Journal

My oldest son is working on a project for English class.  They have just finished reading and discussing The Great Gatsby.  For his project he has come up with the idea of creating a personal journal of one of the characters from the book which was kept during WWI.  My son is a creative thinker.  He is also a history buff.  When he came to me with this awesome idea I thought it was fabulous.  Then he asked if I could create the journal for him to write in using the voice of the character from the book.  He really wanted authenticity.    

He desired a leather cover.  Hand bound pages. This journal was a gift to his character from his mother before he left for the war.  

Hmmmm,  suuure?.?  Well, this is the best I could come up with.  And really I am pretty chuffed with it.  I started with plain old chipboard. The think kind that comes in paper packs.  

I embossed it.  I inked it.  I distressed it.  I did everything in my power to give it an aged, leather look.  

I even hand stitched the pages together.  Devotion. 

And wrote in my practiced script a dedication from a fake mother to her fake son.  

My boy is adding entries into this diary using information he has gathered from the time period and using the voice of the character from the book.  He will doing an oral presentation of the journal tomorrow.  I have my fingers crossed for an A (for the authenticity of the journal, of course.)

Have a good one, 

T. 

1st Day of School

Back to school.  The summer was just so short.  I guess it helps when you are traveling for a month and a half.  Huh?  

Have you met the McKids?  These are my sweet babies.  They are a lot of fun to hang out with. 

They can be goofy, serious, sweet and silly. All my favorite things.  

This school year is going to go by so quickly.  We already are holding on for dear life.  This will be there last year at the the little private school they are attending.  We know we are in rotation to move next summer.  So, the plan is to make the most of this school year.  

Love the little wooden cutouts.  Boy, boy, girl, boy.  Makes me smile. 

The date..... cause I'll forget.  I forget everything these days. 

Wishing you all a super fantastic day! 

T. 

Fashion Accessory

This is my baby girl. My Princess. My one and only daughter.  She is wonderful.  

This picture was taken at 7:00a.m. on the very first day of school.  

This is a picture of my daughter at 1:00p.m. on the very first day of school.  What I love about my girl is that she is adaptable.  She is an individual that cares greatly for others, but doesn't care what other's think of her.  She is kind.  She is thoughtful. She is a very serious student.  She is self motivated.  All of these things are amazing qualities.  She is also 12.  Hair and fashion and her nails are all important to her now.  And my girl decided that getting braces on was going to be the best fashion accessory of all.  So on her very first day of being a brace face, she chose to have turquoise bands put on her braces.  When she smiled they lit up her face.  How does she do that.... it's all in a positive carefree attitude.  She owns those braces.  And I couldn't be a prouder momma. 

To my darling baby girl - I love you. 

Baby Shower

Living overseas you often become like family to one another.  You must rely on each other because you have no family or life long friends to share the good, bad and ugly with.  We come in as strangers and leave as friends.  Every rotation you start again.  

For the most part, we handle the transitions well.  It is a part of the life we lead.  But sometimes you just need for people to do a little more for you.  And, we as a community, know when we should step in to do a little extra.  

My friend is having her second baby.  She never had a shower for her first baby, so we took it upon ourselves to shower her with well wishes, good food, and gifts galore. We wanted to do our part to make her know that she is special to us.   

I was the party decorator and caterer.  Lucky for me I had a bunch of stuff in my stash that I could pull and use to make our little last minute offering look a little festive.  

The diaper cake.  She was thrilled about receiving a diaper cake!  She had seen pictures of her friends back home having baby showers and all had a diaper cakes. Who knew that something so simple could be such a gift.  

The kiddos helped make tissue paper pompoms.  We had just bought tissue paper at the Dollar Tree this summer when we were home for our homeleave.  I mean a dollar.  Here this stuff is like liquid gold, I am talking nearly 4 Euros for a pack of 10 sheets of tissue paper, and that's if you can find it. 

I had purchased a couple of packs of the plain white tissue at the Dollar Tree and with a little spray mist we were able to make pink pompoms to go with the white.  

The table cloth was a 3 meters of fabric I bought downtown for 12 Euros, or about 15 dollars.  I hemmed the ends and viola, a table cloth in raspberry pink.  

For the food, I went to Pinterest and checked out my Yummies board.  I made lemon baked doughnuts, Snickerdoodle cake, baked oatmeal, fruit salad, ham and biscuits, and a cheese tray.  On offer for drinks was coffee, pomegranate raspberry lemonade with sparkling water, and sweet tea.  Did I get one picture of the spread of food, uh, no.  But it was good.  

