Picnic

The Muslim Sacrifice Holiday was at the beginning of this month, so we got a 5 day weekend and tons of family togetherness. I'm pretty impressed by how much we maximized our time. The big highlight for me was our picnic on Monday. There is a picnic grounds out by the zoo, and we had never been there, so we decided to check it out, keeping in mind that it could be a great place or fairly creepy place, but there was no way of finding out without going ourselves.

It turned out to be full of families and pretty fun, although I'm thankful we didn't have to use the "facilities" there. That may have been not so fun.

Moonpie had a great time discovering her independence with her new walking skills and exploring nature, which were mostly eucalyptus leaves and sticks on the ground.

She even made a little friend names "Asia" who came over to steal some of her toys, but ended up staying to play. They were talking back and forth in some really expressive baby language and seemed to understand each other perfectly. So, so cute. I even did a really Turkish thing and gave someone else's child a cookie. The parents didn't seem to mind since they were happily swinging in their hammock and paying us no mind at all.

After lunch we took a walk and found a grove of these trees. They are "oleaster" or silverberry, or wild olive trees, but are being cultivated as agricultural research next to this picnic grounds. They look like olives and taste kind of similar to dates, but not as good. They are common in the Mediterranean region, and through my research I learned that they are probably the trees mentioned in the Bible when Paul talks about wild olive trees in Romans 11. I still have lots to learn about Turkey!

                                     

And that was our picnic!

Moonpie’s First Birthday - Ladybugs!

We celebrated Moonpie’s first birthday one month early so my parents could be included. I wrote about her birth story here if you missed it.

I actually used my cupcake stand!

I didn’t know if I wanted a theme, but I found an actual party store in the old town shopping district of Izmir called Kemeraltı. I am convinced that you can find absolutely anything there if you just wander around long enough. They had a selection of 10 or so party themes for kids, so I chose the lady bugs. Then I bought almost every red or ladybug party decoration in the store – plates, cups, napkins, balloons, paper flowers, banners, and even a “1” cookie cutter and red fondant, which I have never used before in my life. That saleswoman was gooooooood, I’m telling you. Good. And it all cost about 20 bucks, so I felt it was worth it compared to the time I would spend trying to make my own decorations.

So my idea was to make carrot cake cupcakes, because carrots are a vegetable and I wouldn’t feel as bad giving that to Moonpie, and cupcakes are easier to make cute than a whole cake. I used the recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook, my mom brought a cute Ladybug Cupcake Decorating Kit from America, and we were set.

Flour-dusted fondant

The fondant turned out way better than I expected. I used this recipe from Miss Marzipan for the sugar cookies. They were really, really, really good. The only flaw was that I got flour on the top of the fondant. I wasn’t sure how to roll it out otherwise, and the flour got all in the fondant, so I brushed them with water, then they were all moist. But, nobody cared about that. I had seen a ladybug stamp in a Playdough set that would have been a cute addition, but I couldn’t justify spending 9 dollars on the whole set just for the one stamp, so I passed that up in honor of my goal of decluttering.

My mom also brought a cute ladybug dress, but Moonpie doesn’t like dresses at the moment as they cramp her crawling style, so after some pictures I changed her into a red shirt and white shorts.

Happy Birthday Moonpie!

My in-laws, including SIL’s fiancé came over, so we were a party of 8 adults and the birthday girl. Just the perfect size. She got tons of cute gifts that people sent from America (thank you!), just the perfect mix of clothes and books and toys.

Moonpie liked her cupcake, but was extremely cool about it, as she is about most things. She was like, “Yeah, it’s alright. I guess I like sugar.” She ate about half.

Still playing with her new loot in her pjs.

For dinner we ordered in "pide", which is like pizza, I guess. I know I could have hand made the decorations and cooked a fabulous meal for everyone, but I was just plain tired, and I didn’t want to waste hours that could be spent with my parents stressing out in the kitchen. (If you can't tell I feel bad about not totally homemakering it up for Moonpie's birthday, because usually I would be all over that. Just the timing, I guess. And I have to keep telling myself that Moonpie really doesn't care at all, so why do I?)

