Merry Christmas! 2011

Before time goes away from me I wanted to wish all our friends and family a very, Merry Christmas.

We have done lots these last few weeks. Even though I try to keep things simple it's easier said than done. We have had relatives here since last Saturday, we have gone on a Twin Peaks tour and that was a lot of fun. Good food was eaten and the little cousins were so happy to be together.

Our family made cookies twice so far, made paper snowflakes, sang carols, Karaoke with extended family, watched Christmas movies, and just enjoyed each other, sipping cocoa next to our beautiful tree. This year we went and cut our own at a farm and I just loved it. I hope to do it again next year.

I managed to get all the presents, order and mail our Christmas cards, went to D's school and had a presentation on Romania (that was fun). It sure is nice to get a break from work. Days are flying by and I hope after Christmas we get to relax a little. I actually want to be lazy on New Year's unlike any other years. I am all for partying on that day but I just feel exhausted and I am totally fine watching TV that day. We'll see what happens though.

Well, pictures will be coming later on.

I do hope you are having a magical, Christ centered time with your families.

St. Nick's

On December 6th St. Nick (Mos Nicolae) came by our house and brought the kids and us a few treats with the once much anticipated  bananas and oranges. When I was little oranges were a hot item and bananas even more so. I remember waiting in never ending lines for those things when I was about seven or so. Because we imported them we only got them around Christmas time. Not that waiting in line was a foreign concept at all. That's what we did for any type of food, from bread, milk, not to mention anorexic chicken and any kind of meat. That was back then though, much has thankfully changed.

Anyway, the kids had a blast in the morning. I decided that I am going to replace stockings at Christmas for St. Nicks. It's about the same thing and I have no mantle to hold my stockings. I just don't want to pay twice for things. Growing up we never had stockings so I guess if I start now my kids won't know the difference.

Here are a few blurry pictures. :)

My dad put his stick in his own shoes. Funny but he was most definitely not naughty. 

Birthdays and Thanksgiving 2011

Seems like so much has happened since I've written.

I had a birthday and two days later Lavinia had a birthday. She's now 3 and proud of it!

We took the kids to Disney on Ice, Toy Story 3 on her b-day weekend and both kids just loved the show. I did too. I'd never been and now I might go every year I liked it so much.


I was spoiled like always, friends and family called, FB wishes galore and my sweet husband took me out to dinner to a nice fish grill place that was amazing. It was good to go out together for a little bit. On top of my family pics gift Shane got an external flash. I was excited to use it inside the house where I seem to have such problems with our dark house, dark Seattle days, etc. Wow, there is a lot to learn on it and even though I prefer natural light this gift surely comes in handy. Unfortunately the flash stopped working so now I need to return it. It wasn't very expensive thankfully. Ugh!

We had a little party (or what I thought would be little) for Lavinia. I always feel like I run around like crazy and stress.  I invited mostly invite family and the only kids that did come were Lavi's cousins and one good friend of Dacian. We wanted to mostly have fun decorating a cake and so we did. Mom made the cake. I made the frosting and decorated it.

It was a little funny how big it turned out but mom kept making layers because Barbies are so tall. It was delicious like always though. (it looks more like Marie Antoinette or Barbie just has a lot of junk in her trunk for once)

Thanksgiving was the next big thing. We ended up with a pretty quiet but wonderful day. The in laws were supposed to come and other family members but things didn't work out for them. (I convinced my mother in law who came in town the next day to go out shopping with me. She lives close to the outlet malls and I wanted to buy some Christmas gifts. We has such a fun time. She loves to shop and that makes it more fun for me. The outlet malls had great sales but they mostly had clothes, shoes, perfume, etc. Not one toy store. So we headed to Walmart, Target and Toys R us after making our trip always 12 hours. Crazy, I tell ya and I'm not done yet. I am very thankful for Shane for giving me the day off. Shopping kids free is such a treat! )

We ate delicious food and Shane told the kids about the first Thanksgiving and then we each took a turn talking about what we are thankful for. Finally the turkey was the way a turkey should be and I made my new favorite recipe for green beans. I found the recipe online for Bucca di Beppo lemon green beans.

I love my family so very much and am grateful for so much. I just hope I learn to show it more.

We made a fun Thankful tree and decorated Tom the Turkey for crafts. Dacian is an avid crafter and always wants to make more crafts. I can't keep up with all the stuff he does around the house. Cutting, taping, gluing, coloring, writing, making anything and everything. I love it because we stopped buying so many toys and so he gets creative and makes his own paper stuff. I need to take pictures of the stuff he makes. It's so cute! Shields, swords, cars, rockets, all the boy stuff.

