New Beginnings

Aaaaahhhhh, how refreshing to join the civilized world again!

After what seemed like the longest move in the history of moving houses, we are finally in our new house! Actually we've been here since Tuesday but we just got our internet and telephone late last night, so things still felt unfinished the last few days...until the glorious colours and sounds of Google, Facebook, Yahoo and YouTube finally came pouring out of the screen, to my great joy and relief.

So here we are again! Getting back to normal, establishing routines. Some old routines and some new ones. 

An old routine with a new view!

This is where I'm sitting at this very moment, writing to you.

How nice to look out a window instead of at a plain old wall.

I wonder if this will improve the writing....

or make it worse...

I guess we'll find out....

Anyway, I'll take you on a little tour.

Don't mind the mess, 

we're still living with a few boxes and trying to organize things, 

but we'll get it done eventually

The new living room

...yes it's pink.

Very pink.

Actually, the entire house is pink.

Even the bathrooms.

Complete with a pink, sparkly toilet seat.

We're going to live with it for a while apparently.

I thought it would be a good idea to paint everything before we moved in. 

But that wasn't in the time schedule 

or the budget 

so it will have to wait.

Oh well, at least it's appropriate since I'm building an army of women to take over the world we're going to be a house full of girls........

But besides the interesting paint colour, there's a ton of light in the room which is nice. Cheerful.

The windows and doors are all brand new, 

with screens to keep out the kounopia (mosquitos) during the summer!!

It may not seem like much, but in my opinion 

having those screens is like hitting the Greek jackpot!

This is apparently the only photo I took of the kitchen...and it really doesn't show you much

Sorry about that! Not sure what happened there....

Or maybe, 

I was just trying to avoid revealing the mountain of dirty dishes in my sink at the moment.....

Hmmmm

Anyway, it's a small kitchen but it has what we need so it will do just fine.

There's a little more cupboard space then what I had before.

We have a beautiful view of the village and castle from the table which is the best part.

We'll be getting a new stove eventually so that will make life A LOT easier, 

since I've been trying to cook meals with ONE ELEMENT, and a tiny oven for the last 5 years!! 

Not exactly the most time efficient way to cook. 

Oh, and not to mention that there's a loose wire or something like that, so if you're not wearing the proper footwear or using wooden utensils, 

it will electrocute you.

I won't be sorry to say good bye to that hunk of junk when the time comes.

Everyone cross their fingers and toes that that time comes

SOON!

The beginnings of a baby room!

More baby room

Our bedroom is just off of this one (for now),

No photo of that because Antonis is still sleeping and I didn't think he'd appreciate that very much.

Eventually we'll move into the 2nd bedroom (it's too the right of the bathroom/laundry room), and all the girls will share this big room

But that won't happen until the twins are sleeping through the night....

And once again I'll ask you all to cross all your fingers and toes that that happens

SOON!

(yes I know, good luck with that one...)

We now have 5 cats!

Well they're not ours, but we'll be taking care of them while the owners are away.

The owners of the house live upstairs, 

but they also have a house in Florida that they live in during the winter months.

So from October to April we're out here in farm land on our own, 

with the 5 cats, 

and then Charlie and Litsa (owners) will join us around Easter and stay through the summer

Eleni's not so sure about the cats.

She's very curious about them and follows them around everywhere,

but the norm around here is to chase animals away (cats, dogs, whatever), 

so she's learned from the older locals to hiss and stomp at the cats to scare them off.

I'm trying my best to fix this but it's a bit confusing for her.

Yesterday I found her chasing them with a broom, yelling at them to FEYEH! (leave!).....

this is probably going to take a while....

But we need the cats around actually, because living outside the village in the boonies means we have all kinds of other critters to contend with now:

rats, mice, snakes, foxes, scorpions, lizards...probably others, but that's all I know about for now...

that's all I WANT to know about for now...

Anyway, the cats will take care of all of those so I'm happy to feed them and keep them happy.

Just as long as they don't bring me any little "gifts" as cats sometimes like to do...

And the outside space.

The best part of the place!

Huge yard and garden area for Eleni to play,

she can ride her bike around here,

we'll put a big table and chairs out here in the garden in the spring and summer 

so we can have all our meals outside.

There's even a little space for me to plant some veggies.

 

This is "The Zen Spot"

Just up, over the rocks is this little place that's so quiet and peaceful

View from The Zen Spot.

Perfect place to sit with a glass of wine once all the kids are asleep,

or with a tea or coffee before anyone wakes up.

Shhhh, don't tell the kids about this place!

