the kids love to play outside, especially when it is snowing!

This little girl had a fever for a couple days earlier in the month, and wanted to hang out on the couch and watch TV.

She loves to color, draw, and paint. Looks at these cute smiley faces!

Benjamin loves origami and watching videos about how to make different things. This is a giant pop-it.

One day the kids came to the Embassy for routine vaccinations. They all needed a PPD skin test, and poor Caleb needed 3 other shots. Everyone did great, though Eliza won the prize. She wanted to go first, she watched the needed go into her skin and said, “that didn’t hurt at all”. Caleb, who usually has to be pinned down by two people did a great job. He was scared, but let the nurse give him the shots, we were so proud of how far he has come in the doctor’s office. Benjamin, who used to be the easiest, got pretty worked up before the shots, but once he got it, he was fine. Three happy kids done and done....till the other shots arrive and we come back for more.

That weekend, I came down with a bad cold, that to my surprise ended up being COVID. I did not feel well for a few days, but was able to rest in bed while Nathan took care of the kids and the house, and he took time off work to care for Eliza when I wasn’t feeling well. Eliza loves her daddy and having a few days at home with him to herself was a treat for them both.  I would hear them playing and reading throughout the day, they have a very special bond. On any given day, you will catch her finding him around the house to give him a hug and a kiss. Nathan is a saint and I am so thankful for how wonderful of a husband and father he is.  

Kadem and her whole family had similar symptoms as me, and their entire family also ended up with COVID. Thankfully everyone is feeling better now! Then, on my day 5 the Embassy required the family to test, and it turned out all the kids tested positive, and Nathan was negative. Thankfully the kids have had no symptoms and feel well, and Nathan either had it, is Superman, or he will get it within the next week or so, but thankfully he feels good.  The kids now have a week out of school before they are allowed to go back. They are mostly having fun considering they are cooped up inside the apartment, however they definitely miss being outside with their friends as they watch them play from the window. One of their friends brought them a big goody bag of candy and cookies one evening and sweet note to say they missed them. 

We had a lot of take out this week, since I wasn’t up to cooking, and everyone enjoyed ordering multiple times from our favorite Chinese restaurant, Quick China. That evening, the boys kicked me out of the kitchen and set the table and put food on everyone’s plate.

After Benjamin cleaned up and did all the dishes.

Then, he surprised us and made dessert. He cut apples, strawberries, peeled oranges, and topped it with whipped cream.  He loves to be helpful and it was much appreciated this day!

We watched it snow throughout the weekend!

Back to homeschool for just a few days, which seems so easy after having done it for almost an entire school year, and it brought back nice memories for all of us, of doing school with last year. Since it’s the end of the quarter, the kids fortunately do not have a lot of school work, so they have enjoyed a lot of time to play. We have been reading more books, but the kids have been playing really nicely together so we just let them do that. Eliza said she loves having the brothers home and does not want them to go back to school, haha. Caleb is wearing a mask because it came with a new set of Managa character keychains and necklace/bracelet we ordered for him that he was waiting for weeks and just arrived. He loves Manga, which is Japanese anime comic books, and this set is from one of his favorite Manga books. 

I’ll leave you with this sweet video I meant to post last month. Eliza likes to rock me and sing me a song before bed, yes, she even wants me to sit in her lap! Then she gets in my lap and I rock and sing to her. She usually wants Twinkle, twinkle little star, but this night choose Mr. Sun. She has such a sweet little voice. Love this little girl so much. 

Thankfully everyone feels good now, and we have asked both COVID and winter to kindly leave and spring to arrives so we can enjoy some sunshine!

February Wrap Up

Just like January, I am going to wrap up February in one post, then move on to March, since we are already half way through the month! In February, we had a lot of... snow. It snowed several times during the month, and each time we got several inches, plenty for the kids to play in and go sledding. The first day of snow always attracts lots of kids. This was mid-morning, but by early afternoon it was much busier on the sledding hills.

They love the snow and have embraced it nicely. The boys will stay outside all day in their comfy snow gear. Eliza likes to sled for a while, but eventually her hands get cold because she usually takes her gloves off, then she is done ;).

I love this picture of Nathan and the kids. He is such an engaged and fun dad. We are lucky he is ours :).

