Sewing Craze

So I recently got into sewing clothes for Leah.  I can't wait to go to America and get some fabric.  I would have just ordered more online, but I thought it wouldn't get her in time.  So . . I had plans for a quilt with some Nigerian fabric.  It is the only fabric I brought with me, and I regret it so much.  Anyway, I decided quilts take too much time and work and  would never get to it.  So . . I started using it up for clothes for Leah.  I am unable to find the right elastic I need here in Moscow so I ordered some and it is taking FOREVER to arrive.  So her dress and shirt are just sitting there - unfinished.  I have tons to do so the last thing I should have done was sew her another skirt this afternoon, but I did.  Here she is trying it on right after I finished.  She is being a little bit silly.

 She got so excited to get her picture taken she tried on the skirt I made her a few weeks ago and wanted a picture of it too.  Oliver can't stand not being in a picture . . . so you got him too.  I had to talk him into moving to the side of Leah because he wanted to stand right in front of her shouting out "cheese!"

Leah's Ballet Recital

Leah had her ballet recital on Saturday.  We had to go early and let her teacher fix her hair.  I think Leah was traumatized by the hairspray and kept her face hidden long after it was sprayed.

 They showed us their floor routines they do in practice every week.  Leah wasn't actually supposed to be dancing here below, but I took her picture anyway.

 They did their barre routine too.  Leah often doesn't do much unless the teacher is actually moving her leg for her during barre time, but at the recital she really tried hard.

 They did four dances.  Leah is the 2nd lady bug from the right - she and Kalyn missed their cue to kneel down.

 Here she is in her costume for the next dance.

 The mushroom dance was my favorite I think.

 The duckling dance Leah was a little concerned about the immodesty of her costume and worked hard to keep the skirt up high and tried to pull the top (which didn't stretch) down low.

 With flowers we got for her.  I thought we would be special and get her flowers, but nearly every other parent did too so I'm certainly glad we got her some although she was a lot more excited with the candy bar the teachers gave all the girls.

I'll be honest I'm happy that ballet practice is over although I did enjoy talking with another ballet mom who goes to our church.  I'm glad Leah got to do the recital.  Once I explained about the recital she paid a lot closer attention in class and I think after the recital she is convinced (for now) that she wants to do ballet next year.  The teachers do great things with the girls considering Leah and the other 3 year olds were not always the best students and considering they are kind of boring teachers who only play boring classical music for the girls.  But they put a lot into it, made all the costumes themselves, etc.
I will try and post video of her actually dancing later.

Kids

There is a park close by the Embassy - I call it the White House park because it's near the Russian White House, but I don't know what it's really called.  Leah calls it "the new playground we always go to."  It's a nice little park.

 Thursday night we went out to eat with Levin's sister's parents-in-law.  Wow, long way to describe who they were.  Anyway, they were visiting Moscow.  While we were waiting for them at the hotel, Oliver was sooo cute playing behind the railing playing peekaboo with me.  I took one picture and then he said "cheese" about 100 times after that.  Here are 2 of about 25 pictures I took to keep him entertained.

Victory Day Parade

The beginning of May, I can't even remember the date now, was Russia's Victory Day.  They had a parade, but it was all military stuff - you know showing off their missiles and stuff.  Of course we forgot our camera because that's just how we roll.  A friend took this for me and put it on Facebook so I snagged it.  

We were just outside the zoo and only saw a few minutes of it.  My friend's husband is in our military so I knew he would know what all of the stuff going by was, but sometimes I forget that Levin grew up with his father in the military so when he starts spouting off the names of all this stuff passing by I was taken aback for a minute.  But then again Levin somehow manages to know about everything and I wonder what I've been doing with my life that I have about 1 millionth of the knowledge he does.  Oh well.  I can change a diaper better.  Doesn't that make me feel better!

Fourteen Years Later, Levin Returns

Levin served his mission in Russia, the Rostov mission, and he finally had the chance to return to the area that I think had the most impact - or at least it's where most of his stories come from.  He went officially for work business on a crop travel tour.  He saw a lot of wheat fields, but strangely didn't take any pictures of one.

 I have no idea waht this is above.  Below is a church.  He told me some of the miracles about the church that they learned from the priest.  One is that before the church was built every year at least one child would drown in the river.  After the church was built they haven't had a single death by drowning.  Interesting to me, was that during World War II the Germans never bombed near the church.  The Soviets decided to blow up the church themselves thinking it was serving as a landmark for the Nazis.  Wouldn't you know right after they do that then the Germans blew up the whole area. They then rebuilt it.

 He stayed an extra night and took a taxi out to visit two special families he introduced to the church and that he has kept in touch with over all these years.  It was in a city right next to Volgograd, Volzksky.  He and 5 other missionaries were the first to enter this city.  Below is one of the families.  They have a daughter living in the Utah and I am excited to meet her this summer while I'm there.

 I like this picture because it shows Russian style apartments - not very bland on the inside like the grey box-like communist exteriors.

 He visited another family, but I guess forgot to take a picture.  The woman sent things she'd knitted for us.  How sweet!  First though is a picture of Leah in a skirt I made.  She loves it!  I was so proud of myself I started to make a dress for her, but I think I've already ruined it and cut out the wrong size. 

 Here is Leah in the sweater Lily knitted for her.  I love it.  You can see Leah's baby sister's blanket I made in the background.

 Here is Oliver in his sweater and hat.  He loves to try on clothes.  As soon as he saw Leah trying on new clothes he started trying to take his shirt off.

 Isn't he just the cutest boy in the world?  I'm excited for the kids to wear them once it gets cold again.  I have one too, but no picture of my sweater since I was in my pajamas when Levin got home.  Our little baby girl (we are almost officially decided on her name) had an outfit too, but we'll just have to wait for her to try it on.

