Letter of thanks

Ella came into our room the other day while I was picking up EXTREMELY excited. "MAMA! I fogot. This is for you" And she ran out the door to go on playing with Sofia.

It was clear it was a card for Thanksgiving as her very artistic turkey showed, but what I was not expecting was not only her great spelling- but her thoughts she put into the card inside.

Being a mom is not always the easiest role in the world, but it certainly has its perks...

The card reads, "Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for my life. Dad I love you and Mom. Ella"

It has not been the easies of times this year, but the saying holds true. You can always, ALWAYS find something to be thankful for...

What's in a name

This is a loaded question if you were to ask Ella. She has names for EVERYTHING. Some are generic (her giraffe's name is...giraffe) but others she comes up with all on her own. She has a few giraffes and the names vary from baby giraffe,Safari, baby flower, yeah...you get the idea.

 

Aside from being called Mama (my favorite) she also calls me Mom, green eyes, Momichka (Russian), Betsy (hehe)  and a few others I can think of right now. But for her other half (aka her sibling) well there is only one name she has for her...SISTER.

 

It has yet to not put a smile on my face when she calls her that- and she ALWAYS does. It is not like Artyom and I ingrained it in her- really it is the opposite. It always was weird to me when Mom's would say go get "sister" instead of using their name or saying "your sister". But sister it has been and sister it seems will remain.

 

Sofia doesnt seem to mind. She answers each and every time and its pretty cute to hear. Ella made Sofia's day last night as I was making dinner and the girls were playing. Sofia came running in with a big smile on her face.

"Mom!" "Ella is saying my name!" "She really is!" "Its because were pretend playing, but she said SOFIA!"

 

Its the little things in life...it really is.

Of course I want them to be happy

So Ella talks in her sleep...alot. Sometimes I wish I would write down some of the things I hear her say instead of just trying my best to remember them. Its pretty darn funny. But a few that I can remember her saying lately:

Mama, I need some dollars

Seth that is not right!

 

CHERRY!

This morning however, she was not sleep talking, but very much awake when she asked me for ice cream at 6:15 in the morning....

When I told her no, for several reasons (and continued to list ALL of them) she just waited patiently with her big blue eyes till I was done and then thought just for a moment before she said (patting my arm mind you)

ELLA: "Mama, you want your children to be happy don't you? You would do anything to keep them happy right?"

Seriously?

ME: "Why yes, Ella, I would do ALMOST anything to have my children be happy...but giving them ice cream at 6:15 in the morning is not one of them..."

ELLA: "Sigh...I guess today will not be a happy day for me then..."

She chose rainbow sherbet.

Its kind of a pre Christmas miracle

I have the farthest thing from a "green thumb" there is. One of my co-workers had to take my plant away from me and put it re-hab because of the damage I did to the poor thing. HOWEVER. She was able to resurrect it and its fluorishing now.

So you can imagine my uneasiness when my Dad entrusted a hundreds of years old Christmas Cactus of my late Aunt Diane's into my care. He wanted to take them home, but left one of them with me.      I remember them being in her kitchen on the counter and I think of her everytime I see it now in my own kitchen.

My Dad let me know that it only blooms around Christmas. The girls have been anxiously awaiting the moment when we saw small white buds forming and I had HOPE! Hope that I had not killed it ripping it out of its home and into a new one. Well this little guy is resillient and doing WELL.

Here is where things are at now. Look at all those new buds getting ready to bloom! We cannot wait till Christmas to see it in FULL BLOOM. Be proud Dad. The Christmas Cactus lives on!

 



Saturday's Waffle

Yes. Saturday's waffle, not to be confused with Friday's of course. hehe. I am always looking for new and "not so known about" things in the Valley, and this was definitely one of them. Rachelle, someone I work with told me about it and said it was a MUST to at least try once.

I have been debating on going for a few months now, but something always seems to get in the way. So this last Saturday, the weather was PERFECT and I pushed the family into the car and we went. We were NOT disappointed!

www.saturdayswaffle.com Off the website- Hi We’re Mike, Richard & Colin. We’re three guys who love making good food and serving it out of small, vintage mobile living spaces. While we’d love to make you anything, if you come to our trailer you are going to get the best waffle with the most creative combinations of toppings you have ever eaten.

And they are NOT kidding.

After we took in the menu and all the different choices we could have both Ella and Artyom decided on the SMORE'S Waffle. Sofia picked Lemon Curd and Raspberry and I opted for Banana Foster. I have to say it, I tried them all (we did it family style) and I thought mine was BY FAR the best. Sofia's was a close second though, I have to say. In a word- YUMMY.

