Asure Pudding

There is a traditional soup/pudding thing that is traditionally served here 40 days after the Sacrifice Feast. Most everyone makes it and serves it to their guests and neighbors. We've received a portion several times since living here. Today a friend brought a portion to us. It's very interesting. I'm not really a big fan, but Zeke raves about it.

I read online that the legend goes that once Noah's arc settled on Mount Ararat, everyone on the arc wanted to celebrate. However, most of the food was gone, so they just took everything they had left and made this sweet soup! Everyone makes it a little differently, but a sampling of what is generally found, or could be found in it goes as follows: wheat, chickpeas, white beans, rice, apricots, raisins, figs, oranges, sugar, rose water, and pomegranates. Anyone care to give it a try?

Christmas Day in pictures

Christmas Eve

Our church here always has three Christmas eve services. So far we've only been able to attend the first service which is a "family service." The past two years they have asked the kids to dress up as shepherds, angels or wise men to help tell the Christmas story. This year Zeke was a shepherd and Kaiyah was an angel.

Kaiyah wasn't really feeling her angel role. She lasted for a few minutes and then came and sat back down and took her robe off :)

Zeke did great as a shepherd and was such a big boy holding his candle during the closing candlelight song.

Sierra just enjoyed chewing on Kaiyah's angel ribbon and smiling at everyone around her . . . and trying to help the sound guy that we were sitting close to!

Merry Christmas! (A tad late)

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas, and it dawned on me today that I have failed to share December's kitchen door craft with you guys. This month we did reindeer. You can tell whose is whose, I think. Yes, mine's nose is blue for the Tigers. And no, Sierra didn't color her own, but it was a collaboration between Tami, Zeke and myself. I hope you enjoy.

And while you're here, enjoy a nice glass of eggnog. Yes, with raw eggs and everything. It's wonderful.

Tallest Building in the World...

I got to go to Dubai last week. In case you've wondered where the world's tallest building is, it's there, and this is it: It's the Burj Khalifa. Those buildings next to it are about 30 stories. It is 160 stories, and 2,717 feet tall. It's pretty tall. Read more about it here, if you're interested. Here is a picture I took of it:

Story

This is a neat/convicting story for anyone that's interested:

http://www.mikeysfunnies.com/archive/richFamily/index.html

Funnix

I've been trying to figure out what all I'm going to use for kindergarten homeschooling next year with Zeke. I found this phonics program called Funnix, and although I haven't found anyone who has actually used it before, I'm planning to give it a try. It's a CD based program and somewhat costly. However, this morning when I was looking over their information once again, they had an announcement posted that in January, they will be giving their program away for free. I assume they are trying to get more exposure, still being a relatively new program. So, if there are any other homeschooling moms out there looking for a phonics program, check out funnix.com.

Christmas is in the air!

Pumpkin

The other day our neighbor asked if we would be interested in a whole pumpkin. Their family had grown some and were giving them away. We said sure, we would love one. This is the pumpkin they brought us:

They don't have the orange skinned pumpkins here, but rather these white/green skinned ones. However, the insides are still orange and they seem to taste pretty much the same to me.

After skinning it, cooking it, and mashing it here is one of the MANY "tasties" we'll be enjoying from this pumpkin!

Yep, that's right, a pumpkin pie. For those of you that know Dan and I, you know we don't care for pumpkin pie. Originally I looked up this recipe to make one for my neighbor as a thank you for the pumpkin. After reading some of the reviews, several people mentioned that they don't normally like pumpkin pie, but really liked this one. So, we made a little "tester" for ourselves, and it was really good! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you missed the kids' Thanksgiving Day post in their blog, check it out with the link on the side of this page. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Tell us what you're thankful for. Here's a family craft:

And on a side note, I took this for something else, but it's a macro shot of some the grass in the bottom right side of the picture above. I thought it was kind of neat looking.

CheeseQs and Caterpillars???

This is the CheeseQ, a wonderful little cheeseburger/BBQ crossover that was introduced to me in Wynne, AR, at a little restaurant called Wait's, which is, sadly, no longer in service. My wonderful parents brought me some Corky's smoked pulled pork, which we had for dinner last night, so today, we had hamburgers, and I made a CheeseQ. What is it exactly? You start with the bottom of your hamburger bun. Put down the all beef patty; cover it with cheese (American if you can get it; ours is similar to that.) Next comes the fun part. Top it with a generous helping of smoked pulled pork shoulder, coleslaw, barbecue sauce, and mustard. Then put the top bun back on. Very very good.

And on another note. Tami had lettuce on her cheeseburger. Then she had a cheeseburger wrapped in lettuce instead of on a bun. Then we looked over on the kitchen counter and saw this little guy on the lettuce.

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She almost threw up.

Autumn Crafts...

Here's our latest fall project. Can you tell which one of our kids is getting old enough to glue his own pieces?

Disney on Ice

Last night we got to take the older kids to see Disney on Ice! It was great! As Zeke said on the way home, "We had a lot of fun on our family date today!" Both the kids loved it, clapping along at some of the parts. Zeke started ice skating lessons last Monday. I asked him if he was going to learn to do spins like the characters were doing. He said maybe when he's an adult. We both agreed that maybe he should just learn how to stand on the ice for now!

During intermission . . .

Kaiyah's favorite part was Donald Duck. The "bad guys" took Donald and Minnie Mouse. Kaiyah kept asking, "Where Donald go?"

Geocaching again!!!

Well, it seems that the last few posts have dealt with geocaching, but geocaching takes us to some really neat places. Today's journey was to an old castle, not well-known to tourists, on the outskirts of Istanbul, where the Black Sea meets the Bosphorus straight. It was a really nice day for it, though slightly chilly. It took us about an hour to get out there and about an hour and a half to get back, as we hit rush hour on the way home. Definitely worth the drive, though. It was a great site. Here are some pictures. More are here.

Shooting a Videoer...

The other day, I was meeting friend and we found ourselves on a really crowded street at a conference with the local national basketball team. I was taking pictures, and got a few, but I really like this one. He saw me taking his picture, so he decided to take my video. (-:

And while we're on the topic of taking pictures, I took these out our living room window over the last couple of days. We've had some cool clouds hanging around.

Geocaching Adventures...

We had quite an adventure on this one, from locking ourselves out of the house on the way out, to driving the wrong way up a steep hill where we couldn't turn around, to breaking a side mirror off backing down the steep hill, but it was a fun trip and a great cache! We took the whole family and a friend with us on this one. We took a couple of toys for Zeke and Kaiyah and put in a doggy and a coin. We also exchanged some trackable stuff. Fun times. TFTC! Enjoy the pictures:

Zeke and Kaiyah at the Cache Site

The Whole Family

Catie with the Cache

In and Out

The View from a Cafe near the SiteWhere We ParkedWhat We had to Back Down
Why We Didn't Want to Back Down the HillDuct Tape to the Rescue!All Fixed Up