'Twas the night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was sleeping, not even a mouse.
The stockings were ready for this years fill,
if only the children would lay still!

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of Santa and double strollers (and perhaps a sugar plum or two) dance in their heads.
I was in my jammies, and Stranger in his scrubs - for he was at work
fixing the broken and eradicating germs where they lurk.

When upstairs I heard a pitter-patter,
I sign and get up to see what is the matter.
Down comes the oldest with questions about Santa to ask
Will Santa still come if I get up to potty? What if I need you? What if I tinkle in my bed? I sigh at this task.

Finally she's settled, downstairs in my bed,
I sit down to read, "This is a great book" a friend had said.
Until 10, read I did,
and then climbed into bed next to a tossing and turning Karate Kid.
A pillow between us to block most of the blows,
the only thing uncovered are my poor toes.

In the middle of the night Stranger is finally home,
craving sleep I creep up the stairs, to a twin bed alone.
Asleep at last, bedtime has long passed.
Of course, it doesn't last.

Now the youngest takes her turn.
I stumble out of bed as my head begins to churn.
A whimper, then a cry, then a full blown wail,
try as I might, I'm moving like a snail.

Hush! Before you wake everyone else,
I pick her up and something sure smells!
A fresh diaper, now please go to sleep
Don't make a sound, not even a peep!

Two, three, four, five more times she cries,
I can't figure out where the problem lies.
At 5:30 I remember, on the floor is where she threw her dinner.
Perhaps a graham cracker will now be the winner.

When I return with her prize,
I see that finally she had closed her eyes.
Back to bed I creep,
Please, I just want to sleep!

Two hours with all of us sleeping is all that he had,
to fill the stockings and leave presents to make the children glad.
Thank you Santa for working so late,
Hope you enjoyed the cookies we left on your plate.



Merry Christmas from one tired mom! 8 )

Force to be reckoned with

Now that EasternStar is walking - she is a little tornado of destruction! It is awesome to watch her discover the world and try to figure out how things work. She has mastered opening the drawers in the kitchen and pulling stuff out, outsmarted our child-proof locks under the sink (thankfully she is only after the roll of paper towels in there), and loves to pull things out of the garbage can.

I'd forgotten how fast a little one can tear apart a room! Here she is "helping" with the coupons:

Snow Day!

On Monday, we had our first dusting of snow of the year. The girls were eager to go outside and play before it melted so as soon as we had breakfast and dressed we headed out.
Thankfully Stranger didn't have to work until Monday night so he didn't miss out on any of the fun!

At first, EasternStar wasn't too sure about walking around in the snow, but she was happy to sit in it and watch TinyDancer run around.

There was just barely enough snow to make a snow angel. After sledding, this is TinyDancer's second favorite activity to do in the snow.

Stranger was excited that he finally got to wear his new hat. We bought this from some guy selling hats out of a suitcase in Red Square. He later took off the Communist pin.

Eventually EasternStar decided to try out walking in the snow.

And took a turn riding in the sled.

Both girls had a good time! I think that Stranger did too.

Sadly, the snow melted by lunchtime and we haven't had any since. We're hoping for more next time and we're hoping more comes soon!

I'm marrried to ....

a Board Certified Pediatrician!

Yay for Stranger!

Christmas came early for Stranger this year. We found out yesterday that he passed the Board exam for general pediatrics. We thought that we were going to have to sweat it out until Jan or Feb - but the results are in early.

What does this mean? Not much for right now.....but once he is done with training (2 years and 6 months!) it benefits the billing rate of the hospital. Or something like that. Well, depending on what Obama's "reform" looks like.


Congrats to Stranger!

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

Whew! We've had a busy few days. Here is how we spent our Thanksgiving weekend, in pictures:

On Wednesday, the girls "helped" to make squash casserole and green bean casserole. They had great fun playing with these boxes. Why do we have so many toys again? 8 )


Since EasternStar is just a little picky, we thought that we blend all of the wonderful flavors of Thanksgiving into one convenient package. Here she has turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green beans:

Doesn't it look yummy? 8 )

Here she is considering her "Thanksgiving Gruel". After 3 bites she was done:

She opted for the less traditional meal of keilbasa. She did enjoy the pumpkin bread and the cranberry bread and the pumpkin pie:

After dinner, TinyDancer and Grandpa got to work on their train set down in the basement:

And EasternStar got to play with her favorite ball:

On Friday, my sister and BIL and their two sons came down for Thanksgiving Round 2. The only thing better than 1 Thanksgiving is 2 Thanksgivings, right? 8 )

After dinner, the grandkids decorated "their" tree at Grandma's. This is the best shot that I have of the four of them:

On Saturday we went downtown to see the train display and go ice skating. Here are TinyDancer and EasternStar bundled up in our stroller:

First we went ice skating:

EasternStar was very put out that 1) we did not bring skates for her and 2) that she was not allowed to walk on the ice. She managed to pull through though.

