Circus Tricks on a Horse!

     Yesterday our daughter was in a competition, doing circus tricks on a horse!  She only learned of the competition the day before!  I love how she jumped right in and stepped up to the challenge.  

It was fun watching the girls.  It takes a lot of strength to swing your body over a horse!

     We had to wait a long time for the competition to start.  We all completely froze!  Even though it was inside the barn, I don't think it made it any warmer than outside.  I've never seen Leif get so chilled in all of the years I've known him!  The kids went into the changing room for awhile and tried to cuddle with the barn cats to warm up a bit.  

   
     After the competition was another type of competition.  People brought all different types of salads shaped into various artwork.  Somehow I missed the memo and only brought a salad in a bowl (no artwork out of it).  But next year we'll be prepared!  We thought this horse was pretty cute.  But they were all incredible!! 

     Our kids have been part of things we never imagined they'd be a part of.  It's fun to see and we look forward to what future adventures they'll be a part of! ;)

Christmas

     Our Christmas followed our tradition on this side of the world.  We spent Christmas Eve with our teammates and Christmas day at home as a family.    I was thankful for the comfort and love of our "family away from family" as I was grieving the news of my Mom's recent cancer diagnosis.  It was good for all of our hearts to be together, acting out the Christmas story, singing meaningful Christmas carols together in several different languages, and just hanging out.

     I love watching everyone play their roles each year.  We loved having Heather Ann and Adam with us this year.  The guest always gets to be the donkey.  Lucky Adam!  ;)

     We ate good food, and the kids opened meaningful gifts.  We also had a fun gift exchange game.  Then we spent time sharing with each other parts of our lives.  

     Leif was very happy to share watching an American football game with friends. =)

 Anneka and Christina brought their spa supplies and gave out manicures and pedicures.

     Then we came home and slept in the living room (an annual tradition).  We were thrilled that Heather Ann and Adam slept in the living room with us!!!

 The next morning we enjoyed opening stockings and gifts together.

     It's fun that our kids are reaching the age where they're more exciting about giving gifts than receiving them.  They were each so excited for Heather Ann and Adam to open gifts they'd gotten them with their own money.  Ella got them special Buryatia chocolates.  Anneka got them homemade soaps from our neighber, and Ike got them a pig towel (as they are very popular right now- 2019 will be the year of the pig!)

Anneka loved the earrings Ike got for her!

      The Wicker family sent us gifts through Heather Ann and Adam.  How special to open them!  One gift is a box of conversation starters that are based around word teasers (American sayings).  This is a perfect gift, as most third culture kids don't know a lot of sayings like "let the cat out of the bag" or "take the bull by the horns" because most of their English just comes from us and interactions with teammates or family over skype. We've already started dialoging about these fun sayings, and Leif and I are learning some new ones, too!

 My dear friend, Erin, sent us gifts to open!

     The rest of the day we hung out and rested.  The kids tried out their new gifts.  Here, Ella was making chocolates with a kit she got from Baba and Grampa.

Ike and Leif put together a mechanical building set from Gramma Irene.

It turned out pretty cool!

Anneka read Ike one of his new books.

     We played new games together.  Heather Ann and Adam gave us one that they enjoy and we gave them one that our family enjoys.  It was fun to play them together!

     The next day our family went to the banya (local bath house) with some Christmas money from Leif's mom and grandparents.  We enjoyed having these down days together as a family.

Advent Season

A dear family in Germany sent the kids chocolate advent calendars.  I think this was their favorite part!!

     As the super cold winter sets in, we enjoy celebrating advent as a family each year.  It's a special way of looking ahead to Christmas, and in that, remembering that Jesus is coming back.  

     We had monkey bread to kick off the first morning.  Each day we had special Christmas devotionals and lit candles and sang songs together.



     Christmas isn't a primary holiday here, and many people in our village don't know much about it.  We had this nativity set out and Ella's friend asked about it.  She wanted to know if it was a farm.  Ella explained who was who and the Christmas story, and her friend said, "oh, I think I've heard that fairytale somewhere before."  Ella was able to share that it's not a fairytale but a true story!  They played with it together.  It warmed my heart.

     Besides the chocolate calendar, we have a calendar on our wall with envelopes for some special activity each day.  On this day we made ornaments.




     As the weather got colder, our house got colder inside, too!!  Leif and a few guys worked hard to get a full layer of insulation all over the house.  On a couple of days it was -37 degrees while they worked!!  They came inside often for hot tea, soup, and snacks.




     Leif and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary this year.  There's a new Indian restaurant in the city (we LOVE Indian food!), and we went there for dinner.  We enjoyed a full 24 hours, just us, as Nettie and the Giuras took our kids for us.  It was really nice to have this time out from the bustle of life.

Anneka and Matthew sang and played "Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing" at church.

We had a special Christmas tea time at church.

     We had a fun English lesson where we divided into different groups that acted out stories from the Bible.  It was fun to see how everyone figured out roles and performed the parts.

We had a special tea time afterwards. 

     If these little friends aren't making slime (which they seriously do ALL the time!), they are baking something.  They like to use recipes where they can alter something to make it uniquely theirs.  =)

 

Making Hedgehog Cookies (Hedgehogs are very popular in children's stories in Russia).

They turned out pretty cute =)

The kids made a fort and slept in it one night.

     It was super-special to have Heather Ann and Adam come and stay with us during the holidays.  Heather Ann grew up in Russia and lived in Ulan-Ude with her family years ago.

Making chocolates in fun molds

     Our neighbors all pitched in and made a skating rink together.  It's a fun way to be active in the winter and to connect with one another (especially because winter is a time when everyone kind of holes up for months at a time!)

     Natasha invited Nettie and me over to make buuzi with her.  Then the family joined us afterwards to eat them all.  Mmmmm!

     My aunt and uncle gave the kids this great sled as a gift.  They got to open it before Christmas to maximize it's usage!  It's great because two can ride on it at a time, and it goes really fast!

     It's a little hard to see, but they love to start on top of this ice slide (also made by neighbors pitching in together) and go down the hill.  They really get zipping!  All of my pictures were blurry, they were so fast!

meeting with others, talking about spiritual things

 

A candlelight dinner to celebrate Winter Solstice

Nastia and me, in front of some fun decorations at English Club

Making Christmas cards (that got to people almost 2 months later!!)

 

Anneka thought up this design herself and sent it to her Auntie Cory and Uncle Anthony

     Leif and I have a tradition to buy a new game as an anniversary gift to each other each year (we go to the store and pick it out together).  This year it was a game about mushroom picking (a very Russian theme!)  We played it with Nettie and Renata the night before Nettie left for her home service in America.

One last picture together with Nettie before we reunite in May!

Always Give Thanks

      We celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of weeks late this year, but better late than never!  Even though different schedules and obligations got in the way of celebrating according to the American calendar, we decided that Thanksgiving was just too important to miss entirely.  There is always reason to give thanks!  We had our American teammates (plus Renata- a Canadian) over to celebrate.  It was a sweet day of enjoying food and friends and remembering all that God has given us.

The day was filled with laughter.

Anneka with Renata

     Before dinner, we each hung leaves on our Thanksgiving tree (not pictured) and shared blessings in our lives with one another.  After dinner, we played a game similar to charades.

 

      Sara just picked Ike up when it was her turn and acted like it was nothing.  He loved this attention of course!

     Here she is, drawing a picture for us to guess, with Ike draped over her back.  So funny!!

Everyone got into the game.

After the game, Ike gave us a lazer show.  He was in his element!  

 We have so much to be thankful for!