home but always a stranger

Turkey is my home. I have lived here 6 years.  My kids attend the neighborhood schools.  I am a part of this community.  I love my home and the food.  My neighbor and I are both stay at home moms raising our kids and giving it our best.  However no matter where I go no matter how well I speak the language (which is lacking anyway) I will always be the foreinger.  My accent will give me away, my cultural blunders, my three blond haired kids and tall blond husband, my english, the way I parent my children, my love for Jesus and on and on.


A few nights ago we went out to the little mall/shopping place in our town and ate in the food court for dinner. There is a little play zone where we can pay 7.50 lira ($5.00) and all the kids can play in this area with a slide and balls etc for 1 hour.  It is especially great for our little guy who needs a place to release energy. Anyway as usual we were stared at, approached by curious onlookers who were courageous enough to ask where we were from, talked with someone practicing their English, heard quiet whispers about the yabanci (foreginers) in hushed tones and I noticed it didn't faze me so much this time maybe I am starting to be comfortable in my own skin here and that is a wonderful feeling.  I wonder what I will do when I don't get so much attention. ;)

Note to self:
This world is not my home   ~you will always be a foreigner and this life is temporary. ~Jesus you are my example of living in a place that was not your home. I follow hard after you..

~becky

Our little foreigners look pretty typical to me.  :)
Ice cream eating machines! he he

How about a few Mrs. Robotos. :)

Blogging the oldies # 5

I have a few more of our older creative moments that I am still wanting to record on and off.  This one was a lot of fun and they were able to do a lot of it by their selves with a little help from Baba (daddy) and me. Plus it really taught the girls that you can use anything to create.

This was last summer A and L helped me to collect this and thats
 into a recycle box on the balcony.
After a week or so they were ready to create.

So out to the balcony we went one sunny summer Saturday..

and they made their own robots.

I can't remember their names now but they were defiantly girls robots!

If you are wondering what we did with them well if you look real hard you can see they joined us as center pieces on our bufe for about a week. 

Part of giving my kids the opportunity to create is to display their art..and so I am certain that that week last summer I had the most creative center pieces in my apartment! (it might have been over a week)


~becky



"Better to have little, with the fear of the Lord, than to have great treasure and inner turmoil."Prov. 15!:16

food portraits of my followers

Does any of these resemble you?
Hey Dave is that you on the end?  (he he)

I wanted to have a little chat with all of you who are following this fun blog or recieving e-mail updates. Thank you for following!  I am going to be upgrading my blog.  I feel like I have found my "jive" so to speak and will begin blogging twice a week. So my "new" look should be sometime next week. 

My theme is 'use what you have' so my diy projects, crafts and such will be inexpensive and hopefully help inspire creativity and less spending for you and keep me accountable to do the same. ;)



Plus I am hoping to do Give Aways that highlight women in Turkey who are doing their best to make a living here with their own creativity.  I will keep you posted.

Thank you for all who have commented.!! With my upgrade I am hoping to allow for easier comment ability so please comment away and leave your ideas and your blogs they inspire me.

I know for some of you you have joined to stay connected with me and my life, I am hoping to have a tab that allows for more of my personal journaling and moments here that will keep you connected to me. The main blog however will be mostly my family and I creating our brains out. :) It is what God has used to keep me sane here and I have found a sweet contentment in it.;)

 keep journeying with me as I blog these moments here in this little 'ole town
~becky
In conclusion: leave a comment ~ play with food.   ;)
and thanks for following. 

DIY car mobile

Well kids were so sick for over a week straight and we hunkered down at home and laid very low - except for all the running we did taking care of three kids. :) So maybe I should say my kids laid low. :)

Anyway they starting feeling better I started getting a little loopy and needed to create something so here it is:
(I did not go out and buy anything for this I just used the pieces of card stock and paper I had)

With this piece, I used thin cardboard for the inside to make it sturdy.
Truthfully I think I thick piece of cardboard and sewn with yarn would have been better in hind site.
I took two thin pieces of cardboard (off the back of a coloring book and an oatmeal box container) and then cut out two pieces of cardstock front and back and then I decided to use my sewing machine and sew them together.  After that I used a hole puncher and then threaded the cars with differnt lengthes of yarn throught the holes.  I then put a hole in the top and used a piece of ribbon for hanging.

 

The following pics are of my little 2 yr old jumping his heart out to touch the cars. That night when Baba (Daddy) came home my little guy said "cars look mommy did".   Yep that so made my day!!

I think mobiles are a lot of fun and very doable.  I searched pictures of DIY mobiles and the pics were so fun and inspiring.  Look at this mobile below. I love the colors it reminds me of Spring. :) I mean really how clever.

DIY:Modern Colorful Mobil

Well all for now. ~becky

I linked up this project to:  Link up your stuff mad skills Monday
Lots of fun boy projects!!

The 'Welcome Rock'

'Well I used to live in Arkansas years ago and there was a colorful horse statue that stood outside of a store I would often pass. The fun thing about this horse is that it always changed. They would paint it according to the seasons and holidays. It was a fun splash of color in my day when it had changed for the season or up coming holiday.  So yes I too have wanted  my own version of a horse statue.

Well we live in apartment so large horse staute outside- maybe not and secondly I have no idea where I would find a fun big statue of anything that I could bring home.  One of my mottos of late is 'use what you have'.  So for now the large rock I found will have to do. (it's the simple things;))

First painting: Valentines day:

The beginning of a long awaited dream. ;)

Kids absolutely loved this idea. By the way this is not the first time we have painted rocks. 
We made some door stoppers last summer. 

