Family Stuff

         Here are a few snapshots from the everyday part of our lives from the past few weeks. We're pretty sure that Ike has eczema, so we've been trying different things to help out his itchiness and the spots on his face.  The best thing to work so far has been to put wet wraps over his face.  His sisters giggle and giggle because he looks like a "mummy".  He doesn't know what a mummy is, so he thinks they're saying he looks like "Mama".  He's a good sport about sitting in the wraps for a couple of hours at a time. 

    We always have a problem of mismatched socks!  Our kids like to play with socks (they make great sleeping bags for their stuffed animals, etc) or hide socks (we found one in the vacuum cleaner)... and because our apartment is so warm, we always take our socks off (often in strange places).  So when it comes time to wash socks, the pairs don't always go into the washing machine together.  And we end up with a HEAP.  Every so often, I'll gather the troops (often all three kids) and give them each a sock assignment- sorting, folding, or putting them into a pile.  It turns out to be a fun little time.

     The kids have been cooking/baking more, too.  Anneka's made zucchini bread and crockpot dinners all on her own and feels quite proud of herself... especially when she has to touch raw chicken!  Anneka is very conscientious of germs and makes sure that everyone washes their hands after touching money or before touching food. 

     Here's Anneka on her way to her Russian class.  There's a learning center close to our building that teaches all sorts of subjects to grade school kids.  She just goes for Russian language.  She has a lot of tedious homework (copying pages and pages of cursive letters and words- half a notebook per week!), but other than that, she and her teacher get along really well and it's been positive.

     John came again this April for some more meetings, and he stayed with us while he was here.  He wanted to go out to the village to see Inka and invited our family along. It was all a last minute thing, but we decided it was a great idea and enjoyed our overnight visit very much.  In the morning, she had the Ratinkovs over for breakfast, too.

 
          We've been trying to be more creative in our family times together.  A couple of times we've acted out different Bible stories, and the kids really get into it.  Here, Leif was David the shepherd, Ella was a bear (she's wearing a furry thing on her shoulders), Anneka was a lion, and Ike and I were the sheep David protected.  =)



     It's so great that the weather is nice enough for the kids to play outside during English Club!  I looked outside one day, and Ella and Ike had switched all of their outside clothes, right down to the boots!  It was so funny because I kept thinking Ike was Ella every time I looked at him.  Such funny kids!

... and then this week, Anneka and Matthew traded their sweatshirts, caps, and shoes.  They were hoping we would mistake them and take Matthew home and the Brubachers would take Anneka home.  =)