Дед Мороз is coming to town!
I know this picture is a year old now (look how tiny Steven was!), but I love it. I think my wife is really a photographic genius in disguise, since I thought this was just supposed to be a funny picture of Santa with the new baby and instead it turned out to be a really good shot. Framing, lighting, even facial expressions are good. Love it.
Anyway, as you've no doubt guessed, Дед Мороз (literally: Grandfather Frost) is the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, but more of a New Year's figure than a Christmas one, as that's the much bigger holiday here. He appears with his granddaughter Снегурочка (traditionally translated as "Snow Maiden") and gives out gifts in person to kids at New Year's Eve parties. No reindeer or Ho Ho Ho-ing, but a fairly close equivalent.
Enough of the Russian culture lesson, though. You want to know what we're up to. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer is language and culture study. I (J) have finally progressed to the genitive case in my lessons, which is a huge relief. Of course, I've been using it for quite a while (you can't really say anything in Russian without it, since anything regarding possession or prepositions like "of," "from," and "to" needs the genitive), but I just didn't know all the rules for it's use and formulation. Now I can confidently say "Lena's husband" or "from the factory" and similar phrases, and if I screw up then I don't have an excuse any more. :)
B's also had a really good couple of weeks of language study. She's feeling a lot better and has been at all her classes lately and her meetings with Dina are also going well. I'm amazed to overhear her saying lots of things in her language sessions that she couldn't say just a couple of weeks ago. Now, when she asks me how to say something, as often as not I don't know either. It's motivating me to hit the books a little harder to stay ahead!
Of course, no one wants to look at pictures of homework pages, so we did manage to pick out some pictures of our week for your enjoyment. Here Steven enjoys his latest toy, a cardboard box. I'm starting to formulate a theory of toys that goes something like the more expensive and complicated something is, the less likely kids are to play with it. I think our son prefers to just bang common household objects together than roll a toy car.
One of the nicest things to me about Russia is that some things are cheaper here than they would be in the US (granted, it's not many things, but there are some). One of my favorite dishes in the world is crab dip (H/T: Aunt Janie), but in the US crab meat costs a fortune and we couldn't have it very often. Here, however, crab is cheaper by the pound than beef, so it only costs us a few cents to make a big pan of it. The crackers are actually the pricier item over here, since Ritz are nowhere to be found and we've been using some German cracker brand instead. This is a pan B made for me that I consumed by myself in about two days.
In case you're wondering, the Russians that we've offered this to have LOVED it. One of them took the recipe to her mom's and made it for a party and it got rave reviews. Marth, if you'll tell your aunt that her recipe is singlehandedly responsible for the continued peace in Russian-American diplomacy, I'd appreciate it (of course, thank her again for it also). Anyone wanting the recipe can send me a request and I'll dig it out for you.
As you can see from the above pictures, B has done our Christmas decorating. Of course, this is pretty early in the year for this over here, but it all looks good. Christmas (which, again, is far secondary in the Russian culture to New Year's) is celebrated on the Orthodox calendar the first week in January. That means that most people don't do their decorating until close to when our Christmas would be. As you can see, we don't have the standard massive tree, but with a toddler running around, that would be just asking for trouble.
And finally, just because we promised: a shot of the ever-expanding tummy! B, as usual, looks extremely cute when pregnant. She seems to be a little bigger this time than last for this stage in pregnancy (19 weeks), so hopefully that won't mean an even bigger baby!
Again, I don't have anything handy for the guessing contest thing, so you'll just have to comment on whatever you found interesting above. We've definitely run out of those things, so you might see one now and again but I doubt we'll have one on a regular basis in the future. Enjoy your week, and we'll see you again next weekend!