After skating for a bit, we walked to the train display and met up with the rest of our family. EasternStar had fun watching the trains go by and banging on the glass seperating her from the trains:

Clearly TinyDancer was very excited:

By the time that we were done, everyone was tired:

On Sunday we pulled out our outside decorations and put the lights on our house and in our yard. Here is our work midway through. EasternStar and I went inside to make lunch and we left TinyDancer in charge to document if Stranger fell off of the roof like he did in 2006. We wouldn't want to miss that!

On Monday we decorated our Christmas tree. We've never put up our tree this early before. Christmas seems like a long ways away! Every year, TinyDancer gets a special ornament that sums up her interests for the year and SleepingAngel gets an angel ornament. Here are the ornaments for this year. For TinyDancer, a violin:

For our junk-fook junkie EasternStar, a cookie on a stick:

And for SleepingAngel, an angel sitting on an ice cube:

The girl's masterpiece after it was done:

Whew! We are tired but it was a great 4 days!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you had a great day and that your tummies are as full as ours are! I took some pictures of our day but I left my camera at mom's house so I'll post them tomorrow. I do have some video for you to enjoy - EasternStar is walking! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!!!

Enjoy!

P.S. For those of you that aren't grandparents......this is 3 minutes of her walking back and forth ..... just in case you get bored you won't miss anything at the end..... 8 )

Fly on the wall

If you were a fly on the wall in our house, here are a few of the things that you might have overheard recently:

- Did you just lick your sister's butt??

- Why is there oatmeal stuck to the wall way over here?

- Stop combing your hair with your chicken nugget.


Or my favorite, an exchange between Stranger and TinyDancer:
- Stop making that sound. (She was using a straw to make that annoying sound - you know - when you pull it up and push it down really fast)
- I don't want to. I like it.
- Well I don't. Please stop.
- Well, just pretend that you can't hear it.

A message for Granny!

The real thank you note will be sent soon, but the girls couldn't wait to give this message to their Granny.

Enjoy!

2 girls in matching dresses

Just 2 of the reasons we're thankful this Thanksgiving:

PT Evaluation

Last week, EasternStar went for her physical therapy evaluation. It went well, despite the fact that she hated every minute of it! 8 ) Her basic diagnosis is muscle weakness, muscle incoordination, and difficulty walking. This is moslty stemming from a lack of strength and flexibility in her legs - specifically her hips. So, our goal over the next few weeks/months is to increase her flexibility in her hips by doing stretches and to increase the strength of her leg muscles. We think the cause is from how she learned to sit - she likes to sit with her legs wide open - almost in the splits!

She hates, hates, hates doing her stretches! But, we blew up on of our exercise balls, and she likes sitting on it and using her core to hold her up while I roll the ball around. We use the ball to help with some of her stretches and we are having "fun" trying to get her comfy laying on her belly.

As far as walking goes, she is getting more comfortable walking and holding on to just one of our hands, but she leans forward really far - almost as if she is bent in half and walking forward.

She is very curious and I think that once she has the flexibility and can get her body to move the way she wants it to, she will be off! She loves to go up and down steps, and in fact started climbing the stairs (on Strangers watch!) yesterday afternoon. We have two steps and then a landing and then the rest of the staircase. It takes her a while, but she can get herself up the steps and onto the landing! Of course, she refuses to go up stairs the way most babies do - on their knees. She insits on bending over and putting both hands on the ground then then - with a straight leg - putting her foot up on the next step. She almost leans over, almost totally to the ground on the opposite side trying to get a leg up.

We are going weekly to phsical therapy for now and taking it one week at a time.

