Sam will most likely reprimand me, but I couldn’t help it.  Ziva has the CUTEST little toes (I love baby toes!!!) And I was having a difficult enough time resisting on my own, but when Vienna asked to have her toes done again (she’s VERY conscious of when the paint has come off) and then BEGGED to have Ziva’s toes done too… I caved!  I did however resist putting sparkles on Ziva’s toes!

Warrior Mom!!!
Today I was Warrior Mom!  Xena’s got nothing on me!!! 

****is it the lack of sleep or the incessant screaming of the day that have led me to the insanity that is this post? we may never know***

Vienna just made the biggest “Dirt” in her life!!!!!!  by that I mean, she filled her drawers to capacity and then some!!!  then…. joy of my joy… she stuck her foot in it!!  But no, it doesn’t end there… as I’m taking off her socks (ThankYou for having socks on today!!!!) and trying to find a place to deposit them and not contaminate anything else… She grabs a hand full!!!!  Ok, a handful may be an exageration, but still she grabbed some ***big sigh***  Thankfully we averted the disaster of face touching just in time    ahhh… another day in mommy-hood. 

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…what more could you want?  how about poo….
that’s right… Poo!  Not the cute little Pooh Bear… no, good old fashioned “dirt”…
So tonight I thought I’d get a jump on getting Vienna ready for bed, so at 5pm I got ready for her bath.  I filled the tub, got out her toys, and took off her dirty diaper.  It was going to be a nice long and special bath, because since we weren’t going to use the little baby blow up tub, but instead use the whole tub, there would be room for her new bath toy boat that her Mimi got her for her birthday a few months ago. 
I set her down in the bathroom infront of the sink, so that I could double check the water temp and such… she starts making funny cries, and i’m not sure why… until I turn around… she’s just peed, not only on herself, but on the bath mat and on the jammies i had set out for her to wear this evening… she barley missed the bath towel.  This should have been my first clue to abandon ship, but, since I’m not winning mother of the year anytime soon, this did not dawn on me!!!!!
So we get in the bath… she is playing along nicely.  I figure, lets get that hair washed and wash her down first so that she can just enjoy the rest of her bath (She doesn’t like her head getting wet) so we did that.  Not one minute later… HUGE BUBBLE.  “Vienna, do you have to go potty?”  she viggorously shakes her head no… I tell her I think she does… nope, she was right… she didn’t have to go…ANYMORE!!!  Nope, she’s already had a nice BIG potty and left me a nice mound of dirt to clean up.  So, I start the tub draining (this means I have to be within a half inch of touching the stuff since she was sitting right by the drain when she left the deposit). I point at the dirt and tell her that the dirt goes in the potty, and for good measure put her on it. Yes, I know, she’s only 14 months old and totally doesn’t get it yet, but I figure anything I can do to help her learn now will be good.  Besides, she’s ahead of the curve on the “terrible twos” kicking in… why not potty training!!?!?!?!
So then I have to put her back in the tub, scrub her down and pour fresh water over her to clean her up… she LOVES this!! (yeah, right!) so, i set her down and start to collect the toys so that I can do all the cleaning at once…. she, naked as a jay bird, starts racing through the house… ***rolling eyes***  I can just see trails of “water” and “dirt” trailing behind… luckily this did not happen….
So now I’m sitting here writing you to avoid dirt duty!  I know I can’t wait too long or it will dry and it will be much worse… but you know baby poo… it’s not clumps of dirt, more like… pies of dirt   well, I’d best get off to it…

So a bunch of missionary ladies that I chat with on line have started talking about celebrating Thanksgiving Day in their “host” country.  This reminded me of our time in Latvia, so I thought I’d share the Turkey story I shared with them, just to get me started into the spirit of Thanksgiving!  As I type this, I have a BEAUTIFUL big bird in my freezer!! We will make this for my brother in law Matthew’s birthday the week after Thanksgiving when we return from Ohio and our visit with Sam’s parents, Grandparent’s and Bill & Sara (Sam’s sister).   Matt can’t go because he’s just a poor college student who has to stay home and work… I feel bad about abandoning him, but I’m very excited to see the rest of the family too! Anyway… here’s my story:

Ok, so I have to tell my sad sad turkey story from Latvia.  So, Thanksgiving is a very important holiday
to me… it has always been bigger to me in many ways than Christmas (probably
because it focuses on food ha ha ha) turkey is also my absolute favorite diner
(but only homemade!!) anyway… My first Turkey
day in Latvia
we celebrated curried turkey.. hum… yeah, not quite right! (though that was the
first night that Sam and I started flirting with each other, and I realized he
might be interested…so, wasn’t a total lost!!) 
I had searched the central market looking for some turkeys, and I found
two…previously frozen turkeys, in a glass case, just sitting there, waiting for
me to purchases them!! I was soooo excited… then I touched the glass on the
front of the case… warm as a summer afternoon!!!!  I asked to touch the birds… humm… yeah… room
temp, and how long have they been that way?!?!?!  I was thinking, not so sure how safe that is
(looking back, I’d have bought one now, after eating with
the “grannie” at our country churches… but… I digress) anyway…

 So, the next year Bruce
& Kim knew of this farmer who could use a little money and who agreed to
grow us some turkeys!! I was sooo very excited because not only was I going to
get a turkey, I was going to get the freshest one possible!!  Well, he didn’t really know how to “prepare”
a turkey… trying to figure out how to write all of this without being too
graphic… anyway… so, instead of butchering it the traditional way, he cut it
right down the breast bone!  Ok, ok, I can
figure something out. 
So, I finish plucking the bird and start to wash it, since it’s split
right open I can get a really good shot at cleaning out what should be the ‘cavity’
well… there were a few “gifts” left behind that should have been taken out, so I
took them out.  After all, I’m used to
them leaving the “innards” inside the bird when you purchase them (In Russia, you didn’t
really buy a bird without them… they leave them in so you could tell how “fresh”
they were, because those parts go off rather quickly)… anyway… so I finish
preparing the bird… It came out looking a bit like Turk-in-stein. 

I used kabob skewers to hold the bird together so that I could cook the stuffing in the bird!   It actually didn’t look too bad after it was cooked, though a little scary

I could have lived with that.. but… when we
at it, it was quite gamy so, I don’t think it was fed like a turkey we are
used to eating… anyway.. hey, I got my turkey   it was
better than nothing, lesson learned

We had Pork Loin for Christmas on a brighter note….

Someone sent or brought us canned pumpkin!!!!!   So my pie turned out fabulous!!!

So, happy turkey day to all of you, where ever in the world you are!!!!

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