Lavinia likes it too but she tends to just draw on whatever, furniture included. Not so cool with us.
She also likes to cook with me and mix stuff for me.

I know I don't do as much stuff as I want to do but I hope however little it is that I do do will be fun and worthwhile for them.

I have been doing great with limiting internet lately and so much can get accomplished that way. I am not near where I want to be still but getting better. I feel more positive too. Good things!

What else? We've been sick and things aren't super bad but not improving or getting better all the way and a new sickness begins. Dacian had to go to Urgent Care right before Thanksgiving with an ear infection. Now he feels much better.

We also are super grateful to cousin Kim for getting us free tickets to the dress rehearsal show for Cinderella this past Friday. It was fantastic. Just Dacian and mom and I went (4 and up) It was super duper amazing, and D liked the fireworks they had the best. If you can, do go and see this show.


On another note of course now we're thinking about our next holiday.

Dacian already made his list for Santa. He's so funny. He told me that because he's turning 6 next year Santa will bring him six things. Then he says: "6+6=12" Okay, good adding boy, is what I'm thinking. Then he told me that he gets 12 presents, 6 from Santa and 6 from us. Ha! Ha! This boy knows how to get what he wants.
We warned him that these are suggestions for Santa and not a guarantee and that also he needs to keep up his room and of course that Santa is always watching.

I'll take a pic of his list. It's so funny!

I think these are my latest news. Hope all my friends are doing great!

Helping me wash the green beans. 

My little "butterfly" Pil Pal Ah Wich Ya-her Indian name

Peek A Boo. The box ended up being a "refrigerator" 

Playing in the rain 

Birthday princess with cousins

The girls didn't want to have anything to do with boys. I think Dacian was a little sad. 

Here comes the cake

I can't wait to decorate our next cake. I had a blast doing something new. 

Look at our adorable niece. Her expression is so cute!

She hasn't stopped wearing this outfit from cousins, Lily and Zeke. Thank you so much guys!

Full of hugs and thanks.

Her BFF, Taylor brought her a beloved Dora. Thank you so much!

We played a little game of Minute to Win it. 

Tom the Turkey-We put lots of fabric on it. :)

My best friend from Romania sent my kids these adorable folk costumes for the kids plus many other things. So adorable!

I have a thing for hats and I couldn't not buy this one when I saw it! 

I made these shirts last year. I forget the internet link, sorry. Easy and so cute.

Weird and random thoughts-The internet

I have been limiting my computer time. I am starting to LOVE it! I once read about people feeling depressed while reading others' blogs or just spending too much time on the computer! I guess that's me. The less I read or the less time I spend of FB, blogs, checking email the better I feel. It's like I just live my life, a little less comparing, a lot more time spend with the kids/husband, a lot less pressure. It's not easy to do though as I know I am addicted. There's sure some fun things to read on the internet.

Also I always hear about people comparing their bad days to people's best days. And of course everyone highlights the best in life (me included) and since I have kind of a poor self esteem then I always end up feeling bad,  a not so amazing mother, a not so good wife, friend, worker etc. I just start focusing on what I do wrong, what I lack, and so on and until I get depressed. I think if I spend less time reading how to be a good mother for example which I think I already know the theory to that one then maybe I will become better, be more patient, etc.
Maybe it's just me and I'm going nuts. I am so tired as I'm writing this with a huge headache so maybe I'm going to delete this post tomorrow altogether. But I think I need to try to break this addiction. That's not to say I won't hop on and read my friend's blogs, look at pics, etc but I will do it less often. I will do it after I make dinner, spent time with the family, finished dishes, homework with D, etc. 


I sometimes think that I hop on the internet to unwind, like watching a movie but it's different. It's amazing how much thinking starts to happen in my brain after reading articles, ideas, etc. It's like it's crowding my brain and I can't be present anymore. Does that even make sense? It's like sensory overload. And it's almost like having ADD, jump from site to site, tab to tab, checking FB again and again for new news only to be disappointed that no one wrote anything. It's like my custom breaking news that I check. 


I do like writing on the blog, my little creative outlet. (not that I'm all that creative or that I get to write all that often but you get the idea). We are the editors, we write, we edit, we are in charge. 


I will be back sometime though and report with how I'm doing. Wish me luck! Bad habits are tough to break and good ones hard to make. :)

The Family Picture Adventure

Today was a fun day and relaxing too which isn't the normal it seems for most Saturdays.