As far as adjusting goes, I think she is settling in very nicely. She no longer wants to be held *all* of the time (although she still has her moments like all babies do!). She is exploring the house and she LOVES TinyDancer's baby collection. She picks up the babies and puts them on her shoulder and pats their backs. So cute! She still hasn't found the dogs food bowl or water dish - so thankful for that! She is always thirsty so I'm sure once she finds the, she'll be there a lot! 8 )

She is sleeping great - at least I think so! She doesn't cry or make any noise when she wakes up - she just sits in her crib and plays with her feet or her blankets. I checked on her one night at midnight and she was just kicking her legs in the air and sucking her thumb. I was like "What are you doing? I put you to bed 5 hours ago!" But, eventually she went back to sleep, so we'll take it! We rock her to sleep for a few minutes before we put her down and everytime she gives me this look like "This is more for you than for me - I don't need to be rocked!". But, I like rocking her and singing to her, so we keep doing it. Everytime I ask her if she is ready for bed she laughs and smiles and then she laughs as I put her in her bed.

She's learned to blow kisses - but only to me or TinyDancer. She blows me kisses after I tuck her in and while she is eating. Speaking of eating, that is the only area where we are struggling. 8 ) She is a junk food junkie! And picky like all toddlers. She will only eat Jennie-O turkey italian style meatballs. Not homemade meatballs. And not any other brand of meatballs. Only Jennie-O. And she will only eat chicken if it is in the form of a chicken nugget - fried. Luckily we are getting creative with hiding fruits and vegetables in the homemade versions of food that she will eat. (As a side note - anyone know how you can hide something healthy in a rice krispie treat? If so - do share!!) One of our neighbors gave her a rice krispie treat and now, just like oatmeal and yogurt, she MUST have a rice krispie treat every day. (Thanks Jen!)


Speaking of the little turkey, she has learned to stick out her tongue and make the PBBBBT! sound - and I hear her doing that now!

Video is fixed

The video from my post below is fixed! I had uploaded it to youtube at first but youtube won't share a private video with blogger. So, after blogger and I duked it out for a few hours, we finally got it uploaded through blogger.

Enjoy!

Proud momma moment

On Monday night, TinyDancer had her first group recital of the year. She takes 30 minutes of private violin lessons a week and has a 1 hour group class that consists of 30 minutes of "music and movement" and 30 minutes of violin playing. The class is made of up of beginner players from age 3 - 7. Her class performed four songs - a Bow poem, the E string concerto, the Monkey song, and a new (for them) song called the Open String Blues - all of which are relatively easy for her. The bow poem, E string concerto and the Monkey song are songs that she has been playing since last spring. She is currently working on a song called the Twinkle (as in Twinkle, twinkle little star). The song has several variations and then the twinkle, twinkle theme. She is pretty good at a few of the variations and is working on the last 2. Her teacher suggested right before the concert that she could play with the "big kids" during the concert when they played the Twinkle. We thought that she'd do just the first part and maybe the theme. But she played all of the parts and did quite well! Stranger was able to get some video. TinyDancer is right in front - concentrating so hard! The quality isn't that great so you can't see the GIANT smile that she has at the end. Enjoy!

Funny things that you overhear......

I love listening to TinyDancer and her friends play. They have such awesome imaginations and it is interesting to hear their take on how life works.

On Saturday, TinyDancer was outside playing with her friend C. One minute they were playing on the teeter totter and the next minute, they were gone. I found them in our shed blowing up beach balls. Because there were going to the beach of course! I managed to persuade them that even though the sun was shining, it was much too cold to put on their bathing suits - which they insisted that they needed to make their trip more "realistic". 8 ) I was banished from the yard for that. As I sat in my neighbor's yard reading, I looked up to hear "Get back here! The sharks are going to get you! The sharks are going to get you! Get back on shore!" being shouted to one girl as she ran to get a beach ball that was blowing away.


And yesterday, TinyDancer was playing with the same friend and they decided to have a "Fall Party". Into our house they went for paper, tape, scissors, streamers, and who knows what else. They made invitations and decorated the neighbor's garage for the party with streamers and paper towels. Don't ask me why - but TinyDancer loves to put a piece of tape on a paper towel and hang it up. They asked for something - or maybe I suggested something - but the word "Maybe" was used. As they continued decorating I overheard C telling TinyDancer:
'Whenever my mom says "Maybe", she really means no'
'Since my mom said "Maybe" and your mom said "Maybe", that is two "Maybes". If one "Maybe" is usually no then two "Maybes" will definately be no. That is what maybe means. It means no but they don't tell you that.'

hee hee hee


Good times!

Heaven Day

Happy Heaven Day sweet SleepingAngel!

We miss you.

