Music of Christmas

So the weekend 12-14 I again participated in our annual christmas presentations at our church known as The Music of Christmas. It was amazing, the choir did great, we had a real donkey for Mary to ride on (powerful dramatic presentation) Our guest artists were Bill and Mari Cantos (if you don't know them they are amazingly talented on their own right but even more cool when they do battle of the piano :0) and also Abraham Laboriel (those of you who are Ron Kenoly fans have probably were 'awestruck' when youo saw him play the bass!!) Most important though than the fact that it was a great musical event was that it encouraged people, spread seeds and harvested many souls that were touched by the Holy Spirit as they watched! Praise God that we were not clanging cymbals but brought grory to Him :0)
On a different note Gabriela Zoé got to see the entire show and she did amazing! She clapped and sang along and mommy and daddy were very proud of her!

What Can I Handle?

When I was pregnant I was a little worried about the whole labor and delivery process. I was praying and asking the Lord to help me, and there were times I felt confident God would be right there helping me. Then I started being delusional in a sense because I thought that it would be like I prayed fast, easy with no complications. My wise father told me every time I told him to pray for the blessed day "God will not allow for anything more than you can handle" Well that phrase strengthened my delusion.
When the labor and delivery ended up being 32 hours with a 105 fever and a c-section, I wondered why God did give me more than I could handle. The truth is I could handle a lot more than I thought!!! Not only that but He was with us every step of the way (it was not any easier for Stephen watching his wife going through all the trouble).
Just about a half hour ago I was sitting watching my daughter play in her room, she is able to stand and push light objects and walk behind them. I know she can do that, and I also know that she has perfected the art of "bottom landing" so when this morning I saw her getting unstable I put my hand out to catch her if it was more than she was able to handle.
I felt the Holy Spirit giving me a picture from God's perspective on that day. He was watching so closely our every move and I do not know at what point He put out His hand to help me but I do know that we got our healthy and strong little girl and my c-section healed so well...people were surprised to see me walking around a week after I gave birth!
God did not allow me to reach breaking point but He knew what I could handle and was right there to pick me up when the going was getting too hard. Praise Him always!

The Black Shirt

Today I went to buy the clothes that are necessary for the chirstmas presentations this weekend! Thankfully a clothing store opened up really close to us, so I thought I'll go and quickly come back to put Gabriela Zoe down for a nap (estimated time 30-45 min,) Weeelllll....make that 1 1/2 h!!! I got there and first I looked for the shirts I found two that are cotton (because with the hot lights its the most breathable material) I should mention that Gabriela Zoe was hanging from my hip (I forgot to load the stroller) wanting to push the cart, eat the clothes...so while I was looking for a skirt GZ took one of the shirts and was playing with it. Eventually I think I said no and put it back on the cart. When finally I found two skirts that could work with the help of a professional, I went to the fitting rooms to make my decision. The one shirt was too hot so I said probably the other one would work better because it had a lighter weave. Only problem was that the other shirt was no where to be found. I walked around the store and tried to find it. I checked the shelf I got it from and there were no other ones. I went to customer service and asked if they had any more and the said that the system had only one in the store...which means it was the one I lost. So dissapointed I went searching for another one, and I found one that was the medium size...a little big so how much better would it be if they had the small size. I go to customer service...No we do not have any small ones in that size...seems like this is not your lucky day. I smilled...really what do you say to that? I started walking toward the checkout and prayed prayed "oh God please help me find it" so I see the girl that helped me find the skirts and told her the situation so she started helping me look. I was getting dissapointed, Gabriela Zoe: irritated since she had officially missed her nap and it was lunch time. Then I see this lady putting clothes away..."by any chance did you pick up a black long sleeved t-shirt from the ground in this area?" I asked. "Do you mean this one?" and she pulls out the shirt!!!! OH YEESSS YESS THANK YOU SO MUCH! Just like that the whole store probably heard me :0) Isn't God good? So I guess it was more than my lucky day...it was my blessed day!

My Husband the Electrician

Now Stephen out of necessity wears many hats. Let's see....husband, dad, son, employee, student, construction worker, overseer, plumber, electrician...youo get the picture. He is good at all of them!!! Well this wonderful house that we bought by God's grace well it lacked/lacks a lot of electrical work. None of the rooms except for the dining room area, kitchen and bathroom had any 'holes' in the ceiling to install lights!!! We have been living mostly in the dark and depending on floor and table lamps. Well Stephen finally had it with our office/music area so he got up on the attic and after doing all of the necessary work, which included making holes on walls, doing acrobatics on the beams on our attic and a lot lot lot of other things we finally have light....and withi a dimer!!! He still needs to patch one hole on the wall but other than that its done!!! Now when we ichat with our families they can actually see us! He is so awesome.

