Sledding

We finally got enough snow to go sledding a few days before Christmas. This was the 3rd time we went out (just at the Embassy), and finally remembered to take the camera. For some reason Oliver wasn't as happy this time, but I promise the other two times he LOVED it. We couldn't get him off the sled. He'd just sit there and wait for more and laughed on his way down. When we'd ask if he wanted to go again he'd shout, "SURE!" The two little hills here at the Embassy are pretty small. We're hoping to go somewhere better over the break in January, but the snow is all melting!

Levin has the whole first week of January off because they are Russian holidays. The Russians love their holidays! Wish us luck that we can find enough snow to go sledding again.

Normally they build a little ice rink on the green here at the Embassy. The bad news is, not yet this year. The good news is, because it hasn't gotten cold enough. It has to be below 5 Farenheit for 2 weeks straight before they will build it. Maybe I won't complain if it never gets that cold. I've heard that last May they were chipping away the large pieces of ice from last years rink - Yes, that's right I say MAY, MAY and the ice wasn't melted on its own. Oh mamma mia!

Christmas Movie

Leah Laptop Video

Oliver Basketball Video

Who is the worst parent in this video? Me for helping and therefore making him weak? or Levin for rejecting him to toughen him up?

Christmas

I guess Christmas was all about Oliver. The only pictures that really turned out are of him. Santa brought the kids this ball tent. Oliver climbed in and did not want to come out. He didn't even want to open his other presents. Once I threw the present in to him to open and he did it. I hated to make him cry in order to open a present . . I confess we "helped" him a few times.

Santa Claus also brought Oliver this rocking bear. He also brought both the kids a sled. More pictures of that later, but I think the pictures are not even on the sled Santa brought but one I bought at a yard sale here earlier in the summer.
Leah got a laptop, "Leaptop" from Santa and we gave her a cash register and play food that she likes a lot. There were plenty of other presents, but I think those were the main ones. Oh, and Oliver's basketball hoop. I'll post the video of that later too.

Christmas Eve Party

The bishopric hosted a Christmas Eve party for the singles in our ward. Since the other ward already had the church we hosted it at the Embassy which meant we had to recruit other Embassy employees to help us escort. We had a great time. We had two turkeys and a ham and polished them both off!

We are the international ward in Moscow so as you can see we have quite the variety. Most of us are American, but we also have German (bishops family) and in this picture alone we have Philippines, Nigeria, Chad, Zimbabwe and maybe Ghana and Congo. I can't remember, but we definitely have them as members of our ward. Not everyone could come and some people had left by the time we took this picture. Russians were protesting the recent election which kept some people at home and some people had to work.

Levin spent most of his time hunting down people who'd never been to the Embassy before and were struggling to find the gate. And security isn't exactly easy at the Embassy either.

I got tons of compliments on my turkey and Levin didn't even try any! He was always too busy. I did a lot of cooking for it since Levin was mostly in charge. I need tips from people on how to host a dinner AND look nice when it's finally time to eat. I didn't want to cook in my party clothes so I just put on something I wouldn't get too hot in. But before I knew it I was using shopping carts to haul my food downstairs while begging people to watch the kids while I went back for more and I somehow never got time to change! That has happened to me, oh . . . every time I have cooked for people. Obviously I need to figure this out or maybe just start cooking earlier.

Anyway we had a great time! Africans are always late and I always had this same problem in Nigeria that by the time we got there it felt like we were already sending them home.

Leah Ballerina

Leah started ballet class this week. Classes at the Embassy started in the fall, but you had to be 3 and Leah wasn't. She wanted to take ballet class soooooo badly. I decided to ask if now that she was 3 she could join and was told she could. We went to the first ballet class and Leah was the happiest I've ever seen. She constantly was smiling, a smile of pure joy, not hyperness. She was quiet and well-behaved and I was so proud of her! After class the Russian teachers explained to me that the other girls (3 and 4 year olds) have been working for almost 4 months now so that I could bring Leah to the next class and "we'll see how she does if she knows what we expect of her" and if decide if she can stay. I felt so sad and worried even though I understood their point. I didn't want to be one of "those parents" that pushes and pressures her all week, but I didn't want her to fail either. I did try a few things.
We borrowed some ballet clothes so luckily we hadn't put a lot money into it.
Friday we went to the 2nd class. Leah is so cute and wants to hold my hand and acts shy when we get there. I love it! This is what we reviewed the most during the week.
Me: Leah, during ballet class who do you watch?
Leah: The teacher!
Me: Leah, when Kaelynn (her friend) is being silly in ballet class who do you watch, her or the teacher?
Leah: The teacher!
Well . . . . Leah was so distracted by the other girls. Kaelynn was well behaved this time, unlike Monday when she got kicked out of class. But Leah still kept daydreaming and I think was mostly focusing on how pretty she felt. She loves when the teachers give her attention and move her legs for her, but she forgets to move her own legs then.
After class we hung around and I was a little nervous. I knew they wouldn't let her stay. But I went and asked and they said yes! They said, "she did a little better this week, so after the break bring her back Jan 9th and we will let her stay and see how she does."
YEAH!!! I don't care so much except that Leah really, really, likes ballet class. The teachers are strict but she doesn't seem to mind. They will have a recital in May and I hear that it is amazing, but we'll see. Most important is that Leah keeps liking it. I think she mostly likes wearing her "bootiful ballet dress and tights."