The 'Welcome Rock'
We will color it again when Spring comes ~ probably for Easter and on it on it will go if I remember it.
Maybe I should put it in a place I stub my toe on it once in a while. ;)

Happy Valentines Day!!

~all for now.  Enjoy the day and paint a rock. (lol)
~becky

Homemade skirts your girls can scribble on :)

Ok so we had left over paint from our Family Wall Art  project and paint setting was setting out in jars with all the fun colors and it just kept my creativity flowing.  Autty had commented that the Family Wall Art project would be a good skirt. :) So away we went.  Here is a post from Filth Wizardry that gave me the know how.. Skirts at Filth Wizardry

I had some white fabric that had been used as a curtain and the girls went to work. I think you could use pillowcases or even certain dish towels to make these, I just used what I had.

The designer in deep thought.

After the girls drew on the fabric they then took the watered down paint and painted over their artwork.  I wanted them to paint the whole skirt to give it a real colorful effect but hey ..I wasn't going to be wearing them so I let them decide.  

It is really very simple and you could do it all by hand stitch if you really wanted to. When measuring the girls I had to remember to leave room for the elastic. I am such an amateur sewer and I make more mistakes that I would like to admit.  I did bring out the machine because it was so much quicker and then I had some self adhesive iron on stuff for the ribbon and ta da..

With no further to do here is The Schneider's Spring Designs:
(designers and models are Adorable A and Little L)

If you want to get a closer look of the models and skirts just click on the collage. 

Well that is it for now... from this crazy household.  ;)

Let me know if any of you attempt this for your little girlie's. :) It is so inexpensive and fun. Could be a fun Valentine day skirt.

Skirts at Filth Wizardry  (Again here is the link if you too want more details on these Spring Designs) ;)

~becky

Grace every 15 minutes

It is 5 a.m. and I have been up since 3 a.m.  I heard a soft call from my little girls's room and found my oldest laying on the floor looking up at the ceiling.  She had gotten out of bed and had passed out and couldn't remember how she got there.  Our house hold has been very sick with the stomach flu and Autumn hasn't been able to keep down food or liquids for just over 2 days.  As I put her back in bed she said "everything is going crazy".  I knew she was dehydrated and my level of concern had been raising for her since the evening before.  I stood there and prayed simply "God please show me what to do".  Then an idea came to take her with me on the couch and have her drink a sip of rehyraration drink every 15 minutes. David carried her out we laid hands on her together and then prayed. So now for the past 2 hours I have been waking her every 15 mintutes and giving her a sip of gatoraid and a a few sips of water, and praying a lot. She has kept down the fluids!  There have been moments I have fallen asleep but it seems that I have help because I haven't yet missed the 15 minute mark.

Grace is such a wonderful gift.  In moments that we need it,  it is there, custom fit.  Tomorrow morning we may need to take our little one (or rather 7 year old, but tonight she is my little one) to the doctor but during this night the Lord directs me.  He is who I put my trust and hope in.

Well, 15 minutes have passed, off I go to give Autumn her liquids and to receive another 15 minutes full of grace and sleep.

 'Be still my soul and remember to listen for your Saviors guidance at all hours of the day and night.'
~becky



Since I wrote the previous Autumn has turned a corner.
That next morning she looked white as a ghost but was ready for toast and more liquids and kept them down and has retained her color. She is weak but doing very well. Now it is her sisters turn to get better.  I had a friend say being a mom is not for the faint of heart.  I couldn't agree more.

Family wall art

Ok, I have had this idea of my family making something together to hang on our wall. Schneider Family Art. I had a stretchy sheet that I had used for another project so we cut it to size and then I have been wanting to use watered down acrylic paint because it leaves a fun effect on fabric. (which I observed in my favorite blog http://www.filthwizardry.com/ )

We needed a place to create our art so ..tacked down the fabric to the kitchen table. :)
We used permanent markers to draw with.
I had an idea of what I wanted but tried to stay open since my artists were 7 and 4.

I had my moments of wanting my kids to do it a certain way
 and then I just let those go and we had a lot of fun and truly ended up with
something that all of us helped with. 

Here we are adding the paint to the fabric.
We just outlined what we drew and the watered down paint added a fun effect.

Here is the master piece.
I really enjoyed this and would like to get some fun material and do one on my own sometime but I bet it won't be as much of a keeps sake as this one. :)

This is an IKEA find that I have had for some time.
Great idea for hanging fabric. So we hung our
'Schneider Family Art'

I want to fill this wall with more
 Schneider Family Art this year. :)

The pic. is not great in color.
However it is very colorful and is a great representation of our family now.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a river bank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit."  Jer. 17:7-8

In our west corner,

~becky

Valentines for the cousins

Kids are on winter holiday here.  So we have had a great beginning. I thought that this year we would send valentines to the cousins back in the States. However the kids have 14 cousins so it was an all day affair.  These valentines are nothing specail just made with love and care. 

So for all the cousins that may see this can you guess which one will belong to you? Scroll down to see all the valentines.

Made and sent all in one day.  

Come with us to the post office as we send out these cards full of love and tender care.

Well there you have it love on it's way through the air :)

 Let us know if you received them. It is easy to make a comment here. The girls would love to hear.