We had our family photos taken. This is something I requested for a gift for my birthday. Shane doesn't like to get his photo taken so I have to use an excuse like my b-day to get him to do it. He was sweet and complied.
I can't wait to see the pictures.

I can't believe how much I worked to get the right outfits. It started with last Saturday when we went to the outlet mall to get our outfits. Well, it got really cold and the outfits we had bought were for indoors photos so I started stressing realizing my girl would never put up with being cold, wearing just a shirt and skirt. So I started to panic that we didn't have anything cool to wear. I think I have been going a little crazy over this.
You should see my living room.

You should've seen me laying out all the outfits, pairing, changing, getting excited, or not so excited at times.
I think I went shopping three more times. Suffice it to say Io have a lot of stuff to take back, stuff'that I changed my mind about. I managed to use our coats that we already had to match and only had to buy two things.

We met at a park nearby. I was excited to see how photographers do it, what they say to you, etc. It was a fun experience and I really liked our gal. She's the daughter of a cool teacher at my school. I would be so nervous being in her shoes. I wonder if they get butterflies doing what they do. I mean you are meeting strangers and going to stick a lens in their faces and have to manage to get photos that are as if you weren't really there, that capture the moments. Fun stuff!

Lavinia got a stomach ache right before leaving and was GRUMPY! My luck! She is pretty shy with strangers nowadays and it took her a while to warm up. The photographer had the fun idea to let her push a button on the camera and that did it for her. After that she warmed up some. I think we may have gotten a few smiles.
We did a mini photo shoot that was only 30 minutes. Perfect amount for our kids.
Dacian did great and was anticipating today's event for quite a while. He was his chatty self.

After we were done we rented a movie and had the best time at home. Lavinia slept a lot so I hope she'll be getting better soon. We've had the stomach flu around here and I am hoping to be done with sickness. Enough is enough.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings.

Can't wait to show you all our pictures whenever I get them. I'm so curious and excited.

Halloween 2011

I am all tired but also I went shopping tonight a little and now I am all awake. So why not update the blog a little. Shane was wonderful and stayed behind and took care of the kids and even put them both to bed. Gotta love that.
Now the house is super quiet and lovely and dirty. Oh, well, Halloween is to blame. But Halloween is super fun so I'll let this one slide.

My son got to dress up three times. Once for his school party, once for Trunk or Treat at church and once for the actually Halloween night. It was fun.

Saturday, our Canadian grandparents were in town and we went clothes shopping together. We are having family pics taken this Saturday so I needed to put together some things. Right before shopping we ate with them a delicious pumpkin soup served right out of a cooked pumpkin. Charlotte always know how to decorate so well. It is always fun when they come visit and it was a treat to shop together. I am glad Scott and kids could also join and I thank Scott for watching my kids quite a few times while I went on to try things with Shane. After shopping we rushed to go put our costumes on so we could head to our church's Trunk or Treat. Our ward had a fun chilly cook off and then a costume parade and then outside to the candy stuff.

Sunday night my family came over and we finally carved our pumpkins. We also had some yummy fondue and a few fun treats. It was fun but again I was so tired by the end of the evening.

 We borrow our costumes from Mike and Noel. Thank you so much!

 I was a queen and little Rapunzel

 Deviled egg spiders

 Hard at work

 How I went to work on Halloween.

I love my little lion. I was lucky to take an early and a little longer lunch to go to Dacian's party at school. Dad and Lavi got to come too.

 Busy jungle animals doing the activities.

 D kept hugging his sister. He kept talking about her to his friends.

 And hwere is the office staff all dressed up. Fall-me, Winter-Principal, Spring-Registrar, Winter-Counselor

 All the costumed people at my work. Don't you love our costumes?

 And finally Trick or Treat night with our next door neighbor. She's cool!

We finished the night by trick or treating at maie and taie.

Curriculum Night impressions

Wow! I don't know if it's Dacian's school or what but do they really do poetry in Kindergarten (as in writing it themselves by the end of the grade)? Good grief!
I was impressed by how well organized the teacher was and the school as a whole. The area in which we live is a pretty affluent one so much so that apparently in years past kids were taken to school on horses. There are lots of people with land and horses near where we live which is pretty weird for how big and crowded the city is. I like it though; at times we have to stop at crosswalk for a horsie to go by.
Anyway, the presentation was great. I felt like it was a little over the top to impress us parents more than anything else.
The school I work at is so different and yet they are in the same district. I have to say I like where I work better. It feels like more down to earth but of course I am biased since I work there. I love the people I work with.
It will take some adjustment to love another school but I will try my best to change my attitude and involve myself in what I can for the love of my child.

