Another thing to

waste spend to much time on.  I have recently gotten the photoshop CS5 program and am in love with it.  I can edit our photos, create custom photo cards and I am playing with creating custom blogs.  I created all the stuff on this blog.  It is really fun and I am getting better at it.  It is really fun to edit pictures. 

Mom always told me

Never go to someones house for dinner empty handed.  So with that in mind I am bringing these treats to Bryan's Aunt's house tomorrow night.  She said I didn't need to bring anything, but there should be many people there and someone will eat them.  I also have a little something for the ladies, but am not going to post pictures yet, because there is one person that still reads the blog.

These are Marshmallow Pops!

Peanut Butter Balls, Avalanche Bark and Peanut Butter Fudge

Side By Side

A couple up close.

All wrapped up!

Update

We just got back from our Thanksgiving trip to Cali and it was very eventful.  Here are a few highlights.

There was a party for Bryan's Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary.  As a gift for them, all of the siblings in Bryan's family with children got together and had a picture taken of the kids.  I made the shirts and took the picture.  I am definitely a rookie with this whole photography thing, but this is a good picture because it shows all the kids personalities.

We were able to attend Bryan's company work party and I made this dress for Alex to wear, when it was done, it had a second ruffle on the bottom.  She wears a brown sweater with it.

We also went to Knotts Berry Farm with my sister, her husband, and their kiddos.  Bradley and Alex had a good time.  They had a station where you could spend $2.50 for a big cookie and they had had red, green and white frosting and lots of sprinkles to decorate with.  Bradley loved it and I let him go nuts.  He was loving it.  There isn't a lot of rides he could ride so he spent at least 30 minutes icing this cookie.  There was so much icing on it.  A man made a comment about how much icing Bradley was using and I looked at him and smiled and said you only live once, and he is having a blast.  The man then went on to tell his WIFE how many buttons the gingerbread man needed and how she wasn't doing it right.  We also got his face painted.  He loved it.

 

I have been doing a good day amount of sewing lately and made Alex this coat.

I made chocolate covered marshmallows for Bradley's teachers and the gal I visit teach.  I used the super jumbo marshmallows and white and milk chocolate.  The white chocolate ones have either crushed candy cane or red sugar sprinkles on them and the milk chocolate ones have crushed graham crackers or flaked coconut on them. 

I made a Christmas Tree this year for our house.  Ther is no way I would be able to put a big one up with ornaments witht all the little hands we have around.

 

I ordered a BYU Scentsy Warmer and LOVE IT!

While in Bakersfield I took Bradley, Little Bryan, and Darek shopping with me.  We went to Target, Walmart and Hancock Fabrics.  People looked at me like I was nuts.  They were pretty good.

We had our annual family picture taken for our Christmas cards.  Here are a couple good ones.

Bradley's School and more

Bradley LOVES pre school.  He asked if he can go everyday.  Everyday when I pick him up in the car ride home I asked him what he did that day, he always says "nothing".  But about 10 minutes later he tells me about recess.  Lately he has started telling me about his friends.  He always tells me about Emily, and how he chases after her, because he is a ninja turtle and she is scared.  A few times he will talk about a couple other friends that are boys, but he always tells me about Emily.  It is really cute and Emily actually goes to church with us to, I just hope that Emily thinks this little game of chase at recess is cute. 

I have been trying to teach Bradley some manners that I think are important.  I have been working on him for a long time now about holding the door open for people, especially girls and ladies.  He will open the door and now hold it open every time.  He likes to hold it open and when someone walks through he will say "I am holding the door open like a gentleman".  Most of the time people look at him and say good job, thank you or you are being such a gentleman back to him.  We are also working on being more gentle with our sister.  He loves to play with Alex but can get kinda rough.  She doesn't mind, I think she likes it.  If he is laying on the ground she will walk up and jump on him and then laugh.  She is really tough and loves to wrestle.  He likes to give her kisses on the cheeks, but she still tries to kiss his lips.  

