Sweet Six Sunday

one. I spent most of my Monday morning designing invitations for Reese' birthday party! I sometimes find it crazy to spend three hours on a silly invitation, that I could have ordered from Etsy for $10, but I really do enjoy designing and crafting, so it was well worth it! This will be our first big birthday celebration since arriving to Poland.  Beckett's birthday was only two months after we got here and we really didn't have too many friends at that point, so we just celebrated with family - which was also amazing.  But the party planner in me is itching to plan a fun shindig! We heavily suggested a Peppa Pig party (especially after looking at the fun party ideas on Pinterest), but she was adamant that she wanted a princess party! Okay, little princess, your wish is granted!

Reese's invite on the left, the one I copied on the right

two. Beckett has been struggling lately with going to school and gymnastics as he claims he has no friends and no one wants to play with him.  Ugh - breaks this mama's heart! That is SO hard to hear from your child who had oodles of friends back in MN.  Most of the kids at his English Montessori and in his gymnastics class are Polish and either do not speak any English or struggle with English.  We have chatted with his montessori teachers about the rules around the kids speaking English all the time and we unfortunately don't think our message is coming in clear.  They suggest that Beckett goes to school five days a week, full day, to become better friends with the other kids.  We do not want to do this at this time, as I am able to be home with them, and he is such a homebody, so we are looking at other schooling options to see what we find.  We LOVE their Montessori, but we are fearful that Beckett will build a wall and not interact with others if this continues for another year.  We really need him to develop his social skills and when he cannot interact with the other kids very well, developing those skills becomes an issue.  We know he will learn a lot from being around friends from other cultures, but at times like this, I often wonder if we made the wrong decision going abroad with younger kids.  Ugh! One of the struggles of being an expat.  Please send prayers and positive thoughts our way in hopes that this is just a phase.

Beckett before gymnastics - full on sobbing - and him happily jumping during class

three. So I have this great friend here named Tiffany, and her planning and decorating for simple gatherings at her house are just the cutest! She had gone through her daughter's outgrown clothes and invited Anna and I over to see if there was anything that we would like to take before she donated it.  When we arrived on Tuesday morning, her house was set up like a little shop - SO cute! PLUS, she served us breakfast! So lucky to have met her!

four. Robin hosted Pokeno on Wednesday night! I seriously look forward to these girls' nights out for weeks and weeks beforehand.  This time I won a ceramic bunny and scarf AND took home the gift that I brought - a coloring book and color pencils.  Not sure if that is tacky or not, to bring home the gift you brought, but I am adding adult coloring to my list of to dos for Operation Reduce Stress!

five. We tried a new Indian restaurant on Saturday night, called Lemon Shark.  The interior was beautifully done and the food was fabulous! A liquor license would have been nice, but it is coming and we will be back.  :)

Goofing around with Daddy!

six. We bought our first bouquets of tulips in Poland today! I love fresh flowers in the house, but often find myself passing by them in the store or on the street, and never stopping to get them.  As we had visitors arriving today, we stopped at a roadside vendor - yes, you literally pull off a main highway/road and buy from a guy selling them off of a fold out banquet table under a pop up tent.  The man was super sweet and actually spoke some English.  It was cute - he would say 17 for 70 or 15 for 50. :)

We are now off to enjoy a week with Eric & Shannon! Have a great week!

Our home in Poland!

We have had a couple requests for updated pics of the house - which I took a while ago - but I am just getting around to posting! So here we go - enjoy!

Our garage shares a wall with another home.

Kitchen Before - stools borrowed from landlord and friends.

Kitchen After

Dining Space Before

Dining Space After

Living Room Before 

Living Room in the Fall

Living Room in the Winter

Another shot of the Living Room Before

One more from above! 

Panoramic from our front door to the Living Room

Stairwell up to the play room and second level

Front door and entryway

Office on Main Level Before

Office on Main Level After
(still some organizing to do on that shelf)

Gopher Pride

Playroom Before

Playroom After

Kid's Room Before

Kids' Room After

Kids' Room After

Kids' Room After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

Master Bedroom After

Craft Room Before

Craft Room After

Guest Bedroom Before

Guest Room After

Guest Room After

Attic Before

Attic After

Attic Before

Attic After

Attic Bathroom Before

Attic Bathroom After - aka storage room for all things baby
(I cannot believe I am posting this pic!!!)

Back Patio Before

Back Patio After
(will be better once flowers are planted and cushions are all put away)

Interesting things about our house (an all over the place list - I listed them as I thought of them):

• We have heated floors in all of the bathrooms and the kitchen.  Nice for winter days! Andy is obsessed!
• Our doors are crazy thick and heavy.  I have often said that if we lived in this house in the Walking Dead (if you haven't seen this show, it is a must see!), we would be all set! The door handles are right at my bicep level too and have led to MANY bruises in the last seven months.

