The Early Birthday Boy

With the impending arrival of our new little one, and our accompanying decision to go back to the United States came the realization that we would have to take Porter out of school a bit early. All the details and major concerns I had with this aspect have since been worked out nicely. For Porter, though, the only major thing he was worried about was his birthday! After watching all of his classmates bring in their treats for their special day, he was getting quite excited for his own. Now, his birthday is in the summer anyway- yet, they typically do still have a day towards the end of the year for those "summer birthdays" to have a party. He would miss even this, and he was pretty distraught. I love the innocence of childhood! I love to be reminded about how special and important the little things are to them. Luckily, he has such a fantastic and sweet teacher that she offered to let us bring in treats last Friday to give him his own little "early birthday"/going away party! P was very specific in what he wanted: green and white alien cupcakes with blue sprinkles and apple juice! I think they turned out darling, and everyone loved them!

They all sang him happy birthday (you'll notice the face paint- we did the party after their spring musical)

And we were able to get a fun picture to remember his friends over his "long" summer!

He loved it, and I was so grateful to his teacher for letting us do this special day for him! Now that he has had his birthday treats, he is ready to roll!

Happy Early Birthday Buddy! Thanks for being such a trooper with this whole deal!

Happiness is....

Receiving a box like this in the mail, just when you are needing it the most....

and realizing how blessed you are to have such amazing friends who will send stuff like this to you!! Thanks guys, you made our day!

We love you!

"I am a horsefly"

(whinnies like a horse)

"I am a horsefly, and I hurt

anyone who with me tangles!"

-Porter's speaking lines

At Porter's school they had the lower primary school big spring musical this last week. Porter was one of the few kids in his class that got actual speaking lines, and he did AWESOME! They did 2 performances of the musical BUGZ, and it was all so darling. All of the kids were so cute. They had been practicing for quite a while, and Porter has been repeating his lines at home over, and over, and over again! You never know how a 5 year old will react when put in front of an auditorium full of people, but he was terrific! He went out in full character, even galloping to the microphone and nailed it! Then during their two songs he sang with all his heart and nailed the choreography too! We loved every second of it, and are so proud of him!

We did get video of the whole thing as well, however, I as a general rule don't post videos on my blog because it makes it harder when I transfer everything to my blog book. Sorry! If you are special enough though, we'll show you the DVD when we see you next. For you others, I tried to give you the best images I could. The set was terrific, they really went all out! They also have a real deal theater at his school, so it was the whole deal with theater lights and all. Because of this, though my little point and shoot didn't get the greatest shots. I tried my best though, while still giving my attention to actually watching the show (not through my camera lens) and keeping my 3 year old occupied!

I got these shots of him in his costume that I whipped up before we had to send it in to school. I'm glad I did too, as in the actual show he is sporting his broken arm. Now you can see both looks! I was a little bummed at first-I mean a horsefly?! Not the cutest bug I could think of:) In the end though, we did our best and I tried to make it as cool as I could! As far as yucky horseflies are concerned, I think he is pretty cute!

Now, most of the rest of his class were fireflies and they had a fantastic little song where they used fun flashlights!

As I said, all the lights were low for the flashlights, so these pics are not the greatest! It sure set the mood though!

Now this last picture is of him at the microphone when he had his speaking part. Again, a terrible picture. Sorry! The lighting was hard and Ronan bumped my leg. But the next shot I got he was already off stage! Love you anyway buddy!!

Great job and I can't wait to see what they choose for next year!

First Broken Arm (and hopefully only)

Does this look like the face of a boy who just broke his arm? This kid is so tough! So this is the story of how Porter broke his arm. He slipped and fell at a little indoor play area. He was upset at first, but he seemed to toughen up pretty quickly. He really didn't want to go the doctor, and kept saying "Mom, I think we can just handle it on our own!" After letting Daddy and our good friend Ryan (who has had some training) look at it and feel it, it was hard to tell if it was a break or a bad sprain; however, the consensus was that Porter might have been screaming a lot more if it was broken. Anyway, we decided to wrap it and ice it with some ibuprofen and keep an eye on it for a while. With how well Porter was doing, I think we really all thought that it was probably just a sprain! Anyway, long story short...he was a trooper for the rest of the evening, and even told us a few times that it was fine and didn't really hurt anymore!

