Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving celebration! We enjoyed a wonderful time at some of our teammate's home. All together there were 15 of us. The Hooks were wonderful hosts. I was in charge of making the cornbread dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce and green bean casserole. I also added some pecan brittle to take along.
We had our big meal around 3 pm and then grazed the rest of the day. Ha!
I had forgotten that the Hooks have a Sling Box. If you're not familiar with a Sling Box, it gives you the ability to watch a satellite or cable system in the States through your computer from a friend or family member's system. So, after our meal we were able to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! It seems so funny that I would be so excited about that, but it just made it feel more like being in America for this special holiday than not! It was a nice little bonus!
I was too busy having fun that I forgot to pull out the camera to take any pictures. Oh well! We have the memories!!

Lovin' All This Cooking!!

I am SO looking forward to our Thanksgiving feast with colleagues-friends-family!! We are getting together with two families who are on our team and 2 girls who are on another team here in Prague. I am looking forward to our time together and I am already salivating just waiting for our big feast!!
I made some cran-raspberry sauce today that tastes wonderful!! Wow, was that easy! I know some love the cranberry jelly in a can, but I just can't stand it. Give me the homemade stuff any day!!
I'll also be making the cornbread dressing, green bean casserole and the pumpkin crumble I wrote about recently.
I've got lots to do tomorrow with making the dressing completely from scratch. The recipe comes from my mother-in-law and I really love it! It's very easy, just time consuming with all the chopping and cornbread/biscuit baking. But oh the taste! It is so worth it!!
Tomorrow night we will be getting together with all of our colleagues in Prague to have dessert and a fellowship time together. That is always a fun time!
Not sure if I'll be able to post much in the next couple of days, so.....
Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sparkle, Sparkle, Little Teeth!

Our insurance is about to change, so we've been wearing a path to the doctor's offices as of late. Today it was the dentist. All FIVE of us! Jerry and I for cleanings and check ups and the kids for check ups. We went in at 11 am and got out about 2 pm. It went by fairly quickly. I had visions of hours at the dentist!! Ha! It helped that they had a great kids room with a tv to watch movies! I don't think mine could have lasted that long had it not been for their playroom!
This was our kid's first experience at the dentist (well, except for Karis went once when she chipped her front teeth at age 2, to make sure there was no damage). Karis had worked herself up and was so worried. I thought she would go first, but she did not want to. Then the dentist asked who would go first and Reegan was the brave soul!!
This dentist does all that she can to put their fears at ease. She let each of them take "a ride" in the chair before getting started. Once Karis & Brennan saw that they got to take a ride in the chair, they were just about stumbling over each other for a turn!
They had this cute purple dinosaur to show the kids how to open wide. Brennan wished the dinosaur had been red. Silly boy!! He doesn't like anything to be girly!! Ha!
And they got to wear sunglasses throughout the entire check up to protect their eyes from the bright light. They loved that!!
All 3 of them did SUCH a great job! In my haste out the front door this morning I forgot my camera, of course!! Argh!! You should have seen them sitting there with these cool shades on!
And I'm so glad to report that we are cavity free!! Whew!!

Poor Charlie Brown

One of my favorite things about this time of year....starting in October through December is watching the Charlie Brown specials. First, we have "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" for Halloween, then "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," and "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
Did you know that the Christmas episode came out in 1965, the Halloween special in'66 and the Thanksgiving episode in '73?! I had no idea some of them were older than me!! =P
Of course, I remember watching them every year of my childhood, so that only makes sense!! Ha!
But there is an aspect of these shows that bother me. Why do they have to be so mean to Charlie Brown?? How could Lucy be so cruel as to pull the football away from Charlie EVERY single time?! Why do they have to call him a "block head" and WHY does Charles Shultz have to make it where Charlie Brown gets a rock in his trick or treat bag at every house?! Seriously, how much can a kid handle?! Poor guy!
What's funny is that as I was writing this I was looking through some write ups about these episodes and here is one I found on "It's the Great Pumpkin..."
This is from Wikipedia:

Charlie Brown's repeated line of "I got a rock" caused some stir among many viewers of the show, according to Charles Schulz. Schulz said that after the program first aired, bags and boxes of candy came in from all over the world "just for Charlie Brown."

I guess I'm not the only one that was bothered by the repeated rocks in Charlie's bag!!
You just can't beat the Christmas episode when Linus goes to center stage and quotes the second Chapter of Luke, verses 8-14! That is so awesome!

