2011 Blessings

I love the hymn "Count Your Blessings". One day we sang it in Russian and I quickly fell in love with the melody and the cheeriness of the song. Little did I know it was originally a hymn in English. I guess I never sang it before. Ever since I have found myself singing this song throughout my days, especially on those rough days. The chorus goes like this:

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

As the year now comes to an end I have been reflecting upon all the blessings the Lord has bestowed on me. A lot of times there were blessings in disguise but every time gave me an opportunity to thank the Lord for His goodness in my life.

• Amidst all the challenges of homeschooling I am so blessed to have the opportunity to teach my children. On top of it all I am learning so much myself and learning a lot about myself and how I fall short in so many areas.
• We are blessed to be in a new church with a great Sunday School program for the boys. Leaving the church we attended here for 5 years was not easy but it was necessary. We went through some tough times but praise God for blessing us with Transfiguration Baptist Church and for new friends we are making there while getting better acquainted with other friends.
• It was a blessing to be able to stay in Samara this summer. Usually we return to the States but because of the kind of visa that we have now we did not need to return. I do confess that at first it wasn't easy, especially for my eldest son, but having our friends and fellow teammates the Klassens staying here for the summer helped us to have a great summer. Jon's mom also came to visit for 5 1/2 weeks and the boys just loved that.
• Staying behind this summer allowed us to make a trip to Mallorca, Spain where I have 1 uncle and 5 cousins who live there. I had not seen them in over 27 years. Family is really so important to me and what a blessing it was to be reunited with them. Thanks to frequent flier miles, and my gracious cousin Dario, the trip was low cost!!!  
• I am also blessed by my husband who stands on God's Word alone even if it means rejection from friends and (sadly) family. I won't go into detail on this blog but let's just say when one lives by the Word their life will be radically different and will require the confrontation of sin in the lives of others if necessary. I'm thankful for his example and for his desire to practice what he preaches day in and day out!!!

I could probably go on and on but really those are the top blessings for me this year! I look forward to the New Year but as always with a little trepidation. One truth is for sure though, that God will continue to sit on His throne in sovereignty over all the details of my life in 2012!

So.....Happy New Year !
 




By the way, here's the whole hymn just in case you never heard it:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Refrain

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

Refrain

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

Refrain

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be disheartened, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Refrain

"God Made Us Cute"

The other day I asked Josiah, "Why are you and your brother so cute?". He answered, "Because God made us cute!".

Christmas Continues

The tree is still up, the stockings are still hung, the lights continue to twinkle, and Christmas music continues to play. We have had all our Christmas decor up since the Sunday after Thanksgiving.........this is always a bit unusual to our Russian friends. Christmas in Russia is celebrated on January 7 but New Year's Eve is actually the bigger celebration. During Soviet times, Christmas was not celebrated so New Year's Eve became the substitution in a sense. On December 31,  a big meal is eaten, fireworks light up the sky at the stroke of midnight, and Dyod Moroz(Father Frost) and Snegoruchka(the granddaughter of Father Frost) bring presents. This year New Year's Day falls on a Sunday and even the church we attend is changing the service time to accommodate all those who will be celebrating the previous night! We find it a bit humorous and strange but so it is and church service will begin at 3:00 on Sunday. We will welcome the New Year in quietly at home and I plan on wearing earplugs to bed since fireworks will go off all night long!!!
 

Week 15 : Sugar Cookies

My love affair with sugar cookies continues. I am always trying out new recipes I find for sugar cookies. This Christmas I tried out these sugar cookies  on Pinterest. They were yummy and the recipe made a ton of cookies............more than I knew what to do with.  I had a nice batch for our Christmas Eve party, I sent a batch each to both of the boy's Sunday School classes, and a batch for our family to munch on. I still had a whole container of unfrosted cookies left but thankfully we were invited to some friend's home last night so I took that batch with us but still had enough left for our family!!!  So, if you need a bunch of cookies these are great.

I have to confess that I used Pinterest for all my recipes this Christmas. I don't know what I would have done if our internet would have gone out!!!  Thank God it didn't.

 

Frosting and decorating cookies while 

listening to MacArthur's "Battle for the
Beginning" series. Trying to make the 

best use of my time.

Merry Christmas!

We are enjoying a white Christmas!  It has been a blessed day celebrating the birth of our Savior. Since Christmas fell on a Sunday this year we had to set aside a few traditions. The poor boys were so patient since we didn't open presents until after lunch. By the sounds I hear coming from the living room it seems like they are thoroughly enjoying all their presents!!!

