Happy 1 Miss Piper

On January 30 one year ago a little blond baby came into our lives and we have never been the same since. She is the sweetest baby who loves to laugh and explore; she is very inquisitive and LOVES her big sister and brother. She is a classic 3rd baby and she is very content to go with the flow.  Piper, you are truly a blessing to us and we are so grateful that you are part of our family! Happy First Birthday!

Our original party plans got cancelled due to the flu. 3 out of 5 of us have it (including Piper) but that did not stop us from celebrating her for the day. We opened presents midday, had white cake with cream cheese frosting (Piper's special cupcake had puffs - her favorite snack - on top) late afternoon and lots of Birthday wishes all day long.

Toy Museum

This week Lucy's class took a morning field trip to the Toy museum. It is located in the castle so we had to take a bus and the metro and then we hiked up the castle stairs into the little museum. It is a quite cute two little floors just filled with toys. The top floor was the favorite because of the HUGE barbie collection (including all of the normal players and then the celebrity selection with MC Hammer, and Vanilla ice, Dorothy from Wizard of OZ) and the collection of Star Wars action figures. The had lots of work to do once they got there - each of them was given crayons and a clipboard with some pages that they needed to fill in, including favorite toy, two that are similar, one that is old and one that is young.

More Fame

Not sure what's going on here, but suddenly Lucy is everywhere we turn. In this week's Prague Post (the weekly English-language paper), here's the front of the educational supplement:

I'm thinking about being her agent, since having your parent be your agent has worked so well for people like Lindsay Lohan.

I love my little monkey

Clark is natually such a monkey. He loves to climb and often is talking while moving to various levels of the house, swinging around between two chairs or just spinning on the coffee table without skipping a beat in conversation. This is a snap shot of what it looks like to be playing Uno Spin across from him - he climbed up on Phil without a stitch of help as he contiuned smack-talking to us about how he and Phil were going to beat the girls! (while Piper eats one of the cards)

someone is gonna be one soon

It is almost this little one's birthday and she is becoming quite a little lady....

The times, they are a'changing!

This is the time of year when I have to renew our visas, so that we can legally reside in the Czech Republic.  This is the time of year when I develop headaches and ulcers.  This is the time of year when I've had to wake up at 3:30am or thereabouts in order to wait in long lines.  Get the idea?

Here's an example: to renew your visa, you have to go to the Foreign Police.  This has historically and notoriously been the worst governmental office to visit.  Our friend took this video clip of the office from almost a year ago...

I honestly think I might have been in this line on this day, because those woman's screams sound eerily familiar - I feel like Jodie Foster in "Silence of the Lambs" describing the screams of the lambs to Hannibal Lecter.  Shudder, shudder.  Plus, I really think I can see someone that looks like me in the crowd.

You used to have to wake up at 3:30 to even have a chance of making it inside, and even if you made it inside, they might have run out of numbers by the time you get there.  (They only have a certain number of numbers each day)

The last time I went there (about 8 months ago), the process had improved drastically.  There were actual police standing outside for crowd control, and there was an actual line (!) of rather pleasant people.  I still had to wake up super early, however.

I decided this year to tackle the visa process by myself, as opposed to forking over a large amount of money to have someone do the paperwork for us.  I was understandably NOT excited about this, but I have to say I have been very blessed through this whole process.  The biggest surprise was when I went back to the foreign police 2 weeks ago.  I waited in line for an hour at the information desk, which informed me there was a NEW ROOM for citizens of certain countries, including America.

Slightly skeptical, I went to the new office on the other side of the building, took the elevator to the 4th floor, and walked into a quiet office with no customers and a lady sitting behind her desk.  WHAT?!?  Yes, the foreign police is now an easy, efficient process.  Wonders never cease.  Here's the glorious view from my chair...

A Man's A Man For A' That

Last night was one our favorite evenings every year - the annual Robert Burns Supper, put on (mostly) by the Scottish families at Riverside School.  There's the toasting, the whiskey, the haggis, the kilts, and the dancing.  Mostly there's a lot of bewilderment at what these Scottish people are actually saying.  Here's the blessing for the food that was written by Rabbie Burns himself (no spelling errors here):"

Some hae meat and canna eat,

and some wad eat that want it,

but we hae meat and we can eat,

and sae the Lord be thankit."

Shanna was more agile this year on the dance floor, since she wasn't 9+ months pregnant with Piper.  We had a great time with our friends!

Miss Sunny

Miss Sunny has returned to Prague for a fun (and not long enough) visit. You may remember that Sunny lived in Prague up until last May when she moved back to the states to get her counseling degree. She  is a very dear friend whom we have missed SO much. She stayed with us the second week of her trip and it was like she never left. One day the kids were not feeling well enough to go to school and it was a very yucky and cold day and Sunny stayed in with us, we ended up having the best time ever, movies, crafts, getting our hair done at the "salon" and lots of Uno spin. We miss you already Miss Sunny!

Sven's Birthday

Lucy was invited to her friend Sven's birthday party. It had a water theme that included whale coloring sheets, a whale you could climb through the mouth and exit through the belly and then they made Lucy's absolute favorite, Sea in a bottle. A 2 liter bottle filled with 3/4 water and topped off with basic cooking oil, add food coloring in your favorite color, glitter, foamy shapes glue the top of the bottle, give it a shake. The oil and water mix together and make it a beautiful sea in a bottle. You can then put it front of a light and watch the glitter sparkle as it settles. It was a very fun day.

Jesus and Kung Fu Panda

We had our first official church event at our NEW location last night!  Yes, we are moving locations to a larger, nicer, and closer facility in two weeks.  It's actually at a train station - we're renting the conference room on Sundays and then we'll have permanent office space above for kids space on Sundays or mid-week meetings.  I am so excited about this - it's truly a blessing to find this place for many reasons... I'll have to leave it at that for now and wait to elaborate after our first worship there on February 8th.

