Do I Run a Bakery or A Household?

Well Todd came home Thursday evening and immediately the kids got back into their routine. Elijah, who hasn't slept much since Todd left slept through all of dinner and has been making up for the lost sleep ever since. That night I got up to feed him once in the middle of the night and he slept until 12:3o. He usually gets up around 7:30 or 8:00 and then goes back to sleep at 9:00 until 11:00. But yesterday and today he's decided to SLEEP! Even though he got up at lunchtime he stayed up for about an hour and then went down for his long afternoon nap until 4. Praise the Lord! Todd went to class in the morning and Ev was playing with our helper so I had some time to get things done.

Since preparing/planning for meals takes so long here I decided to just plan out meals (6 weeks worth) including sides and what food I need for each meal so all I have to do is just look at what day it is and know what meal I am making. I wrote down everything I need so that I can do my grocery shopping (actually Todd does my shopping for me) in one time.

So since Elijah was sleeping and Ev was occupied this is what I accomplished. I made all of the breads for meals for this weekend plus all of next week and some for Todd to snack on. This is what I made:

4 loaves of French bread

2 batches of biscuits

2 batches of rolls

1 batch of hamburger buns

1 loaf of bread

All of which are from scratch. No Pillsbury rolls from a can, no Bisquick mix, no loaf of French bread or buns from the grocery store! I worked all morning and early afternoon. The house smelled good though. Maybe I should go into the bread making business since my family loves to eat bread so much. :)

(tomorrow I plan on making 2 batches of cinnamon rolls and a loaf of pumpkin bread)

Current Projects

I have a few projects that I am in the process of working on, dreaming up in my head, and ones I'm finished with. I really don't have much spare time but I manage to squeeze in a few moments here and there. I would post a picture of my works in progress but Todd left me without the camera this week. Oh and by the way, I am SO GLAD that I brought my sewing machine here!

project that is finished:
- making my own Kelli style "taggie" for Elijah. (I used various sized ribbons that I had here, part of a flannel receiving blanket, and some tracing paper.)

project that I am working on:
- making a christmas tree skirt out of recycled material. (Sorry Kara I am using the red material from your quilt cover you let us have)
- Elijah's scrapbook.
- presents for a few special people :)

projects that I am dreaming up in my head:
- an Advent calendar type banner of some sort that can be handled by little fingers and help us retell the story of Jesus' birth.
- doll clothes made out of Ev's clothes that don't fit her

3rd Day Without Daddy

Yesterday I thought went pretty good. Today on the other hand, was not exactly what I was hoping for. It started off with me getting maybe 5 hours of interrupted sleep. Elijah got up several times during the night and so did I. Then I tried a new baby wash for Ev but after a few minutes in a the tub Ev wouldn't sit down. I noticed her bottom and back of her legs all the way down to her feet was bright red. This set her back and made her uncomfortable for a while. Poor thing. Then about mid morning we discovered that Ev's birthday present, a goldfish, didn't make it. The other one didn't survive longer than a day. I guess a little over a week was good for this one. I have the fish bowl on my buffet table and a chair next to it so Ev loves to climb up on the chair so she can see the fish. When I noticed the fish was dead Ev quickly took a look herself. I was a little worried what she would think. This was her reaction- she stared for a few minutes noticing that the fish wasn't moving its mouth or swimming then it hit her... she put her hand over her mouth and started getting up set and said, "oh no!" She told the fish "lai lai" (come) and then she did her fish face and nothing. I decided the situation wasn't going to get any better so we all got bundled up and headed to a place that sells pets of all kinds. We bought 2 new fish that almost look like the other ones for about 40 cents. I then spent the rest of my day listening to my son cry. He usually isn't like this at all. The constant crying took me back to the days of colic. He wasn't eating well or SLEEPING and was fussy and crying non stop. However, I did manage to get both kids down for their naps at the same time. I had big hopes that I could really get a lot done while they were sleeping. Ev went down without too much of a struggle and Elijah fell asleep on his own. The house was so quiet and I sat down to work on this project I needed to finish today. Then all of a sudden, maybe 30 minutes after the kids went down, I hear this LOUD drilling screeching sound coming from my neighbors apartment. They were working on the room opposite of Elijah's. After the second drilling noise my little sleeping boy woke up screaming. (He never does that either.) I quickly run in to comfort him and keep him from waking up his sister. My next dilemma... where do I put him down for a nap? I tried to get him to sleep on our bed but the room was so bright and even though it was the farthest room from Elijah's we still could hear the drilling noise almost as if they were inside my apartment. I tried holding him for a little while and then gave up. I was sad that my lovely quiet afternoon was ruined. So Elijah missed his long afternoon nap and I had to keep him quiet and get my work done. The remainder of the day I tried to figure out what was going on. It hit me as I was putting Ev to bed as he had been screaming in the living room. I think he is teething. That would make sense why he wasn't eating or sleeping well or even taking his paci. Lovely timing! I gave him some medicine and put some Baby Orajel in his mouth. Next thing I know as I am feeding him rice he was chocking. I flipped him upside down on my forearm and was trying to get whatever it was out. After about 10 minutes of attempting different things he finally started acting normal. So now I am hoping since he didn't sleep today that he will be so worn out and sleep tonight. He finally is asleep right now as I write this. He feel asleep in the bouncy.

