25 November 2011

Katerina Day

Here she is working on her tractor, she always gets distracted when I get the camera out but I told her to start her work again and to pose for the camera and that's when I got the shot below.
My pretty little girl.
Both kids love each other and for the most part play very well together, here Nik is giving her a hug and she's like hey not so close. But she always gives him a hug in the morning and when he comes home after being at KokaRoka.

Today was name day Katerina, so we got several calls from our Greek relatives to wish baby Kat many happy years (Xronia Polla). The Greeks celebrate name days more than they do birthdays, it does make things a little easier you don't have to remember birth dates you just call the person or visit on that persons name day. So if you know several Katerina's you can go to each of thier houses and get little cakes or some kind of refreshment. This is baby Kat's first name day since technically she has not had a name until she was baptized and that was on Oct. 16th. She will be 1 1/2 on December 8th, but I always think she is so much older because of her intelligence and her physical abilities. She can pretty much do everything her brother does and is an even better writer than him and holds a pen perfectly.

22 November 2011

No more sugar

In my attempt to stop eating sugar I made one last great dessert, a beautiful carrot cake. It was super delicious and the best I have ever made, you can find the recipe here. I want to limit my intake of sugar, starting at my 4 teaspoons of sugar in my morning coffee. But I have found the task difficult and my cravings for the white stuff border on addiction.
In the last ten days not only have I found myself eating half of the cake, but I also made brownies, chocolate cookies and this morning I am making cinnamon rolls (got the idea from Angela) plus I need to use the leftover cream cheese frosting from my carrot cake. Wish me good luck in my battle of the bulge by first getting rid of sugar, my personal poison.

20 November 2011

My pretty hair

Thank you for all of the compliments, I also really liked my hair and am so happy that I finally found a hairdresser who knows how to do hair. It took me four people to get the right hairdresser, the first three had a problem about cutting the hair unevenly and I always came home a little disappointed and then Arthur found this lady that he knew in high school and she had just moved back to town. Since seeing her she has always cut my hair correctly even without me being able to communicate with her, and when I told her I was going to my daughters baptism and she just did my hair like this. I had it done on Saturday and the baptism was on Sunday, my hair still looked good on Tuesday but I just had to wash it, even though I was tempted to leave it just to see how long it would last.

08 November 2011

Katerina's Baptism

This is a long time due, sorry Aunt Jeanie, I have been a little lax in my blogging. Katerina had her baptism on October 16th, she pretty much screamed the whole entire time, as pictured above. Her godmother is Ero, she is 26 and can speak 4 languages, she works on an Island during the summer in a hotel and this winter she is taking foreigners up to the mountains to ski.
Struggling to hold on to Kat as the priest prays over her.
Finally calmed down a little bit because she was allowed to walk around, she is wearing a dress that was mine when I was a little girl. Amanda (my half-brother's wife) gave it to me when I was in Denver, she helped the family clean out my grandparents house and gave me a few things that were mine when I was little.
Arthur trying to distract her with his phone, this does usually work but not today.
Ahh now the dunking, in lukewarm water covered in olive oil, not the favorite part for the kids, Nik also was quite upset during this part.
The priest tried to pry the pacifier from her hand but she had a death grip on the thing and would not let it go, so it was also baptized with her.
This photo was taken before the dunking and you can't tell but she was actually trying to leap out of my arms because she wanted to get in the water. Ero on the left, her mother, Nik and myself with Kat.
Before she was undressed and very interested in getting in the water.
Nik trying to protect his sister, he was a very good boy during the ceremony.
The below picture is after the dunking and the priest is trying to anoint her with special oil, he also took 4 snippets from her hair in the shape of the cross. She has been dressed in her new clothes provided by Ero and her father is required to hold her, once again not happy about any of this.

Finally we are done, the below picture is taken just inside the church, Vaso (godmother's mother), Ero the godmother, Katerina the grandmother, Arthur, Mara and Katerina the baby. Above we are outside and she is happy to be eating a cupcake that I had made to hand out after the ceremony for all of the people who attended.
Vaso and her son George (the brother of Ero), Vaso and Ero live in Larissa, George lives with his wife in Athens.
We had the after party at KokaRoka, Grandma Katerina and Arthur did all of the cooking with a little help from Nik's godfather's mother - Nikki.
So happy to be on familiar turf, we had a cousin who was one year older than Nik and also a family friend who has a daughter who is 2 years older than Nik so the four kids had a great time running around the table of adults eating. We had pork steak, potatoes, coleslaw and little burgers.
Arthur and I finally kind of relaxing, that is Nikki to the right (Niks godfather's mother) or you could say she is family also.