I hope that you like the flowers that we left at your special spot.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Here is one of our favorite photos - one of her first from the day she was born:

October 19, 2007

And one of her last, holding onto a leaf - a present from TinyDancer - and sporting her white gangsta hat:

November 2, 2007

Vote!

Do you ever have those moments where you do something and then you think "Wow! I AM a grownup!" I just did - I voted!

Stranger and I (well......me actually) .... printed out a sample ballot and researched the candidates and the issues. We've done that for the presidential races before, but never for a mayor, city council, or school board race before. It's funny what growing up, buying a house, and having kids does to you.

Usually, when the girls are screaming and the house is a wreck, I look around and think "Wow! There really should be some sort of responsible adult here to deal with this." Not today! 8 )


Did you vote yet?

Happy Belated Halloween!

As promised, here are some pictures of the girls from last night. First, our pumpkin:

Thanks Grandpa for your excellent carving skills!

When it was time to leave, TinyDancer was still refusing to bear any weight on her foot, so she got to ride in a princess carriage complete with a blanket on the bottom to keep her bottom warm and a pillow behind her back:

Here is the best shot that I have of the girls - it was kind of hectic outside last night with all of the excitement of eating outside and getting ready to leave. We had dinner outside with our awesome neighbors and all of the kids (10 in all!) went trick or treating together with the dads.

I think my neighbor got some better shots of the girls - and her camera is much better anyway. Maybe I can get a copy of some of the shots that she has. Here they are, a princess with a dress that lights up (TinyDancer) and a strawberry (EasternStar) (and you can see Thumbelina in the background):

A few weeks ago, I took the girls to get their pictures taken in their costumes. I'm sure this is some sort of co.pyright in.fringement, but here is the free Halloween card sample that they gave us. (Thanks Picture People!)

The princess with the hurt foot

We made our fourth trip to the emergency room with TinyDancer last night. She was helping to clear off our front porch in anticipation of the trick-or-treaters tonight and she walked right off of it. Being the tough girl that she is, she held on to the flower pot that she was carrying and didn't spill any soil. Luckily our porch is only one step above the ground and all of our flower pots are plastic.

It was a hard sell to get her to the emergency room, but once there she was fine. Tired, but fine. They took a picture of her foot and she is fine. She got a super cool ace bandage to wear home - which she insisted the I remove this morning because it was hurting her foot. 8 )

She spent part of the morning on the couch with her foot propped up:

And part of the day scooting around on the floor playing with EasternStar. Now I have two scooters! 8 ) Bathing her this afternoon was ....... fun! We almost had to call in a submarine to get us out of the bathroom. 8 )


She still felt up to making Halloween treats with Grandma (the final pictures will be up later):


I'm not quite sure that EasternStar noticed anything was different today. She was all smiles as usual:

I'll post some pictures of the Halloween treats and the girls in their costumes later tonight.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a local pumpkin patch a few weekends ago (I know - I'm totatally on top of the blog, right?) and while we were there, mom was able to catch an action shot of me and the girls:


Seriously, that's how I spend most of my time. There is a tab bit of sibling jealousy in our house right now. On both sides. At least in this shot they aren't hitting each other. 8 )

Here are some more (G-rated) shots of our day:

The girls in the pumpkin patch

Who doesn't love these?

The four of us in the pumpkin patch

Two

Two.

Today is SleepingAngel's second birthday. Or is it - today is supposed to be SleepingAngel's second birthday? Is? Was? Whatever.

We've been quite busy the past few weeks - you can tell because the blog has been silent. Stranger's car was turned into a tripod. That's right - a wheel fell off. I'm no mechanic, but even I know that That's no good. Then Stranger had to throw himself into studying for the boards. It was like intern year all over again as far as us seeing him. Thankfully those were last week. We only have to wait until February to find out if he passed. 8 ) EasternStar has attended the first few of her many scheduled doctor's appointments. So far she has had an ear infection (2 doctor's appointments), a hearing test (she passed), and a head-to-toe exam by her international adoption doctor. We still have to collect her stool samples for that and we are waiting to get the results of some of her blood work. Otherwise she is healthy and behind in all areas - some more than expected, some right where we expected. We have a physical therapy evaluation coming up another doctor's appointment and an eye appointment coming up - that is supposed to take 2 hours and I can't wait! And possibly a speach evaluation depending on how she does in the next two months. TinyDancer has had two violin recitals which each have their own dress rehearsal. One recital had a dress code that I was only semi-aware of until the day of so we scrambled to get her the right stuff before her recital. Mom of the year right here! 8 )

It's been busy.