I had a few visitors for breakfast this morning.

Between the middle sheep and the one on the right, you can see the view of Molyvos and the castle.

It's a bit foggy today so it's not the clearest view,

but at night it's especially beautiful when the castle is lit up

Outdoor cooking space.

This is actually the owner's outdoor space 

but we're welcome to use it when they're away in the fall and winter

Stone table

Again, this is actually their space but we can use it when they're not here.

The 'laundry room'

Well, it's where the clothes are hung to dry. Because no one uses dryers here.

Last night I was hanging up a load when a little red fox came trotting through.

He either didn't know I was there or he really didn't care because he just walked through 

without even a look in my direction.

I'd never been so close to a fox before!

And finally, the olive grove.

Eleni loves running around through here 

and it goes waaaaaaay back so there's lots to explore.

So that's our new place! Like I said, we're still unpacking and rearranging things etc, but overall we're all happy to be here. Actually, I would even say it's like we can finally breathe! Living in the village is nice, there's people around, you have easy access to the shops and things. But everyone is so close together that you start to feel like a canned sardine! Not to mention there wasn't any space outside for Eleni to play 

The first night was hard on Eleni. She was exhausted from moving all day, so was I. She told me she wanted to go to bed so I told her we'd put on our pajamas and she said, 

"No, we go home first Mommy. After, pajamas" 

and I said "But we ARE home baby! This is our new house, we're going to sleep here" 

and she said "NOOOOOOO!!!!" 

and cried her little heart out on my shoulder. 

But since then she's been perfectly fine and has adjusted really well. 

Moving was interesting...to say the least. First of all, it was a bit frustrating not being able to do much since I'm now 6 1/2 months pregnant. But a few weeks ago I did come out here and measure each room, and I measured every piece of our furniture. Then I drew very detailed plans of where all the furniture would go in each of the rooms, complete with room dimensions and furniture measurements.....

why did I do that (you're probably wondering)? 

....Because it's been my experience with Greek men that they are all "experts". At everything. Even interior decorating. Now, if we were all sitting around having a chat and talking about "interior decorating" they would tell you that's 'women's stuff' and they couldn't care less about it. But suddenly when they're carrying heavy furniture and sweating and grunting, the feminine words "interior decorating" don't exist, and this just becomes 'men's stuff'. So I knew that if I wasn't organized about how I wanted the furniture, and if I didn't present it in a way that made sense to man brain, it wouldn't be very likely that my voice would be heard through the thick, stinky cloud of machismo. 

Antonis was great, he knew I'd done the math, so to speak, so he was happy to put the furntiure wherever I asked him to put it. The others....they had their opinions. About everything. As expected. But I had the drawings....with measurements....and I had drawings and measurements of what I expected they would suggest, just to show them how that would NOT work. 

It worked. They put everything where I told them too.

But not before they each gave their expert opinions. THEN, they'd put the funiture down in the place I wanted it.

And eventually this pregnant momma got sick of hearing their opinions, because it was wasting so much time. So I told them so. And I didn't even try to put it nicely.

After that, everything was moved from the truck, to the house, into the room I wanted, against the wall I wanted, without protest or opinion.

It was a house-moving miracle!

They all hate me now of course, but they'll get over it. 

Now, I think I'll try to unpack some more boxes. Or tackle the mountain of dishes in my sink. Or bring the laundry in from outside, as long as that fox isn't hanging around. Or maybe I'll have a cup of tea in The Zen Space......hmmmmmmm

The 'No Post' Post

So there's no blog post today.

Except that there is a post to tell you there won't be a post.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to doing this regularily but hopefully it's soon.

Just so you know what's going on over here, I'll give you a brief run-down of the craziness:

1. We're moving!
2. I have a cold
3. Eleni has a cold
4. I'm getting really REALLY big and it's super uncomfortable at the moment

So that's why I don't have time, or energy to write a real post today.

I'll take a couple of minutes to tell you about the new house though. 