Failure

I am a failure as a mother. A friend at church gave us an IKEA gingerbread house kit. Maybe we weren't careful enough, but two of the walls were broken and well, I couldn't fix it. I made the frosting, which by the way all the recipes I found online included raw eggs. So we ended up with Leah decorating a roof and Oliver eating candy and pieces of the wall. The walls were actually quite tasty. Oh yeah and the commissary had promised to have their Christmas candy out so I got the kids all excited, we go to the commissary, and nothing. So we used marshmallows, fruit Mentos, and M&M's. Worst gingerbread house ever!

Leah's Birthday video

Leah's Birthday

I am a little late in posting about Leah's birthday. Better late than never right?

Although you can't see them in this picture we had a little party with Aunt Dani and Bo when they were here visiting even though it was almost a week before Leah's actual birthday. We had purple cupcakes which she then informed me she needed a cake when all along she's been talking about cupcakes. Oh well, at least she got the color of frosting she wanted. Bo brought this sweet party hat for her.
She got a few presents including this Elmo Doctor Kit. We've already lost the pieces and can't even find the box. I need to do a toy purge before Christmas. She also got a Play Doh fun factory from grandma and a Dora book and some sweet things from Aunt Dani including some cookies in a cute Hello Kitty tin.
A few days later we had another party with our friends the Petersons. They are so sweet and the kids made homemade wrapping paper. We had cake this time, again with purple frosting. James is allergic to anything corn and powdered sugar has corn starch so that is why a corner is frosting-free. We also had left-over Thanksgiving pie. For some reason Bruce looks like he's crying in this picture, but he wasn't.
I posted another picture of him to redeem his beautiful and happy face.
The favorite present she got wasn't the game Don't Break The Ice that we got for her, it was the Masha and Medved movie that I think baby Peterson gave to Leah. It is a Russian cartoon about a little girl and a bear. It is adoreable and Leah loves it and just refers to it as her new show. There is some New Years special somewhere in Moscow so there are posters everywhere and Leah always says, "look my new show!"

Happy Birthday to my sweet Leah! She can test my patience, but when she feels sorry she makes sure to let me know that she is my best daughter. I don't know how I got so lucky to have such an affectionate girl who gives me "the best hug ever in town" too. I love it! She has become a great sister to Oliver too. They have their fights, but she is usually very quick to share - amazingly quick sometimes. We love you Leah!!

An Interesting Fact

Here is an interesting fact that you may not know. Red Square in Moscow is not called Red Square because some of the buildings are red brick or that the wall around the Kremlin is red brick. In fact, it wasn't even red back in the day, it was limestone, then brick that they paint red.

In Russian the word for the color red and the word for beautiful are the same root word so it actually means beautiful square.

So said my Russian class teacher in September and the tour guide that took us to see the Kremlin grounds.

There used to be a lot of festivals and things on Krasni Ploshad, a.k.a. "Red Square."

Thanksgiving Visitors

It has obviously been too long since I blogged because I got my pictures all out of whack. My sister and her friend Bo came to visit us for Thanksgiving. In random order, here are some of the highlights.

We saw Lenin's tomb. You go inside and see his body that is still on display after all these years. It is not peak tourist season so we didn't have to wait in line at all and it basically looked like you were looking at a wax figure, but it is something that I figure I had to do while living in Moscow. No photography inside.
Here we are at Red Square.
Near Gorky Park there is a park for fallen statues. Here is Stalin. They weren't all former Soviet ones, some where just artistic and Ghandi was there too.
Some holy relics inside one of the churches. A monumental part of their trip was when we learned what relics were. I have vague memories of learning it in school, but had forgotten, but they seem to be a big part of the Orthodox church.
Outside the monastary in Sergiev Posad, with our tour guide. It is the "spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox church." The main church was bigger than I expected. Most of the stuff there has never been restored so the frescoes on the wall are faded, etc. They were shut down by the Bolsheviks but were re-opened during or after WWII. It was interesting.
On the inside of the monastery. The church in the background is only used for confessions.
We also went on a tour of the Kremlin armory and the grounds. Here is one of the churches.
Bo and Oliver played elevator every day, multiple times. Every morning Oliver would freak out like he'd never seen Bo before. Oliver has issues with strangers. But during the day, and most likely caused by playing elevator, Oliver would "remember" and would love Bo the rest of the day.
Dani and Bo talking to our excellent tour guide at the Kremlin. The church in the background, I think is called the church of the Assumption. It is were weddings, etc. are performed, but wouldn't you know it was under construction. I'm not sure you noticed, but the sky is sunny in this picture, as well as the day we were at the monastery in Sergiev Posad. AND it was sunny when I picked them up from the airport. I don't think they appreciate how lucky they were to get the sun shining. It is always overcast. Or maybe they brought the sunshine to us because no sun since they left.
This picture should have been first. We brought them home from the airport, fed them and then we made them walk in the freezing cold to Red Square. Here we are at St. Basils. We wanted to get them over their jet lag as fast as possible.

