Just a little get together

I sometimes forget that when Russian's say "little get together" it ends up being anything but...We had such a evening last night to welcome a friend who has been living in Florida and Hawaii the last few years. She is back in UT awaiting to see if she will get a work visa again and allowed to stay or if she will head back home. She has been here for 7 years!

I was trying to explain exactly what the Russians do when we get together and its basically just one big conversation and ALOT of food. The best part? Everyone was speaking Russian. There really was not a lick of English being spoken, besides some of the kids- and I loved it!!

There were SO many yummy dishes that I have missed and it was great to be able to have them. It was so fun. I need to remember to try and have these more often.

We decided to take a pic "Russian Style" which means no one can smile...hehe

This was the SPREAD....well after we had eaten most of it. The food just kept on coming. SOOO good.

Here is "The Russian" boiling the pelmini.                                      All the girlies!

When I was young...

I dreaded the day when I started to preface a statement with that phrase. Artyom does it ALOT already, as his upbringiing was FAR different than mine and always will be. He likes to remind the girls of how lucky they really are to be living here.

Even though the girls play on thier own quite a bit, they were complaining about having "NOTHING TO DO" so I decided to introduce them to one of my favorite past times.

CHIN TALKING!

 

It was a blast and the girls were literally rolling on the floor laughing. It was such a fun moment to tell them how when I was young- not the standard rebuttal of "walking to school up hill...both ways" but something fun that Aunt Jen and I used to do when we were kids...and cable did'nt exist

Reconnecting with my inner Russian

I have loved being able to spend more time with our Russian friends and when we have the food- MAN. It not only takes me back to years ago being in that great country I have thought of my second home, but gives me the motivation I need to once again start making Russian food.

Last week we were able to go to a get together and one of my friends made Gullipsee (stuffed cabbage rolls) and they were DE-LISH! I decided to try it this weekend. They were not only EASY but you make them in the crock pot which made them even easier to do. I thought they turned out pretty well. MUCH better than when I made them before on the stove top. That was kind of a nightmare.

As with any recipe, I think I will tweak a few things next time and make the stuffed inside a bit more "seasoned", but over all...YUM!



Who knew

Annie was her name and she was one of my best childhood friends. She was so nice and always friendly to everyone. I remember at lunch when we would drag out our brown paper sacks, or lunch boxes, she would always have a note from her Mom in hers. She didnt make a big deal out of it, but I was always SO envious of that. I thought how cool it would be if it were ME who had a note in my lunch bag.

Well I remember saying then and there that when I became a Mom, that is something that I would do for my girls. It made that much of an impact on me that 20..some years later, here I am doing it for my girls.

And I am so glad I do.

The girls go back and forth about the choice between home lunch as they call it and school lunch. They usually decide when they look at the menu and see what it will be. Fridays are always school lunch (Pizza day) but lately, it's been home lunch.

So yesterday, when I got home Sofia was SO excited to tell me about her note she had in her lunch bag. "MOM! The WHOLE TABLE wanted to see it! I had to pass it around to EVERYONE!" "It was SO cool. Thank you Mom- and this was followed by one big hug."

Who knew. Who knew a 2 second thing that I do in the wee hours of the morning while I'm finishing the lunches would make such a difference in the life of my girls. Well now, I do. Now, I know.

If I an make my girl's day just a LITTLE bit better with a note, consider it done. Thanks Annie, and thank your Mom for being such a great example of when I became a Mom, it was something I wanted to do.

Martushev Polar Express

During the holidays, I really wanted to do something cute with the girls and try to make it a tradition. Here's what we (with Betsy's help of course) came up with.

We had the girls get into thier pajamas a bit early and I took them downstairs to read some books. Luck would have it that they chose some Russian books which I always let Artyom read to them. This  helped our plan ALOT. Muaahhahha.

So while the girls and I were reading our books, Artyom was upstairs "prepping" He put the antlers and red nose on the car, put in blankets, stuffed animals, etc. and started the car so it was all nice and warm.

THEN he came downstairs and we switched as he read the girls the Russian books. I went up and got my phone.

So picture this: Artyom is reading and I put the phone right inside the door. I had the first part of "Polar Express" playing. It has the sound of a train coming, with the whistle and you hear Tom Hanks saying " ALL ABOARD- GET YOUR TICKETS READY. WELL...YOU COMIN?"  SO you start to hear the train...then the whistle. Artyom said, "Girls, do you hear something?" What is that?!" Then I rewound it and played the train LOUDER. Then they heard it with Tom Hanks voice, " ALL ABOARD- GET YOUR TICKETS READY. WELL...YOU COMIN?"

The girls freaked out. I could not have asked for a better reaction.

"Our tickets!" "We dont have any tickets!!" Which , of course they did. I had put them under thier pillows a few minutes earlier. They grabbed thier tickets, coats and stuffed animals and we headed out to a decorated car, all warmed up with thier fave blankets, went through Mc'ds drive thru for hot chocolate and were were on our way aboard our OWN "Martushev Polar Express"

We took the girls to the Thanksgiving Point lights and although there were a TON of cars in line and it was QUITE the wait, we still had a blast. What a fun memory to have made with my little family.

 Here are the tickets we used. I acutally got them from work for some raffle we were doing. LOL So I put our names on each one and we all had our very own ticket.

