Nov. 24, 2009

Daddy's Home For the Holidays

    Rob has some time off from work because of the Eid Holiday and we are loving it. We talked about what we are all thankful for and they all said daddy. Robby- I am thankful for daddy because he put pressure on my foot when it was bleeding (he cut his foot on glass, lots of blood, but he's ok. Daddy to the rescue!) Justin- I'm thankful for daddy because he's the best. Alex- I'm thankful for Daddy because he buys us stuff. Connor- I'm thankful for daddy because he's nice to me. At least, Rob said he was thankful for me.

And we got to go the Pizza Company and then, to Swensens. Our favorite thing to do here!!

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Nov. 23, 2009

What I Am Thankful For

I am thankful:

1. For my husband, Rob and that he can always make me laugh.

2. For my four little boys who are so much fun to be around.

3. That we are all happy and healthy.

4. For my faith.

5. For being able to teach my children about their faith and that they have grown in their faith this year.

6. For winning $200 in groceries at Panda. That really helps us pay for our Thanksgiving feast.

7. That we have made good friends here in Saudi and that some of them are able to join us for Thanksgiving.

8. That  I have received my Master's degree and that studying hard for tests and writing paper days are over.

9. For a nice house.

10. For a nice, quiet compound where the kids can grow up playing with their friends.

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Nov. 12, 2009

Post Halloween Fun

Not only did we have a great party, but then, our friends invited us over to have snacks with them on the night of the 31st. It was a good time. She made candy apples, but she said that they were only decoration because they were too hard. But, when we turned away, two of my boys were eating them. They were delicious after all! You can't turn your back on my boys with anything that is even slightly edible!

Then, Connor and Alex had some fun pretending to be Abe Lincoln with some fake hair I had bought for

the puppet show.

Justin and Connor enjoyed using the leftover face paint too:

What a goofball!!

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Oct. 30, 2009

Halloween Party Pictures- Bobbing for Apples

Scary Connor vampire!!

!

Connor kept going down and taking a bite of the apple, instead of grabbing the apple!!

Fionnula won scariest costume!

Omar, my cutie pie!!

Justin and Connor, my scary vampires!!

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Oct. 29, 2009

Halloween Party

      We had the Halloween Party and it was a lot of fun!!

Here is my favorite little buddy. He was in a very cute pumpkin outfit, but wasn't too happy in it, so his mom had to take it off. But, he's still adorable.

It's taking me awhile to load all of my pictures, but I am rather pleased by how everything went tonight. The only thing I would change is to have something besides Goosebumps playing as the movie, because no one seemed very interested in that. The older kids liked it, but everyone left. A cartoon would be better. Everyone in the compound seemed to participate, so that was great!! I really appreciated that.  

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Oct. 26, 2009

Halloween and Puppet Show Pics

Saturday, I went to Panda and bought 4 gallons of ice cream so that they could decorate the leftover containers for their Halloween candy. Justin and Alex decorated theirs right away with tissue paper and black marker. Very simple, but will do the trick. Of course they didn't eat 4 gallons of ice cream in one day. What mother would let their children do that?!! Not, me. Nope.

And we carved our pumpkin at 7 am because the boys just couldn't wait any longer. We are yet to carve faces in them though. We just dug out the pulp and seeds.

We don't wear shirts when we play in the pumpkins.

We also made some construction megaphones for Catechism. The boys loved doing this. They were supposed to yell about how they feel about God and their family in these.

More puppet show pictures:

The Tikki Tikki Tembo puppet show went so well. It was so funny. It was really good for Robby. He learned how to emphasize certain words to add humor and drama to the story. It was great!!

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Oct. 23, 2009

Making Pinatas

     One thing about my boys is that sometimes they just surprise me. They get an idea in their head and then, there is no stopping them. When I woke up this morning, Robby was already wound up and ready to go. He wanted the craft glue so that he could make a pinata for the Halloween party on Thursday. I am impressed when he takes initiative like this. So, I looked up how to make the paper mache. It's really very easy. I don't know why I avoided doing this so much before. But, all they had to do was mix  2 cups flour and 3 cups water. Then, they dipped 1 inch pieces of newspaper in that mixture and then, put it all over their balloon, leaving a hole at the top. They will let that dry and then, repeat it tomorrow and on Sunday to make sure that it is strong. Then, they can decorate it on Wed., the night before the party. They did a great job.

This is Justin's, which is almost done. I had them do all this in the laundry room in hopes of containing the mess.

This is Robby's. They both did a really good job.

I'm really glad that we figured out how to do this. Pinatas are very hard to find here. I used to pay someone to do it for us, but she moved away. It's a lot easier than I had imagined and the boys loved doing it!! I can't wait to see the final product at the party. Everything is really coming together.

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Sep. 23, 2009

The Holidays

     Living in Saudi Arabia is great, but it does take a lot more effort for us to make the holidays special. Our compound is mostly Muslim, so if we want to make the holidays special we're the ones who have to make it happen. Since their are less than 100 Days to Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about how we can help make them a lot of fun for the boys this year. Halloween is a little tricky here. The first year we came, we were blessed to have a friend who lived in a compound that had a halloween party. Very easy and the kids had a terrific time. But, that friend moved on and last year we weren't sure what we were going to do. Luckily, another friend stepped up and arranged trick or treating in our compound. All the kids had a blast and almost everyone in the compound participated. I had been hesitant about doing that before, because I didn't want to upset the Muslim kids who couldn't be a part of it. But, most of the kids had a great time. However, that friend has moved on too. So, now I am going to take responsibility and plan something really fun for the kids. The boys are always thinking back on that first party so I'm planning on having something like that. I think we can have a lot of fun with that this year. I'm planning on getting with some other moms and having face painting. I'll have to inform people to leave their lights on if they want to do it, and then, we'll have a scary movie with snacks at our house. I'm planning on having pumpkin bread and cotton candy. We'll see what else I can come up with. We'll have to make up our own costumes. Rob is thinking that we will dress up as vampires.

     We always have Thanksgiving so that will be a little easier. I just want to get the house painted before that. But, we have a pretty good routine down for how that goes. The trickiest thing about that is that a lot of people may go home or on vacation because Eid starts right then and everyone has a week off. We're planning on sending invites early so we have an idea of who is going to be here.

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Dec. 28, 2008

Some Christmas Pics

I took this picture of Saudi houses from the car on the way to our camping site. Ds6's new turtle. Our neighbor has one and he loved it. So, Santa brought him one. He was so amazed. He just kept saying with his big beautiful wide eyes, "I must have been really good." Ds9 got this electric guitar. He was so excited. He never thought in a million years that he would get it. He loves it. He's been playing it every chance he gets. I've been trying to look online to find programs to teach him. The kids also received an Xbox. They love playing it. (So does dh.)There is a Garden game that is pretty neat and they like playing it. At night, we went camping in the desert and it was an interesting experience.

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Dec. 27, 2008

Christmas

    We had a wonderful Christmas.  We spent Christmas Eve with out friends on the compound. The kids had a great time with their friend, but they were very excited for Christmas. A few people on the compound have Christmas decorations up. While we were walking the kids, sang a couple of carols to our friend, Linda, who was having a party.

   The kids were so excited when they woke up Christmas morning. Ds9 woke up first and then, we waited in our bedroom until 7 and then, he woke up everybody else. Ds6 was the most excited when he saw that Santa brought him a turtle. All the boys wanted for Christmas were tents and to go camping. So, thatt night, we went camping. I will have to post those pictures later. But, we had a really good time.

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