Celebrating Jon's 39th

Jon's birthday was on January 23 and we got to go out and celebrate at a Chinese restaurant in the city center. As always it is such a treat to get to go out on a date night uninterrupted by the two little ones.

The restaurant is actually pretty nice. There is a little stream that circles the restaurant with those big fish swimming around.




Jon is enjoying some green tea in our booth. It was really nice to be secluded for privacy and also to be able to speak English without everyone staring at us!


No wonder Asians are so skinny.........who can eat anything with chopsticks????!!!

Days 22-28

Spiderman is be-headed.


Slippers in waiting.


Homework...........blah!


Keeping the milk cold. After one hour it had already formed into pieces of ice.


Cute birthday cards Christina had the boys make the night before.


Celebrating 39 years of Jon......wonderful husband and father.


Spill on aisle 1. The little culprit is in the background.

Decreasing Population in Russia

I recently posted about the alarming abortion rates in Russia. Abortions add to the country's decreasing population something which the government is extremely concerned about. I remember watching this story on the news and I recently found an article on the internet from denverpost.com. I just copied and pasted the story:


"Russians get day off to procreate, then win prizes."

Moscow - A Russian region of Ulyanovsk has found a novel way to fight the nation's birth-rate crisis: It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the third year running is giving couples time off from work to procreate.

The hope is for a brood of babies exactly nine months later on Russia's national day. Couples who "give birth to a patriot" during the June 12 festivities win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.

Ulyanovsk, about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held similar contests since 2005. Since then, the number of competitors, and the number of babies born to them, has been on the rise.

Russia, with one-seventh of Earth's land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. With a low birth rate and a high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s.

In his state-of-the-nation address last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia's birth rate, including cash incentives to families that have more than one child.

Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov has added an element of fun to the national campaign.

The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.

Abortions in Russia

This past Sunday evening my friend Christina and I went to visit a friend in a maternity hospital. Our friend is now 7 weeks pregnant but over a week ago she started spotting. She went to see a doctor and the doctor did an ultrasound. At that time she wasn't even 6 weeks pregnant and the doctor recommended an abortion thinking that the baby wasn't growing. Of course our friend and her husband refused and instead she was admitted into a special hospital for pregnant women. She was put on bed rest and was admitted into a room with 10 other women. Actually, she almost had to wait a day to be admitted because on that particular day the hospital was overbooked with women having abortions. Thankfully they found a bed for her. Her husband made a statement that he had never been in one room with so many murderers.

Hospitals here in Russia are very different from the ones back in the States. I know from firsthand experience. Hospitals are downright scary here but thankfully this particular hospital is decent and our friend has been pleased with the care she is receiving. She went on to tell us that in the room there are several women who have had abortions. One woman is over 40 and is pregnant with her second child. She really wants this baby but is now having some problems with the pregnancy. The woman seems to think it's because of the numerous abortions she has had in the past. Who knows? Other women, well girls, are as young as 14 and 15 and are at the hospital to have abortions. Since my friend has been there 8 days now she has had many opportunities to talk to a lot of women. Some of the excuses the women have given to have abortions were:
1. My husband/boyfriend doesn't want a child.
2. Pregnancy isn't planned so therefore it isn't convenient to have a child.
3. No money.

As we stood there in the waiting hall (we couldn't go to the room, she had to come out and meet us), I couldn't help but look around the room and wonder which one of the several women visiting with their husbands/boyfriends had already aborted their babies. I was really overwhelmed with sadness.

Before we moved to Russia we were given a statistic that on average a Russian woman has had 8-9 abortions. Yesterday, Jon's language teacher told him that there are 5,000 abortions a day in Russia............do the math. That's 1,825,000 murdered babies a year. The population in Russia is actually declining and it is a huge concern for the government.

Back to my friend. Yesterday she had another ultrasound. The baby looks great and is thriving! By the time you read this she should hopefully be home and praising God for the life that is growing in her womb.

Finally....Nahum's birthday party!

Poor Nahum! Even though his birthday was at the beginning of January he had to wait forever to have his party due to several illnesses among the kids on our team. But his party was worth the wait and a lot of fun!

These two boys are the sons of the Moorhead's pastor!


Here's the birthday boy! Sharon did a great job putting together a Lego cake!


Here's Myriam enjoying some yummy cake..........I think she wore most of it.


Sharon had the great idea of making a pinata. It was a big hit........literally.


Josiah, Nahum, and Isaac recovering from a sugar high.

Days 15-21

Time to clean the bathroom - BLEH!


Jojo's favorite: homemade tomato soup and melted cheese on toast.


Laundry day.........no dryer so everything has to hang.


Nahum's Lego birthday party.


Long overdue for a haircut.


Pancake Saturday!


My fave! Cocoa-cola........lots of ice.......in a nice big mason jar!

Me, Me, Me......

Nathan has become quite the independent guy lately. Everything is "me, me, me........" He says this when he wants to do anything.........including things which he isn't quite capable of doing himself yet. Most of the time I let him try, sometimes he surprises me and actually accomplishes his task but the majority of the time he realizes he can't quite do it on his own and sweetly says "help you" (he means to say "help me").

Days 8-14

Nothing but concrete buildings.


Ice picker. I do not envy him.


My favorite earrings.


Nathan's new best friend.......Pavel. Too bad he only stayed with us a few days.


A sick little boy.


This lasted for only 5 minutes.


Visiting with Katya (in red). Her husband and family are now in Moscow ministering in a church plant.

Birthday Party!!!

Josiah loves to celebrate Birthdays! Alisha Klassen turned 8 and we were invited to her bunny themed birthday. It was great fun. Heather(Alisha's mom) always does a real good job of having so many fun things for the kids to do. Heather made the cutest cake. I didn't get a good picture of it unfortunately but the cake had a vegetable garden on it with carrots, tomatoes, and lettuce! There's also a picket fence around the garden and bunnies in the middle!!!

The birthday girl!

A Picture A Day

My sister is doing Project 365. My sister Monica and I have the photography "bug". We probably got it from our father who loved photography. I don't know how long my sister will keep it up and so far my pictures aren't really amazing or anything. I just think it is a great way to keep a record of what goes on in my daily life. So far, I am thinking there will be a lot of indoor pictures during this winter. We are having quite a cold spell. There will probably also be a lot of pictures of my two little ones. And for sure there will be cooking and baking pictures.

New Year's Day Part 2

Here in Russia, New Year's Eve is a huge holiday...........the biggest one of the year. So, for the most part Russians will stay up all night long, set off fireworks, and PARTY! New Year's Day they all sleep in. We had a pretty laid back day but I gave the boys their stockings. I know that you usually do stockings for Christmas but truthfully in my family we have never done stockings before. I wasn't even too sure what to put inside of the. After consultations with Jon and my friend Heather, I bought all the appropriate stocking stuffers. The boys really enjoyed having extra little treats.

Holiday Collage

 

New Year's Day

I've always wanted to make donuts but not sure how they would turn out. Thankfully these turned out great and will now be a part of a New Year's tradition.

Days 1 - 7

I've been inspired by my sister and a couple of other bloggers to start a project. Taking a picture every single day. Let's see if I can keep it up. I will only post weekly though.

If you get the right amount of temperature and the right amount of snow.....you get a wonderful frost that sets on the tree.


Shadow fun on the front door.


It's been a bit of a cold spell lately. The bottom temperature is the outdoor temperature.


I got enough "stickers" at my grocery store and got this soccer ball.


Way behind on my ironing! No way to start off the new year.



Alisha Klassen's bunny birthday party.



New tradition on New Year's day......homemade donuts.