The last couple days out of necessity I have had to take the kids to run errands with me.  Usually this is a huge pain in the rear, but Bradley has been really good.  He was so good yesterday that I let him pick out where he wanted dinner.  He told me "I want Panda, because Chinese is my favorite.  I only want the noodle stuff you can spin with your fork, but I want to use chopsticks."  So went to Panda and he had chow mein.  He is very good at sharing with Alex.

Alex is getting so big and loosing the baby look.  She is starting to give some funny looks when you say certain things to her.  She knows where her belly is and will show you if you ask.  I have been trying to get these tennis shoes on her that I bought and I finally realized that her feet are to chubby to fit into them since they don't tie.  So I had to buy her tennis shoes that tie in a size bigger than she really needs, just so I can get her fat little foot in there.  She is a very good helper and if you give her something and tell her to take it to someone she will.  She loves phones, remotes and batteries.  She has figured out that if she throws the remote on the ground enough times and hard enough the back will pop off and she can get the batteries out. 

Both of the kids still have good appetites and play really well together, hopefully that lasts.  Sorry no pictures this time.  I will hopefully get some soon.

Funny Pics

I was going through some more of the pictures I took of the kids the other day and came across these two.  They were taken in this order.

Apparently Alex already doesn't like kisses from her brother!!

A visit

My dad and my aunt were able to go and meet Mkrtich Asatryan in Los Angeles before he left for Armenia.  They had an amazing visit and were able to Skype with a sibling in Armenia.  The sibling in Armenia didn't speak any english so Mkrtich tried to translate but my dad said by the look and gestures of the brother he was very excited to see them.  The family in Armenia had been searching for 40 years for the family in America.  As a last resort Mkrtich got on Ancestry.com and searched for his grandfathers American name.  He got what I had on there of our family tree and took a chance and emailed me.  We also know that Mike (my dad's dad) took a couple of trips to Armenia in 60's.  The first trip he was escorted around by the KGB because Armenia was still under Russian control at that time.  They weren't allowed to speak freely and had to watch what they said and did.  Another trip he tried to take money in a money belt to his children and the KGB found it and kept it, but he did buy all of his sons new cars.  There are 5 half siblings still living and the oldest is 90.  We really want to get over to Armenia and meet them.  I worry that if we don't go, then the stories and history will be lost forever. 

Here is a recent picture of my dad and Bradley and Brayden (my sister's oldest).  My dad got asked to be the host at a St Baldwicks event in Bakersfield the morning of the event and surprised everyone when he said if he could get $150 in donations he would shave his head and his beard.  My mom sent out a couple texts and had the donations.  My dad hadn't shaved his beard in 33 years.  St Baldwicks is an organization that shaves heads as a fundraiser for pediatric cancer.  One of my dad's great friends from high school grandson has cancer.  http://www.stbaldricks.org/events/bakersfield Here is a link to the organization.

Bryan and I took the kids out to the Botanical Gardens to get some pictures of them in hopes to use for our Christmas cards.  I took about 80 shots and got some that might work.  Here are a few I think are cute.

This is my favorite, but Bradley has his eyes closed.

 They have these odd cement balls/shapes and Bradley was playing on them and Bryan decided he was going to jump over one.  I decided I needed to be ready to get a picture.  He made it!

New Family in Armenia

A few years ago I started an account on Ancestry.com.  I did their free trial and then every year I pay for a month here or there and update and do some searching.  All I have on my family tree for my dad's side is his biological parents names, approx birth dates and death dates.  We do not even have the correct spellings of their names because when you came to the USA they always got changed.  My dad and his family immigrated to this country when he was 4 months old.  His oldest sibling was 5.  A few years after they arrived their biological mother left the home and their father did his best, but wasn't able to provide care for the children while he worked, so social services stepped in and took them away.  One brother was adopted at birth and we were able to meet him many many years ago.  One sister is mentally challenged and has always lived in a home where she can get the help she needs, I have been told she is at the level of around a 3 year old.  My dad, his brother John and his sister Toni all went into foster care.  They bounced around from homes for a while, my aunt went to live with their biological mother and my dad and his brother spent most of their years with who we now consider grandma.  Back then they didn't like to keep the children in one foster home to long because they didn't want them to get attached.  My dad's biological father always kept in touch, sending money and visiting, but there wasn't much known about him or his history.  We knew he was born in Armenia and was a prisoner of war in Germany.  Married my dad's mother in Germany and then they came to the USA.  We did know that my dad has a half sister in Germany, but no way of contacting her.