 

From our family to yours -  Merry Christmas

Countdown To Christmas: Christmas Eve Party

Every year since we've lived here, our family has hosted a Christmas Eve party with our fellow team mates. It's a always a fun night.  Unfortunately this year the Klassens couldn't join us but instead we invited some cool British friends.............I mainly invited them so I could listen to their lovely British accent............just kidding of course.

 

Nathan with his best girl Miriam.

Christmas Countdown : Christmas Party #2

Tonight we had our annual Christmas party with all the helpers from the training program. As always it was a great night with lots of great fellowship, and yummy food. We even sang some Christmas carols.

 

My man and I!

Christmas Countdown : Week 14 Raspberry Linzer Cookies

My friend Heather makes these cookies a lot and I've been wanting to try them out for some time. Unfortunately I don't have a little cookie cutter for the cutout in the middle so I used a bottle cap instead. I think hearts would be darling!!! There was a special Christmas chapel today with the men at the program and the wives made cookies for them to enjoy. I hope they enjoyed the cookies because I didn't even get to taste them. I saved only 2 for Jojo and Nathan. Of course I found it on Pinterest and you can go here for the link.

 

Nathan helped me with his cookie and that's why it's cracked!

My cookies don't look as pretty as the ones on Pinterest though!

Christmas Countdown: 2011 Christmas Ornament

The first year Jon and I were married, a friend of mine gave us a "First Year Together" ornament (from Hallmark). It is one of my favorites and just looking at the ornament brings back a flood of memories for me. That first year that we were married I had all my ornaments stolen out of the trunk of my car. I was devastated.........all of the ornaments I made as a child were stolen along with angel ornaments I started collecting as a teenager. Even writing about it still makes me a bit emotional. I remember crying about it for days. I'm pretty sentimental and hoped to pass on those homemade ornaments to my own children one day. I actually remember receiving a lot of ornaments from friends and family that year to make up for the loss. Since then, we've purchased one special ornament per year. Usually the ornament is related to somewhere special we have been or something special that happened that year such as the birth of our boys. Since we used to return to the States every summer, it was easy finding ornaments with the year on it even as early as the summer since most souvenir shops sell Christmas ornaments year round. Well, enter 2011 when we didn't return to the States. For months on end I've been thinking what in the world were we going to buy this year for our annual ornament. Thankfully, on our trip to Moscow I found a beautiful glass ornament of one of the Russian Orthodox churches in the Kremlin that we visited.

 

I will have to find a gold glittery pen to write the year on the back!

Christmas Countdown : Small Group Christmas Party

Last night I had the girls from my small group over for a little Christmas Party! I am so thankful for each of the young ladies the Lord has placed in my life.  Many of the girls I've known since we first moved here to Samara (almost 6 years ago) so it's been so exciting seeing them grow in the Lord, get married, and then having babies of their own. 

Christmas Countdown : Snowman Ornaments

 It's Christmas week and we are all so excited!  It's going to be a fun and crazy week with lots of cooking, baking, and cleaning. There will be 3 Christmas parties this week, two of which I'm hosting, and a cookie Chapel for the men at the program. Jojo also needs to do 3 days of school before we begin our two week vacation on Thursday.

This past week I babysat the Moorhead kids and of course I took up a craft. I didn't get pictures of the kids doing the craft but I took some of my boys afterwards. I found this craft idea on Pinterest. It was real cute and easy to do plus I think the snowmen look darling.

The Kremlin

Jon suggested we take a tour of the Kremlin. Initially we wanted to see the armory museum but the timing just didn't work out. So, instead we did the cathedral tour. It's great because you get to walk inside the Kremlin and you are actually able to see quite a bit behind the red walls!

 

This is the Assumption Cathedral and it was the country's central place 

of worship. This is also were the Russian Tsars and Emperors were

crowned. It was built in 1475-1479. The ornate door was made

specifically as the entrance to the royals. During these times, the

capital was St. Petersburg so they had to travel quite a bit to get

crowned and make their grand entrance into the cathedral.

 

This is the Archangel Cathedral built from

1505-1508. It's where the Great Princes,

local Princes, and Tsars are buried.  Too

bad we couldn't take pictures inside!

This is the Annunciation Cathedral buildt

from 1484-1489 and it was the home church

of the Moscow Princes and later of the Russian

Tsars.

 

The bell tower of Ivan the Great was built throughout

the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1812 as Napoleans

army retreated from Moscow, they blew up the

bell tower but the pillar of the bell tower survived

while the annex connected to it was destroyed. It 

was rebuilt and restored in 1814 to it's original state.