Thanksgiving Lesson Learned

I really really...really enjoy cooking! I can be up on my feet for hours cooking and it does not bother me, well until I get to bed and feel sooo exhausted. I have been cooking from the time I think 8 or 9 years old, when my 'babysiter' Maria (feel free to correct my dates if I am wrong) gave me as a present a children's cookbook from Unisef that contained recipes from countries all over the world. I believe that my next birthday included international food from that book...and the older I got the more I centered my menu around those recipes. Well the nights before my birthday parties through the years I was just FREAKING out because I had so much to do and so little time. Those nights would end in the wee hours of the night and many times in tears. My mother would always ask me 'why do you do new things when we have people come over?" I DON'T KNOW but 20 years later it still thrills me! (By the way everything would turn out awesome with everyone full and satisfied)
This year I did Thanksgiving with a twist...green beans? yes but greek style, creamed spinach? yes with cheese enfoled in a pie, spanakopita as we say in Greece. turkey and stuffing? yes again Greek style like we make it for Christmas. sweet potatoes? yes, the yellow kind (favorite) not with marshmallows but with apples. pumpkin pie? yes but in the form of cheesecake :0) I am pretty sure by now you get the picture!
I had prepared almost everything and placed it in the freezer. The only thing I had to do was the turkey, stuffing and spanakopita. The stuffing and spanakopita were easy and fast to make. The turkey and gravy were a different story. The turkey had a beautiful color and when I put the thermometer in it said 180 degrees but when we cut it there was so much pink to my perfectionist dismay! Nobody said anything but I had learned something that had nothing to do with pink in the turkey,
Back up about 6 hours prior to the dinner being served when my in-laws first arrived I was on edge...and I kept being jumpy throught the evening...little things would just send me on a whirlwind! Even though by the time the rest of our company arrived I had managed to internalize the frustruation, it was not fun being me! It was not that I was not enjoying what I was doing but I had put so much pressure on myself to serve dinner on time...and as the clock was ticking the more anxious I got because I knew I would not hit my deadline. So what did you learn? you may ask.
Everything....EVERYTHING even the turkey has to be cooked before the blessed day arrives and then EVERYONE will be happy :0) and relaxed...including the cook.

Thanksgiving 2008

This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our home...we had one friend from church, le grand parents and great grandparents. First they all watched the game (I was cooking)...which I don't know if it ended in a satisfying way for Stephen (Cowboy fan) After the game we hang around since I was still cooking and then we had dinner. Our menu was: turkey, greek stuffing, green beans alla grek, sweet potatoes and apples casserole, spanakopita (spinach pie), bread and cornbread. For dessert we had banana and pumpkin bread, pumpkin cheesecake, sweet potatoe pie and oatmeal cookies...talking about a full tummy when all was said and done. Before our dinner everyone shared what they were thankful for this year...there were some tears of joy knowing that two of our loved ones went to be with the Lord this year. And we rejoiced at the new life in so many areas one of which being our precious angel Gabriela Zoe. I thank God that I enjoy being a mommy sooooo much! Hope your Thanksgiving was good too!!!

About town

One of the things I really enjoy is taking scenic walks, whether it is in our little community or our beautiful outdoor mall and this little new manmade pond close to our home. I get to appreciate them even more if I have spend some extra time inside the house. Above are pictures from our different outings the last couple of weeks.

Our Standing, Walking, Crawling in funny places...PRINCESS

Gabriela Zoe now is able to crawl around with great agility and that in now how she ends up in weird places....like inside/underneath the exersaucer. Praise God we put gates on top of all the stairs to prevent the unthinkable should we not watch for one minute. She is amazing about entertaining herself...even though after some time she requests my attention rather strongly :-) Moreover, since October 25th she has been pulling herself up to standing and the last few weeks she has been experimenting with letting go (which also has made her an expert bottom lander (-: ) On Thanksgiving day I was picking some stuff up from the room adjasent to her and she was playing in her room. Since she had been quiet for a while I popped my head in to see what she was up to...ta da!!! She was standing pushing her cube and taking steps behind it and pushing and walking. I started laughing which startled her and caused another bottom landing. We are having fun!!!

