Happy 2014!

Happy New Year Friends and Family! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and your new year is starting off just right! We are all doing great! After a short, but much needed trip back to the States, we are settled back into daily life here in Turkey.

It was nice to be back in the USA after being gone for a year. It was nice to drive down the highway, and no other cars, buses, scooters, horse and buggies, or man pulled carts were trying to share the lane with us. There was also very little honking. I had almost forgotten that driving could actually be a peaceful experience. Of course, it was also great making the rounds and getting to hang out with our families.


This was Brennan's first Christmas in Indiana. He had a blast!


He was apparently a very good boy in 2013, because Santa found him at Grandma Brenda's house, and also left him a letter saying there were presents under the tree back in Turkey, too.


Santa was smart and left the lightsabers in Turkey!


Unfortunately, we did have to leave this little beauty back in Indiana with her parents. And who is this darling girl, you ask? Introducing Miss Paisley Elizabeth, our new grand daughter! We are over-the-top excited! She was born back in early December, and I do believe she was everyone's best Christmas present. :)


The happy parents. :)


Four generations.


I know, it's hard to stand the cuteness! Congratulations Shanny and Logan!

And one more today, just because I had to...

Tammy and Jason. This is Jason's cousin, Tammy, who also has the distinction of being one of the blog's biggest fans! We don't get to see her very often (like in over ten years), but our trips to Indiana overlapped this time, and it was great to see her! I warned her that pictures on my camera were fair game for blogging, so I totally had to follow through with that, right!?

Happy 2014!

Christmas and a Brand New Year

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We had a nice quiet one - family time, friends, lots of food, presents. Fun.

This year Santa got cookies and milk and chocolate covered cherries. We also had to put carrots out for the reindeer, plus a pan of water. Brennan is very thorough. No thirsty reindeer at our house. Christmas Eve we watched Santa Claus is Comin' to Town and the listened to a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Brennan said he was "so nervous" when I tucked him in. I don't know if he was nervous because he was excited, or nervous because he was afraid he was going to be on the naughty list. Ha.

As it turned out, he did make it onto the good list. This was right as he realized Santa had left presents under the tree. I love it!



Brennan had a blast opening his presents and helping us open ours. He was just as excited about the presents that weren't his. See my new Keurig on the couch. Yep, awesome! Thanks Santa! ;)





Brennan's new scooter. The scooter that was the stand-in for the skateboard that was on his list. Which prompted a discussion about Santa not always getting you want you want, but what is best for you after Brennan told us Santa "let him down" by not giving him a skateboard. I think all is good now. And for as many times as Brennan has wiped out on this thing, Santa definitely made the right call. :)



Jason got a home beer making kit. He's been wanting one forever, so he is a happy camper, or in this case, Beermaker. Apparently, coffee and beer make the world go 'round in our house. Ha ha!



The rest of the week we spent mostly kicked back relaxing. It was nice. Apparently, I was extra relaxed, because the only other picture on my camera after opening Christmas presents is the cinnamon roll Christmas tree I made for breakfast Christmas day. I know, right, totally not my normal take pictures of everything self. :)



And so that is that. Farewell 2012! I can't say it was a bad year, because it did have lots of good parts, but is was definitely a year of change and being unsettled for us. With Jason's deployment, we were apart for half of it, and then after he got back, most of our time and efforts were focused on getting ready for our big move. So now here we are, in Turkey, (most of) the hard parts are over, and this year we can hopefully just focus on being together, having some fun and adventures, and enjoying this amazing opportunity we have to be part of a different country and culture.

Welcome 2013!



I'm looking forward to it!

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing a Very Merry Christmas from our house to yours!



I usually design and send out Christmas cards every year, but with all of the excitement these past few weeks, it just didn't happen.

I found this card on Shutterfly this morning and thought it was cute. They have some nice New Year's cards too...so maybe I'll try that instead.

For now I'm off to start making some tasty treats for our Christmas dinner tomorrow!

xo,

The Week Before Christmas...

...and all through the house we are battling mud and leaks and a spider or two. Actually, I haven't seen a spider in a couple of days, so maybe they all drowned, ha!

As for the mud, this is what it looked like outside most of the week.



I knew we were coming here in the rainy season, but after Utah and it's lack of rain, constant rain for days has us considering building an ark!

Here is what the front of our house currently looks like.



Very festive, don't you think? Yesterday morning I came downstairs to a dining room floor full of water. It seems that our front window casing has sprung a leak! Since the constant rain makes it impossible to repair at the moment, this is the only solution for now. I'm thinking of it as fancy etched glass, and not as plastic sheeting sandbagged to the front of my house. :)

One the bright side, people here are awesome! A new friend has remedied our lack of a Christmas tree.



Brennan was so happy to be able to decorate a tree.



Poor guy... This really was his happy face. He had a few days of not feeling good. Headaches and fever. No worries though, he's back to his normal self now.