Pinterest - Who's The Idiot Here?

So . . . Levin is on a work trip so I decided this would be Pinterest Week.  Pinterest is where you "pin" ideas you find online, recipes, etc.  I joined maybe a month ago - on his last work trip.  Now prepare yourself for my rant.
Today I made homemade french bread, homemade fruit roll ups/fruit by the foot, and semi-homemade body wash. 
The french bread turned out good.  BUT the recipe was misleading as the "original pinner" said something about it being one hour recipe.  Well, I was rushed and had to rush along the rising times because that was A LIE.  It was 30 minutes to bake, 30 minutes to rise, but they seem to have left out the time for the first rising in the bowl.  OH well, it turned out okay even though I cut the raising time short both times.
Second the fruit roll-ups.  They were supposed to be in an oven for 8-10 hours.  I went to dinner at a friends (taking my bread) and came home maybe 2 hours later.  They were done!  Well, at least the edges were crispy, but there was one sticky spot.  They don't taste as "chewy" as I'd like and taste a lot like blackberry pie filling.  I did raspberries and blueberries (frozen).  I need to check the price of frozen fruit again before I fully judge, but I think I may give these one more go - with a berry not as seedy as raspberries, but pretty much, I'm done with this idea.
Third, make your own body wash.  It was a BOMB!  I mean that in a bad way, not in the, "it's da bomb" kind of cool kid way of speaking.  I read on the blog the comments where people tried non-Dove soap to melt and add to hot water and stuck with the original recipe of a Dove bar as it seemed other brands had issues.  Luckily I decided to NOT follow the recipe and did a 1/3rd batch so I only wasted one bar of soap instead of 3.  Maybe it's because I used a Russian Dove bar, I don't know, but it got all sudsy and boiled over once while I rinsed out the measuring cup and I just cleaned my burners yesterday.  As soon as I'd put it back on the heat it'd start bubbling up again - just on low!  I still have a few chunks of bar that won't dissolve and my kitchen smells so strongly of soap.  Then touching it and rubbing it on my hands it reminds me of when you use a bar of soap that's been sitting in a little water in the tub and it all slimey on the bottom.  That might be reason enough of why I use body wash - not to have that slimey bar nastiness.  But now I fear I have a whole bottle of body wash that is just slimey bottom-of-the-bar nastiness.  Maybe I'll just have to pay the $2 for a little tiny bottle of Palmolive body wash here.

So here is my beef with Pinterest.  Since most of the ideas come from people's blogs no one is going to write a comment that says, this stinks, this food is yucky, I don't like it, etc.  They'll be like me and just keep it to ourselves because partially we wonder if we are the ones that failed.  And when a friend of mine pins an idea that sounds great I just pin it too.  But no one tells you no actually this idea stunk because probably they themselves haven't tried it yet.  If someone went to my boards right now they'd find a bad idea brownie recipe and think, oh I'll try this.  Note to self:  go delete it.

Pinterest is like gambling - you win one and you just can't stop going back.  I found an AWESOME recipe and it was the first one I tried.  Now, I have had more failures than successes I think- chicken pot pie in a slow cooker - disgusta-mundo as we say in our house.  But I've had a few successes that keep me going back like an addict.

I guess I can't blame Pinterest because I'm the idiot that keeps going back . . I still want to try making my own dishwasher detergent and maybe laundry detergent since it is so expensive here. . . oh and I'm sure there are a few other recipes I'll try too. 

I had some comfort tonight though in thinking this is just part of being a Mom.  As my soap concoction was apparently failing I had a memory of my Mom taking all the soap scraps (the little part of the soap at the end that no one uses) and following a money saving idea of melting them all down to make a soft hand soap.  This was before body wash was around I think.  I remember it didn't work well.  Too bad I didn't remember this idea before my attempt, but I probably would have gone ahead anyway because the lady on the blog had such excellent results with hers and I had visions of grandeur.  So I've concluded when you're a Mom you try money-saving ideas where you work instead of someone in a factory and this is somehow better for your family health-wise too.  And you fail sometimes.  Someday maybe Leah will be melting soap and maybe she'll be smarter than me and somehow do it right, or maybe she'll fail too and wonder why did I bother?

Gorky Park

Russians celebrate May Day - it's like their Labor Day, so Levin had the day off of work and so did our friends so we planned a day of fun at Gorky Park.  Unfortunately, I haven't figured out the new blogger so my pictures are all in reverse order so I'll tell the story backwards.

We ended the day with a meal at Burger King.  Trying to find seating at the American fast foods is nearly impossible here, but right as we were ready to walk away a large enough table opened up. 

 The kids were a little tired of walking and we had just refused letting them ride the Carousel that was $8/person so we let them play in this big sand box.

 We found a man selling a kite and bought a kite from him.  We accidentally caught a few pedestrians with the kite and the worst was a bicyclist.  He gave us quite the dirty look when it got caught in his spokes.  Here are Leah and Bruce trying to catch the kite.

 We bought some cheap Russian ice cream - here is sweet Oliver.  He had a shortened nap and was in a bit of a daze most of the time we were there.

 Here are the other four kids chowing down.

 There was a USSR space shuttle there, but then Levin informed me they never actually used a space shuttle and it looked a little fake so we have no idea what the point was.  The crowds are not gathered for the space shuttle, but there were some young college age kids doing some type of line dancing with super duper loud music. 

 Here the kids are by the fountain.

 Here are Leah and Bruce walking together.  They are so sweet together.  We just love their family.  We met up after lunch and Bruce's mom told me that when he prayed over lunch he prayed that he could marry Leah.  As of right now I don't think I'd mind that.