Anyway, we broke it in last night with a lecture by a professor here by the name of Ted Turnau, a great guy who teaches cultural and religious studies at Anglo-American University here.  He specializes in popular culture, so he delivered a lecture last night entitled "Pop Culture World: How Understanding Popular Culture is Essential to Loving Your Neighbor."  I thought it was very informative, challenging, and engaging.  Shanna felt more affirmed than ever in her hobbies of watching E! and reading People magazine.

We had a nice-sized crowd and got lots of positive feedback, both about the lecture and the new building.  (And if you look closely, you'll see Kung Fu Panda up on the screen, which Ted used as an example for us)

Our famous daughter

Sorry for the recent silence - apparently when even our Uncle Bob starts to complain, it must have been a while since we've posted.  Not that there hasn't been anything blog-worthy to post - we've just been pretty busy and haven't taken a whole lot of pictures.  But just you wait - some good posts are coming, I can feel it.

Here's a cool thing that happened last week - someone sent us a message and said, "Did you know that your daughter was on the front page of 'Listy' this month?"  That would be a 'no,' since I've never heard of 'Listy' (which means 'pages,' or 'sheets').  Well, I finally found it online - apparently it's a free publication that goes out into people's mailboxes (except ours, I guess) every month.  Check out the top-left corner...

They're promoting this year's marathon series, and you may remember that we did the family fun run last fall and got our pictures taken by a photojournalist.  Very cool!  I told Lucy that she's even more important than the Mayor of Prague, who is pictured below her.  (She didn't understand.  Daddy is weird.)

If you want to see the actual link to the paper (just for a bigger view), click here.

Li'l Glam

Piper and me (Phil) were hanging out on Friday. It's been a looooong week with this little sad one - she's cutting 4 teeth, has had massive hives all over her body (related to the teeth, we think, but possibly an allergy of some sort). So I decided she needed a little makeover (that always seems to make Shanna happy). In my desperation I found several clips and necklaces in Lucy's stash - and VOILA! Making her debut - Li'l Glam.

sledding

This weekend we went sledding with the Falk's and the Wilson's. We found a big hill and in mala sarka and had a blast. We had a slight scare when we first arrived, the kids had run ahead with all of the other kids and Phil and I were just arriving to the top of the hill when we noticed Clark jumped on a big inner tube and took off, he was FLYING down the hill, his friend Sara (who is 8) was waiting to catch him at the bottom, but just arriving at the top of the hill we hadn't even scoped out the hill, the CLIFFS, the trees etc. As we are watching him we realized there is no way sarah is going to be able to stop him and his big red inner tube and at the same time we noticed that it looks like there is a drop off at the bottom of the hill. We took off running to catch him. When he was out of sight my running speed increased (thank God I am training for a 1/2 marathon). When we got to what I thought was a cliff, we saw him and the red inner tube mangled in a bunch of bushes. He was fine, the tube was fine, and he had a few tears but was ready to go again. The cliff was actually a drop off but what we couldn't see is that it then went flat for a bit before hitting some trees. We had a spotter at the bottom the rest of the day. Hours of fun, memories, and good friends make for a fabulous saturday!

date night

This week we had a special date night with Chris and Laura. We went out for Thai food and then on to see U2 3D at the Imax. It was great to have uninterupted conversation and catch up with Chris and Laura at dinner. We have lived here togehter for 3.5 years and in Prague terms, it is a lifetime. The movie/concert was so fun. It was like we were actually at this concert and could reach out and touch Bono. I loved the 3D effects and all of sitting there with these cool glasses on.

Snow

We started back to school this week with great excitement to see all of our friends and lots of SNOW! Monday it snowed just about all day big beautiful snow flakes, the kind that make everything seem to stand still, the kind that seem to make the world muffled. They were magical and wonderful. When the kids got home they went straight outside and played until they were frozen. We made snow angels, had a snow ball fight, tried sledding down our hill and just enjoyed the magic of the first real snow.

gLAM!

Lucy is auditioning for a part in gossip girls.... 

you know you love me, oxox. 

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I love the time between Christmas and New Years to reflect and put the old away and prepare and get ready for what is to come. Our week happened a little later since we were traveling but we are now home and have put all the Christmas decor away, unpacked, reorganized all closets and drawers and are ready to start the new year. We have spent the last two days in our jammies and gearing up for the new year. We have been reflective and quiet at times and full of energy and excited at others. But most importantly we have been together and it has been good, to just be and enjoy. I am writing my New Years resolutions and looking to make long term goals. This adds a bit of excitement to, what is to come. I have so enjoyed my children today and the fun they bring, the imagination, the hope, the excitement, I have enjoyed my husband his laugh and partnership and I have just enjoyed being.

Here are a few glimpses into what today has held....

Princess Leah and Luke SkywalkerJuicing together... carrot, apple, strawberries and blueberries... yummmmGuitar heroes... even that little itty bitty one

Movin' on Up

We told Clark that he could move up to the loft when he turned 4, so he made the big move last night.  He and Lucy are now both upstairs on their respective sides, and they have a little window in between them, which allows them to whisper and giggle.

All I want for Christmas...

Lucy's other front tooth popped out yesterday.  She's loving her gaping hole and discovering new ways to eat.

What - more presents?

Upon returning to Prague, we discovered that Santa had, in fact, also visited us there and left a few gifts.  Lucy kept saying "I told you! I told you!" They were glad to have one final present blitz, and we took our very-dead tree out the next day.

Life of a missionary kid

You sit in the airport...

Watch a video...

Try to make all your connections back to Prague, while talking on your pretend pink phone...