All the kids play well together, but more recently Caleb and Eliza have bonded a lot. He is especially attentive and patient with her, and she just loves to be with him and have him take her around :).

Nathan enjoyed these pretty scenes while walking in the woods on a snowy day.

Nathan had to travel back to the US for a couple of weeks, and the morning he left we got another snow storm, which ended up being a snow day for all of us, so we enjoyed breakfast together, spent some of their Christmas money, then the kids played in the snow.

It was a pretty good storm, and it continued to snow through the weekend.

The kids enjoyed building forts that weekend too.

Rediscovering their dominos that we love all 1000 pieces of.

They bought 3D puzzles with some of their Christmas money.

Benjamin built the Anıtkabır, which is Ataturk’s Masoleum ,then decided to build St. Basil’s church in Moscow.

Caleb built the Harry Potter caste. The boys worked on these puzzles for hours throughout the weekend, and were proud of the finished products.

We also worked on a dog puzzle they got for Christmas. We did finish it, right before Nathan got home.

Another weekend we went to the military base to shop and play on the playground. This is a newly built playground with a zip line, it’s lots of fun.

On different days, we went to an indoor play place near our house. We have 3 within walking distance, but this one is their faovrite.

Eliza likes showing off her bike riding skills!

Getting some lunch after burning off some energy.

Since Nathan was gone, Kadem and family brought us flowers and made us a cake for Valentine’s Day. It was very sweet and tasty.

Benjamin had fun helping me make salt dough for Caleb’s class, for a science project.

We had a wedding at hour house one morning. These kids are so cute and creative!

And then daddy came home!! I told the kids he would be home late, but even at 9pm, they heard the bell and ran out of their rooms to attack him. Benjamin and Caleb even cut up lots of teeny paper as confetti to welcome Nathan back....and yes, we still had our Christmas tree up, it came down towards the end of February.

I had been trying to not dye my hair...as you can see, I am completely silver. This was about 4 months. I like the idea of growing it out, but my hair grows so slow so I decided it was time for a dye.

Much better!

When we were in Iznik, a small town in northwest Turkey that is famous for ceramic pottery, we had dinner plates made. The lady designed them by hand, painted them, then sent them to us in mid February. I have wanted plates from this part of the world for a long time, and love how they turned out! You can’t tell by the proportions, but here are the plates. We got 8 dinner plates.

Two larger serving dishes.

8 dessert plates with matching coffee/tea cup and saucer.

Poor Benjamin wasn’t feeling well one day. He had a fever and just wanted to lay on the couch. If you know Benjamin, you know that is completely out of character for him. COVID was going through his class, so we got him tested, thankfully it was negative, his fever passed quickly, and he was back to himself in a couple days.

This is what he lives for...playing soccer outside with his friends! 

The kids are also loving BLT’s lately. It’s an easy meal and always tasty.

This sweet girl loves to paint, color, and draw. It is fun to watch her discover how to create things, and as a bonus she is so careful and completely trustworthy with paint!

We love being able to see sunrise and sunset each day. This was a pretty sunrise one morning. 

And that’s a wrap on February!

January Wrap Up

 I took a blogging break after all the vacation blogging, and am going to wrap up the rest of January in one blog. We were welcomed back to Ankara with lots of snow and had a few good snow storms that month. 

Nathan enjoys long walks in the woods across the street from our neighborhood, it’s so pretty in the winter!

The kids also enjoyed playing with their Christmas gifts. We left for our second trip the day after Christmas so they were excited to play with them when we got back.

Cool kiddos.

Lots of playing outside and good team work with friends!

One evening we had Kadem and her family over for a belated New Years/Thanksgiving dinner, when their eldest daughter, Ezgi, was in town for a couple of weeks. They don’t eat turkey or ham, so we had a fusion Turkish American meal with Turkish kebap and döner and traditional American sides and pumpkin pie. We had a fun time together and they enjoyed trying new foods. 

Eliza started private gymnastics classes twice a week at a nearby gym. 

We got to go to a couple of classes and it was fun to see her learn and have fun.

This about sums her up. All girl but loves to play like a boy!

It was a good to be back in town, back to routines of school and work, and normal everyday things.