Even though I have my issues with how badly Charlie Brown's neighbors and so-called friends treat him, I will continue to watch these specials every year as it is a tradition that I have already began with my own kids!

This hair!

Can you get over this hair??!! It's gorgeous, it's soft and so curly!

I love it, really!

Oh. My. It is SO hard to keep untangled!

It seems worse recently. The weather maybe? It's colder now and drier. I'm thinking it's time to see my new hair stylist and see if she can help me with it.
I can get one good day of it being down. After that it's up in a pony tail. I can't even try and wet it down the next day (unless I were to drench it again with conditioner). Believe me, I've tried. It just ends up BIG and more tangly than ever! Luckily she's got a fairly tough head and is a good sport about it. She loves it long and will endure the pain to have it!

Recently I gave braids a try.


The braids look really cute and she likes those too. It cuts down on the tangles a bit, but I LOVE to see it down!!

I guess that means I will continue the same routine.....wash, put in a bun for bed, take down for the day, pull up in ponytail for bed that night and leave it that way until the next bath time only smoothing it down & fixing it into some kind of nice looking ponytail if necessary.
Oh the things we do for beauty!!

This Thing Called Parenting

Yesterdays was one of those days where I wish I had stayed home! Well, except for church in the evening. We've gotten in the routine of having lazy Sunday mornings, I cook "dinner" for lunch and then take sandwiches for the kids to eat before our gathering, Bridge Community, in the evening. We don't go out to eat very often and I just didn't feel like cooking this particular Sunday afternoon. So, Jerry suggested I quickly get ready and we go eat at the kid's favorite spot, the Flora Mall food court! Woohoo!! Not mine or Jerry's favorite, but hey, it's close to home and the kids love it!
We were standing at the bus stop letting the kids play around while waiting. I asked them to stay a little closer. The street can get busy and people like to drive like maniacs through there. All of a sudden I hear this woman talking behind Jerry. I thought she might be on her phone, but when I looked more closely I realized she was looking at Brennan, then Reegan & Karis. I was only catching words (our Czech is not the greatest, but we can sometimes get the jist). She was talking pointedly and saying something about how they should be speaking Czech and not English. She was not vicious but I could tell it wasn't nice. She started at it again and as Jerry and I were trying to figure out what she was saying, AGAIN she started. I finally just grabbed the kids by the hand and walked down about 10 steps. I was not going to subject ourselves to her!

Lucky for her Luckily, she didn't follow us. If she had I probably would have, in Czech, said "No!" loudly. There's not much else I am capable of saying in Czech! In my spirit I had all kinds of things come to mind and I kept thinking "She's lucky I'm a good Christian girl!" I feel badly about how I let her rile me up in side. I wish I could say that I had a gentle and quiet spirit about the whole thing. What I am glad is that we did the best thing we could do. We walked away. I wish my first thought would have been "How can we share Jesus with her?" But it wasn't. I was only thinking about protecting my children. But, it gave me something to think about. That's for sure. I'm not usually quick in my responses or actions. I figure out those things much later than I wish. What can I say, I'm still a work in progress!


I got this card in the mail today from my sweet friend, Karon!! We are both moms to fun-loving adopted kids who are energetic, strong-willed & independent. We love them to pieces, but we also have some rough days!
We recently talked over some of those days with each other. And what a sweet friend to send me some encouragement!!
What you can't see & hear is that when you open the card, it says "You're a SURVIVOR!" and plays the song "I Will Survive." So great!! I love it!! I will be referring to this card on those difficult parenting days that I'm sure to have in the future.
She also sent me some yummy tea!! The Bigelow brand teas are my favorite! Thank you Karon!!

On a jet plane!

First, not me, but Jerry. And not really a jet plane but a little putt-putt plane!
One of our friends has gotten his flying license. This was Jerry's second time to go up. This time he took the camera. I couldn't resist posting a few pictures from his flight!

Tailgatin'

Who knew?! I never thought I'd be tailgating in Czech Republic, but we did it!
Prague has an American Junior League Football team. Some of our colleagues will be helping coach next year. What an awesome ministry opportunity!
Before the game several decided to tailgate. We only had two vans, but hey, our presence was known. The guys broke out the grill, stacked up the charcoal. Lighter fluid could not be found at the store (it is Fall!). So what did they get? Vodka!! Ha!

