Igor's Birthday Party

Little over a week ago, we attended a surprise B-Day Party for Igor, Dragon Fighter's older brother, he turned 37.

I did not take lots of pictures but here are a few…

Of course there were so many more people and in the end it turned out to be a jolly party.

Curlformers for girls

We are getting ready for my sis Natali wedding that is taking place this Saturday at 2pm.

Melanie, Alina, Katya and Anya (Lesha's niece) are going to be little flower girls. They already got their dresses, shoes, gloves, and baskets. Now what should I do with their hair?

I saw this Curlformers product here (they have a video there too). And I thought it would be a nice product to try on my girls.


Here is what they look like as I put it on. It took 3 hrs for their hair to air-dry. They got little impatient with that process.

Curlformers did not take too long to put up. It took 6 min for Alina's hair and 20 min for Melanie's hair.

Melanie helped me needle curlformer through a hook, I will get another hook, so I can speed up the process even more.

Here is what they look like when we took Curlformers off. Now at this moment something happened to my eldest daughter and tears start rolling out...so I was quick to click my camera and to have mercy on the little crier and let her go...

Melanie's hair definitely looks good but I need more practice on Alina's. So I say Curlformers did the thing!

Getting into the Spring Spirit...

What is the best way to get into Spring Spirit? Attend the Tulip Festival at Wooden Shoe Farm out in Woodburn! And we did just that last week.

Paths of beautiful tulips were planted just for scenery and pictures. And we did see many professional photographers there.

Last Thursday was the warmest day of the season so far and we enjoyed lots of sunshine in summer clothes.

Dragon Fighter with Alina...

A Family Picture. There is a red bench sitting in the middle of the field for pictures...very thoughtful. One of many visitors took our picture.

Now it’s pay back time, Dragon Fighter is taking theirs ;)

They also have lots of stuff to do for the kids...We did not make it there, we came pretty late after Melanie's school was over, they are closing at 6pm. I wonder, why so early?

Our last stop at the farm..taking a rest at this red table to gather enough strength to walk way way back to the car...Ahh..I just love this luscious green grass.

Sheep sugar cookies

Last Wednesday we had Alina's friend, Sasha, over at our house. The girls, at this stage of their lives, like to do lots of projects with their hands following mama, so we chose to make Sheep sugar cookies, from this cooking site that I like very much. Each of the girls, Melanie, Alina and Sasha got to make their own.

Roll out sugar cookie dough, cut it to shape and add thick jam of some kind. Next time I will pick a different color jam because Melanie was concerned that it looks like... sheep guts...well, maybe it does.







To make sheep fur, push a ball of dough through the garlic press, using the handle to force it through the small holes. Now it is a very different shape, like pasta or like sheep fur. Keep adding it from the bottom all the way to the top, covering all of the sheep's "guts".

To make eyes, I used watermelon seeds.


To cut my sheep, I used this template that I printed and cut out.

Here is Melanie and Alina's, Sasha by this time, took her’s and ran away home to share.

Our sugar sheep lived through the night and in the morning they met their fate. Melanie's sheep went to Mr. Smith (Melanie's 1st Grade teacher), and Alina's sheep was donated to Dragon Fighter.

Now lets just say, we’ve seen the last of them.

Weekend Egg Hunt

As I am writing this post, I realize more than ever that we are melting in to American culture..it is not a bad thing, it’s just my kids experience things that I never got to experience as a child...they are making their own memories and creating their own unique Russian-American culture.

This weekend my little sister Zoonia, invited us to her church's egg hunt. Dragon Fighter was busy at work so we had a perfect four girls "morning out".

The weather forecast called for chilly light rain. In preparation, we equipped ourselves well with Melanie and Alinka wearing coats and rubber boots (so much for those Easter commercials with girls running in beautiful Spring dresses out in the field to find eggs).

There were so many people! I guess it is a very popular thing to do on an Easter weekend or on Easter day!

Melanie and Alina are getting ready for their turn to turn loose on the green field to find some eggs.

Go! they say...and all the kids turn loose!

Alina keeps close to Melanie, her big sister.

After a few minutes, time to count gathered eggs. There were only 12 eggs allowed per child. Melanie is a 1st Grader, she knows how to count in English and Alina knows how to count in Russian, she is only leaning Russian for now.

Each egg contains either candy, little present or a piece of paper that says: "you won something, come to the gift table". Zoonia is helping with the process...

Melanie, by random drawing of registration cards, won one out of six Easter baskets with a chocolate bunny and other great goodies inside!

Time for little family portrait...

Thank you Aunt Zoonia for arranging this fun trip for us!! We sure had fun experiencing our first egg hunt.

Melanie thought that this church does this every week for their kids so she asked me if she could join their church... I said no...

It is Official! The newspaper tells it all!

For those, who lost every hope of seeing this two walking down the alley...there is hope, just take a look at this newspaper announcement.

Weekend Project..

Over a weekend, Dragon Fighter attended RE school and while he was away, I had a marketing project to do for someone to keep me busy...

Girls did not think twice before they jumped into the craft mode and joined me...





And as you may know in girls world- nothing beats working with paper, scissors, and glue next to mama in your ballerina outfit...any day of the week at any time of the day...

Welcome, baby Ariel!

Dragon Fighter's little brother Vova and his wife Tanya had a baby girl on Wednesday!

Vova already gave her nickname "Kiwi-Strawberry" and he is refusing to call her anything else..

I was sure happy to hold her...memories took me back to 3.5 years ago, when I had Alina...

Look, how tiny she is!

We all sure enjoyed visiting with baby Ariel "Kiwi-Strawberry", a brand new addition to our family..