Happy birthday to Raia!

Usually I like to post birthday pictures, showing how much the children have grown. I can't do that right now, so you'll have to go back and look on your own. I do have a bunch of really cute recent photos of Raia to share, though. Here's my favorite from the past few weeks:

Butterfly watching
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

Her current favorite food:

Strawberries!
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

That was her first taste, right when we arrived at the dacha on Monday. Jaan eats his strawberries slowly and contemplatively; Raia stuffs hers in, and then usually starts trying to get his.

Picking and eating
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

Peonies make me think of Raia, since friends from church brought them to me when she was born. Now we have three beautiful bushes of them. This is our big two-year-old standing in front of one of those clumps:

Two-years-old
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

On Thursday we celebrated her birthday with a supper of grilled chicken and ice cream covered with strawberries and rhubarb. Believe it or not, Raia picked the strawberries out of her dessert and left the rest. If you knew what a big treat ice cream is for our children, you would be as shocked as we were! Of course, she had already eaten more chicken than Jaan or me, so I guess she just didn't have any room left.

How old?
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

(Actually, she really can show two fingers. It just takes a while to get that third one down, and the camera went too fast that time.) She's fascinated with TWO now. I don't remember Jaan understanding so much at his second birthday. She always has at least one knee skinned, and falls are usually no big deal to her. On Wednesday she was just inconsolable, though, when both her knees were injured. I told her that it was two because she was going to be two years old, and then she was fine.

To change the subject from Raia: we're all doing well and enjoying having life settle into more of a routine. Fridays we come back from the dacha in time for Will to go to choir practice. Then, Saturday morning I go to the mothers' prayer meeting; Saturday night we have a youth meeting. Sunday is taken up almost completely with church, although last week Will had a neat opportunity in between services to help a new acquaintance with English. Monday is sometimes taken up with Gospelink business or other meetings for Will. And then we go back out to our dacha.

We're really enjoying the time at the dacha. Different people spend different amounts of time at their gardens, but we have ended up with neighbors on almost all sides who are there most of the time. Of course, so far getting to know them is mostly just garden talk, but I would love to see some deeper friendships grow, too. I overheard this funny conversation between Jaan and our next door neighbor. (They have a sprayer on their hose, and Jaan has been fascinated by it.)
Jaan: "Dedushka, Papa bought us a machine gun!"
Neightbor: [His eyes widen.] "Really?"
Jaan: "It's just like yours."
Neighbor: "What?"
Jaan: "Now we're going to shoot our flowers, just like you do."
[Neighbor looks puzzled, and Will walks up to explain that Jaan calls a sprayer nozzle a machine gun.]

Also, another family from church bought a garden near ours recently. Plus the family we bought from has another in the same area, and Yulia's parents also have their dacha right near ours. (Yulia is a friend from church.) Between those old friends and the new ones we're making, we can keep quite busy visiting right there in our garden community! There are 500 plots there, and I almost feel like we've moved into a new village. Beyond that, there's just the joy of watching our children, the flowers, the butterflies, the birds. . . life is good! Thank you, Lord!