That's right, a bunch of missionaries huddled around a grill with vodka in hand. Yeah, it didn't work. One of the other guys said he had lighter fluid at home. Finally, after almost 2 hours, we were putting our meat on the grill.
When we first got there, I wasn't even sure if it was legal to grill in the city. After a couple of hours we had 4 cops walk right by and just kept walking. Put my nerves at ease! I don't like breaking the rules. Ha!
The only downfall is that it was freezing cold!! When looking at the weather before we left it was 55 degrees, the sun was shining. Once we got there we lost the sun. I hadn't worn my boots, just my Converse shoes and the cold seeped right through. I found myself sitting in the van half the time!
Otherwise it was a great time. The kids had so much fun playing with all our friends.
The boys, Jerry & Brennan, went on to the game.
Karis....cried almost the whole way home.
She felt left out. Ugh!

Oh well, I tried making up for it by fixing her favorite....mac & cheese. And I even went as far as to make s'mores for dessert! She perked up after awhile.

They fell into bed tonight. I love it when that happens!! =)

Here is a pic that Jerry took at the game.

Free Half Day

I really didn't have plans today for the time my babysitter was with my kids. I thought about going to the store, but really, it could wait. So, I asked Jerry if he wanted to go to lunch. We chose one of our long time favorite restaurants, Maly Buddha. It's a little Tibetan restaurant close to the Prague Castle and actually has pictures of the owner with the Dalai Lama! The gigantic pictures, paintings & statues of buddha all over the place are the biggest downfall, but the food completely makes up for it! Our favorite on the menu, crab springrolls & prawns!! Oh yummo!! It was delish! I really should figure out how to make these on my own!
Lunch was followed by a trip to my new favorite coffee spot in Prague, Gloria Jeans Coffee. I haven't actually tried their coffee yet because I am so in love with their Chai Tea Latte. I was utterly stuffed after all that, but it's a treat! What can I say?!
The kids seem to be liking our new babysitter, Anna. Karis actually hugged AND kissed her when she left today! Wow!!

A Day of Baking!

I LOVE to bake!! If I had the time & energy I would do it every day!! Today I could resist the urge no longer. I had to bake!! I've been wanting to make this Easy Pumpkin Crumble recipe for a few days now. I love finding non-traditional recipes for Fall. I haven't always been a huge pumpkin pie fan, although I tried one of our friend's pumpkin pies last year with a layer of pumpkin spice pudding on top, and that was good!! I like just about anything pumpkin. Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, pumpkin pie biscotti, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin cheesecake and now I can add pumpkin crumble to the list. You can't find much in the way of sweet pumpkin dishes in Czech Republic. They make more salty savory pumpkin dishes like pumpkin cooked with garlic & spices or pumpkin soup. All good, but give me my sweets! Ha!

For the Pumpkin Crumble I had to have a cake mix and I don't have that. Oh, we can get it here. I'm just not willing to fork out $8-$10 for a box of cake mix when I can make a perfectly good cake at home. However, I still needed one. So, to the internet I went in search for a recipe for a cake mix. And I found a few! So first, I set out to make the cake mix for my crumble.

I enlisted the kids to help. They love to help me bake, but I have to be honest and say that it stresses me out. I hope that when they are a little older that I can enjoy it more. But right now I am panicked that they will dump a whole mixture on the floor or add too much of something. Then they like to lick their little fingers constantly. I need to find some recipes JUST for them that only THEY will eat and let them have at it. That will be next on my list!

After making cake mix that yielded the equivalent of 3 cake mixes (Woohoo!!), I started on the crumble, reluctantly getting the kids to help here and there.


We patted down part of the cake mix for the base.
Oh, and here is a princess that doesn't mind getting her hands dirty! Ha!



Pour on the pumpkin mixture.

Choppin' pecans for the topping!

Wave for the camera, Little Princess! Silly girl!


All ready for the oven!

And, releasing a little energy after all that baking!

I must say that was yummy!! I would definitely make it again!


Now to go clean up the kitchen. *Sigh*

My big girl, Karis!

I took Karis for a check-up today. It had been almost a year since we did our physical exams to come back overseas with our organization and I had a feeling that Karis might be due for some immunizations. Sure enough she was. She got 2 today.
I debated on if I should tell her or not. I felt like I was being deceitful by not telling her that the possibility was there, but Jerry told me not. I'm glad I didn't because I think she would have been stressing the whole way there.
She had a great exam and is right on track. She was such a trooper when they did the shots!! I thought she might kick, scream, cry, whatever. She didn't at all!! Made a pouty face, but I can live with that! Because she did so well I took her for hot chocolate (we split a chocolate muffin too, shhhhh, don't tell)! I thought she deserved it for being so brave!

