Aubrie is Seven!

During my vacation from blogging, Aubrie turned 7!

It is so hard to believe that she is old enough to go to school and grow new front teeth.

If I could keep any of them little forever, it would be her, though Brooklyn is running a close second!

She asked for cheesecake for her actual birthday

and a cake with a deer on it for her party...




I couldn't figure out how to make a deer,

so I compromised with a rendition of India, our dog.

Aubrie has been so generous with the American Girl she got for her last birthday letting her little sister, Brooklyn, play with her to the point of permanent "bad hair day"!
So, we decided to pass Josephina on for good and let Aubrie have a new one.
For her party she wanted to make crowns
and sock puppets.


Cady & her horse

Aubrie & her pig

Silas Broberg

& his creature

This is Megan.

She was Aubrie's BEST present this year. Aubrie hasn't usually had girls her age in the different places that we have lived. Since birth Cassidy & Gabby, her cousins, have been her only close friends. While they are STILL her BESTEST friends (she misses you guys!) she now has Megan. Megan's family has moved to our city to work... not just for language school. That means we may have her around for more than 2 years (all of this does NOT mean that she has forgotten the boy who was her age and only here for language school... she misses you, too, Micah!).

Maddie's Birthday Party

I can't believe how much a girl can change from 10 to 11!


Gone is the little girl who had to have her bunny all the time and loved to play with dolls.


Now she loves makeup (which has actually been discovered on her preteen face only after leaving for church!). The hat was a gift from Yana, our babysitter. She made it herself and Maddie has not taken it off in weeks!


And art is EVERYTHING! She says that someday she will be a missionary who sings and takes care of Russian street dogs while living off the sales of her artwork. Quite a plan!


She wanted to take her friends ice skating at the new rink in our mall and Yana generously allowed herself to be pushed, pulled and hung on for the whole hour! And I think this was her first time!


Maddie got the hang of it right away. She may even want to add it to her future plans... somehow...


I hung out with the ones who's feet were too small for the ice skates.

Happy Birthday, Maddie!

The day has finally arrived!!!


Maddie waited so patiently all through the winter as everyone else in the family had their birthdays, and finally spring arrived bringing her birthday as well.


The thing she wanted most was a guitar... for her American Girl Doll.




I think this may renew her interest in her own guitar!

Maddie asked for Chocolate Chip Pancakes for breakfast... Aubrie really got into that idea!

You Say It's Your Birthday...

Well...It's His Birthday Too. Here in Russia, Christine shares a birthday with Jesus. Russian Christmas is tuned to the Orthodox Calandar and so every January 7th Christine and the history of the Gospel become a year older. Christmas is mostly overlooked here. It comes a week after New Years, which is the largest holiday thanks to 70 odd years of Communism's influence. Most people, and I do mean most, get completely smashed on New Year's Eve and sleep away the next few days . The fireworks are amazing at midnight, all around the city for 30 minutes non-stop. Other than that, I haven't found much good cheer or sentiment, no rich culture. There aren't any carols, hymns or songs. One famous movie with no redemption story, no angels, no wisemen, no mangers around town. The holidays are another reminder of a nation's lost indentity. But hey, that doesn't stop me from celebrating my beautiful wife's birthday. Happy Birthday, Christine! Ok, actually, she has to throw her own party here. Another gem of Russian culture. It is tradition to throw your own party; this really isn't so bad, because if your party stinks, you know who's to blame. My dear wife slaved in the kitchen all Sunday afternoon making food for the crowd of friends who came over Sunday night. This second picture that I posted of Christine reminds me of her character and of the concept of a Russian birthday party; she is blurry and everyone else is in focus. This is how she lives, with the focus on the rest of us and not on herself. Thanks, babe, for being so selfless in such a selfish world. I love you. Steve-O

Cady Day!

Happy 8th Birthday, Cadence!

Cady decided the day before her birthday to have all the neighborhood kids over for a party.She got the 14 year old girl, Diana, who lives behind us, to help her invite all the other kids (10 of them in all).

They played Bop Em' and Twister. We introduced them to Jenga and some balloon games. They all brought Cady stuffed animals (her favorite toy!) and enjoyed cake that was made by the mother of one of the girls. Actually, that is a funny story...
We had a few families from the neighborhood over the other day in order to give them their first taste of Mexican/American food. One of the women is a baker at a fancy restaurant downtown. She makes the BEST cakes in all of Russia. She also makes the BIGGEST cakes in all of Russia! So, I couldn't bring myself to make Cady a cake when we had this huge yummy cake left over...

Yes, I served half a birthday cake. I am not proud of it, but you can't say I am not practical!
So, to finish the saga of the cake, it was set a little too close to the edge of the table and our dog licked a full inch of the cream off the back. Brooklyn helped destroy it from above.
The girls have had such a good time getting to know their neighbors. They could not have asked for a nicer bunch of kids to teach them a new culture and language.

We did masks instead of party hats. It added an atmosphere of mystery...

Happy Birthday, Brooklyn!

Brooklyn Mildred Jean turned 2!

Her love of the "Happy Birthday" song began over a month before her first birthday when we were singing to Aubrie. It is still one of her all time favorite songs and she likes to sing it in English and Russian... at the same time...

"Happy Birthday, tebya!"



Aubrie took it upon herself to find out what kind of cake Brookie wanted for her birthday. She named a myriad of cake flavors and ended with lemon, so, of course, Brooke chose lemon. Then she named just as many frosting flavors and she ended with, you guessed it... chocolate. It was pretty yummy, if I do say so myself.

Well, all she really wanted was the chocolate. She is her father's daughter! Maybe she will be a surgeon...