52 A Portrait A Week

1/52

I am not linking to Che and Fidel, but I will try to keep up here.

Nik, not looking at the camera, sister just behind him

Kat, looking at the camera and playing with her favorite toy.

2-52

Opposite world, this week Nik took like 8 photos and Kat didn't want to take any, she didn't even want to put on a pretty dress and normally she loves dressing up.  See Nik's 2 bottom missing teeth, he lost the second one 2 days after Christmas, it was loose before Christmas and listing to the side like Pisa and I really wanted him to let me pull it so we could sing "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth", but he got scared and didn't want us to pull it.

3-52

Magic Boy

Of course being in opposite world, Nik laid claim to the wand, for magic tricks, he asked me why it was not working.  I had to make quit the explanation about how it was a trick on the mind and that their really were no such things as magic wands.  MEGALO KOLPO (in greek) I hope this isn't like telling him there is no such thing as Santa Claus and ruining the rest of his childhood.

Bird Girl

Kat laid claim to the Angry Bird game, she likes to make the birds fly, even if she doesn't get the whole game aspect.
Of course now, 1 day later they are fighting over who gets to play with what.
Both children love the dry-erase markers and it has been a great help having 2 boards they can play on, one I bought from IKEA a year ago (from money sent by Dad and Rhonda-Kat is peeking through it in the picture above) and another small one that Mom sent in this package, so that way they don't have to share just one board to write on.

4-52

Nik turned 5 today.

 And Kat and Nik have been sick for almost 2 weeks.

 Hopefully we will continue school tomorrow.

Nik's 2013 school record 8 days in school
                                     8 days sick
                                     1 day refusing to go to school
Kat's 2013 school record 30 minutes in school, lol, she doesn't like it at all.

5-52

Pajamas from Grandma Peters.

 This one is pretty explanatory, they are both bending over chairs to watch Sunday morning cartoons.  Kat's favorite cartoon is Chaplin and Co. a funny cartoon with no words based off of Charlie Chaplin humor.  I think she likes it just because there are no spoken words, being bi-lingual they watch cartoons in English and Greek but I bet it is hard for her to understand sometimes.  Now Nik is totally proficient in his bi-lingual skills and I love it when he explains to me what is happening, then I know for sure that he understands ( I do too for the most part, but I pretend ignorance and tell him he is such a smart boy!).  His favorite cartoon is Le Petite Prince, it's french, I think this will be the next language he learns, either that or Spanish.  I am so glad he got his fathers tongue for languages, because I definitely don't have one.

A good picture of me with out my double/triple chin showing, hehe.  Don't mind the grey hair, I have decided to grow it out, at least until summer time, we will see what I do then.  Compared to when I lived in Sacramento and would go see my hairdresser Jessica every 6 weeks, the last time I got my haircut was in September, whoa, at least I think that is the date.

6-52

Wow, 6 weeks into the new year already.

I need your help, or if anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.
Nik does not like school and he tells me that he likes hanging out with me better,
he refuses to even enter his school room, he will go to school and then he won't go in.
Family teachers have you seen this happen and what can we do?

Kat "What staying home AGAIN" Nik "Yipee"

 So Monday last we sent Nik to school and I got some sewing done along with my little helper here.

I'm pinning and sewing.

But then that night Nik came down with a fever, I really dislike all of the parents who send their kids to school sick, so we kept Nik home on Tuesday and Wednesday, then he refused to go to school on Thursday, Friday and Monday, finally got him to school today because ΓιαΓια (grandma) took him inside.

So that was last week, any help on how to get a kid to go to school will help.

Favorite kid quotes from the week:

Kat on Tuesday: "Me Happy" Mama "Why are you happy honey" she said "Nikos home"
    well that was on the first day, I think by the end of the week it wasn't happy time anymore.

Nik on Saturday night:  "You make the best burgers" sweet love it when he likes my cooking.

7-52

 Last week was busy we had a 2 day visit from Arthur's Uncle Lambros from Athens, it is the first time he has ever stayed here, Nik loved it, of course it doesn't hurt that he brought presents, lol!

And then on Saturday we spent the whole day with Katerina's NouNa (godmother) Iro.  She lives in Larissa, we picked her up and went to the mall to have lunch, they have a restaurant called Mongo it is one of those bowl stir fry places, yummy, I love it and eat there anytime we are at the mall.  The kids had there Goody's (Greek McDonalds) happy meals, they are a good price at 3.80, you get chicken nuggets (the best thing on the whole entire menu) fries, juice or chocolate milk, a toy and cereal.  A lot of times the toy is worth more than the whole meal one time they gave out playmobile figures.
After eating we went to go check out IKEA, I love IKEA too!  The kids had 2 ice creams each, we walked all around and it was so nice having an extra pair of hands to watch the kids so I could actually look around instead of just looking after them.  It was a great way to spend a rainy Saturday, the kids got plenty of running around to do and they just love visiting Kat's NouNa.