yukies up your nose

When we got back from Greece I had a cold and decided that it was not good to be alone suffering...so I gave it to Gabriela Zoe and Stephen. We are all done with our colds but there is still buggers up our nose. I am having such a hard time cleaning out Gabriela Zoe's nose it is beyond me. I have to literally pin her down to be able to get them out and every time I pray to God to help me because no matter how hard I try she moves and screams so much I do not get to all of it. Plus I heard that I can hurt her little capillaries with the nose suck thing (since I am a chronic nose bleeder, I don't want my daughter to have sensitivity to that also). I have to clean her nose because for one it bothers her when she is sleeping and nursing and secondly if I leave them in there that could cause an infection and then things would be worse. Since I have been doing that every day, several times a day for the past 2-3 weeks I have started to have thoughts on it. How much like us is little Gabriela Zoe, we will hold on to things that are not good, actually even bothersome to us sometimes, just because the process of removing those things is painful or uncomfortable. Then if we do not let God remove those things they can become an infection in our lives that will take long to heal. I pray that I let God take the yukies out of my nose when I need it and not freak out...because me...unlike my sweet baby, I am an adult and I know that God wants the best for me. Thus my thoughts on this issue...by the way do you know of a good way to clean the nose that might be more pleasant for my daughter?

The Return Trip

I promised earlier that I would say why it was worth it to go through all the trouble we went to, meaning the extra long trip. The time has come....we got to see our dear friends Sofia and Johan...as well as little Anna Catherina. Since they live in the Netherlands and we live in America...and both Sofia's and my family live in Greece...when we go on vacation we go there. It does not leave much money to visit each other's countries of dwelling. So we decided that we would get KLM with a longer lay over in Amsterdam so that we can meet up with our friends. At first we were going to go to their house but in the end we decided that since the time of day was rush hour it was best that they made the trip. It was ssooooo good to see little Anna in person, she is such an adorable baby!!!!! We realized that most of our conversation revolved around babies...I think it bothered the men more than it bothered us moms. Truth be told it is so important to keep reading and getting involved with things that have no babies in them so that there are other topics of conversation when in the presence of other adults...especially ones that do not have babies.
The time went by so fast and soon we had to say goodbye. We all look forward to the time that we all get to meet in person again...Gabriela Zoe and Anna are probably going to be walking by then!!!! We love you guys!!

Vacation Dates

us with the endless stairs as backdrop :-)
view from our table
our beautiful overcrowded Athens
indoor pool fun

October 22 date night
the view from our room
the story of this picture is below :-)

One of the things that Stephen and I looked forward to while we were on vacation was the opportunity we had, since we were so close to family :-), to go on dates. Well, thank God, we were able to have one. It was supposed to be two but the little getaway close to the beach ended up including Gabriela Zoe. So we celebrated our 4 year anniversary from the time Stephen called my parents to ask for permission to date me...with the intention of marriage. Our little getaway was at a beautiful hotel...I think we could jump into the water from our balcony. Even though it was cold outside and windy, inside the A/C was not working but that allowed it for us to open the window and enjoy a night sleep hearing the crashing waves....ahhhh.
So on our actual date we went to Lykavitos (it is currently and has been for several decades, the highest point in the city of Athens) . I wanted to walk up to the top but we decided against that idea, so we took a little tram that does the climbing for you :-) Up there somehow my Greek brain guard was down and my american naivete was up so when this old man told us to stand to take a picture...we stood. It was a polaroid and we did not like it so we did not want to buy it...but its true its not like in America that they are digital which doesn't really cost anything. Anyhow so we had to buy it , in Greece if they take the picture you gotta buy it, and for 7 euro :-( We took some pictures of our own that we liked a lot better, ate delicious food and once we were down that hill we walked down the endless stairs to the main street where we took the bus to our return home. We loved it!!!