But the business has been good. It's been an excuse not to think about it being October. An excuse not to think about today.

All in all it was an ok day.

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a special mass said for SleepingAngel at my parents church. She has quite the sense of humor - we arrived 5 minutes late (still getting used to the 2 kid thing) and mass hadn't started yet. We joked that they were waiting for us .... nope .... we had no priest. 8 ) A priest finally came and mass started 15 minutes late. We headed to mom's for breakfast and to relax. In the afternoon we went to SleepingAngel's memorial trees and sent her balloons for her birthday:




Today we had a "pool party" - we swam at the pool at Granny and Paw Paw's hotel and then TinyDancer had a picnic with her friends. Then we went shopping and out to dinner and had cake for dessert:



Happy Birthday sweet baby. We miss you and we love you.

Love, Mommy, Daddy, TinyDancer, and EasternStar

Quick update

Just a quick update. Last week we adjusted to the time change and we are all back on Eastern Standard time. Yay for that! This week we are starting to establish our routines and sleep schedules. Yay for naps and sleeping through the night!

EasternStar has been a real champ. Her sleep has been awesome - once she is asleep for the night she is out for 12 hours. We are still getting used to that! Her naps have ranged from 2 a day (am and pm) and one afternoon nap a day. We've basically been following her cues and she is moving towards just needing the afternooon nap. Her eating has been great too. She *loves* meat. She and Grandpa are going to get along great! She ate her first vegetable (broccoli) last night - so that is a big victory for us. I'm going to make some vegetable soup this week and see if that will tempt her. If not, we'll have to look into the sneaky chef recipes. 8 )

TinyDancer has been taking it all in pretty well. She is so excited to finally have a little sister to play with that she can be a bit much for EasternStar at times. A lot of times. 8 ) She is ready for someone to jump on the bed with and to jump and dance and act crazy with. I'm sure EasternStar will get there - she just has to figure out how to walk first!

I have some really cute pictures of the two of them. My mother-in-law sent them matching pjs and a matching outfit. And one of our neighbors gave them matching dresses. They look really cute! I just need to find our camera cable and have the time to transfer the pictures to the computer.

Stranger's paternity leave is up and he is back to work this week. We've only called him in tears once (ha ha). He is studying hard for the board exams coming up in October.

Home Sweet Home

It is SO GOOD to be home!!! We made it home on Saturday night right on time - perhaps a little early.

We are all very tired and very overwhelmed. The girls are doing well, considering.

EasternStar was a champ on the plane. She actually cried harder in the car on the way to the airport in Moscow than she did on the plane. She had her own seat - which was a God-send! - and she was great for 9 out of the 10.5 hours on the first plane. She slept for about 1.5 hours (total!!) on the first leg of the journey and she cried for about 1.5 hours. We learned that a diet of mostly bread and crackers gives her a lot of gas. And poop. She pooped four times on the plane. A record for us! 8 )

We were all very happy to land in Dulles (about 30 minutes early!) and to make it through passport control and customs. She was a bit too tired and hungry to fully appreciate getting the stamp on her passport, but I know that she is happy to be stamped a citizen. We picked up our luggage with no problems and made it back through security in record time. We had about 1.5 hours to wait for our flight home. We enjoyed some nuggest (from Wendy's this time) and some pizza while we waited. We felt very lucky that our plane home took off early. There were four or five flights going out of our gate at around the same time and the other flights were delayed for either mechanical issues or because the planes had not arrived yet. We actually took off a little early for home. Yay!

Stranger and EasternStar slept most of the hour flight home, and EasternStar stayed sleeping through landing, being put in the stroller, meeting her big sister, being put in the carseat, and driving home. She woke up long enough to put on her jammies and then went right back to sleep. Until 3:45 am. For some reason all of us woke up around 3:45 am on Sunday so we had some breakfast and then went back to bed for a few hours.

EasternStar is slowly getting used to our house and to TinyDancer. She likes our black dog but she is terrified of our red dog.

TinyDancer is slowly getting used to having to share Daddy. There is never enough Daddy to go around it seems. It doesn't help that she was sick all day yesterday. She seems to feel better today though.

Hopefully there will be some sleeping today and I'll be able to locate our camera cord. We've got some cute shots of the girls together.