• it's cute
• it's in the Molyvos "country"....we have like, 2 neigbours I think? And about 250 sheep nearby, along with about 100 chickens, about 10 donkeys, 2 horses and I think 4 goats but they were far away so I couldn't really tell for sure if they were goats. Small chance they were just 4 more sheep. Just to reiterate, we're NOT moving onato a farm but there are farms around us. No I did not completely lose my marbles and decide to take on the life of Mom-to-3 AND run a farm....but we have the most beautiful walking trails around us so if we want to go look at the farm animals, we can so Eleni and I are pretty excited about that
• it's bigger than our house now which was the whole point of finding a new house. Eleni will have her own bedroom instead of bunking with Mommy and Baba, and once the babies are older and sleeping through the night the girls can have a huuuuuuuge bedroom for the 3 of them with lots of space for toys and playing
• we have a HUGE outdoor space!!! I'm really excited about this one because living inside the village you're lucky if you have a small area of garden for a couple of plants, a chair and 2 snails. We have a LAWN which is unheard of here, I have space to plant some vegetables if I want to, we're surrounded by tangerine trees, lemon trees, pomegranate trees, olive trees, plum trees, fig trees....there's probably more but that's just what I can tell for now. Oh yeah, and tons of grapes.
• I'm also very excited that all the windows and doors have screens on them so during the long hot summers we won't be suffering with mosquitos buzzing around us or any disgusting and/or weird critters getting in the house

Looks like this is turning into a blog post after all......

Anyway, a couple of things I'm a bit worried about with this place are that there aren't any telephone or internet lines going out to this area of the village. So we can't just call up the local company and have them move our telephone number etc over to the new house. We'll have to switch to satellite internet, satellite tv and cell phones. At first this seemed devastating because satellite internet is crap and expensive and the tv and phone will probably get pretty expensive too. But I've been putting a lot of research into this the last 10 days or so and it turns out satellite internet has HUGELY improved over the last few years, at least it has out here. So Skype will run properly and I'll still be able to watch my crap reality tv shows when I have the chance. And write this thing when I have the chance. Still looking into the phone thing but we're going tomorrow to set all this up. The tv is Antonis' department so I have no idea about that yet, we'll see. But anyway, from what I can tell this may end up being cheaper then what we've got going on right now so it may not be too bad after all............I'm knocking on wood right now.........

We'll be all moved in by the 1st of November.

I'll take photos soon but I don't know when I'll be able to share them with you because I don't know if the internet will be set up right away or not, and I'm anticipating some hiccups of whatever kind because lets face it, there are ALWAYS hiccups when you move.

So that's what's going on at the moment. And that's why there isn't a blog post today? I should have known I wouldn't be able to stop myself from rambling.....

Eleni's next to me right now on the couch. We're cuddled up under a blanket with a massive box of tissues....I'm pretty sure there's a thick fog of germs surrounding us right now. Yes, lovely, I know. I'm thinking about how I'm going to make us some chicken soup today. And I'm also thinking about how I can suggest that we need chicken soup in the restaurant tonight so someone else can make it and bring it too us and we can just stay cuddled up under the blanket all day, sneezing our brains out. Eleni's insisting we watch nothing but Peppa Pig though so maybe taking a break to make some soup isn't such a bad idea after all......

And since this turned into a blog post after all I might as well tell you more about #4 on the list: yes I'm getting really REALLY big. And no I don't have a picture right now but I'll take one soon. When I have energy. And no germs. And a beautiful back drop of pomegranate trees....Anyway, somehow I seem to have 'popped' again (as 'they' say...whoever 'they' are, it's just a nice way of saying 'holy crap, your belly got so much bigger in a really short period of time'). It's all ok, at first I thought something was wrong because I was really in a lot of pain but it turns out everything is fine, the twins and I are just growing again. It's pretty uncomfortable but I'm sure I'll adjust to this new size soon. I hope. 

Ok, I think that's enough for a blog post that wasn't supposed to be a blog post at all. I need to go figure out the soup situation for the day. 

I'll re-post here the video from last week of Eleni singing Monkey's Jumping on the Bed, because I ended up deleting that whole post from last week after someone with no sense of humour expressed their concern over what I wrote....long story that I'm not going to get into but it turns out someone wasn't a big fan of the 'You Suck' blog posts. I get it, you can't communicate tone in writing but I thought it was pretty clear that even though these were actual conversations that myself and other pregnant women have had with people during pregnancy, no one was actually upset or harbouring any bad feelings toward the people that were written about. It was supposed to be funny. But anyway I deleted it because if you have to tell someone it's supposed to be funny, then it's not really funny anymore. Anyhoooooooo, (once again, so much for NOT writing/rambling on) that very cute video of Eleni singing had to be deleted along with it, which is a shame, so I'll just re-post it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS3y1__0Mg8&list=UUeZEwov6ySNdnwvXzcf50BA 

Ok, now I'm off to figure out soup and ask about some boxes. And then maybe a nap. I should probably get some more tissues too. And hopefully next time we chat, we'll be all moved into the new house and all the internet/phone/tv issues weren't issues at all and everything went smoothly.....knocking on wood again....

