The Rabbit Family and Other Snippets

     Ella has a nice warm winter coat that our friends gave to Anneka to use when she was 3, and now Ella uses it.  Ella is going through a phase where she asks "who gave this to me?" about EVERYTHING.  It's actually really cute.  After I tell her who (and if you've ever given us anything, I'm sure she knows about it!), she tilts her head and smiles and says "oh!" or "oh! That's nice of them!"  The family who gave the coat has a last name that when translated into English is "rabbit".  So I always tell her the rabbit family gave her her coat.  She really likes that.
     Ella was happy to finally meet the rabbit family a couple of weeks ago when they had us over for dinner.  The kids played really well together, and it was nice to catch up after a long time of not seeing them.  Sveta is pregnant and is expecting their fourth child very soon!

   
     I've noticed that an important part of Russian culture is for little girls to have their hair fixed nicely.  I fix Anneka's hair every day for preschool (and sometimes Leif does, too), but her hair is so fine that it comes out easily (even with teeny-tiny rubberbands that grip really well).  I'm learning how to do french braids, but it always hurts Anneka when I do it, so this minimizes my practice times!  Sometimes if Anneka's hair falls out too much then her teacher will fix it.  She comes home with beautiful designs sometimes.  This picture was taken AFTER a hat and after it came out a bit, but it looked really cute.  Some days Anneka will ask for just a ponytail because then she knows her teacher will do her hair- a little sneaky, but I let her get away with it, because I like it, too!  =)

   And of course, I had to take a picture of the twins!  Ike is still very busy these days!  He knows both the words and signs for "all done" very well and uses them shortly after beginning a meal... not because he's really all done eating, but because he has too much to do to sit still for too long!