Triple Triple (and I'm not talking sports)

Yes, Noah has achieved a Triple Triple!

Happy 33rd Birthday Noah!

Just look at all those candles.

I guess we've both reached the age where doing the appropriate number of candles amounts to a fire hazard...

Oh well, at least he had a Krispy Kreme Cake and a date with his honey out to Mongolian BBQ to celebrate!

Here's to many more candles on many more cakes with you!

Nothing says I'm 4 like Superheroes and Pirates!

I can't believe our little Ronan has actually turned FOUR!

Where has the time gone?

In any case, I decided that we had better celebrate, no matter how sad I am that he is already 4!

We started with Superhero cupcakes at pre-school which were a huge hit..

I love how excited ALL of the kids were. Such cuties I tell ya.

We then celebrated with a fantastic little Pirate Party-

ENTER IF YOU DARE...

He had a couple of little neighbor friends over, and of course thoroughly enjoyed opening his presents!

a group effort is always key in opening any present right..

Now the big present for the year from Mommy and Daddy went along with the theme...
A Pirate Ship!!!! Both of the boys were THRILLED!
Daddy, maybe a little less thrilled after 3 hours of putting it together! ha.

Still. The final product was definitely worth it.

Porter, mid-Arrgh

Ronan especially loves cake/candle time on his birthdays!

These photos, however, are what happens when mommy is messing with the settings and doesn't have time to fix them before missing the whole event...

sorry they are blurry

you get the idea though...

He did a great job, and all the littles enjoyed helping him blow everything out!

Happy Birthday Ronan! We love you to the moon and back and can't imagine our family without you!!! What a fantastic day we had four years ago when you came into our lives!

Miles' 3 Month Pictures

Here is just a small sampling of the adorable photo shoot we did with Miles for his 3 month! I LOVED how they all turned out. Of course, with such an angel as this it is hard to go wrong!

Just look at that face?!

We have an identical shot with this blue blanket with all 3 boys at three months. Sometime I'll post them all to see how similar they look!

(He was doing a little dancing here to show me how much he likes the Beatles)

What is going on Mom? Seriously? What kind of sweatshirt is this?

awesome. that's what it is!

We sure love our little guy. I can't believe that he is growing up so quickly!!! What a handsome little man though if I do say so myself!

BACK TO SCHOOL

Yes, I know it is November. However, it is still the fall- meaning it is still ok to be documenting Back to School 2011!

We started with some awesome new jammies to help the boys get a good night sleep.

Notice Ronan's nice mop? He HATES getting his hair cut so we decided to wait a week or two on that till he was used to school. We didn't want him to associate haircuts with school:)

RONAN'S FIRST DAY OF PRE-SCHOOL

This was the best smile we could get out of him, so we'll take it!

He was such a big boy. I can't believe my boy has his own hook and cubby!

He had to hang up his backpack by himself. He was a bit sad when we left, but since then he has been a champ. He leaves happily now on the school bus all by himself! He has done so much better with the transition to school than I thought. We are so proud of you buddy!

PORTER'S FIRST DAY OF GRADE 1

Porter was thrilled to get to go back to school. He had been talking about it for days! He had really missed all of his friends over the summer, and I am so grateful that he gets another year with most of them before we move again. They were all so happy to see him too! Makes a mommy proud that he is a loveable little guy.

I think this year (2011) might go down in history as the year that Porter couldn't seem to look at the camera very well when taking a picture. The "side-glance" is his new trademark. Either way, he was at least willing to pose for a picture with mommy!

His teacher this year is fantastic! We have gotten so lucky so far. She is from Ireland and also has a killer accent! I hope he picks some of it up. She is so great with him as well.

I can't believe my boys are both in school this year!! Aaack! I guess that is what growing up is all about though. I think this should be a great year for all. And I must admit, I'm looking forward to some mommy/baby time in the mornings too:)

Have a great school year boys!

The Perfect End To The Summer

All good things must come to an end, and so it had to be with our whirlwind of a summer. Luckily for us though, we got to send it off in style! What a better end than to have a great visit from one your besties and her fantastic sister?

That's right. Kesli came back and brought Jenny with her!!

They were able to come visit us right before school started back for the boys, and we had a great time. We played some great card games late into the night, I finally learned the secret of how to make the perfect toaster strudel (thank you Jenny, I am forever grateful), and we were able to do some fun things that Kesli didn't get to see/do last time they were here!

We were able to take the Consulate Boat out for a cruise on the Bosphorus which was terrific. As usual, I stole some great pics from Kesli (and Jenny). I loved this one.

We had a great time, the weather was gorgeous and we even got to see dolphins!

(I had heard of them, but never seen them until this day in the Bosphorus)

We left P & R at home for the day since Ronan has been known to toss whatever he can get his hands on into the water. Miles however, was loving his day on the water.

All snuggled up with Aunt Kesli! What's not to love?

Of course we had to do some shopping at the Grand Bazaar

This time we did a little rug shopping, which is a truly Turkish experience all it's own.

We have a "rug guy" who is THE guy to see. Noah and I are in the market for one sometime before we leave if we find just the right one. We really liked this one, the colors especially. The tones of the reds, blues and yellow were my favorite that I've seen. I'm not sure if it is too busy for me though. Opinions?

In any case, it was a fun Turkish experience for Kesli and Jenny I think!

