Days Sixty to Sixty-Three.

Since we have vacation next week, we did our Halloween party with the kids yesterday. While we were supposed to still have lessons planned, it was a very relaxed day. Well, relaxed in that the kids basically did whatever they wanted for at least half of the time they were there. The parents all brought in loads of food, they all dressed up- it was pretty great.

[I'm sorry about the plethora of pictures. I'm trying to write down as mcuh as possible about pictures, so I actually remember.]

Mayham. And of course, Kuzma is in the center of it.



Andrew and Dasha. Andrew is such a ham. Dasha USED to be timid, but Andrew is rubbing of fon her.



Nastia and Alice. They are both constantly smiling, but the second you try to take a picture, she will stop smiling. It's actually custom here to do that- they think not smiling makes them look sexy, or something outrageous like that.



Nika. Oh do I love her. As her mom said, she knows a ton of English, but her attention span is zero to none.



Zenia. Isn't she precious?



Little Vlad. He was running around so much and wore that costume the whole time. By the end of the day, it looked like he had just jumped into a pool with all of his clothes on. Gross.



Left to right- Nika, Ania, Alic, Nastia, Andrew, Dasha. It's crazy how much food their parents brought. Of course, they hardly ate any.



Starting with Dasha- Varvara, Kuzma (they're in love), Masha and Vlad.



Singing "You are my Sunshine" with the kids. It's become tradition. Since it's never sunny outside, we always pick whoever is being best to be our sunshine.



If Varvara doesn't get to be our sunshine every day, she'll cry. To avoid that, we sing "You are my Sunshine" at least four times each opening.



In an effort to gain control of the kids, I came in singing "I'm a mean old witch with a hat! And I ride on my broom with my cat! I have a long pointy nose and a pointy chin too! If you don't watch out I'm gonna get YOU!" They always settle down if you shock them, not so today. Instead, I was brutally attacked.



What a surprise...



...they're attacking eachother. (Zahar is the smallest kid- he's my pre-language favorite- yet he attacks the most.)



Wolf (Nazar) attacking the pirate (Arseny).



This was how it all started. We were trying to play a Duck Duck Goose. Instead, Jess almost lost her life to the hands of an evil pirate.



Liza isn't mad, she's just really shy. WHen she comes to school in the morning, she stands by the door, as close as she can, and doesn't move. When you can get her to laugh, it's quite the feat. She never used to even talk, now she talks all the time. It's so rewarding to see.



One of my pre-language kids. Sophia is a little rascal, but I love her. She didn't talk for the longest time, then a few weeks ago, she decided that she could speak English, and repeats everything I say. She was singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider here.



Isn't that a sweet pumpkin? Kuzma's Gramma gave it to us to carve in his class, so on Thursday I carved it with his class, then yesterday we put candles in it and had a real Jack-o-lantern! Alas, it was shortlived, as Arseny promptly blew out the candles. You're probably saying- hey, just relight them. Am I right? Well, it's wasn't that simple.
You see, we didn't have matches. Or lighters. Or anything of the sorts. So, since the oven was on (that's a whole other story) Vera put the candles against the electric part of the oven (she was brave) and they caught on fire. It wasn't something that was going to be repeated.



This picture is incredibly embarassing. Nikita was trying to take a picture of just me in this wig (disgusting, yes, but I thought you all might enjoy it), but I pulled him into it.



Are they not the cutest witch and wizard you ever saw? I'm not sure where they found these hats in a country where Halloween isn't celebrated, but they managed somehow. Nikita and Sophia are inseperable. They're adorable.