51/52 + 52/52

51/52

52/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2014."

These weeks:

Alyssa lost her second tooth and the Tooth Fairy almost forgot about it but then saved herself with leaving 200 tenge (approx. $1.10). Which Alyssa already spent (along with her other money that she's been saving) on some coloring books.

it's been getting hard being stuck in the apartment almost all the time without our things or toys. I miss my stuff. Ok, just some of it. Just a tiny part of it and I have no idea what to do with the rest of the stuff that's coming sometime (hopefully) soon.

have I told you we went to look at our new house and how not happy I am about it? No? Well, I am sure you don't want to hear my complaints. I'll just say we will be in the middle of construction and nothing else in sight but Kazakhstanian steppes. And the airport not far. And it's not even a good house to be stuck at. Grr.

Emma asked for a new book and I decided to get her into the Narnia series. She read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in two days and loved it.

Matt had quite a lot of time off these past two weeks. Needless to say, it's been so wonderful to have him home with us. We walked a lot going to different places and exploring Astana a little at a time.

It's amazing how humans adapt to different conditions that they're thrown into. Before we got here I could not imagine going outside at this cold weather. Now -11c feels warm and nice. Next week it should get colder though.

as we spent more time walking to places and doing things along with Kazakhstanians (what do you call people from Kazakhstan?) we realized how they don't have a concept of standing in line. You could be waiting for a long time and they'd be cutting in front of you. Four grumpy kids and a stroller doesn't even help to be able to get noticed. We need to learn to be bolder and start telling them to get back behind us.

Christmas came and went. It's been hard as we don't have our things and we couldn't make a festive Christmas meal or wrap all the presents. We've been missing being with family during this holidays season too. But all in all our girls were happy to get the presents they've been asking Santa for this year and we spent time together.

I started giving some Math assignments to the girls and I am afraid my decision to homeschool might backfire at me. Emma is not an easy child to homeschool. She doesn't like Math and just turns herself off when I give her assignments. She starts being whiny and just very unpleasant to be around. I am worried about it as I want the girls to go to a Russian/English school in September and their Math program is much more advanced than she's been doing this far. Oh, wish me luck, my friends, as I will really need it.

And just like that I am done with the 52/52 Project. I will still try to pop in here and there with pictures of girls and updates but I am glad I don't have to come up with pictures every single week.

Linking up with Jodi.

Merry Christmas!

I am a week behind on my 52 Project and I am so so close to being done with it. Just one more week. But I felt like stopping by this space for a second to wish all of you Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

50/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2014."

This week:

• the weather has been quite mild or it may be that we are getting used to the cold. -12C sounds toasty.
• our neighbor took us to two different international schools so I could see them and make a decision about where to send our girls to. I am leaning towards one particular school but still want to homeschool till the end of this school year.
• speaking of which we got the ball rolling so I could start with the schooling in a couple of weeks. I am excited and try to talk girls into how awesome it will be. They are not buying it.
• we celebrated Sonia's 1st birthday. It was the lowest key you could ever have. Girls and I went to the store and fond a little cake. I ordered some pizzas and they were small and weird. Matt was late and so we had to sing her a 'happy birthday' song without him. Good thing she is so little that she did not care.
• I realized how nice I've had it all this time with Matt getting home by 6pm and helping me to tackle the girls. These two coming years will be hard as KZ schedule is different and he doesn't get home till 7pm. On top of that he will be traveling a lot. I need all your prayers.
• thanks to one nice lady from Matt's department we have a Christmas tree. It only has three ornaments all handmade by my girls. We also bought some Christmas lights for the window in the dining room. The gifts from Santa all made it to Kazakhstan but we don't have any wrapping paper. Oh well, as long as we have each other, right?
• Emma has been so helpful last week. I don't even have to ask her for help. She sees Sonia acting out when I try to make dinner and takes her out of my way and tries to entertain her. That's the thing that stresses me when I try to get the dinner on the table and thanks to Emma I don't have to stress anymore. Or at least on some days I get to make dinner without many interruptions.
• Matt and I are so tired. Sonia is not getting the memo that she needs to start sleeping through the night. She wakes up three times a night usually and when we try to do something different than nursing she screams like someone is trying to cut her leg off. All I want for Christmas is uninterrupted sleep.