We also went to the Basillica Cistern. It is really hard to get any good pictures here, but look how great these lovely ladies look?

I'm going to be stealing the rest of their shots for a future dedicated post on the Cistern. Way to go for knowing how to use your nice camera girls!

We also finally made it into the Blue Mosque. Last time Kesli, Ryan, and Ryli were here we couldn't go into the building because prayers were going on. It is really beautiful inside.

The famous blue tiles that line the interior -

They were selling these "Sugar Sticks" I'm going to call them- all over the place. It is essentially fruit flavored goo that you can pick your flavors on a stick. Like one of those twirly suckers, but that never really hardens.

Jenny and Kesli were adventurous and enjoyed themselves a tasty snack! I'm a party pooper. I just took a picture:)

We had such a fun time, and were thrilled to get to know Jenny as well. Thanks for the great weekend girls! Miles was sure excited to meet you both as well!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love having friends who are all around the world! It makes it so much more fun to enjoy these crazy places we live with friends! How lucky we are that we got to be "neighbors" for our first posts!

Of course I was gone…..just my luck!

So, in my never ending attempt to update my blog I had to at least note the visit of our wonderful friends Greg and Whitney from the States!!

Now the kicker is, I MISSED IT! Can you believe it!? Back while I was still on Medevac, right before I was to come home actually- they were able to take advantage of a work opportunity and backpack across Europe, ending their adventure in Istanbul! Now the timing could not be helped, but I was totally bummed that I was in the States while they were in Turkey. What are the odds?

Now I totally snagged this photo from Whitney, seeing as I wasn't there- but they are just the best and I was so happy they were able to keep Noah company for a little while! Since they did come all the way from America, I decided they must get official credit on the blog, no matter how outdated! They did some fun things while they were here, including going out on the Consulate boat for the day. They cruised the Bosphorus and went up to the Black Sea and went swimming! Now, I will attempt to tell one fun story (third hand) to document the adventure-

If you have ever seen the Bosphorus, or Black Sea in the right conditions there is one thing you can't miss. Jellyfish. Lots of them. Now, as far as I can tell, they aren't huge ones, and we have never heard of anyone having a major problem with them, yet jellyfish are still jellyfish and how are we to know if it is ok to be in the water with them? Well, after they got up to the Black Sea (which is actually much more Turquoise) they noticed that there were tons in the water. They started to re-think their swimming plan. The captain of the boat only speaks limited English, and we think was attempting to tell them-"don't worry, the ones here are NOT dangerous". Instead what he kept saying though was the ones here are "EXTREMELY dangerous"! Ya, that is a big difference in trying to convince someone to go in the water. ha! So I guess, after repeating to them no worries, "extremely dangerous" he even had the 1st Mate jump in to show them it was ok. I guess it worked then, and they all braved the jelly infested waters! Way to go guys, I'm so proud of you all; swimming with the Jellies!

Thanks again for coming to visit you guys, and we hope you had a great time!

My personal packmule

In figuring out all of the logistics for our whole medevac adventure, one of the things on the checklist was figuring out to get someone to fly back with me and the boys. Noah was not going to be able to stay the entire length of our trip after the baby was born; and I knew I couldn't handle three boys all by myself on a plane around the world! As luck would have it, the stars aligned and logistics worked out perfectly for one of our awesome friends from our Michigan days to come back with me!! She was thrilled and so were we! She was so amazing, and I definitely could not have made the journey without her help. She knew exactly what I needed and took charge to help me get things done! Being an experienced traveler herself also with little ones she was perfect for the job and knew what to expect. She unfortunately became kind of my personal pack mule, helping me to tote the traveling menagerie through three different airports! What a superstar!! She was so great with the kids too, which was SO helpful. I will forever be in her debt for doing such an awesome job of helping me come home. Thank you again Marlene! You're the best!

Since she did fly halfway around the world, we thought we better show her a few of the fabulous things here in Istanbul. We had a great time, and after such a long journey it was fun to take a few days off to just enjoy having a visitor to show around our lovely adopted city! Among other things we:

We went to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants on the Bosphorus- you can't beat the view here, and the neighborhood is also a local favorite.

She got to see the world famous Hagia Sophia!

We hit the Grand Bazaar, where we got a classic local "rug shopping" experience. She came away from this particular shop with a beautiful wall hanging for her home, and I was pretty impressed with her bartering skills!

She's a big literature fan, so I decided that we needed to hit up the Pera Palace Hotel for some pastries. The Pera Palace Hotel (a future post still in the works to come) has been frequented by many a famous face over the years, including major literary players Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. Plus, they have a fantastic French Patisserie with incredible Eclairs!

The hotel has been masterfully restored in the last couple of years. Here is Marlene in front of the antique elevator (and she got to take a ride)!

Last on the agenda, was to introduce her to one of my new favorite pastimes-

teaching her to be addicted to shopping for scarves! I think this was a success…

between the two of us we bought 10+ over the period of a few days!

Even though we've been great friends for years, we haven't gotten to see nearly enough of each other after we moved to different parts of the country (and then we moved around the world). It was so nice to have not only the extra help, but also some fun quality girl time with an old friend! Next time we get together we will hopefully get to have time with her little family as well, yay for East Coasters! Thanks again Marlene, you were amazing!