The guest list, was straight from our community and mostly all were new comers.  New comers who came to a baby shower for a woman they met just a few times.  New comers and a few of us old timers, gathered to honor our friend.  To let her know she is not alone. That we are here to help and support her.  We will step in as family.  We will be helping hands until she moves on to her next post.  For some the friendship will last a lifetime. For others it will be a season.  But for all it is a comfort, because we know that it will be reciprocated, if not here at our next post and as the need arises. 

Have a good one, 

T. 

Pinterest Love

I, like many of you, have become addicted to Pinterest.  It is just an awesome place for me to pin my favorite ideas, recipes and thoughts.  One of my boards is all about the Yummy stuff I find on-line.  Cakes, and muffins, and doughnuts and dips and casseroles.... just about anything that makes my mouth water when I take a look at it.

For my kiddos first day of school I wanted to make a special brekkie for them.  Just a little lovin' in the morning before they boarded the school bus and headed back to the reality of scheduled living.  I had pinned a recipe for baked lemon doughnuts made with Greek yogurt a while back.  I pinned it because at the time I had been given a doughnut pan from a friend who was moving and needed to unload some of her extra weight (packing weight, like how much stuff you have....we live with a limited amount of personal belonging when you are overseas).  Anyway, she had never used this doughnut pan and that presented a challenge to me.  If I now own the pan then it must get used or it gets passed along to another person or must be donated to local charity when it is time for me to leave.  So, I remembered the lemon doughnut pin and went to check out my Yummies board and ta-da!  there it was waiting for me.

If you are interested in the recipe you can go to the original post from A Bitchin' Kitchen - http://abitchinkitchen.blogspot.com/2012/04/baked-lemon-donuts.html.

The recipe was so easy and quick.  And my kiddos, well, they LOVED the doughnuts.

A little note - don't over fill the pans.... or one side looks like a doughnut and the other side looks like a muffin top!  They still taste the same, but the effect is a little off.  

They were so light and yummy and sweet and tart.....just plain good. 

How many of you use your Pinterest boards to save recipes?  How many of you use the recipes that you pin?  

Go, make some doughnuts!  LOL!!!! 

Seriously, it was fun, quick and easy. The McKids were totally impressed. 

Have a good one!

T. 

Avanti!

One day soon, I need to make a mini book about my favorite meals.  This one, the duck you see here, will be on the top of my list.  My folks took hubby and I out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary, which is in September.   We went to this fabulous little restaurant in Oklahoma City, Avanti.  It was just, well in a word - yum!  I had a feeling it would be fabulous before we got there, namely because I happen to know the Sous Chef, well, I more than know him..... I am his big sis.  Can you tell I am little bit proud?  But, seriously folks.  This duck was absolute perfection.  It just about melted in my mouth.  The swiss chard and veggies were delish and the curried rice with almonds - fab.

My little brother.  A handsome, sweet guy, who just became a new dad!  So proud of him. 

The family.  Mom and Dad, and my brother and me.  

I love that he came out to give us all hugs when we arrived.  He took a moment to help Dad decide what to get for dinner.  Dad went with the grilled cornish hens in a pomegranate sauce - every last bit was sucked off the bone... they were that good.  

My Dad's cornish hens. Can you just see the sticky glaze on those babies....yummy! 

Gettin' my fix!

This is a LO I did back in February for LOAD.  I was lamenting all the things I miss.  All the stuff that we don't have in Cyprus.


But right now I am no longer lamenting, instead I am like a pig with a mud puddle, I am rolling around in the goodness of being home, albeit for a short visit.

doghnuts
tacos
burgers (hmmm, big juicy burgers)
TARGET!!!
Khols
Hobby Lobby
family, family, family!
and FRIENDS


The list just goes on and on....

We are on what is termed an R&R - a little break from our island living (because believe it or not it gets a little old) and visiting our family and friends here in the states.

This visit has been beyond fantastic!  I was here to await the arrival of my new niece and more importantly able to see her at a few hours old.  That is a first for me.  Usually we are living in lands far, far away and I don't get to see the new arrivals until they are nearly a year old.  It breaks my heart.  But this time I was here, thank goodness.

This is just the first leg of our visit. Out in the heartland of the US visiting with my family.  The second leg of our little adventure will take us to the East Coast where we will see friends and then to my hubby's home town for a visit with his family.

The third leg will be in Germany to visit our good friends and to break up the return trip home.

For now I am enjoying the company of my parents, visits from my siblings, hanging out with my nieces and nephews.

Life is very, very good!

Have a good one,

T.