Can't wait to get home!

It has been a L O N G two days here!

First - the Embassy interview - we went to the US Embassy on Wednesday afternoon to get EasternStar's Visa. The way it works is you drop off all of your paperwork the day before and you make an appointment to come back the next day at 2:00 to pick up your paperwork and Visa. So, at 2:00 we entered the Embassy and followed the signs - and the other people with babies - to the adoption room. The room was hot and small and not very kid friendly. There were plastic chairs lining the walls and in rows in the center of the room. A great place to hang out with 15 other young kids for 90 minutes, right? First we went to the cashier to pay for the Visa and then we went to another window to put our name on the list.

The room was packed! It was awesome to see so many new families! You always here how hard Russian adoptions are getting and sometimes it feels like no one is getting anywhere. It was awesome to see so many families getting their dreams to come true. Most of the children were girls (!) and there were several that were right around EasternStars age (15 months). There was another group of children around the 20 - 24 month range and the cutest 3 year old! There were probaby 12 - 15 families there. I can't speak for the health of the other children, but everyone was very happy. For the first 20 minutes or so. And then the room got hot, and all of the children were missing their naps.....and everyone got (more than) a little cranky!

It is amazing how tied these kids are to their schedules. You can almost set your watch to it. 8:00 - breakfast. 10:00 - morning nap. The Embassy interview was right in the middle of EasternStar's afternoon nap and she *still* hasn't recovered. Hence, the L O N G days that we've been having. She is *so* tired but she will not sleep! 8 (

On Thursday and today we hung around the hotel and did some souviner shopping. There has been a music festival on Red Square everyday this week and today was the first day that we could get semi-close to St. Basil's to take the "required" picture of the child in front of it. I've already packed the camera and the cable, so I won't be able to post the picture until we get home.


Speaking of home, we are so ready to be there! We are tired of washing our clothes in the bathroom sink and our tummies are sick of eating restaurant food. We miss our own beds and our washing machine and our fridge with nice cold water. Of course, we also miss TinyDancer and our two puppies - that goes without saying. I wish that I could go to sleep and wake up on Sunday morning in my own bed! I hope that our flights tomorrow go quickly and smoothly. We only have 2 hours from touchdown to take off to make it through customs, etc in Dulles. Wish us luck!!

Dear french fry,

Dear french fry,

We just met, but I love you already!



We headed to McDonald's for breakfast today. Of course, by the time we got there, it was 10:05 and they were serving lunch. 8 ) EasternStar was introduced to the glory of the chicken nugget and the frency fry.

We're off to the US Embassy in a few minutes so that EasternStar can get her Visa. She will enter the US on a Russian passport and as soon as she touches US soil she will be a citizen. Yay!!


On a side note - we are totally out of apples and cinnamon oatmeal. A word of warning - if you hear screams of bloody murder from the east around 1:30 am ET tonight - don't worry - It is just EasternStar discovering that all we have left is regular oatmeal. We've been though so much as parents that there is little that I fear. I fear tomorrow morning! 8 ) We may need to send up some flares for backup support. Or skip the country early and be met at the airport with a bowl of hot and steamy apples and cinnamon oatmeal! 8 )

A taste of home

Another day down here!

We met another family that also adopted a little girl from Tymen. We actually met them in Tyumen, but we weren't able to meet up until today. Their daughter is 4 days older than EasternStar and their daughter looks exactly like her dad! It is amazing that the MOE there took such care to match up the girls with families that looked like them - and even match their personalities to their families!

The six of us walked down to Red Square today. We were all hungry when we arrived so we had lunch at the S'barro off of Alexander's Garden. EasternStar ate her weight in meatballs from the buffet. It was nice to see her eat something that wasn't carbs or yogurt! 8 )

After lunch, the girls decided that they had had enough, so we had to head back to the hotel for naps. We are probably the only people that walk to Red Square and don't actually *get* to see the square! 8 )

As we were leaving, we spotted an underground grocery store. We stopped in to get some more juice and we spotted these treasures:

Salami

Sliced cheese

Pretzels

Queso

Nacho chips

We excitedly went back to the hotel and after a nice long nap, we feasted on our salami and cheese sandwiches and chips and queso for dinner. Here is our makeshift double boiler to heat up our queso - coffee mugs filled with boiling water and the juice glasses from our hotel room:

Almost warm Queso

And what did EasternStar think of all of these shenanigans? She just laughed and laughed!