Christmas expressions

Often happy

 Sometimes working hard

 This was priceless. wish you could have seen Katie's joy at giving her daddy a bag of chips. So precious!

Enjoying new toys

 Michael not so pleased...... why wouldn't a boy want a pen holder? The girls were happy with their heart shaped ones LOL

 Katie's response to a prank gift from her dad..... carrying on a Pittman family tradition.  Scott caught her expression of "What????"

Another prank!

Our attempt to make a gingerbread house...

 Merry Christmas!!!! We were able to find this little Christmas tree here because Christmas trees and Santa Claus are associated with New Year's celebration here. (Thanks to once being a part of the Soviet Union) We have enjoyed several Christmas activities and celebrations with other foreigners such as caroling, Christmas cookies exchanges, and a home schoolers gathering which included constructing a ginger bread house.

 Here we are with a friend, getting ready for the construction. As you can see, Will was able to help by eating lots of the candy intended for decorating.

 There were several families who gathered together for presentations for the kids and we each brought the materials for a house. If we had been in the States, I'm sure I would have made a Walmart run for one of those handy dandy kits that would result in a beautiful house (not sure how tasty though!) However, instead I did a google search to find instructions and a recipe. The other families constructed beautiful homes, the beginnings of which you can see here.

Ours, however, was a little too large. We decided to leave the roof off until we got home. However, it fell apart before we reached the car...... 

This is what we made it home with!

Anna and I tried to reconstruct but we ran out of icing.

 This little guy helped eat the icing

It stayed together for a few minutes. After it fell apart again, we decided to go ahead and cut it up into cookies and enjoy it while fresh. Very tasty!   Next year, maybe we will try a different design in the hopes it will stay up for a little longer.

We have Christmas boxes coming but are still on the way. I have heard from a couple of others who had boxes sent in mid-October which still haven't arrived.  We did some shopping this week so we have some items under the tree but it will be much simpler than some other years have been. It (not having our Christmas boxes) is good  for me in that we have a chance to make the emphasis of our Christmas be a celebration of Jesus.  We hope to have a fun family day, and maybe we'll be able to Skype with all our far away family as well. Last year we had the privilege of celebrating with both sides of the family (very unusual since our families are so spread out)

In an unrelated note, our home school helper, Lissie, left this week for a month long holiday visit with her family. She had quite an adventure getting home. You can read a little about it here

Thankful

Here we are on Thanksgiving morning. We decided to have a special breakfast before a feast later in the day. We had a lovely day (the cinnamon rolls were a hit) and some friends invited us to a Thanksgiving meal- complete with turkey and dressing.

I am very thankful for all of these people around the table(cloth!)  Moving back to Central Asia this year, I am so glad that Scott and the kids come with me. And, I am so thankful for Lissie. She has been a big blessing to us this fall.

 I love that Scott and I got married the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It is wonderful to celebrate thanksgiving and our anniversary so close together and each year I am very thankful for my husband. We celebrated 13 years this week and Scott brought this hugely beautiful bouquet home. We had a wonderful night out and had our first date without Will since he has born! Thanks again to Lissie for watching all four kiddos!

We have all of our heaters out now and here is Will playing with the saw dust that we burn in the heater behind Katie in the picture above. He is a magnet to messes and danger!

 

The view outside of our house. The mountains all around the city are so beautiful and are now covered with snow.

A few snippets

 Anna has a friend that has had a peanut butter making business for the past several years. Anna has learned how to make the peanut butter and  this is the first liter she sold! Demand is high since you can't buy peanut butter here locally and it is time consuming to make.She is excited about the possibility of some extra pocket money!

 Anna and I ready to attend our neighbor's wedding.

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Our other cuties!

Friends?

New family pic

Lissie kindly took a new family pic of us!

Flowers in the Fall

 We went to a park today by the river that we enjoy going to because it is quiet and there is lots of room for the kids to run around and explore. Anna enjoyed taking pictures and wanted to post some of the ones she took of the beautiful flowers. She took all of these pics.

Kitchen "Help"

 I was making pumpkin bread and my "helper" managed to pull the pumpkin/egg/ sugar mixture off the counter. Life with a one-year old: always an adventure.

As I got the camera, he started licking the sweet stuff off his clothes!

Past times

The kids love being on the wall around our yard. They walk on it, sit on it, and even run on it. Here, they are watching some boys play basket ball in our yard.

This morning, the same 2 had their binoculars out and were happily watching birds from the next wall over. The 2 neighboring yards in this direction are still under construction and there is no one living there yet.

 Anna has been learning bead work from our neighbors. They are working on the tops and sides of square shaped hats that new brides wear.

After the embroidery and bead work is finished, you  put a flour/ water mixture on the bottom to make it stiffen. Then, you cut if off. Then, our neighbors give the pieces to another neighbor who assembles the hats.

Birthday Girl

Sweet Katie turned 7 this week. Here is what she really wanted: a huge bear. Daddy was gone on her actual birthday so we celebrated early with him.

Kaite wanted to have a birthday party and invite all her friends from our neighborhood. The day before the party, we went to 3 households to invite the girls to come. We made a cake and other treats and got the room ready. We got mats and pillows ready for sitting, laid the tablecloth, and filled it with goodies. These mats are new, a neighbor made them for me. The sellers at the market helped me to pick out the best fabric.

We are ready.

These two are quite a pair.

We had lots of little guests! My plan was to play games inside with eating treats before and cake and more treats after. The games didn't go exactly as planned (though they did enjoy "Hot Potato") but the main thing was that everyone seemed to have a great time. Chaos was everywhere and Lissie, Anna, Michael and I were on the alert for the kids we know are the most naughty.

I layered two 9 x 13 cakes and did manage to serve cake to 23 with a little extra to spare.

The food was devoured and all the bottles emptied.

This lovely girl brought her little sister to the party. Will was very popular though I think he and the kittens were glad to see all the guests go home :-)

There's our sparkly eyed Katie!! Happy Birthday precious girl!