Annual Gingerbread House Event Comes to Serbia

We enjoyed bringing a favorite Israel family tradition to Serbia this year.  Several years ago we began building gingerbread houses as a family.  We started inviting friends and it grew into quite an event.  This year we skyped into the one back home and got to visit with some great friends while they built their own Christmas village.  Here in Serbia we enjoyed sharing our tradition with three families.  We started with a little bit of sharing about what our Christmas traditions are (in Serbian), read the book Santa's Favorite Story (in English), talked about our Savior and the gift of His birth, prayed, ate, and built.  I hope you enjoy the pictures...  

All the guys working hard.

Trey and Dragon building their fudbal stadium.

Đorđe, Kyle and Boris building their cottage.

Dali, Biljana, and Snežena working hard on our fairy tale cottage.

Brooke and Anja working...they inspired the rest of us...there was a lot of idea stealing!

Notice the detail...Nice field and bleachers guys.

Connor and Aleksa working on their northpole scene.

We had a great time and can't wait to share it again next year.  American friends reading this...are you jealous of the new building materials...we will kick bootie in winter '13 when we come back with our new secret weapon...watch out!

Lego Party

We had Kyle's "friend party" on the 11th.  He had 8 boys from his class at school and  some American colleagues came to share in the fun.  KK and Pop Pop were the surprise guests.  It was a great day.

Here are a few shots:

Check out this AWESOME cake that Jen made.  She made the cake from scratch and Kyle made the Lego creations for the decorations.

These are the results of the "Highest Lego Tower" game.  Way to go guys!

Silly boys.

Lego relay race.

Pin the "nub" on the Lego.  I'm sure there is a technical Lego term for this, but I have no idea what it is and an too lazy to look it up.

Srćan Rođendan Kyle...We sang in both languages.

Sturdiest pinata in history!

Check me out in the background...I was very afraid someone was going to be seriously injured.

It was a super party!

Enjoy...

Kyle Turns 7!!!

Yesterday was "MyKyle Jackson's" 7th birthday.  I can't believe it has already been seven years with our little man.  We had a great day.

We had orange pancakes with chocolate chips and orange whipped cream for breakfast and sang Happy Birthday.


Then we went to church and to Kyle's first soccer game as a 7 year old.  He passed candy out to his friends at church (Serbian tradition) and they sang Srećan Rođendan to him.

We came home and Connor went to get Birthday Pizza bez šampinjona (with out mushrooms).  We sang Happy Birthday again.

Trey helped some friends move and I took a nap and the kids watched movies in the fort they've built in the boys room.

We had cheese quesidillas and birthday cake that his sister decorated for him and sang Happy Birthday again.

He got to skype with Nana and Grandaddy and Aunt Robin and Cooper and they all sang Happy Birthday to him.

 He opened some presents and got to talk to KK on the phone.

Thanks Nana and Grandad

Thanks KK and Pop Pop

Thanks Aunt Robin and Cooper

We read the chapter titled "Everybody's Birthday" in the Box Car Children book we are reading right now and sang Happy Birthday one last time and kissed our 7 year old boy good-night and thanked the Lord for the blessing he is and the man of God he is going to become.

We will be having a LEGO party on Saturday celebrating with his Serbian friends and some surprise guests.  Look for pictures next weekend.

Our Two Left Feet

There has been a long silence here at TheFamilyIsrael blogspot.
I am going to blame it on one thing...(or technically two)...

OUR TWO LEFT FEET!!!

This post has nothing to do with the fact that we can't dance.  Well, I can't...Trey could and did back in the day when he was not attached to me and my rhythmically challenged self.

This post is about being old and and having the ailments to prove it.

We have in the last month each been diagnosed with conditions in our left feet that usually affect the elderly.

Trey has gout...what's that you ask?  Well, here is a link to fill you in...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout 
It seems this is a disease that traditionally affects elderly rich men who consume lots of alcohol.
We are not rich and Trey doesn't consume any alcohol...so, that just leaves us the "old" part.  After a crazy week of having strep throat and going to help with earthquake relief for a couple of days he woke up on the Saturday morning (11/13) with severe pain in his left big toe.

He has been in contact with a doctor in the states and has been to the doctor here and had some blood work done.  He has a bag of frozen veggies he puts on it, takes some medicine for the pain, puts it up when ever he can, and drinks lots of some sort of special water the doctors here have arthritic patients drink.  Brooke calls this his foot water.    It is pretty painful somedays and with all the walking we do he seems to be in a lot of pain by the time he goes to bed at night.

I woke up on the Sunday morning before Thanksgiving at the home of some amazing friends in Belgrade.  We were ready to go to the International Church there and have a fun afternoon with them.
My leg was hurting a little and so I sent everyone else and stayed at home.  Once I was alone things seemed to go down hill very rapidly.  After two hours (that felt like about 2 days) on the bathroom floor vomiting like I've never done before everyone returned.

My temperature was up to almost 103 degrees;  phone calls were made and Trey and Kyle (big Kyle) took me to a private clinic nearby.  They gave me an iv with some good drugs to stop the vomiting and did some blood work.  I was then transported by ambulance to the private hospital across town for observation.  I don't remember much of this, but Trey said it was cool when they would turn on the sirens and breeze past all the traffic on the bridge.

After lots of tests and blood work they were still concerned that we didn't know the source of the infection...then, on Monday morning my foot began to swell and turned the color of Santa's suit.  Ah ha, my friends, we have found the problem.

After a very cool looking dopplar scan of my whole leg to rule out blood clots, they started me on heavy duty iv antibiotics.  I stayed for a couple more days and then was discharged and headed back to Kyle and Jen's house with an iv port in my hand.  I went back and forth to the clinic each day for more iv drugs for three more days, we celebrated Thanksgiving in Belgrade with Kyle and Jen and I was released by the doctor and we came back home late Friday night.

I had a pretty serious strep infection in the skin and tissue in my left foot and leg.  Again...this is a condition usually found in elderly diabetic women.  I'm not diabetic and so that leaves...you guessed it...OLD!

This is the almost all the redness gone, still pretty swollen and molting phase.

I'm almost back to "normal" (whatever normal is).  The redness is almost gone and the swelling continues to lessen.  Now I'm molting.  All the old infected skin is slowly peeling away and leving pretty healthy soft skin that actually looks YOUNG!

I promised Kyle that I would put a link to their blog...he made a couple of posts about Thanksgiving with some pictures of us celebrating together.  Jen did it all.  We are of course most thankful for a God who heals and protects, and this year our number two was for friends who will rearrange their lives and their plans to minister to us.

http://lovegrowslovegoes.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-serbian-style.html

Okay...stop reading right now if you are not a fan of people who give out tmi (too much information)...

Best part of the hospital stay...really amazingly nice staff of doctors and nurses who gave me great care.

Worst part of hospital stay...rectal thermometer...I hadn't experienced this since I was about two years old...there is really nothing else to say.