• We have locks on almost every door in this house, and not just simple door locks, locks with keys.  We were given a large bag of keys when we moved in! Also, our front door and garage door both need a key to get out of the house.  I think this is a big fire safety issue, so we usually keep a set of keys in the lock.

• Windows tilt out - opening at the top.  The windows also swing open when the handle is turned down.  We only had a screen on three windows when we moved in, so we requested screens and now have a screen on most windows.

• We have a permanent toilet brush holder in each bathroom.

• We have a shower in our main floor bathroom that we NEVER use.  I guess if our office was a bedroom, it would make sense, but we saw this in almost every house that we looked at, regardless if there was a bedroom on that level. 

• The walls are almost all made with concrete.  We had to get a special drill bit to put anchors into the walls for pictures.  These walls are not forgiving and cause a lot of pain when you are walking in the attic and hit your head! 
• We used 3M hangers for most of our wall hangings in the house.  I had always questioned the durability of these with our last house, but these guys are SO easy to use and I would recommend them to anyone!

• We haven't painted any walls in our house, nor do we currently plan to at this time.  We are trying to embrace the brightness of white walls.  I walk around weekly wiping little finger prints and scuff marks off. :) 
• The light switch for the bathroom is OUTSIDE of the bathroom.  We laugh that this will cause many problems as the kids get older and turn off the light on each other.  This is also where the light switch is located in restaurants - SO interesting!

• We only have a one car garage and boy oh boy do we wish we had gone with a house with a two car garage.  It is tiny as is and then you throw in all of our gear - it fills up pretty quick!

• We have a house cleaner, named Longina.  Her granddaughter goes to school with Beckett and Reese.  She is lovely and we appreciate all of her help!
• We also have a gardener, which is also amazing! This service is included in our lease as most expats do not bring yard tools and lawnmowers with them in an overseas move.  We haven't had the best of luck with getting some things done around the yard, but hopefully this will change this spring.  Fingers crossed!
• The electricity in Poland runs on 220 volts, with a different plug in.  The US' electricity runs on 110 volts, so if we just used a plug-in converter with our US appliances, they would fry! If we want to use an appliance from the US, that is only meant for 110 volts (like my laminator for example), we have to use a transformer box.  We have had one transformer spark and blow the entire power in our house, so we don't use these very often, but let's be honest, my laminator gets used at least once a month! :)  Some of our items work with 220 volts, like our iPhones, so we just have to use a converter plug-in with these items.

Tranformer box

• We have radiator heating in our home, that is controlled by a main thermostat and a knob on each radiator.

• We do have an air conditioner between our second and third floors.  If the house is closed up, it will cool the entire house.

• We have a gate at the end of our driveway, for safety, but we don't use it often and it is currently broken.  :)  
• We have this not so cute inset on our stairs to our second level, so I have tried to make it look cute with a little decor.
• We have two bidets in our house - one in our master bathroom and one in the kids' bathroom.  We have not used them for their intended use, even after looking up a you tube video on how to use them, but instead use them for storage of larger bath toys. 

• Most of the rooms have a built-in closet/storage space.  We had to do some reorganizing with our bins, but we have made it work. 

• The refrigerator in the kitchen is pretty small, so we requested a second one in the garage.  We are grateful every day for this second fridge!

• Our washer and dryer are located in a room off of our garage.  At first I did't think I would like toting all the laundry out there each week, but I actually love it.  It is nice to set up the drying racks out there and not have them in our way. 
• It took me a while to figure out the washer and dryer - playing around with the settings, trying to translate the manual and watching a couple you tube videos - but I finally figured them out.  For the most part! 
• The dryer doesn't send the exhaust/moisture out a vent.  It collects it in the unit, and I have to empty the water after every other load.
• Both units are much smaller than our good ol' American ones!

Water collects in here

• Storage in our house is LIMITED! So we have had to get creative! 

Under the stairs storage that we added for kitchen appliances and items!

Kids' craft items in our office

• Our oven is pretty small here.  We had to pack away about half of our baking sheets when we moved in as they don't fit into the oven.  Ha! It has taken me some time to get used to the various settings on the oven as well.  There are times where I am spot on and other times where bread will take twice as long to cook. 

• Military time is used in Poland (and I believe in most of Europe), so we have some clocks in our house on military time so we can get used to reading it, and because we cannot figure out how to change it to regular time - ha! It still takes me a minute to figure out the time sometimes - that hour 21 gets me every time! 
• We have a buzzer at the front gate of our yard, where we can talk to incoming guests and buzz them in if our gate is locked.  We also have a phone that goes to the guard house when a guest is coming into our compound.  The guards don't speak a lick of English - which I find odd when they work for a mainly English speaking neighborhood - so we usually just say "Tak, tak" (yes, yes) when they call informing us of an incoming guest.  

Well, I think that is all the quirky things about our house. I am sure I will think of a handful more once I post this. :) Beckett is sitting with me as I finish up this post and he wanted me to include that his favorite room in the house is the living room because he enjoys sitting on the couch and watching movies! :) Love it, bud!