The Mallorys in Kyiv: March Madness

The last month at the Mallory house (дом маллори) has been busy and fun. This winter has been pretty brutal, but we are finally seeing the first signs of spring. Here are the photos from our last few weeks.

Another week, another snow day. The girls never get bored with winter weather.

And Mommy never hates an excuse to sleep in and leave pjs on a little longer.

Susannah went to her first school dance.

Susannah and her good friend Christina

The girls escorted me to get new contacts and they had a ball trying on some different glasses for themselves.

We took Susannah out for ice cream one Saturday after her basketball game.

Her biggest fan was happy to partake of the cookies as cream too.

These two can fight with the best of them, but they also really love each other. I loved sneaking in on this scene one afternoon.

Sarah Avery is really starting to learn to read a few words and she is so excited to be like her big sister.

Speaking of reading, Susannah read her library books to Honey and Benny one day last week.

Which was so sweet until she forgot to close Benny's cage after she returned him and he escaped for 3 days. Luckily he turned up in the basement but not before Mommy freaked out a bit.

Susannah's brownie troop had their first cookie stand and she LOVED participating in this. It was fun even though it was snowing like crazy that afternoon.

Sussannah's first basketball season drew to a close this month. They never won a game, but they had an amazing time and improved exponentially throughout the season. And nobody seemed to care about their losing season. Susannah now calls basketball her favorite sport.

We had a little banquet after the last game and each girl got a tie-dyed pendent. (appropriate since they were the tie-dye torpedoes.) We were especially proud of Susannah because she asked for the floor after the awards were presented and said, "We may not have won any games by the score, but I think we are the biggest winners by our sportsmanship and good attitudes." I can't believe how grown up she is sometimes.

Cupcakes shaped like basketballs completed the party.

In other news, Sarah Avery has had a few milestones herself this month. For one thing, she mastered a two wheeler in the course of five minutes.

She has been riding her balance bike to and from Susannah's school lately and I think that is why she picked up the real bicycle so easily. We were proud of her though.

She also moved up a swim level in swim class. Now she is swimming the width of the pool with very little assistance. I think this summer will be fun for everybody now that we will have two real swimmers!

Last weekend we had Peter's childhood friend and his family visit for their spring break. Their kids were so sweet and the girls loved having them here. They all did story-time together every night they were here.

This is my Russian language teacher, Inna. She is so smart and hilarious and has become a friend in addition to my instructor. We had a little luncheon at the school last week and she brought these traditional headdresses for us to wear.

Here we are with another instructor.

And here is Peter making a presentation in Russian to the group after lunch.

He's already leading power points in Russian after just two months of training. Pretty impressive, right?

Susannah had a teacher workday on Friday when SA had school so she and I had a fun day. We had lunch and sat outside and read CS Lewis while we waited for our pizza.

On Saturday we spent the day with our friends who were visiting. We had brunch.

And then headed to Mt. Vernon to tour around.

It was a beautiful day and we had a blast. SA and Peter didn't want to brave the line for the main house so they were at the barn with the animals when these pictures were taken.