Outside the classroom there was an adorable picture Dacian drew. All kids actually did such a cute job. They were asked to draw something from the room that they saw and he chose the EGOL (that's what he spelled it like-eagle) I took a  pic of it with my phone but haven't downloaded it yet. It was CUTE!

The teacher was very sweet and well organized and seemed to be more comfortable. Yay! Dacian loves her. He comes home so happy every day. So what more can I ask for?
We will have parent-student-teacher conferences soon to set goals and we will meet again in January to talk about how he's doing.
It's interesting how even though I work for a school I am still a newbie parent with a first time child in school.
I really wish I could go into different teacher's rooms to see their teaching style, etc. That would be fun. I will plan to volunteer a bit through the year on some of my personal days. Can't wait!

Let's see, what else is new? Oh yeah, I am sick! Ugh! I started feeling it on Sunday late and then woke up really sick on Monday morning so I stayed home that day. Then I went to work Tuesday but only stayed the first half of day. Today I stayed home again. I went to the pharmacy after talking to the dr. who prescribed me some albuterol and codeine for my cough. After last year when I got sick a lot, I feel like something has changed with me. Can someone develop asthma this late in life? I feel like I have a very tight chest and that I get the same type of cough and symptoms I got last year.
Anyway, not fun. I really hope I can sleep tonight.
Lavinia got sick too but she's fighting it better than I. D got sick two days into Kindergarten.

On another note. My little girl is growing up. She calls herself big all the time now and asks if she can too go to school.
Even since that day when she decided she'd go potty she went every time after that. This is a miracle to me. She is even dry every morning. So to celebrate her biggness today we changed her crib to the toddler bed option. She was over the moon. I am big, I am big, she would sing.
I was able to squeeze next to her in the little bed and read her bedtime story as opposed to standing up and reading it to her. She was so excited. Then I told her because she is big like her brother she needed to sleep now. That was it. I walked out of there and withing minutes she was off in dreamland. I sneaked in to give both kids some kisses. I just LOVE being a mom, even sick and with no energy like I've been this week.
Also I was able to pick up Dacian from the bus and put him on in the morning. This will be so rare that it was such a sweet treat for me.

Well, off to bed I go. It's late but because I've been sleeping on and off today I am still not that sleepy. Maybe the codeine will kick in soon to help with that.

An amazing thing just happened

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I read some article about how to get your kids to smile great for pictures. As I am learning more about photography and as my goal is to become good at taking pics of my kids I try to go out and practice portrait style pics. When I look at good photographers I realize how I may never reach that potential BUT I am better than I used to be, and with practice I may become even better. A fault of mine I think is to put myself down, and to NEVER give myself any credit. I have to fight with myself to think otherwise. I am just wired that way and maybe that's also why I am not a happy go lucky type of girl.
Anyway, I feel silly just posting pics of my kids for no reason. But boy oh boy is there a reason to show off my girl  today. How do you like my long introduction?

Out of the blue she went potty today. Earlier for my dad and today while eating dinner with the missionaries, we heard the sound of water running. I didn't realize what that was until I looked in her direction and noticed her on the potty. I had her in regular panties and we have discussed about going potty and not wetting the princesses on her panties. She would give me the right answer and saying she would go in the toilet but kept on wetting her pants. I have been told the best method is to go all out and just put her in panties and let her have accidents until one day she'll just get it. But you see this kid is stubborn and didn't want her panties and as soon as they were wet for the few times she let me put them on she begged for her diaper.
She also didn't want to sit on her potty, with as much cajoling and promises of many wonderful gifts. NOTHING for months. Sure, I wasn't consistent with me being back at work and with us being gone all summer and with my parents driving here and there a lot every day and they weren't going to take her without a diaper all over creation and in their nice car.

So the fact that she's getting it, the fact that she did this on her own is a HUGE accomplishment. I couldn't be happier. I am so giddy. And I was so exhausted. So tired from work but this brought much needed happiness.

One of my promises to her was getting her a Rapunzel toy. She loves that movie. So off to Toys R Us I go for her beloved toy. She asked me twice after she went today for "Punzel".  She remembered and I am more than glad to go get it for her. A promise is a promise.
Ta! Ta!

P.S Let me know which pics are your favs if you could please. I didn't edit them in any way so I guess just comment on the composition, etc. I could lighten them a little but now I don't feel like it. Also I know I need to work on my focus. Thanks!