The best part was that Moonpie enjoyed the party. I had read that first birthday parties can go downhill fast when the kids start melting down, but Moonpie actually didn’t have any meltdowns! That’s my girl! She seemed to really enjoy all of the attention and new toys, and was playing happily even though she stayed up past her bedtime (you may gasp here)!

How do you (or did you) celebrate your kids’ birthdays? Do you go for homemade or store bought? Large or small (or none)?

Vacation with the fam on the Aegean Coast

The last two times my parents came to visit were for our wedding and right after Moonpie’s birth. In the first case they spent most of their time assembling wedding programs, bouquets and corsages, and in the second case I think we left our apartment once. Their big outing was waiting outside the American consulate, eating a hamburger and drinking a Starbucks. What an exotic Turkish experience they had.

So, this time, we really wanted to get them out to the beach. We rented a villa near Alaçatı (more on that later), and we were off!

Besides the initial little mishap of forgetting the suitcase with the sheets and towels in it, it was a great time, as time spent in a villa by the beach should be.

Turquoise water, sandy beaches, happy baby (very important) and time spent together – what more could I ask for?

Ramadan in Turkey and Baby Sleep

I haven’t had much else on my mind lately besides sleep. I want some. I want Moonpie to have some more, and not in the “so I can watch a movie and put my feet up” sense. I really think her mood and possibly health are suffering due to a lack of sleep. Mine definitely are. In a major, major way. I’m not complaining about Moonpie. I know she’s not deliberately plotting ways to make me lose my mind (although that did cross my mind the other night at 2:37AM). She just needs a little more help to fall asleep and stay asleep, and I’m not sure what that help should be, because nothing I’ve tried seems to be actually helping her.

Got this image from http://www.emirdagcity.com
They usually aren't this cute, though.

And then we have the delightful tradition of the Ramadan drummer – we are now in the month of Ramadan in Turkey (and everywhere else, actually), and here there is a tradition of having someone walk through the streets banging a drum to wake people up in time to eat before the sun rises, since people are theoretically fasting during daylight hours. Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calendar, which is lunar, so Ramadan rotates through the entire calendar year. This year it’s smack in the middle of summer, which means people who are fasting are fasting for 16 hours or so on the hottest days of the year with no water. It also means that the drummer comes around at 2:30AM. Sometimes Moonpie is already awake at that time, but sometimes...she's not. And then she is. And I get stark raving mad angry at those drummers.

I understand why they have the drummer, (here is a nice video on BBC and here is an article) and I usually think it’s nice when people hold onto their traditions, but I have to admit I would like to see this one tradition go. My in-laws, who do fast, also think that having the drummer is ridiculous. They just set their alarm clocks J I’m just an outsider looking in on all of this, so I can’t make a full commentary. I just know that I want my baby to sleep, and I don’t want someone banging on a drum at 2:30AM!

The Big 3-0!

I just celebrated my 30^th birthday. As luck would have it, this is also the 30th post on Marie in Stitches!
I really hadn’t thought much about it until, like, the day before (Oh my gosh! It's the last day of my 20s!!!). My life is so full right now with taking care of Moonpie, spending time with my husband, going back to work and balancing out the everyday things like housework and cooking, and I'm really, really thankful for all of this.

Birthday Carrot Cake at the office.

My boss turned 30 a few years back and told us all there at the office party for him that he feels like 30 is when life really starts. He said his 20s were all about trying to get somewhere, but as he approached 30 he began to feel like he could stop trying to get somewhere and just enjoy where he was. At the time I remember thinking, "That's what people turning 30 say to make themselves feel better." But now that I'm turning 30, I think I agree! Not that I’m going to stop doing anything new now that I’m at the old age of 30, but my 20s really were full of angst, and I think they are for a lot of people – trying to finish a college degree, trying to finish a master’s degree (thanks, Dad, for pushing me), finding a job (or 2), moving to a new country, getting married, having a baby. All good things, and I think pretty typical things for people to do in their 20s.