My Friend

Last Thursday I found out some sad news. I was having a lesson with my tutor and in the middle of it she asked if she could ask me a question. Usually that doesn't happen. But we are to the point in our friendship that we talk about a lot of things. She had a lot on her heart that day so I am glad she shared. First she asked me if I knew anyone who wanted to adopt. I was a little caught off guard by how she worded the question. I asked some questions, listened to her share, and asked some more questions. I had no idea where this conversation was going at first. Last year around this time my tutor introduced me to a friend of hers who she thought I should spent some time with. She had shared with me some background and I was interested in becoming this girls friend. We both had hearts to share with this girl. This girl had gotten married to a man who was several years older than her. He is a very wealthy business man so he traveled most of last year leaving my friend home alone. Obviously the marriage was in danger so after waiting it out after 1 year of being married they got divorced. That brings me to the sad news. My friend told me that our friend was having an affair and got pregnant. My tutor told me that she had talked to her all Sunday to persuade her not to have an abortion. The man involved and another friend were pushing for it. Thankfully my friend listened to my tutor. But I don't know how long she will hold out. Before I knew it was my friend I listened to my tutor answer my questions. I had asked if this girls family knew, how far along she was and if she would listen to other people. I heard my tutor tell me that she is about 2 months pregnant so that means the baby is due around the time Elijah was due. I exhausted my language ability so I began talking in English to tell my tutor that so much is going on with that baby right now.
My heart sunk when I heard that this girl we were talking about is my friend. I am hoping to go visit her sometime this week. I simply want to just love on her. Her family lives far away and she lives alone and in her own words she can't accept what has happened and feels sad. I hope she hasn't done anything since I last talked to my tutor. I can't get my mind off this little baby. Lately it seems like I have heard several stories of people who lost their baby or can't have a baby of their own. Adoptions isn't really an option here. Reality is that babies are either aborted or abandoned. I really don't have a clue what to say - I do want to be there for her. Hopefully I will have the language to do so. Would you ask that I can find someone to watch Ev so that Elijah and I can go across town to meet my friend? Would you ask that this girl would chose to keep her baby?

A LONG 10 Hours

Today Todd left on another trip. We had our Sunday time at our friend's house and then I brought the kids home and we are without dad until some time Thursday. Thankfully this couple who live 2 buildings down from us decided to stay for lunch and walked home with me. I am SO grateful they did. Not only did I have 2 other people to cross the street with (I hate crossing the street here) I also had extra hands to help me get our stroller up a few stairs and into our building. As they were walking to their apartment they heard me say "oh no!" and came back for me to tell them that we didn't have power. They helped me get up to the 6th floor by one carrying Ev and the other carrying our stroller as I carried Elijah and our bags. We had done a potluck lunch so I was carrying more bags than normal. I really don't want to think about what I would have done if I didn't have them there to help me. I would have had to leave the stroller and belongings on the first floor and would have had to carry 2 kids up 6 flights of stairs.... in high elevation no less. Then I would have had to leave the kids in the apartment, run down the stairs and carry the stroller and other things back up. So glad I didn't have to do that. The fun didn't stop there though. Once at home I made some assessments about how long I thought the power had been off. Since we don't have good medicine here we have to bring in our immunizations from other countries. The trick with immunizations is that they have to be at a perfect temperature. Not too hot not too cold. Since we didn't know when power would come back on I called my friend whose house we just left to ask if she would mind housing my immunizations and a few food items. Since my kids were napping one of my friends came back to get my items and take them back over to our friends house. Then for the next 10 hours we were without electricity. Thankfully I had water and gas so I could boil water and flush the toilet. But going without power is hard. Especially since my cell phone only had 1 bar left before it died. I had enough time to quickly text my 2 friends and Todd to let them know. Todd had been watching sports before we left this morning so he left the computer on and well our battery isn't lasting long if the computer isn't plugged in so since the power had gone off so did our computer and by itself it had no power. So there I was - without a husband, without electricity, without the computer (Internet) or a cell phone. I realized I had no way to communicate with anyone. It was a scary feeling. I spent my afternoon and evening watching the fridge and trying to decide if I was going to pack us up and go to my friends house to spend the night. As I was packing for the 3 of us I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get my pump, small bag, and both kids down the stairs by myself. I had no way to call anyone to help me so I decided to keep us all here and just wait it out. Thankfully at 10pm the power turned on. I plugged in my cell phone and let Todd know. What a way to start out a week alone with the kids. I'm completely exhausted already!

Learning Letters

I started teaching Ev letters and sounds. I printed off some color sheets from the Internet and had her color them and hung them up on the refrigerator were she can see them and we've been pointing out things that have the letter on them. It is a lot harder to do here since we don't have as many opportunities to have environmental print in English. We go to Starfall.com to hear the short vowel songs and do activities with letters. Ev loves it. The past week she has been pointing out the letter A on her own and says "A". It is exciting to see her do this all on her own. So I took that as my hint to move on to the next letter. Here she is coloring some sheets. She found her basketball and brought it to the table because she found ball on the color page. :)

Wishing For A Pumpkin Patch

I have been reading my friends blogs and have enjoyed seeing several Pumpkin Patch pictures. I would love to take my kiddos to one if we had something like that... we don't! We don't even have pumpkins the same shape as pumkins in America. They look more like big squashes and are green. Oh well. Maybe one day. I decided to dress the kids up in Fall colors and take their pictures anyway.