The Castle

FALL HAS FINALLY ARRIVED IN MOLYVOS!

Oh Fall, I've been waiting so impatiently for you! 

Everyone you meet in the street is saying, "It's winter! It's winter!" because it's so cold suddenly....you know, now that the temperature is in the low 20s.........

Of course I'm being sarcastic, as usual, but I'm not joking when I say people are calling this 'winter'. And I'm really not joking that the temperature is still around 22 - 24 degress celcius. A lot of people are wearing sweaters and jackets already and EVERYONE is talking about how cold it is. 

Everyone but ME 

I could.not.be.HAPPIER!

I can finally leave the house during the day without feeling like I'm going to faint in the street from sun stroke!

I can finally wear normal clothes, other then just underwear....and I've stopped feeling like even the underwear is too much!

I can finally sneeze without breaking a sweat!

I feel like THIS is perfect beach weather, but even I have to admit the sea is pretty cold now so swimming is not on my list of things to do at the moment 

But building sand castles, ABSOLUTELY! 

Speaking of castles, Eleni has been very curious lately about the castle here in Molyvos. Where ever we are in the village, she always has to see if the castle is visable from there and if it is she says, "Oh look! There's the castle again! Eleni made it, the castle!".......that last bit is a little confusing but I'm assuming she's talking about making sand castles. Or she's telling us about her past life as a castle builder. Either way, the girl tells a good story! 

Anyway, to celebrate the sudden change in temperature, and the slight drop in population due to the tourist season almost coming to a close, Eleni and I went on our first castle adventure today!

(and yes, this was the first time inside the castle for BOTH of us. Sad, I know)

Sitting at the entrance with a giant chocolate bar that a stranger handed her without asking me first.

It was a fight and a half getting her to hand over that chocolate bar, obviously

But luckily she forgot all about it by the time we got home

....and I ate it while she napped....

Yeah yeah, go ahead and judge but just remember she's only 2 and I'm pregnant with twins,
who do you think needs a giant chocolate bar more??
DUH!
And just so you stop thinking I'm the meanest mom ever,
she still had a cookie when she woke up from her nap.
And then she bounced off the walls for 4 hours straight....
SEE!
 I clearly made the right choice by eating the chocolate bar

Small room inside the castle that has lots of information and history about 

the castle, Molyvos and Lesvos

I didn't get to read anything because I was too busy watching Eleni run around like a maniac
but I do know that the the original 'castle' (although it probably wasn't much of a castle at the time) was built in the 5th century.
Over the centuries it was invaded and taken over many times by many different groups of people:
Persians, Turks, Venetians, to name a few.
Each group of course did 'renovations' while they had control of the castle, and as we all tend to have our own particular taste and style, this of course influenced the architecture and design each time, making it what we see today:
an ancient, eclectic, and very cool, pile of rocks!

There are a ton of articles about the history of the Molyvos castle, if you're interested.
A quick google search will bring up a bunch of them.
All of them far more intellectual than my own description here, but hey
I'm no genius when it comes to architecture, nor am I a history buff
....which is really unfortunate because if I was, this blog would probably be a heck of a lot more interesting!

Excited to explore and VERY excited to finally be inside the castle

This is the stage, seating area just ahead

There are a lot of events that happen inside the castle throughout the year;

concerts, theatre, cultural exhibitions

One of Antonis' favourite stories to tell is one about his first time getting drunk
It was here, in the castle, at a concert
He was 15 and drank an entire bottle of ouzo
(a 2-6 us Canadians would call it, however other normal people would know it as a 750ml bottle)
I can't remember the name of the singer that was playing that night, a famous Greek guy,
Antonis remember's who it was
not surprisingly, that's about all he can remember from that night.
This is one of his shorter stories....

Still inside the castle, even though there's trees growing in it.
I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect to see trees.
I think I thought there'd just be a bunch of rocks, which there are a lot of rocks of course
but it's really kind of peaceful and park-like inside with trees and bushes and benches to sit on.
New benches.
Not 5th century benches.

Sitting in the audience, facing the stage

Since we were surrounded by totally un-fenced ledges that drop off way down into the village below

I was more then a little nervous about letting Eleni explore by herself,

and I definitely wasn't taking my eyes off her to read any of the information boards

So I decided to turn this into a lizard hunt!

Pretty view, but we stayed a safe distance away from the edge

Except for one little alcove with just a tiny hole in it that I was confident Eleni couldn't fit through

Sea view

After searching the ancient piles of rocks

Eleni finally had a face to face encounter with a lizard!