Visits

Since our time was limited we did not have the time to see people one of one..thus my idea of having a party and having people come but that did not work out...it was a crazy two weeks. So we actually got to see only few of our friends one on one. One family of them being Marianna, Filippos, Dimosthenis and boubou. Boubou and Gabriela Zoe are only a few weeks apart to it was so neat to see them interact...even though Gabriela Zoe who had the whole crawling down was running after Dimostheni...don't we all admire more those who can do more than we can? We had a lot of fun talking mostly baby things of coarse, it was almost like we had hung out the month before...so nice to have friends like that :-) Our next visit was one of the last nights we were in Athens and after we put Gabriela Zoe to bed (9:30) we went to another friend's home the Oikonomakides but really the idea started with christina. Last time we were there she had a things for crepes, so she kept saying we had to go eat crapes...well like usuall we did not get around to it so I promised her that next time we would make it a point to go out for crepes. Well being late and all we ordered a delivery and hang around the house. I listened to my sister because since I gave birth I like chocholate a lot more...but man they put soooooo much chocholate on that crape it was sticking to the roof of my mouth and then it was sooooooo big that I felt embarased I ordered and something else....I don't even remember what it was because my brain is filled with crapes. I am pretty sure that it will be a while before I have another one ;-) Nonetheless we laughed about my naivity and all and had a fun time reminising of times of old. Poor Stephen he had to keep nudging me to translate..I don't know why but this trip I kept forgeting to translate. I think that is partly because there is a part of me that thinks that Stephen knows enough to understand and yet I forget that we talk to darn fast!!!!

Time Spent

playing with mama and thias old Barbie car
since we were in Marathonas we Vasilia Luz and I decided to run the Marathon... we did not get far
Gabriela Zoe climbed into Vasilia Luz bag and wanted to join her at work
she did not climb...she was put in :-)
Having fun with yaya Margarita
Enjoying a grown up meal...ya right ;-)
Sitting like a big kid at a restaurant!!! she is awesome :-)
At the metro with mommy...she was supposed to be sleeping :-)
Vasilia Luz looks like a star caught by the tabloids carrying her baby :-)
Having fun with pappou after church...she would chew anything that
was on pappou...tie, hat :-)
Fun with thia at IKEA

Going out for coffee with pappou

During our time in Greece we mostly spent it at home or shopping...mostly for Gabriela Zoe even though I can't say that I left empty handed by any stretch of the imagination :-) It was so awesome to just wake up and have nowhere to go!!! Even more awesome since there was a change of time instead of pushing the time back and putting Gabriela Zoe at 7:30 to bed we established a new habit and put her down at 9:30 and then she would wake up at 9:30...and we together with her. Of coarse we stayed up until 12, 1 or even 2 a.m. still it was nice to sleep in ;-) Another awesome thing was that Stephen was with us 24/7!!! Gabriela Zoe has hardly had her daddy around that much since she was born. We are so grateful because we both miss him terribly all week while he is at work. (I am also grateful that he has a job and that he is enjoying it) Because he had to carry Gabriela Zoe in the carseat sometimes we ended up taking the taxi for convenience and time sake...however we enjoyed using the metro and buses for the most part of our transportation. Gabriela Zoe was the joy of everyone that she came across whether it was the person sitting next to us on the bus or the waitress at the cafe. I am also proud to say that some of our fellow passangers on the bus and metro were gentelmanly enough to offer their seat to us...which I did not expect at all!

Yaya Evangelia

One of the greatest blessings of our trip was seeing our dear yaya. She has spent all her life praying for her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. We feel honored that we were able to give her the gift of seeing at least the first of many great grandchildren. She blessed Gabriela Zoe as a great matriarch in our family. She has been sick for quite a while...if I am correct our wedding day was one of the last days that she was able to walk around and get out of the house. Since she increasingly got weaker and many times we thought that she had reached the end, but God was preserving her because she was such a contender and prayer warrior for all of her descendands. Two days after we left she went to be with the Lord...so you can understand why we are so grateful for seeing her one more time. She was an awesome grandma who took care of me and my sister so much, with a lot of patience. We were not the easiest kids to deal with but she loved us unconditionally and gave constantly of her love to us. Whoever knew her knows what a great woman she was and how caring and loving towards other she was. That's why she was yaya Evangelia to everyone that was younger than her :-) May her godly inheritance be passed on and continue for many generations.

Our Trip

For our vacation we saved up the days and we went in October as opposed to the summer...and it was a very nice alternative (besides the fact that we did not get to swim in the sea) Gabriela Zoe did sooo good with the airplane rides. We had a 4hour flight, 1 hour layover, 8 hour flight, 1 hour layover, and 3 1/2 hour flight before we got to Greece. The longest flight ever but it was worth it for one reason and one reason only...but I will say that later. Gabriela Zoe after the first half of the trip became an airplane pro!!! She is a little social bug so she was smiling to everyone who was waiting in line next to us for the bathroom. One of the flight attendants said that she is going to be an opera singer...let wait and see :-) And what joy at the end of such a long trip to finally get to be help by grandma and grandpa and auntie!!!! She has been seeing them for months over the ichat and now she got to touch and feel them :-) we are greatful to God for this opportunity.