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!