 

 Ella and Artyom enjoying their SMORES waffle while Sofia is LOVING her lemon curd and raspberry one.

My UBER yummy Banana Foster Waffles!

And...were toothless

I knew it would happen soon- and it sure did! The day after Sofia's first front tooth came out, she lost the other one. It was BOUND to happen, that thing was SOOO ready to come out, but she would not do the last little pull. So after I left for work, she and Ella were talking about it and Sofia started to play with it when it came out....Along with ALOT of blood. hehe.

 

This was evident when I came home to alot of RED TP in the trash and pink all over the bathroom sink. Our big girl just pulled that thing out and dropped it in a cup to show me when I got home.

 

Sofia is now toothless and has expressed a little frustration at the newly found lisp he has since losing her two front teeth. She's getting by- but certainly does NOT like it. :)

Ella-TON John

We had parent teacher conferences with the girls last night and I must admit...I was a little worried. Sofia is a very studious kid and really does enjoy school. In Kindergarten when Mrs. Merrill sent home her homework packet for the week (which they were supposed to do one page a day) Sofia would cruise through the entire thing and have a weeks worth of homework done on Monday- the same day she got it. hehe.

 

She has told me numerous times that First grade is alot harder...yes, yes it is hun. But according to her teachers, she is doing really, really well. She is reading at a MUCH higher level than she should be and just as a few things that she can improve on. YAY! We met with both her home room and her Spanish immersion  teacher and I could have HUGGED Senora Santos when she told Sofia that she had to keep up on ALL her languages- including Russian. So we tested her on the spot and had her count to twenty in English, Spanish and Russian. It was awesome! I love to see her mind work as she seperates all the many languages that she has romaing around in her brain! We were pretty proud parents.

 

Ella had her meeting next and Mrs. Merrill gave us the BEST compliment we could have had as parents. She told us Ella is like sugar to her. She makes her day SO much sweeter. Ella is the sweetest girl, always looking for the kids who dont have someone to play with and she asks them to play. She looks to help and is genuinely just sweet. Cute girl. She still is a bit spacey and can lose focus from time to time, but that is what makes her our ELLA! She is doing REALLY well in school and as we were looking at her writing journal, she had an entry that had a picture with "My Mommy has a baby in her tummy..." Hmmm. Well we had to tell Mrs. Merrill that no, we did not. But we want to!! It made me tear up that she had put that in her writing journal...So cute. Then Mrs. Merrill told us that we had such good genes, we needed to make more little Martushevs! Loved it!

 

I wore my glasses to the conferences and the minute we got home Ella donned these. She looked SO much like Elton John to me. It was hilarious. She wouldnt take them off till bedtime and then this morning- they were back on!

 

Tooth on the Looth!

I just told Krystal my awesome sister in law when I saw the pic of my nephew Kurt's toothless girn that Sofia's were seriously hanging on by a thread. Well I got home from work yesterday and had JUST missed the pulling of the tooth (I have yet to see one actually come out yet!). I was prepared to see how it would look, but I gotta tell ya...I hate that tooth being gone! hehe.

 

Here she is with the first one out and her second front tooth will be following suit shortly.

Her new grin! Well update shortly I'm sure!

The tooth Fairy was nice enough to not only leave money, but leave Sofia's tooth so she could show Artyom this morning. He was working late and she was in bed and asleep when he got home. Ella is in the background doing a "tooth cheer with pom poms!" HEHEHE.

The Chocolate!

For Family Home Evening we decided to have our dessert to the BEST dessert cafe in West Jordan- Appropriately named "The Chocolate" They have the best desserts of cakes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies. In a word? YUM.

 

The girls have been begging to go since it is this house converted into several rooms each with a "theme" and they love to pick which one we will sit in. It was a quick trip due to the recent daylight savings time and Ella could hardly stay awake. hehe. But fun none the less. And even better? They have MINI cupcakes perfect for cute little girls like ours!

 

Golden Birthday Food Table

Just a few pics of Sofia's GOLDEN Birthday- She turned 7 on October 7th. It was SOOO fun. I completely out did it with all the decorations,and the food, but I figured hey- you only get 1 golden bday, so we decided to go all out.

As with most things you try to plan, we didnt have as many kids as we would have hoped for, but the ones who made it I think had a fun time!

Ill have to put the costumes the kids wore in another post. They were HILARIOUS!

 

Halloween Day with Betsy

The girls love when the holidays roll around and especially when they get to have fun at Betsys. She is a PRO at crafts and making it fun for them.

For the day before Halloween Betsy did the girl's hair full of spiders! It was so fun. They also made some fun monsters for a craft at Betsy's