This was the pic we took of the girls as we were ready to go on our "Martushev Polar Express" adventure!

And after we had gone through McDonalds for our hot chocolate. Of course Monkey and Giraffe were present and accounted for.

 SO FUN!! I may not be able to do all the things I would like to while I am a working Mom, but its times like these that I am truly grateful for.

Lady comes to visit

The girls were BEYOND excited when Betsy let us take Lady over the New Year while she went to her sisters house. I told Sofia it was trial run of how she might handle having a dog added to our family, and I gotta say- she did SO good.

It helped that Lady LOVES Sofia and would follow her everywhere. She did NOT however like Artyom very much. hehe. She was just not used to him, so when he came home, she came and hid behind my legs and growled. It was adorable!! Artyom did his best to win her over and for the most part, it worked. It was SO fun to have Lady with us and she must have had a good time. Betsy told us that when they came and took her home she napped for hours! The girls definitely wore her out.

Now all we have to do is convince Artyom to let us have a dog...someday.

For my siblings, she reminds me of our POOCH that we had for a bit when we were kids!

16 Things Russians Do That Americans Might Find Weird....MIGHT?

HEHE. A Russian friend of mine sent me this list and it was just TOO funny not to put on our blog. I thought my Dad would especially get a kick out of it.

1. Dressing up to go to the store.

Russians, especially Russians living in cities, love dressing up. For example, a nice dress and some heels are perfect attire for a casual walk.

 

2. Sitting down for a minute before heading on a trip.

Once the suitcase is packed, most Russians will typically pause and sit quietly for a minute before leaving.

 

3. Making really long and complicated toasts.

Only the laziest of the laziest of Russians will make a toast of “To health” or something short like that. Seriously. Expect to hear anecdotes and too much reading into them.

 

4. Telling anecdotes as often as possible.

They might be in the middle of telling a story and then say, with relish, “And, you know, this reminds me of an anecdote…” and then proceed to tell it, even if it’s completely irrelevant.

 

5. Congratulating one another on getting out of a shower or sauna.

They say, “S lyogkim parom!” (Basically, “Congratulations on a light steam.”)

 

6. Answering “how are you?” honestly and fully.

How are you?” in Russian demands an actual answer, not just “Great, thanks!”

 

7. Not smiling at strangers.

Smiling at people you randomly make eye contact with is not a thing. Smiles are supposed to be genuine, to be shared with friends.

 

8. Celebrating New Year’s more enthusiastically than Christmas

The tree is for New Year’s. Presents are for New Year’s. Forget Christmas. New Year’s is THE winter holiday.

 

9. Constantly rewatching old Soviet cartoons.

“Nu, Pogodi!” (the Russian version of Tom and Jerry), “Bremenskiye Muzykanty” (The Musicians From Bremen), and “Snezhnaya Koroleva” (The Snow Queen), are among Russia’s favorites

SOFIA AND ELLA LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS SHOW!!

 

10. Calling all females “girl”.

If you want to call your female waitress, you yell, “girl!” If you want to address a fifty-year-old woman, you can call her “girl.” If you want to address an actual girl, you call her “girl.” Any woman short of a babushka (grandmother) is “girl.”

**It gets REALLY awkward when they use a certain form of the word "girl" DEV-CHUNK-A. Yep.

 

11. Sitting down at the table for a meal and staying there for hours.

When groups of Russians get together for dinner, they will sit down, have dinner, and talk. Then they will talk some more.

 

12. Always keeping your bags.

Seriously, Russians never, ever, ever throw away any bags, just ‘cause you never know when you might need one

 

13. Preparing way more food than is necessary for when friends come over.

And most of it will have tons of mayo....or sour cream

 

14. Living with their parents.

It is often that an entire Russian family - parents, children, grandparents - will live together in one apartment.

 

15. Meeting complete strangers and then becoming friends with them immediately.

16. And never showing up to someone’s house without a gift in hand.

 It can be a dessert or a wine if it’s dinner, or it can be chocolates or flowers (so long as it’s not an even number of them). It’s not really important what it is, as long as you bring something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know you've hit the BIG TIME when...

Each year my company puts together a Company calendar and this year-I hit it BIG! I made the month of NOVEMBER! YEAHHH!

It actually is a pretty big deal I guess. I have never thought about even having a good enough pic to be CONSIDERED, but with this Friday treat, I had to put my bragging rights out there. It was quite suprising how many people have emailed me about it...

 

Happy 2014!

Snow Day? Pool Day!

Betsy just sent me a pic of the girls- they decided that snow would'nt stop them from enjoying the water! Sofia let me know she even went down the BIG slide and went underwater without even plugging her nose. This is a quite a feat for our Sof since just a few short years ago, she would not finish swimming lessons and refused to go beyond the kiddie side of the pool.
Betsy changed all that though and we THANK HER for it! A few summers at Betsy's house swimming all day and now we have 2 little FISH!

 

Ella was quite put out that she could not go on the slide as she was just a TAD bit too short to go on...HOWEVER. Sofia did tell me that Ella was underwater, nose unplugged for 20 seconds!! Sofia thought that HAD to be a record. hehe.

I was glad they were able to escape the smog and inversion that we are having and have some fun in the water!