8:04

My kids let me sleep until 8:04 the other day and then 7:54 today!!
Since time change (which was a week before the US) my kids have been waking up about 7 am. Now, some moms might rejoice by sleeping in until 7, but usually mine sleep closer to 7:30 or later. I think we've finally gotten past that fall back hump!

We had a little treat on Saturday & today. We took the kids to a birthday party yesterday of some of our colleague/friends and they told all the parents to drop off our kids and have a date! We made great use of our time (ha, ha) and tried out the new gingerbread latte at Starbucks!! Then today our old babysitter that we had came by and told us to go out for awhile and she'd play with the kids. So where did we go? Starbucks, of course!! Ha! I really wanted to go to Gloria Jeans Coffee House (crazy how in the world we have one in Prague) because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their chai tea latte, but we were running out of time and chose Starbucks. We don't get many chances to do that, but 2 days in a row?! Wow!!

We've got a busy week this week. Tomorrow we are headed to some government office to see about getting Karis' Czech passport updated. When we went back to the States we got her citizenship, but she is still a Czech citizen as well. Her passport expired while in the States and we are just now getting around to updating it. Hopefully we can get that done and easily! Then the week is filled with a doctor's appoint (maybe 2) and meeting up with friends. Maybe it will keep the kids occupied with our forecast of rain this week!

Fun Friday

I've had a babysitter that comes twice a week since Brennan & Reegan were about 4 months old. We've had two, both named Zuzana and they have both been wonderful! When the first Zuzana left the country for an internship she put me in touch with her friend, the second Zuzana. It's always been a little humorous talking to the kiddos and trying to explain which Zuzana was coming over. The first Zuzana has since returned to Prague and we hope to see her from time to time.
The second Zuzana helped me for a year before we went back to the States and since we got back to Prague in April. Since the grands were here we didn't see her. I sent her a text message to see when she was available and found that she had a bad accident while cleaning her window. The window fell out on her! Poor thing! So, she is out of commission for a few months. She had told me that she had a friend, Anna, that could take her place. So, we went from Zuzana to just Anna now! Ha!
We met her today and I think we will all do well with her.

Since they came we made Zuzana some get well cards. Karis has been practicing her letters for a few months now and look at my little wizz kid!! Aren't those some great letters?!

I'm so proud of her!!

We also decided to make some treats for our visitors. Here we are making S'mores Icebox Candy Bars. I found Joy the Baker several months ago and really enjoy her recipes. This one was definitely a good one for the kids. See how they got into it?

Breaking up the graham crackers (we used IKEA's gingerbread cookies instead)

Droppin' in the marshmallows.

Mixin' in the chocolate.

He couldn't wait to lick the spoon!

A little stirin'.

Don't forget those extra marshmallows on top!

And the finished product!

Ours doesn't look quite as good as Joy's but it sure taste good. And I think the IKEA cookies gave it an extra punch of goodness!
We ended the day with an afternoon trip to the playground with friends....and forgot to stick the camera in but probably wouldn't have taken it out because of all the good gabbin' going on!! =)

Mini CVS & Scootin' it!

I decided to break out the Christmas music today to see if it would help get me pumped to get some stuff done around the house. It did the trick! I felt like I got a lot at least a little accomplished with my Christmas music playing in the background. =)
You know how a smell will hit you and reminds you of something? As I was putting away some towels I thought to myself "It smells like CVS {pharmacy} in here!" I chuckled a little bit because we actually do have our own mini CVS under our sink.....and under our bed....and in the kitchen cabinets!! Ha!

You see, when going to the States we ALWAYS stock up on meds! We can't always find what we want or what we know, so we just bring it with us! You can find Ibuprofen but I guarantee that it will be a dinky 6 or 8 pack!! That could last us all of a week, depending on the week! Ha!! Of course, some things are much cheaper here, like Zyrtec, for example or we have some great Flector EP gel, kind of like Bengay without the smell that works well and our parents stock up when they come! But, we just find comfort in opening up the kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, or the plastic bins under our bed to get what we want when we need it and are sure of the dosage!

After getting some things done and the kids fed we (me & the kiddos) decided to go out to the little square across the street and rid their scooters.