I know this is nearly impossible to see, and I couldn't get a close up of the lizard because he ran away soon after this,

but you can see the small wall of rocks, and over to the the left of the photo there is one orange rock stacked on top of that wall,

just behind that orange rock, poking his head out and checking out Eleni

is a small green and black Bearded Dragon lizard.

Eleni was thrilled!

And I think the lizard was too.....

until Eleni climbed onto the wall and started to chase him yelling

"ELA LITTLE DINOSAUR!!!"

("ela" is "come here" in Greek)

It was really nice but I'll have to go again sometime because I would actually like to learn a bit more about the history of the site. The information is all there but I was a bit too preoccupied to read about anything. The view is absolutely stunning, but again that's something I'll have to see another time because I was too nervous to take Eleni near the edge or even take my eyes off her for a second. We had a ton of fun looking for lizards, but I think we'll stick to building sand castles for now. I'll bring her back when I finally feel comfortable enough to have her near heights...so when she's about 45 or so, that should be fine......

Overall, it's a beautiful place. Peaceful, calm....a bit creepy in some areas, but I'm sure there's hundreds of years of ghosts all jammed in there haunting the place. But if you know me, you know I love that kind of thing and I'd go back at night if I could just to hunt ghosts! Hmmm, Halloween is just around the corner too!

In Memory

This week's blog post was supposed to be happy and exciting. But unfortunately the week has been the opposite of that.

I'm not going to write a lot today. I'm just not in the mood. 

We're very sadly saying good bye to my uncle Ken McClure, who passed away much to early.

Uncle Ken, you did something in this life that many of us only wish we could do.

You defined yourself by what you loved.

That is, you filled your life with the things you felt passionate about, 

the things that made you happy. 

Your family. Your career. Your hobbies. 

As a fire fighter and fire chief for many years, those of us who knew you well can say without a doubt, 

you loved your work.

You lived and breathed the fire department.

Because your work was your passion, you were a sucess in the field.

Many of us wake up in the morning to go to jobs that just pay our bills.

And I think because of that, sometimes life seems long and difficult.

But the reality is that for some of us...life might not be that long at all.

So why not fill our days with things that make us smile?

Unfortunately you were one of the ones who didn't have a lot of time in this world.

But thankfully,

you did exactly what you needed to do with the time you were given. 

You defined yourself by what you loved.

I'm proud to call you my uncle

I love you and I will miss you

xoxo

Fortunately we did have one happy thing come out of this horrible week. We found out that the 2 new members of team Malli are

GIRLS!!!

I know the photos below are really hard to understand, my poor little dollies are pretty squished together in there already so getting a clear shot of anything was nearly impossible. But at least we were all able to see that they're definetly girls!!

Baby B's legs and feet, kneeing her poor sister in the back

Baby A's profile with her arms up and hands in front of her face...

she hid her face almost the whole time 

but we were able to see enough of it to know that all is ok at least

Baby A's profile again

I think she's smiling, despite the fact her sister is kicking her in the back

This is Baby B's little face

Baby B's face again

Everything looks great, the babies are a healthy 400grams each. Actually Baby A is a bit more then that, she's a little chubbier then her sister. But Baby B is a little taller then her sister. So knowing that A is shorter and chubbier while B is taller and skinnier we now know that they will most likely be fraternal....yes, it's still not 100% certain, we could still be surprised when they're born but that chance is extremely low so I'm going to go ahead and say they're fraternal twins!

Everything else looks great too, they're well housed in there and nothing to worry about so far. 21 weeks this weekend. More then half way there! 

Now to start talking about names........

Sending lots of love and hugs home to my family this week. I miss you all and wish I could be there with you.

xoxo

Sonograms, Souvlaki and Swings

I hope 'sonogram' means ultrasound. 

I think it does but just in case it doesn't, just know that's the meaning I was going for but I needed a word starting with an 'S' for alliteration sake

Alliteration.

Yes, I do know what that means.

That's when every word in the sentence begins with the same letter.

Not bad, eh?

I was always way better in English then Physics....

...as you can all tell by now by my always perfect grammar, spelling that would knock Merriam Websters socks off, and my absolutely on point punctuation skills (haha, that was punny...? ,,!;)

Sarcasm. There's another 'S' word that could describe today's topic

Another 'S' word is coming to mind for many of you, I'm sure, but as this blog is mainly about children and family, lets CLEAN UP THE LANGUAGE A LITTLE PEOPLE! Seriously!

So....