Week 13 - Cranberry Bliss Bars

I made these bars for a cookie exchange we had with our wives' group. They turned out quite yummy and the combination of white chocolate and cranberries is delicious!

 

It's always fun to see what the wives have 

baked.  Some of them can be real creative.

You can find the recipe for the bars here and

then linking to the site.

Jojo in Red Square

 

This was Jojo in Red Square a little over 7 years ago! It was on 

our way to Novosibirsk and we got stuck in Moscow for a day.

 

Couldn't get him in the exact spot because an ice skating rink

would have been in the way but you get the idea!

Kicking Off the Christmas Season

I was so excited to see all the lights and Christmas trees in Moscow!  I thought what a great way to begin the Christmas season. One thing I miss the most about living in the States during this time is not being able to drive around and look at Christmas lights so being in Moscow with decorative lights all around was quite a treat.

 

All the squares and shopping centers had huge

Christmas trees.  The first picture is outside Red

Square, the second one is outside a big shopping

mall, and the third picture is inside Red Square.

 

Red Square was absolutely gorgeous with all the lights, there was

even an ice skating rink in the square.

 

These last two pictures are inside of G.U.M.....

the State's shopping mall right on Red Square.

It was gorgeous inside but I was a bit embarassed

taking pictures because it is really fancy inside!

Taste of Home

The week before we left for Moscow I spent some time scouring the internet to see which American delicacies I would find in Moscow! I knew that there was a Dunkin Donuts and Cinnabon but lo and behold there was also Burger King and Wendy's. Did we have a taste at all of these places? Why, yes we did. Thankfully we walked so much that I think we burned off most of the calories ingested.

 

Friday night we took the Metro to Arbat Street. We weren't quite sure where we were going to have dinner but when we saw the Wendy's or should I say "Vendy"(there is no "w" sound in Russian) sign we almost started crying.The place was packed but we found a nice spot and enjoyed our meal.

Wendy's had wi-fi so we looked to see where the nearest Cinnabon and Dunkin Donuts was and we headed that way next. I am crazy in love with Cinnabons and I almost kissed the floor of the Cinnabon shop. The place was super busy but my eagle eyes scouted a cozy spot for our family. That first bite of my Cinnabon was amazing! We also found Dunkin' Donuts and bought 1/2 dozen to eat for breakfast the next day. The kids were ecstatic about the donuts.

 

I was nice enough to share a Cinnabon with Jojo.

 

Of course Jon had to have a chocolate one!

 

Just in case you're wondering that's Dunkin Donuts in Russian.

Moscow

I am so thankful for the opportunities our family has had to travel this past year. I have really enjoyed seeing so many beautiful sites and experiencing such different cultures. This past weekend we had to make a trip to the U.S. embassy in Moscow to renew passports so we took the time to do a little bit of exploring. Moscow is a huge metropolis and very different from Samara. When we lived in Novosibirsk we were told by our neighbors that all the money is in Moscow and now I saw firsthand the truth of that statement.  The city center of Moscow is very European and wealthy! We saw countless of Jaguars, Range Rovers, BMWs, Mercedes Benzs, Porsches,and any other high end vehicle you can think of. Moscow fashion is also up to date with women wearing all the latest trends. Even the babushkee are sophisticated.

We arrived on a Friday afternoon and met our guest outside a McDonalds near a Metro station. Thankfully we were given great directions and were able to get out of the airport via Aeroexpress (a train that takes you into the city center).

 (We saw our first Starbucks in the airport)

  

On the Aeroexpress and headed to the city center.

The train only heads to one stop........the Beloruskaya train and Metro station. From there we hopped on the metro with 2 suitcases and headed to the Kievskaya Metro station. I am terrified of the Metro

but thankfully I was able to get through many Metro rides throughout the whole weekend!

 

This is the Beloruskaya train station. It's a gorgeous building.
I'll write another post about the Metro!

The Tree Is Up

Our Russian friends think it's funny that we put our tree up so quickly. In the past we've put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving but this year we waited until the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It's so much fun getting all the ornaments out and setting up the manger scene.

Jon is responsible to put the lights on first. I guess I haven't been doing it right the last few years so it is now his responsibility!

 

The boys are checking out all the ornaments. Since we've been

married we have bought a special ornament for each year. It's fun

to look through the past years in ornaments and the memories

we have made so far! Not sure what we will buy for 2011 since

we didn't return to the States this past summer.