A "See you later" Slumber Party

When one of your son's best friends is moving away on Sunday, and his parents have movers coming on Friday afternoon, and your husband is away for the weekend, what better idea than to have the friend and his sister over for a slumber party?  Right?  Anyone?

Well, whether or not you agree, that's what I did last night.  It was actually a ton of fun, and I found time this morning to wash all of my windows (?!?!?!) while the kids were playing together.  (Well, by together I mean that the girls were in one room and the boys in another, and I mostly had to keep them that way to keep the peace.  Peace it kept!)

We are going to miss these two crazy kids a ton!  Hopefully we'll manage to see them when we're next in England to visit family!

Snow, better late then none

Well, the snow finally decided to come and stay for a bit.  My birthday always seems to bring the most miserable weather!

Nathanael wanted to put maple syrup on snow for dessert, just like in the Little House in the Big Wood!

Nathanael's school has a great playground and some sledding hills across the street, so his teacher got them outside in the snow every day!  On Wednesday, the kids came home with a note to bring their sleds to school the next day!  :)  I loved the happy, haphazard pile of well-used sleds parked outside the school when I came to pick up Nathanael on Thursday.  It was begging for a photo.

Birthday Celebrations

My birthday was this month.  Nathanael and I stopped for lunch on our way back from school.  I wasn't able to eat my entire meal, but he totally ate all of his adult meal plus some of mine!  WHAT?!  He's only SEVEN!

I went out for dinner the next day with some girlfriends, and they showered me with friendship and some of the most gorgeous flowers!  (How did I not get a picture with the ladies?!)

That Saturday, I received my big family gift -- a day together at the indoor pool complex near us.  It is crazy expensive, so we'd never been.  It was amazing, even better than we could've imagined.  It felt like summer family holiday!  I don't have any good pictures of us there, but I don't want to forget it, none-the-less. (Of course, all pool photos must have funny, awkward photo bombers.)

I think it was a pretty great birthday this year.

Frozen for Fasching

My Eva princess all dressed up for the Fasching party at Kindergarten

2017 Summer Family Holiday in Side, Turkey

I have a tendency to put off posting our Side vacation photos.  I think it mostly has to do with being overwhelmed by the photos and having to select only a few to try to represent the amazing family time.  Last year was no exception.  So here it is, February of 2018, and I am finally getting around to posting our Side photos from 2017.  (I still haven't posted from 2015 either!)  For the last four months or so, due to political tensions and visa issues, we actually thought we wouldn't be able to return to Turkey for our next summer family holiday, but this week we made the decision to go forward with it, and we booked our hotel and flights!!!  The simple truth is that nothing compares to our Side Breeze Hotel and the family memories we've made there over the last five years!

This year we went the week after school ended, departed on July 4th.

I must admit that it is somewhat unbelievable how much easier flying is with the kids at this age.  Every few month makes a huge difference.

In the spotlight on stage with Alex

Fashion show night

Staying up way past bedtime to watch the animation performance

Güle güle! (Tschuss - Goodbye - literally go smiling)