Urban

Urban is starting to sit up on his own. We put pillows around him today just in case he fell. He sat there a long time today contentedly playing with toys. It is a whole new world for him now!

Asher and Urban

It is time for me to update my picture frames so I took some pictures of the boys today. We don't even have pictures of Urban in any frames yet, so it is about time. They were cooperative for a few minutes.

Urban: 5 months



Asher: 2 years


Brothers:


Is it just me or does Urban look a tad large on Asher's lap? Asher had a hard time holding him up! This didn't last long. :)

New Year's Eve

We had a New Year's Eve Party at our house. Three of our friends all have birthdays pretty close together so we celebrated with cake and ice cream.

The birthday trio


Here's the crew that came to the party:


Our time together involved eating, games, a movie, and putting children to bed. I think the kiddos were just as excited about the party as we were. Getting them all to fall asleep was not an easy task. Urban got a bedtime lullaby from Dan (this was at about 9:30pm!). Dan sang "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice. A popular lullaby for a baby! :) I guess we were all in party mode.

It was a great way to ring in the new year! Looking forward to 2011!

More Christmas

We were surprised by some more gifts in the mail a few days after Christmas.




On New Year's Eve we had the Wessman Family Christmas via skype and opened up our gifts from them.


Asher got some tools. He is sanding one of our chairs. Safety first!


Urban enjoyed Asher's safety goggles as well as his giraffe.

Christmas Morning

We enjoyed a quiet Christmas morning together as a family. We were up by 6am and were able to skype with Reed's parents, which was still late Christmas Eve for them. Excuse the pjs and bedhead on everyone (except Urban)! :)

Our living room soon turned into looking like a tornado hit:


Reed opening up a gift:


Urban's first Christmas: (he got his first pair of shoes)


More gift opening:

It was a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve day with our friends. We enjoyed good food, singing, a time of sharing, games, presents, and movies.

We made banana slushie (a tradition in Reed's family). Here the kids are enjoying some:


All of the kids: (Urban was a little heavy for Asher to hold up!)


Lynn reading a Christmas story to the kids:

My friend, Sheryl, got this photo of Asher and Urban:

Asher opening up his gift:

Urban relaxing and enjoying the holiday:

We had a fun day together!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Christmas Cookies

My language tutor and her sister came over tonight to decorate Christmas cookies with Asher and me. We had a lot of fun together. I've been learning a ton over the course of the last year and half about this new culture I live in, as well as their holidays and traditions. It was fun to be able to share a little bit of Christmas with them.



These gals are super creative and made beautiful cookies. Here are some of our very colorful cookies:


The cookie crew:


Asher had a blast helping! He got to stay up way past his bedtime and eat cookies. You can't beat that.

Urban- 5 months

Urban is (almost) 5 months! Technically, he turns 5 months on Christmas, but I have a feeling a will be doing other things that day, so I'm trying to get ahead.

Anyway, hard to believe he is this old already. Urban is full of giggles these days. He loves to be cuddled and finds great comfort in his thumb. He's starting to reach for things with his hands and, of course, everything goes in his mouth. He thinks he needs to eat a lot and still gets up at least once each night. He loves his big brother, Asher, and watches him very intently. He spits up a ton, so anyone who holds him takes the risk of getting doused by him. When he is sad or mad he is quite dramatic and will let you know. He's got quite the pouty lip and loud wail. He has brought much joy to us these last 5 months!

Making "Sarma"

I had my language tutor come over a week ago with her sister to teach me how to make a Turkish food called sarma. It is rice mixed with various spices wrapped in grape leaves. It is cooked, but served cold. It took about three hours to wrap all of them. It was fun to learn and good language practice for me. They are such sweet ladies.

Here is what they look like:

Throughout the evening Urban got lots of love and attention from my friends.

We ate sarma for about a week. The recipe made alot and I even froze some. Thankfully Reed didn't mind eating it and Asher loved it. He has done really well at trying new foods. Hopefully, I can continue to add more Turkish foods to my repetoire!