Yesterday, we went to see Santa.



And to make some Christmas crafts.





I think he had fun.

A Little Bit o' Christmas

Usually every year by this time in December, my house is all decked, my presents are all wrapped, and we are fully immersed in fun Christmas crafts, cookie making, and holiday outings.

This year we are doing everything low key. Make that really low key. Of course, that is not by choice, just the circumstances we are in at the moment; I'm not going all bah humbuggy on you.


Ho, ho, ho! It's Santa Brennan.

As of today, I have no wrapping done. Actually, I don't even have any wrapping paper, and some of my need-to-wrap gifts won't even get here until after Christmas. We haven't done any cookie baking yet. I do plan on doing that soon. (The commissary here has several gluten-free flour options. Yay!) Brennan has decided Santa needs chocolate chip cookies this year. Sounds good to me. :)

As for all the other trimmings, I don't have any Christmas-y smelling candles, or a mantel to hang our stockings, or even a Christmas tree. But we have had a fun time making a couple craft projects to make it a little festive around here.


On our daily outings to the playground, Brennan has been collecting pinecones.


I told you it wouldn't take long to use my new glitter!




We've also made some paper chains.


Easy pack Christmas decor. :)


And we made a felt banner.


Banner making.

I was also able to mail over a couple of our favorites.


Our Christmas advent tree.


The snow globes we made last year, and our tiny first Christmas tree.


Brennan's nativity...and Spider-man gloves, and Matchbox cars, and Transformers. :)

And as is our tradition, our Christmas ornaments for this year.


Our family ornament. Fitting for all the National Park exploring we did this year. We found this leaf at Bryce Canyon National Park.


Brennan's ornament. Since we are now international, Santa on a globe was perfect for this year. Brennan has had concerns that Santa won't find him. I think the little man will be getting his yearly email from Santa any day now. :)

He will not, however, be getting the skateboard that he put on his Christmas list. I don't think my Mommy nerves are up for that yet. Yikes.

Hello January

I'm still in a little bit of denial that the new year is here.  Is it really January?  And just where did December go?  It has all just zoomed right on by.  Crazy.



I hope everyone had a wonderful time over the holidays.  Our's was nice; very low key and quiet.  We watched lots of movies, played games, ate lots of yummy food, and just enjoyed hanging out.  The weather did not cooperate and give me snow for Christmas.  Nor has it snowed since then, but I did see on the news that Florida is expecting a hard freeze in the next couple of days.  Weird.  Yesterday we did drive up into the mountains, and there was plenty of snow to see up there.  Snow on the Aspen trees...so pretty.



On New Year's Eve I gave up and went to bed before midnight.  I did make it until midnight Eastern time, so I did see the ball drop.  That counts for something, right? : )

The fortune from the first cookie we opened on New Year's Day.  How great is that!  I hope this comes true for everyone.



This week we have lots of appointments and errands on our agenda.  Jason will be leaving for deployment soon, and our time is growing short. : (

Since we have so much going on, I will probably take a blogging break the rest of the week.  I'll be back soon though.  I have lots of crafts, decorating and project ideas in my head, and I just know you just can't wait to hear all about them.

Please keep Jason in your thoughts and prayers.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Jason, Heather and Brennan

A Last Minute Christmas Project

So all over the internet this month, (well, the parts of the internet I frequent anyway) I have been seeing (and loving) these waterless snowglobes that people have been making inspired by some at Anthropologie.


{image source: anthopologie}

How cute and easy!  All along I had planned on waiting and recreating these next year...

...but then as I was switching over laundry this morning, Brennan being his normal curious self decided to open up a box that was stashed in the corner.

And lo and behold, a bunch of these were in there. (Obviously, long forgotten about by me.  I once upon a time had intentions to actually can something with them. Ahem.)



I took that as a sign. : )  Let's make some snowglobes!

Time to gather some supplies.  We didn't put up our Christmas village this year, so I dug out the box of village trees and the fake snow.  Brennan wasted no time in doing some forest management.



I also raided Brennan's stash of plastic animals to see if any of them could become part of our display, but none of the ones I found seemed appropriate to be joyously frolicking in the wintery forest.



It actually kind of looked like Lassie and John Boy had rounded up some Christmas dinner candidates. ha.  I'll stick with the trees.

After I had all my goods in line, I selected a variety of trees and hot glued them inside the lids.



Next I enlisted my little helper to funnel some snow into the jars.



We had to use a bamboo skewer to make the snow go down.



Kudos to me for realizing how much of a mess this would be and using a tray to catch the extra. : )



Our jars had a little too much snow.  The little trees look like they were buried in a blizzard.  Of course I kept them that way. :)  But if you do this, just use a little, especially if your jars are small like ours.

Time for a test shake.



Add the rest of the forest.



And the fences Brennan insisted on. (Because they're friends.)



Ta-da!  You have a magical and  wintery centerpiece in less that 20 minutes.