Birthday roses from my wonderful husband!

Looking at my 30s, I don’t know what God has for me, but I’m excited to find out!

It's beginning...

So, we put up our tree and decorations. This year we made a pre-setup IKEA run to see if we could spruce up our festive, yet a-bit-sad-looking tree, especially the garland. I got the tree when I first moved here second-hand from another family who used it in their business. The decorations came with the tree, and while I had added my own, the garland was still the second-hand stuff. There was one string of gold, blue, pink, and green, and the ornaments were all different shades of pink. Not that there's anything wrong with that...,
So, we found this more tasteful and thinner red garland at IKEA, and my husband picked out the string of silver balls, too. Along with a couple of red candles and some gift boxes, we were ready to go. The garland has been repurposed in my office, where we'll take any festive cheer we can get. Haha. No, really.
Also at IKEA, we got a prefab gingerbread house, some assembly required.

I thought it was cute that the instructions for the gingerbread house were just as confusing and unreadable as most IKEA instructions. For the icing, in 25 different languages, it said "Mix 10 dL icing sugar, one egg white, and 2 tablespoons water." What the heck is a dL? I know like three languages and could probably read a few more, but that stupid "dL" was in all of them. My husband's guess was "deciliters", which would have meant 100 liters of sugar, and is sugar even measured in liters? The box we had said "250 grams." So, I opened good old Betty Crocker and made her recipe instead. And the house was/is soooo cute. We'll probably attempt to eat it this weekend, and it will probably be appropriately stale. The candies aren't completely fossilized yet, so we might have a chance. I hope our dentist isn't reading this. Hi Trent! I promise to floss afterwards!

The rest of the pre-Christmas festivities this week included having friends over for our 2nd Annual Cookie Decorating Extravaganza. We decided that 2 times constitutes a tradition, so this is our new tradition. Unfortunately, the icing was not as spreadable as we would have liked, but our friend got creative with sprinkle stencils made of wax paper.
Of course, this is all just an excuse to spend times with friends and celebrate in general. I'm so thankful for our friends, and most of all, I'm so thankful for Christ!

Thanksgiving Miracle!

Sorry I haven’t written for a while. I was busy celebrating Thanksgiving THREE TIMES! Living far away from my family, it’s easy to assume that Thanksgiving might be a sad or lonely occasion. When I first moved here, although I enjoyed celebrating with new friends, I definitely felt the absence of my family. I still miss the Arizona Thanksgivings – sitting out on my aunt’s porch, spreading the food out on a ping-pong table covered with a plastic table cloth. Eating turkey, and more turkey, and all of the delicious fixings. Drinking Martinelli’s, or punch. Taking a walk, then coming back just to eat more – pumpkin pie. And more pumpkin pie. I had a little moment on Thanksgiving when I couldn’t access a live stream of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I shed a little tear, yes, I did. Then I watched reruns on YouTube.

Last year, our first year married, I wasn’t sure exactly how we would handle holidays, so we just made stuff up as we went. Thanksgiving rolled around last year, and I thought, I wonder if my in-laws would enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner? We decided to invite the whole family, because, why not? And they came! I think they mostly came last year because they thought, Oh, this poor girl wants to celebrate this holiday and invited us, so we should go. By the week of Thanksgiving, I was more than a bit nervous. Am I crazy? I have to cook all of this food alone? And a turkey? What? The plus side was that no one coming really knew what it was supposed to be. I could have ordered Burger King and put it on fancy plates and no one would have really cared. But I cared, darn it. I cared. And it all turned out wonderfully, with everyone asking immediately after the meal – “You’re doing this next year, too, right?”

Fast forward to this year – the questions about Thanksgiving started around November 1st – When was Thanksgiving again? You’re making pumpkin pie again, right? That felt good. I told everyone we’d do it the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and everyone decided to do a three-day fast before, as a joke. Then it wasn’t a joke. We all, I mean the whole extended family, got a stomach/intestinal bug about three days before Thanksgiving, along with about half of the city, from what we heard. I’ll spare you the details, but I was so thankful that we had decided to keep the two bathrooms as functional bathrooms. Just sayin’.