Sonograms, souvlaki and swings....lets start with souvlaki and swings....

Oh actually first lets all have a little "awwwww" moment as we look at Eleni's first french braided piggy tails...

I know it's not a great picture, 

in fact the light is so bad you can't even tell there's a french braid going on here, 

but I promise you there is. 

In fact they're actually inverted french braids so the braid looks like it's sitting on top off the hair. This was a pretty big deal in our world 

Eleni never sits still on enough for me to do anything but a crooked pony tail usually. 

But sadly, she only let me take one photo.

Sometimes photography isn't about skill...it's about what your toddler will let you get away with 

in just 4 seconds...

Souvlaki!!!

We were in Mytilini yesterday for a doctor's appointment to check on the twins.

After that we all starving so we went for souvlaki.

Eleni ate a whole pita gyro by herself!

Ok, not the whole thing, but I mean we gave it to her on a plate to eat by herself, without our help

She was SOOOOO happy!

(yes, a 'before' photo would have been great here, with the giant pita gyro and Eleni's excited face but like I said...4 second window)

It's not the first time she's tried them, 

but to help you understand why this was something I felt I needed to share with you; 

souvlaki is to Greece like what burgers are to Canadians and Americans 

So giving her her own souvlaki (well, it was a gyro but same idea) is the 

North American equivalent to handing a 2 year old a big, sloppy burger to eat, 

and letting happen however they're going to make it happen...

and the outcome of that is always super messy

but full of smiles!

Souvlaki was followed by mini, chocolate dipped ice cream cones

...no photo of that NOT because of the toddler 

but because pregnant momma was more interested in eating it then taking a picture of it...

I have no regrets.

Then we stopped by the park

Eleni saw the dinosaur slide and ran straight to it
"Dinosaur, ROAAARRRR!" she kept saying

Castle bridge fun

More dinosaur slide..

Teeter-todder with Baba

lots of giggles

She was saying "CHEERS" here,

but I know she meant "CHEEEESE"

she was just a bit excited and mixed the two up

And here's a little video of how much she loves the swing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBcmCMW7mH4&feature=youtu.be

So that was our time in Mytilini yesterday!

Oh right, the sonogram....

Or ultrasound I'll say since I still haven't looked up what sonogram actually means...

So I had my check up and everything looks great! 

The babies are 300 grams each which is a very healthy size for twins at 20 weeks

Baby A is head down with feet kicking up into my ribs

Baby B is head up with feet kicking into my bladder

...this is also very normal

Baby A had a heartbeat of 145 bpm, B was 132 bpm

Aaaaaaaaand we have a pretty good idea of what the genders are BUUUUUT I'm not going to tell you anything yet....because I'm evil like that!!! 

No, I'm not going to say anything yet because this was just an ultrasound done on the small machine they have at the hospital, which has a teeny tiny screen that's just black and white. I have a printed ultrasound photo but when it's 2 babies smushed together in there, it's really hard to understand what's what so I'm not going to bother putting it up here because I'm not even sure who's who and whether it's legs or arms etc. My doctor is pretty confident in what he saw, of course, and I absolutely trust his judgement but on WEDNESDAY we go for our second trimester anatomy scan which is at the actual ultrasound clinic, with the big, up-to-date ultrasound machine that shows you the baby in colour and in 3D! 

So as long as the babies cooperate and give us a good view, we should find out exactly what genders they are on Wednesday! And I'm sure they will be exactly what my doctor told me they are yesterday, but until I see clearly with my own eyes what's going on, I don't want to say anything is for sure

So check in next weekend, or before if I get time, and I'll have some new 3D baby photos for you along with, hopefully, an official GENDER REVEAL!!!! 

Eeeeeee, I can't wait until Wednesday!!!! 

But right now, I can't wait to eat the leftover burrito that's waiting for me in the fridge so......Bye for now!

Grand Theft Autumn

Pinterest made me homesick today.

Yes, my love/hate relationship with Pinterest continues and it's just as dysfunctional as ever.

Maybe even more.

As I was scrolling through, checking out all the new 'pins' of the day (recipes, fashion, activities for babies and toddlers, photos of cats fitting into very tiny places....), I noticed a theme developing:

it's Fall!

Every recipe was something apple or pumpkin related

Every outfit was a sweater with boots in earth tones 

Every suggested toddler activity had something to do with fallen leaves or red, orange and yellow paint

Cats had their arses hanging out of jack-o-lanterns....

I felt like I needed to find a cable knit sweater, make a pumpkin latte and go jump in some leaves....

except it's still freakishly hot here!!!!!!

