During the really cold weather, when it was rather cold inside, Jaan started shedding his clothes at random times. He's crazy! Anyway, he would completely undress, and then sit on the radiator by the (COLD) window with his bear and talk to the plants. Will said he just needed some time to commune with nature.
During the cold weather, Jaan and I had time indoors to do fun preschool activities from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, one of which was making a necklace with paper "beads" and a pipe cleaner "needle." Of course, since Jaan is a boy, his was a crane, which he carefully raised and lowered while making appropriate noises.
Raia continues to keep us amused with her "crawling." This photo was a second too late, because she was doing a full split just before. I think she's making progress, but she really doesn't see any reason for forward motion; after all, we carry her everywhere she really needs to go, right?
And Will is busy with Gospelink work.
I forgot to say that the children's Christmas evangelism program went well. Our landlord and his daughter did come, and he's still raving about how good the puppet show was and how much fun his daughter had. It was a hit in Sannikovo, too, and Will says there were more adults--parents and grandparents--than they've ever had come out for anything before. Of course, all the kids came. Thank you for praying!
Babushka Tanya did call us to wish us a Merry Christmas, but she didn't come to church.
It's Christmas again! We have a busy day ahead of us. . . .
(Our internet card ran out in the middle of trying to post yesterday. We'll get a new one soon, and then I'll be able to finish that post and put this one up, too. If you see updates, we're back online, obviously.)
I love January in Russia! (Of course, that's easy, because I love
all months and seasons here.) January makes me think of crystal
clear days, a drop in temperature, brilliant early sunsets, and
bright whiteness. Today when we went out for our walk it was -1/-18;
-20 is where I start feeling cold, and we're getting close to that.
We've had fun watching the birds in our new bird feeder today, and
Jaan's back to being my good helper in everything. I've really been
fighting him on behavior and attitude for a while now, so it's
especially nice to have my cheerful helper back. Raia's working hard
on her crawling skills. In fact, she can hardly stop to sleep!
Tomorrow we're going in to Moscow to visit friends. . . .
Here are a few photos of our fun day yesterday:
Jaan enjoying his bagel
Originally uploaded by fylliska.
Tonight we have friends from our old church in Moscow coming. They'll go to the youth club--which is tonight, because of the holidays--then spend the night and go to church with us tomorrow. (Church was also postponed, because our meeting place was closed on Sunday.) The Egor, Olga and Bogdan family will be staying with us; anyone else will sleep over at the Korneichuks.
One more thing: Raia is within inches of crawling! If I put her down on the kitchen floor, she makes it to the other side of the room in no time. She just gets up on her hands and knees, then pushes herself backwards. Her hands don't understand their part yet, so on other less slippery surfaces, she mostly just rocks back and forth and moves slowly.
When that one finally gets up, we'll open presents! Jaan understands what presents are now, so he's itching to get his hands on these from our Hunsucker relatives. . . .