It's been rainy, cold & down right dreary the past few days and we actually saw the sun today!! I decided to take my Bible Study material and read while they scootered. What was I thinking?? Is there any mom out there that is able to read while their kids are riding scooters and loudly yelling "Wheeeeeeeeeeee????!!!" Maybe so, but not this mama! I have the attention span of a fly!! Not sure why I even thought I could possibly do this!! That's ok, they had fun and that's all that matters. The Bible Study can get done later!

I also wanted to give a shout out to my good friend & neighbor while in Fort Worth last year, Lauren for sending the kiddos some new duds! Aren't they cute?! Thank you, thank you Lauren! We love & miss you guys!!

A Day of School

When arriving back to Prague in April, we were a week late in getting Karis enrolled in a Czech preschool. We looked around at some other options, like Czech/English preschools, but whoa! They wanted way too many crowns ($$) because they speak English! Hrumph! So, we decided to do something at home for this year.
I was pleased to purchase some lessons from an online friend (Thanks Kim!). Since grandparents were here I kind of put school on a back burner. So, we picked back up today. It was suppose to be a lesson on Halloween. A lot of activities had to do with pumpkins and since it is still pumpkin season I decided it would work! We made these little cuties!

Look at that concentration!

We also played with whip cream & food coloring. Great sensory lesson!

They love doing school!!


Have any of you seen these little morsels?

When the grands came for a visit they brought us some to try. I didn't think I would like these, but I'm always up for trying something new. Wow! I was surprised at how good they were and they seriously have a caramel apple flavor. Way to go Hersheys!

And then there were five

Nana & Papa (Jerry's parents) left early this morning. I don't know if it's the weather or everyone being in a funk because Nana & Papa left, but we are moving slow today. I have been completely exhausted!! It's 39 outside and it's the most dreary, gray, yucky, cold day! So, I'm going to blame it on the weather and goodbyes!
And we've got the most crazy thing going on in our apartment. Ever since we've lived here we've noticed that once the heat is turned on we get this crazy amount of condensation on our windows & toilets. It gets so bad that if we don't think to check on it, mold will start growing on the window edges and even on the walls. YUCK! And it caused 2 of my black out shades to fall to the floor from the moisture!
We have a building maintained heating system which means we have to wait for it to be turn on (they are good about having it turned on when it turns cold) and then we can adjust the heat by our radiator units in each room. We don't normally need to turn our heat up very high, but Jerry had the idea to crank the heat up and open the windows in attempts to rid our windows of wetness & mold. And I am happy to say that it has done the trick!! Crazy how things work. My clothes are drying faster on the racks and it has also alleviated the toilets of puddles at the base from moisture build up. Wow!! However, it's HOT in here!! I guess I should go open that window wider!! =)

Trip to Konopiste Castle

Saturday we decided to head to one more castle before Jerry's parents leave. We did some research and had heard good things about Konopiste Castle and decided to go for it. I had read online that there was a bus that could take you to the castle from the train station.....WRONG!!!! Nyet, ne, nilch! We searched around for bit and finally found a map and decided we could walk it. We had tried to ask and only seemed to find grumpy people unwilling to help. It was one of those "TINA" moments! That actually stands for "this is NOT America." Ha!
So, we started walking and I quickly realized that if I didn't get out of my own grumpy mood that it was only going to rub off on my kids and we'd all be miserable. As we got out of town and on our way we realized that we were going to have a beautiful country walk ahead of us. It was GORGEOUS!!!
This is seriously my favorite time of year, or I guess you could say "season." I love September to December. I get to decorate my home with scarecrows, pumpkins, indian corn and more and then switch it out for Christmas decor. I just love it!! And God's creation of yellows and reds and falling leaves!! Truly shows how awesome God is!!!
After walking about a mile and a half we finally made it to the castle and one of the first things we saw was one of the main residents!
A black bear! He was pretty cute!
We decided to take a tour through part of the castle. In preparing to do so we found MORE grumpy people who seemed unwilling to help the English speakers, us! Ugh!! They only had tours in Czech and they tried to talk us out of taking it!!! Argh!! We knew we could buy an audio guide in English to get a gist of it all. So, that's what we did. It was interesting, but it was not as good as I had expected. Oh well. We pumped the kids up with a chocolate ghost candy bar (in honor of Halloween) AND hot chocolate before trekking back to the train station.

I have to say that I think the beauty of the walk was more enjoyable & fun than the castle. It was extremely a bit cold or it would have been a perfect walk, which I think now we could have done in Prague! Oh well, Brennan got to ride a train and we now know not to go to Konopiste as they don't seem to like foreigners! Ha!