So no Fall for us Lesbians (stop it) just yet 

OK maybe it's not 'freakishly' hot but it's still around 30 degrees during the day, and this pregnant lady is OVER IT! I want to go out for long walks with Eleni during the day! I want to make soup! I'm bored of summer dresses and I don't fit into any of my shorts anymore!! 

I'd definitely be able to find some dehydrated to the point of fossilization fallen leaves to jump in, but a pumpkin-flavoured anything is out of the question. I think when my fellow Canadian Valerie was still here she once carved a jack-o-lantern out of an eggplant for Halloween...it might have been a zucchini.....

Anyway, I'll stop complaining and save it for all you Albertans who just skipped Fall completely and went straight to Winter.....BAHAHAHAHAHA...sorry, really, I'm sorry about that, I don't know what came over me. But seriously though, snow in the summer? Why do you guys still live there??

Anyway as I was saying, I love it here but there's just something about the smell of the air in BC during the Fall that I love so much. Also, for me it's the time of the year for new beginnings. A new school year starts, new goals are set, everything feels fresh and new. Kind of like the air....whoah, that was deep.... I'm not in school anymore but I still feel as though September is my January. A new year is beginning and I need to get ready for it. It's time to pack away the summer, with all it's lovely careless freedom, and time to get serious about what lies ahead for the year. And of course, we all know that this year is going to be one of our biggest! 

We need to find a bigger house and move into it in the next couple months....preferably before December. We need to think about upgrading to a bigger car. And we definitely need to start preparing for the twinnies! By that I mean it's time to start doubling up on the BIG baby stuff: car seats, high chairs, stroller, swings etc; and time to start looking through the LITTLE baby stuff to see what we need to add to what we already have: clothes, hats, jackets, receiving blankets, cloths etc.

So that's what I FEEL like I need to start doing now but I haven't started ANYTHING because my internal clock is clashing with the temperature outside and it's messing me up! Bring on the cooler weather, the comfy cozy sweaters and the yummy warm drinks (pumpking flavoured or not), and THEN I can get down to some serious business!

So what's new for us this week:

I really thought we'd be finding out the gender of the twins this week but sadly, we'll have to wait until the 24th.

JUST 11 MORE DAYS! I CAN MAKE IT!

I hope...

I called my doctor this week and he said we'll do our usual check up next Friday because this week ended up being a busy one for us and we just couldn't fit it in. I have a couple of students that I've been teaching English too this summer but they went back to school this week so that changed up our weekly schedule a bit. On top of that I made some activities for one of my students to prepare him for the end of our lessons....it's not a test but an activity...he doesn't believe me when I say that. He's a very clever little boy. And poor Antonis has been having a problem with an infected tooth, so with all of that mixed in with our regular day-to-day craziness, we had to move our doctor's appointment to next week. 

Eleni will need to go for her 2 year check up with the pediatrician soon too. I'm still amazed that she's actually 2!! She just got her 2 year molars actually, without much fussing at all. So she now has 24 teeth! I wish I could go back and time to when she was 8 months old and tell myself "don't worry that she hasn't gotten any teeth yet, they're coming, they're just taking their time"....oh the things we first time mommy's worry about....

Yesterday a friend of mine, who has a daughter the same age as Eleni, posted a video on facebook of her daughter counting.....so I tried to get a video of Eleni counting too. The main word there: TRIED. As usual, Elly Bean dances to the beat of her own drum...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=estXHJkbZuE&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPDb6aAqbNM&feature=youtu.be

Isn't she a little sassy pants?!

She must get that from her father.....

And now I'll leave you with just a few photos before I go out to search all the markets for 'Autumn-like' spices....and probably fail....

Eleni enjoying spaghetti with sausage and roasted red pepper sauce

Fingers are more fun the forks

And here is an example as to why warm weather is still a good thing,

less need for stain remover....

"Mommy I just want to wear all my bracelets at the same time, K?"

Photos from Eleni's birthday again, but these are the ones I took

Again, Eleni dancing to her own drum....

The Yiayias are trying very hard to teach all the little girls a song and dance....

but she just doesn't care

This is what happens when you want a group of kids to take a nice photo togther...

hey guys, can we all sit down, look at the camera and smile?

guys?

hey guys??

ummm, really?

OK I give up!

YOU SUCK!

Well not you in particular....

Although it might be you.....