Linking up with Jodi.

49/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2014."

This week:

• last Monday we were still trying to sell our old minivan that nobody wanted to buy. Such a drag. We finally sold it but for much cheaper than hoped.
• Tuesday we had a whole day free before we left for the airport. It rained all day long which ruined some of our plans such as taking kids out to the playground to play. We did venture for a walk to the Sweet Frog frozen yogurt place but came home wet.
• our flight went surprisingly well. It was an overnight flight so the kids slept most of the time. We had only one lay over in Frankfurt and it was a quick one. The flight attendants were super nice but still we were happy to not be on the airplane anymore.
• the jet lag is a beast. Emma seems to be the only one who got over it after two days in Astana. Sonia wakes up at 3am every day and doesn't go back to bed till 9am. We take turns with Matt on who gets up with her. It seems she likes her new schedule and not going to change it anytime soon.
• we are staying at the temporary apartment for now and will be moved to the new place at the end of this month (or perhaps after all the holidays).
• Astana first impressions:
  1. it's flashy like Vegas.
  2. it's so very cold, windy and slippery.
  3. drivers are as crazy as everywhere else.
  4. it gets light at 8:45ish am and gets dark by 5ish pm.
  5. supermarkets are scarce and the produce sections are sad looking (especially coming from Bulgaria). The food overall is expensive and not as many choices as in Moscow or Bulgaria. We did find canned black beans but it was around 4 dollars a can. So yeah, getting used to that will be hard.
  6. there is no MacDonald's in Astana. My kids are devastated. I am too because that would have been an easy way out of making dinners.
  7. we went outside to take some pictures in front of the Bayterek tower. It took us 15 minutes to freeze to almost death and on the way back most of us were crying because of the cold. Needless to say we are not going out ever again until the snow melts. Which the Astana natives say is not going to happen until May.
• is it really just three weeks left of this 2014 year? I need to find a way to slow the time down.

Linking up with Jodi.

48/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2014."

This week:

• we had our pack out. Again. It went pretty well comparing to the other ones we had over the course of our lives. Probably because we did not have much stuff to pack. We did have a lot of food to pack as we are allowed to bring consumables with us this time. I underestimated thinking we'd hardly send any food, but after all the "preparation" we came up with the 1800lbs of food. That sounds like a lot of food but believe me it isn't. Especially for the family of 6 people. We'll finish it by New Years. Ha.
• Matt finally told me that I might have to homeschool the girls after all. He got frustrated with the school we were sending the girls to. First they did not have a spot for Emma, two months later when he checked with them they did not have a spot for Alyssa but had one for Emma. I will be homeschooling till next school year starts so the girls can go at the same time. Let's hope everybody makes it till September alive.
• all my girls (but the screaming littlest one) have been extra nice to me lately. They keep saying:"Mom, you are the bestest!" It is music to my ears. I know it will not last for long and I am trying to savor it while it lasts. Ahhh!
• our Thanksgiving plans fell through the last minute and so we had nothing to do. On Thursday, Matt booked the hotel for the night, got some tickets for him and the girls to see Wicked as a surprise, and we took off to Norfolk, VA. As we got there not one restaurant was open and I got a little worried about our Thanksgiving dinner. We (not so much Matt) got lucky and found Texas de Brazil restaurant that was open. We had a very nice fancy dinner and I was quite happy that I did not have to clean or cook. Maybe we should keep this non-traditional Thanksgiving tradition alive.
• some ladies from Oakwood took me out to dinner. It was very nice to spend the night with friends (adults) while enjoying good food. Thankful for all my friends all over the globe.
• also so thankful for all my friends who helped us by watching the kids while we packed out. It's been very helpful not having to deal with all four girls and their demands. I feel so blessed with all the support I get from people around me. Grateful.

Linking up with Jodi.