 8-52
Oh my the weeks are going by fast.
So Nik did pretty good with school last week, he only missed Tuesday, we have a bribe on a high shelf.

The award a Cars 2 car.

The deal is he has to go to school for how much his toy cost, that's 12 euros so 12 days.

12 days, so far only 5 done, a sticker for each day.

Another bonus for him was to get these cool plane stickers to keep track of the days, since he didn't go on Tuesday, he didn't get a sticker for going on Wednesday.

 The beginning of the week was good and everyone was happy!

 But by the end of the week Kat was naughty and she placed herself in the corner.

Nik got a fever on Saturday night and has been home since, he will go back to school tomorrow on Wednesday, poor baby not feeling good, I so dislike the fact that he practically gets sick once a week.  Does this happen to everyone?
So it's a new week, let's hope we don't get sick again and that he can continue to get his stickers.

9-52
Instead of Pictures this week I am going to show 2 cute videos.

Yes our floor is always this messy, I might sweep and mop and then 1 hour later there is stuff all over the place again, so really I don't do it that often because it just feels like a waste of time.

10-52

Okay this new week is going so much better, it is Wednesday and Nik went to school all 3 days, it is helpful that they have been doing more craft activities in his class.  Each day he has come home with a new project, I think he is like his momma in that he likes to make things.

Panda Mask

Last week was rough though, the beginning of the week we had a horrible cough and by the end of the week our noses where plugged, each time I blew my nose, my eye would bulge, yuk!
So Nik only went to school 1/2 a day on Tuesday and 1 full day on Thursday, since he refused to go to school on Friday (he wasn't sick, just Kat and I) we made a punishment of him not being able to watch any cartoons for the weekend.  I didn't think that this had worked but maybe it did, since he has not complained or asked to stay home these last 3 days, 2 more days to go!

Here are some fun shots of the kids "stomping" on coins and Nik pretending to eat a few, we saw a advertisement of wine stomping, the kids are really anxious for all of the summer fruits to come.  I get request for strawberries almost on a daily basis.

I hope in the summer they don't want to stomp any real grapes, imagine that!

11-52

Reflections

Nik washing the walls of the shower.

 Nik loves cleaning as long as it is his idea, other wise he likes making the mess more.  Kat loves washing dishes and they both pretend to cook, serve and clean a lot of the time in their imaginary play time, but this means getting all of my dishes out and therefore they do get dirty, ow.

Kat checking out her "chocolate face" my goodness this girl gets chocolate everywhere.

Nik went to school ALL FIVE DAYS, yippee was that awesome or what, he finally got his prize car, it only took 22 school days for him to go to 12 of them.  Friday was an early day and the teacher told us on Thursday when we went to pick him up that the next day was a mask party, they had been making mask all week so I thought they meant that.  Arthur called the school Friday morning to check and they said he didn't have to dress up, well we get to school and everyone is dressed up, even the teachers.  Nik was uber excited and wanted to dress up too, so we quickly took him home, I put one of my black shirts on him then a belt wrapped around it, Arthur made him a sword out of cardboard and aluminum foil and I made a eye-patch with what I thought looked like a skull, and tada, we had a pirate!  Of course after we dropped him off he only lasted 1 hour there, but he was so happy and kept his patch on until I picked him up, it was such a rush job that we didn't get a picture.
I really wish the teachers where more organized and would write important things down for us, or at least some kind of notice.

12-52

Monday was a holiday, no school, Tuesday Nik didn't want to go to school and Friday was a poem reading 1 hour day of school (will post his poem reading later).  So here are a few pictures from Friday, Kat just loves having her brother around, she gets so happy, I don't see other siblings act this way so it makes my heart happy.

Hugging each other all of the way home, after Nik's poem reading.

 Can you see she is wearing the dress I made, it is so cute, but I will make the ties longer next time, she has such a buddha belly.  And Big Boy Nik is wearing size 8 t-shirts (European) American sizes can still be size 6.

Driving the car :)

 We celebrated and took the kids to Trikala since Nik requested "wet" halva, a Greek dessert specialty only from this region of Greece and you get the best in Trikala from a pastry shop called Kai Kati.
The kids also ate at Goody's (Greek McDonalds) and Arthur had Gyros.  I got to go to the Singer store and pick up some oil for my machine, now it purrs, and Arthur's mom found me some new needles, so it's not punching holes in my fabric, phew, the old needle was doing a pretty rough up job on the last projects.  All of her sewing supplies she has had since they lived in Australia so over 30 years old, but I haven't had any problem with the threads she has given me and the needles where made in India and they seem to work real well too.
Monday is another holiday and Wednesday the teachers are in a seminar so no school 2 days next week, Greeks love there holidays.