Ok, so there's a chance that you are one of the people that inspired this hormone fuelled rant of epic proportions, but do I care about that? No. Not really. Actually, I REALLY don't care. Sorry but I'm 4 months pregnant with twins, I have a toddler that although is absolutely the love of my life and the sweetest little peach in the world, she has more energy than a Dalmatian puppy on Red Bull. And to top it all off, it's been so hot here the last few months that I swear even the trees are looking for shade......

So yes, you probably have said something or done something lately to piss me off because that, my friends, is a goal that really doesn't take much effort to achieve these days.

And while I'm totally aware of the fact that I'm uber easily annoyed because I'm hormonal, tired, hot and sweating like a pig on a spit 24/7, that is not going to stop me from saying

YOU SUCK!

So here are some conversations and situations I've encountered lately that I feel deserve to be on my YOU SUCK list.......

Please note: I will have some restraint in that I won't mention names here....although there may be times when it's completely obvious who the culprit is, especially when I say things like 'my husband'....just kidding, he hasn't done anything to piss me off. Although he probably will so I don't think I'll edit this part out....

To the woman who thought this was a conversation I wanted to have first thing in the morning while carrying 3 massive shopping bags and trying to herd my daughter in the direction of home:

HER: Ahhhhh, Tara, it's still the beginning and you're already *puffs her cheeks up like a blow fish and holds her hand about 2 feet away from her belly to indicate massiveness*, eh??

ME: .....huh....

HER: how many months are you now?

ME: 4

HER: ah, yeah, it's still early hahahahahaha

ME: ah, ha.....ha, yeah well....

HER: what are you having, boys are girls?

ME: I don't know yet

HER: it's better girls. If it's 2 girls it's good because the mothers always want girls. Girls will stay home with you. If it's 2 boys it's not good because boys always leave. Girls are good,

ME:......I don't care if they're girls, boys or chickens, as long as they're healthy....

HER: Oh hahahahahaha, yes of course of course, as long as they're healthy, all the best, it's up to the God 

ME: OK then.....

YOU SUCK!

• because I absolutely love it when people use facial expressions and hand gestures to express that they feel I'm the size of a beluga whale
• because it's awesome and completely appropriate to talk about my size at all
• because it's great when people want to point out how far along I am and that I'm only going to get bigger, as if I didn't know this fact already
• and finally, because...I don't know, that last part of the conversation was just weird

To the people who are annoyed with me for not inviting them to Eleni's birthday party (and to be fair I'm not actually sure who 'they' are, I've just been told 'they' are unhappy with me and maybe, hopefully, this isn't even true at all) :

YOU SUCK!

• because I'm pregnant with twins (in case you haven't heard) and I planned and executed this party completely by myself....with the exception of my koumbara Maria who helped me with the food at the last minute while I was frantically trying to put everything onto plates without it looking like a dog's breakfast, and the few people who blew up and put up balloons....so since I knew I'd be doing this by myself and I know I'm pretty limited in energy right now, I decided to keep the party small. Shoot me.
• because people still don't seem to understand that I'M NOT GREEK!! Yes, I understand that every social function in this country requires an invitation to every living family member with a blood relation that can be traced all the way back to the time of Adam & Eve or Homo habilis (depending on your particular belief system)......but she's 2. Is this rule really necessary here? She wants a couple of kids her own age so they can scream and hit each other with balloons. So that's what I gave her. Never, at any point, did I intend to use my child's birthday as a platform to state who I like and who I don't like. Never.

To the man in that office that sits behind that big desk and smokes 5,000 cigarettes a day:

HIM: Really? Twins? Wow! You must be looking for the highest building to jump off of now

ME: ...........*purposely said nothing and stared directly into his eyes until he shifted uncomfortably, cleared his throat and then tured away to pretend to do something important on his computer*

YOU SUCK!

• because......because it's obvious why you suck, you don't have to be full of hormones to get this one

To woman who asked me this:

HER: What's it like to be pregnant? 

ME: Um, well, it's different for everybody and every pregnancy is different so it all depends

HER: I imagine it's beautiful and enlightening and sweaty and gassy.....

ME: Ummmmm, OK...ahhhh.....

HER: Do you have any weird food cravings?

ME: Yes, anything that makes me feel enlightened and gassy.....

YOU...YOU DON'T SUCK THAT BAD BUT...

• you're just so weird

To every complete stranger who has rubbed my belly and/or made some comment to the effect of that I must be ready to deliver any day now.....

YOU SUCK!

• this really doesn't need any explanation either I think

So Eleni just woke up and she's ready to start begin torpedoing through the day, so this will have to end today's episode of YOU SUCK.....but something tells me this won't be the last in the series...