I was getting nervous, since Thursday was thaw countdown T-3, ie, I had to take the turkey out of the freezer, and that’s the point of no return. My husband said all systems were go, although most systems were still way too much go, if you know what I mean. I went ahead, though, and started thawing the turkey. By Friday most people were better, and on Saturday, everyone was able to eat the dinner. It was a “Thanksgiving Miracle”! We had a great family time, complete with crazy antics from my husband’s hilarious uncle, and his cousin’s 2-year-old being cute in general.

Then, since we had so many leftovers, we invited three people in town from AZ for a repeat the next day. And we STILL had leftovers. Then, since everyone was so sick on Thanksgiving, our friends from church decided to postpone their celebration, so we had another dinner with our church family last Saturday. And another miracle – I didn’t gain any weight! Even that sickness was a blessing in disguise!

So, while I still miss my family in AZ and nothing can replace those times, we’ve also started new traditions here, going with the flow, and so thankful for an overabundance of turkey and times with friends and family this year.

A Foreign Fourth

July 4^th as an expat is always interesting. And by interesting, I mean "dull". I always want to do something, but I usually end up just making a flag fruit pizza and singing the Star Spangled Banner by myself. It’s just about as boring as it sounds. This year as July 4^th was approaching, I kept wishing that there were some picnic or barbeque I could go to.  Then, the day before, I decided to take the bull by its redcoat tails and organize my own bash. I texted two American coworkers, and they were both excited too (I had saved them from their own fate of lonely high notes), so it was set! One girl brought her “native” boyfriend, who was at first apprehensive about being around “all of those Americans”. I guess we’re a scary bunch, or she had exaggerated the size of the party to him. There were three Americans and two “natives”, including my incredibly supportive husband who was just as excited as I was about the party. He even hooked up his laptop to the TV so we could watch youtube videos of fireworks. On the menu were “grilled” burgers,

baked beans (with bacon bits!!!), chips, homemade lemonade, and, of course, a flag fruit pizza.

I had brought over some little flags a few years ago, and we did get a little flag waving in during the fireworks finale.

Everyone had fun, and no one was singing off key alone. This land was made for you and MEEEEEEEEE!

Wild Grapes

In honor of Easter I have been reading part of John Stott's "Through the Bible" daily devotional book. Today I hit a devotional about John 15 - The Vine and the Branches. A few years back God used these verses to cause some growth in my spiritual life and hammer out some "trust issues" I had been having with Him. So, it was really nice to be reminded of this teaching. It felt like returning to and old friend's house.

Then, in the middle of the devotional there were some suggested readings the normal verses about the fruit of the Spirit, and then Isaiah 5. So, I looked at Isaiah 5. God found some good soil, planted a vineyard, made it all nice, but then the vines gave wild grapes instead of grapes. I don't know what wild grapes are, but apparently not the result He was going for, because he proceeds to trample the vineyard, undo everything He had done, and let it get overgrown with weeds and thorns. I just keep thinking - what are wild grapes? So, I looked it up.

Most commentators that I read about commented that wild grapes are beautiful, but sour and even poisonous. Also, they are what you would expect in the wild if nothing was done to cultivate a vineyard. So, rather than just even being unfruitful, which perhaps would have warranted more care (just my speculation), God's vineyard had actually produced bad fruit as if He had done nothing at all. So, in my life, wild grapes would be the natural sin from my sin nature. Is there good fruit in my life? Do I live as if God has done anything at all for me? Sometimes I wonder, but then I go back to the vine and the branches. Christ is the true vine. If I am living in Him, I will produce fruit. The branch can't say "Well, I feel like producing fruit today." It just does.

One more part of the devotional that struck me was about pruning. I thought of my mom and grandma. They always get so much grief over their overpruning practices ("Don't kill the thing!"), but in the springtime, my mom's garden is really something to see. There is color everywhere. Stott mentions also that spiritual growth is rarely disconnected with some kind of suffering. This is a great thought. Happy Easter everyone! He is Risen!