So we kept ice on it, etc and sent him to bed. He slept great through the night, no crying or waking up in pain. Then only after asking him if it was still hurting did he say "ya". When we unwrapped it, it was a bit swollen but again, looked much better than we thought it would if it was really broken! We've heard stories of friends, who's children's arms bruised badly right away. Porter had no bruising. I guess I should have known. My family, not me of course, but some members of my family seem to have some great pain tolerance. I guess the gene skipped me but was passed to him. Since he did admit that it still hurt the next day we decided that we had better take him to get it checked just incase. Yes, we are that classic story now. Next time we'll do better I promise! Luckily, it all happened on the weekend so Noah was home to have double duty from the parent end. (And Daddy is the one with lots of actual bone breaking experience, so that helped to calm him down.)

This is after the X-rays and they had determined he did need a cast. Waiting patiently after they put the long sock thing on. See? He was so calm!

These two pictures where when they were setting the bone and starting to wrap it. Even then he didn't cry! What a tough little dude! All he said was ow, ow, ow!

Now the tough part was over, he's just relaxing while they finish molding the cast.

Since he was SO tough, we promised him a Hero Factory toy (the new rage here), because he was our hero for being so brave! He has been carrying his new buddy with him now everywhere he goes!

An after shot-the decorating was a hit, he requested very specifically the pictures, and then let all his friends sign. At least there is something fun to go along with the trauma. Plus, he is becoming quite the fan of all the extra attention he is receiving!

What a tough little dude! I'm really crossing my fingers though that this is a rare occurrence. With three little boys, I hope I survive!

Our own World Cup

Go Team USA!

Over the last six months or so the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) has hosted an Inter-Consulate soccer league. They have really done a great job, and have actually made it pretty official! Everyone got real uniforms (even with their names on them) and they've played the games out at the TFF compound! It has been fun being essentially our own little mini version of the World Cup! Anyone who worked at the Consulate was eligible to play so there has been a fun mix of Turks playing along as well. Team USA has finished up the season doing better I think than most people thought they would, which is great! Last weekend we played Azerbaijan to secure a spot in either the Championship or 3rd place match. Unfortunately, we did lose this time (they were pretty good) but everyone still did great! Noah has enjoyed getting to play no matter what, and I'm thrilled that we have been at a post with some type of sports to keep him busy!

Getting ready to block...

Now as our game was going on, so was this game (Turkey/France). The winners are now set to play each other. Turkey won that game, so we are now set to play France in the 3rd place match in a few weeks! Now, of course this is fun for our family-and Noah promises not to "trash talk" in French. But, of all the games I would be most excited to see- the boys and I will have to miss it! You see, we will have just left for medevac to the States!! Wow! I can't believe how the time has flown. In any case we'll be cheering for Team USA in our hearts and I'm happy that Noah will have something fun to occupy him after we leave!!

And just some pics for fun, Football or Soccer. Whatever you may call it, it is a game that needs no language. The boys had fun playing with this other little friend they found (not sure if he was Turkish or Azeri, but either way...they figured it out). Love it!

It is crazy to see how small the boys are on a full size pitch!

And then, you can always decided to play by Ronan's rules-just pick it up and run for it!

Beautiful Baby Shower

Some amazing, fantastic, incredibly sweet, and wonderful friends and co-workers of Noah offered to throw me a baby shower for our upcoming arrival! It was so completely wonderful of them, especially this being my third baby that I normally would have never expected anything. One great thing about the Foreign Service is we discovered that it is also just as much about having a fun excuse to get together and enjoy each others company! We had a terrific time and I got completely spoiled! Thank you, thank you to everyone. It was all so wonderful, and I'm now feeling so excited to use all the darling new things we got! Everything was SO cute and just perfect!

As you can also tell, by the following pictures...they really outdid themselves too. Everything was incredibly delicious and so elegant! They did a "ladies tea party" type party, and it was fabulous! They had a great color scheme as well of lavender and blue. So cute of them to think of both mommy and baby!

Look at these darling little purple polka dot muffins. loved it.

The chocolate strawberries looked and tasted incredible!

I loved all the elegant little finger foods, they were so fun to eat

Now these awesome little "mini cakes" were actually of the "cake pop" variety. (On which I will be making a separate post shortly) They were so awesome, and what I unfortunately don't have a better picture of is that Miss C actually made the little "cupcake liners" out of chocolate! They were SO fun!

As I said before, they spoiled me rotten and little baby Miles is going to have some terrific new things to use! It is nice to know now that everything he has won't be a double hand-me-down!

Thank you to everyone who hosted, who came, and who showered me with such lovely gifts, attention, and love. We feel so special and blessed to be here at a post with such terrific people!

(Now, I also got some cute pictures of everyone who was there too, but for security sake I will just let you use your imagination. Those pics will be for later when I put them into my blog book. sorry.)