We had a fantabulous time with them and we were so devastated when they had to go home.

Marine Ball 2

A friend just emailed me more pictures so I'll post them.

The very huge cake.
With our friend Aaron.
With our friends the Burts and the Queens. I'm not sure how I ended up between the Burts, but oh well.
Here is a picture of Kat.

Marine Ball

The Marines celebrate their birthday every year. And at Embassies they always have a ball. The movies always make it seem like the Marines are there to save all the Americans, but mostly they are there to protect the information contained in the Embassy, not us. But it is still nice seeing them around.

Here we are with Levin's boss, his wife, and his administrative assistant. She came with us and is our neighbor (she was in our jack-o-lantern carving pictures.)
This is during part of the ceremony. I was too short and our camera accidentally got on a weird setting so the other pictures were blurry. Next to the three marines here, to the right, is a top of a white hat you can see. That Marine is a female, and she is in our ward at church. Unfortunately, I didn't get her picture.

The dinner was nice and fancy and the alcohol was plentiful, but of course we didn't drink.

One reason we wanted to go is because it was in the Ambassadors residence and Levin wanted me to see it. It is called Spaso House. The American Ambassador in 1930's (the first to come back after the revolution) was given his choice of several houses and he chose this one built by a wealthy merchant in the 1910's. The American Ambassador has been living there ever since. In 1934 I think it was, the Ambassador held a big party which included live animals from the zoo and circus. The party was "Immortalized by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov in his satire of the Soviet era, The Master and Margarita, as the “Spring Ball of the Full Moon,” this event brought over 400 guests to Spaso House." The current ambassador, Beryle, recreated the party, but with animals in paper mache costumes. Not last night at the Ball, but a separate party before we got here.

Moscow Zoo

Friday was a Russian holiday so Levin didn't work. The zoo is literally a 5 minute walk from our house, so you'd think we'd go a lot, but we don't. I just need to borrow another kid and we'd get in free. You never pay for kids, just adults, and if you're bringing three kids you get in free.

Here we are with a wolf. If you're wondering why Levin isn't in the pictures it's because he refuses to get in them and when he is, he refuses to look at the camera. We have this same picture with him holding Leah but he's looking away and as soon as I give the camera back the wolf moves so he takes a picture and there we are.
You should have seen how many people were feeding this giraffe. Some were feeding him apples, I don't know what others were feeding him. Somehow I don't think that'd go over so well in an American zoo.
Leah finally got to go on her carnival ride. The animals were like airplanes where you could pull the lever and fly. She loved it! Levin said she was the only kid on the ride that was smiling.
Burger King is connected to the zoo so we exited out that way and had some lunch. Burger King has no seating that isn't upstairs and with a stroller that is hard so we ate outside. It hadn't been too cold of a day, but suddenly it was freezing! We were ready to go home afterwards.

Halloween Carnival

On Halloween the Embassy had a carnival for the kids. Unfortunately, both Leah and I were a little disappointed. Somehow Leah had the idea there would be rides there and I had the idea there would be more than two games.

Here she is doing the clothespin drop. The 11 yr old helping out was nice and moved the cup up closer to her.
Can't you just see by their faces how much fun they were having? Hmm . . .
Leah did like this. Unfortunately I could never get both kids lined up right.
She got some vampire teeth, but before we got home she'd already lost them - a 3 minute walk. So I ran back and got her some more. I felt justified and here is why. Every family was supposed to bring a bag of candy and a lunch item. When we got there, several people were there, but there were a plate of goldfish crackers and a big bowl of applesauce. And Leah only had the maximum chance of winning 4 pieces of candy and we had brought a lot. We pushed ourselves to stay 30 minutes and it was supposed to last for 3 hours. I guess next year I'll have more correct expectations and hopefully so will Leah. She kept telling me Halloween wasn't over because we hadn't gone to the carnival. I told her we did and she said, no because there were no rides. She's still asking about it.

Kolomenskaya

The last Saturday in October we went to Kolomenskaya. I hope I'm spelling it right. It was the first palace built by the Romanov Dynasty. I think originally everything was built out of wood, but many things have been rebuilt, but even the rebuilt stuf is really old. It was so cold that day.

I went inside this church, but it was actually being used so I didn't get to see much. Once again I forgot to bring a head cover and was saved by having a hood on my coat.

We stopped at a little place to have some bleeni (little pancakes) but they were sick. You know when our family doesn't finish something that is sweet it must be disgusting. Here is Oliver with his juice box that I think he later got all over himself. Whoever invented juice boxes? Kids love them, but what a mess.

Single Shots

Visitors aren't allowed to bring in cameras or cell phones so these are the pictures we took for the Petersons.
Kate - fairy godmother
James - Knight
Bruce - Pirate
William - Tiger