So this is where things get interesting.

Yesterday I got an email through Ancestry.com from a Mkrtich Asatryan, saying he was named after a Mike Assaturian (Mkrtich Asatryan) and has been looking for the family of Mkrtich that he had in America.  He left me his phone numbers and email.  I emailed him back and he called last night.  We talked for 20 minutes and it is definitely family.  He said that his father and his siblings had been looking for their father's family/siblings in the USA for over 40 years and they have contacted so many people in vain.  He immediately sent me some family history and some pictures to verify we are really related.  He is currently visiting his wife's family in Los Angeles, so hopefully my parents and Aunt can visit with him this weekend before he goes back to Armenia.  He said he called Armenia and they are going to look for more pictures and things to send.  I had never seen a picture of my dad's biological father and the family resemblance is scary.   He was so happy to have finally found us, he said that the family would always say there is no way he could find us because there was no information about us, just some pictures.  My dad and his siblings all have very Armenian names and come to find out they were named after his siblings and family. 

Here is brief history that Mkrtich sent me.

Dear Kety,



Mkrtich Asatryan was born in Western Armenia in a big and prosperous Armenian family. He had seven brothers. All of them lived together, so the houshold consist of 20-30 peaople. In 1915 the Armenians genoside took place and Asatryans family was sloughterd like 1.5 milion Armenians in Turkey. Only Mkrtich Asatryan and his brother Hunan survived. They escaped to Estern Armenian. The many Armenians died from starvation or malaria after surviving the genoside. It was cruel time. He met my an orphan Tsotse and they get married. They had 7 kids, 3 doughters and 4 sons. They lived in village in Soviet Armenia called Martuni. When second warld war started Mkrtich Asatryan was mobalized to army and soon was caprued and brought to Germany as military prisoner. In germany he married with german women who was about 20 years younger than he. This lady saved his life, because otherwise he would share the doom of million other prisoners. After war they emigrated to USA. In 1962 and 1965 Mkrtich came to Soviet Armenia and met with his first family. In 1967 this kids receive an message from USA that their father died.


This is just a part of legend about Mkrtich Asatryan, who survived genoside, Stalin repression, world war 2, had 14 children in different parts of world.


After that more than 40 years my father and his brothers and sister tried to find children of their father in USA. They live in the country (Soviet Unio) where even a trial to have contacts in USA could be very dangerous.


As I am the only nephew of Mkrtich Assaturian (or Mike Assaturian) who was named after him I continue the search. I contacted a lot of people in my life, but all in vain


The story of your family/ ancestor had a lot of coincides with the story of my grandfather.


Please, review the photos attached. I have seen these pictures all my life in my family albom and always know I have relatives in USA.


If you Identify them. The the search will be completed.

Here are the pictures he sent and I have added who they are.

This is my dad's high school graduation picture.

This is my dad's biological father.

.

This is my Uncle Jim who was adopted at birth.

 

This is a younger picture of my dad.

It is truly amazing and a blessing that Mkrtich was able to find us.  My dad's middle name is Mkrtich, we spell it different.  We have emailed throughout the night and exchanged more pictures.  Mkrtich said he is going to try to get more pictures and send them from Armenia. 

Bryan and I have decided tat Armenia is now on the top of our list and we hope to get there this next year.

Out of my dad's 7 half siblings in Armenia 5 are still alive and the oldest is almost 90.  It would be amazing to get back to Armenia and meet them and learn all we can about the Assaturian (Asatryan in Armenia) side of the family.