Sunday, June 12, 2011

It's Official We're Moving On

Yesterday Chris gave his resignation causing:
Free flowing crocodile tears from Zach.
A Tender, "Don't Cry Zach" from Graham.
and
Serious concerns from Ethan whether we will indeed be able to bring our Apple TV with us and that it will not lose any of our downloads.
(He is only 5 and since the Disney Channel in Arabic holds little value to the boys they've only watched what we downloaded for them.)
We are sorting through about 5 different offers right now both domestic and abroad. At the moment we are leaning toward a position back in the states but nothing has been decided for sure yet.

All I know is that I am leaving here in two weeks full of mixed emotions. We have loved our experience here in many ways with minimal dislikes. We got out of it exactly what we wanted, an opportunity to save serious money and appease that travel bug that Chris and I have. 18 countries (some of them multiple times) in 2.5 years is not to shabby.

(Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emeritus, Thailand, Czech Republic, Budapest, Netherlands, England, Spain, Malta, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Mexico, St. Martin, Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands.)





Saturday, June 11, 2011

Do You Know What This Means

It means everyone is getting along.
Does this ever happen in your house or in every room in this case?
I hate messes and clutter. For me less is definitely more.
But I'm willing to put up with the mess as it mutates and migrates from room to room if it means a blissful Saturday (or Thursday in our case)...
of siblings getting along in combined creative play.
Even if it means more work for me.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Designed To Take My Money

Do You Remember This?

I couldn't pass it up on my first visit to the Expat hot spot Desert Designs in Khobar. It's an eclectic store of original hand made items, often made from reclaimed wood, and antiques from the Middle East and Asia. You can even custom order some exquisite pieces as some of my friends have done.

We came into town to meet Chris after he spent the morning in Bahrain. I decided it would be a great night to wash the little boy stink off of me and go out with some adults. The Reynolds suggested we try a Saudi Style restaurant where you sit on cushions, share all the food, and where utensil use is optional. The food was not bad but the appetizers were plate lickin' good. I resisted the temptation to actually lick the plate in mixed company but we did get as much as we could scrape up with the flat bread.

With only 15 minutes until prayer time we finished up and then I casually asked if anyone would be interested in just looking around Desert Designs knowing full well my girl Tiffany would want to go and the hubbies would just have to endure.....at least mine would.

With prayer time upon us we had plenty of time to browse. See, if you are already in the store they won't kick you out; you are forced to just keep shopping while the lights are dim. If you don't make it in you are out of luck for the 20-30 minute duration. Well, the prayer time marketing scheme worked this time because I fell in love with this chair. It is hard to find a chair that fits my 5'1" frame and when I sat down I felt like Goldie Lock as it was Just Right.

I love the style the shape the design. And even though Chris was convinced we didn't have a place for it I manged to find it two different spots it can call home.

Of course just like anything new in the house the boys fight over who gets to sit in it for scripture time. We decided that Zach gets even days, Ethan gets odd, and Graham gets the weekend. So when does mom get to sit in it?

That remains to be seen.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Graham Updates & Quirks

This little 2 and a half year old brightens my life EVERY SINGLE DAY.
He continues to just be an easy going and even tempered kid.
He potty trained himself right after our Spring Break Trip....even dry at night! Now this was a complete shock to me in fact I still can't believe how easy it was this time around. I am sure it was a combination of the fact he has two older siblings to watch. I was much more relaxed about it this time around. We have tile floors so messes (the few that there were) were not a pain to clean up. And lastly I tossed out the Potty Train In a Day (more like 6 months) method. I found a new book called "Potty Training Boys The Easy Way" by Simone Cave that is a much more laid back approach. It worked so much better for me because I became too high strung the other way which made for an unhappy mommy and even more unhappy trainee.

One quirky thing though is Graham likes to name him his deposits. Not the usual names like, "Oh look Mom it's a snake." Instead it's a little penguin or some other animal.

Graham has also decided he no longer wants to sleep in PJ's. I have no idea why but if you put them on him just before bed he will demand clothes instead. Or if he forgets he will wake up in the middle of the night screaming for clothes instead of jammies. So we've given them up entirely for the time being and every evening we just put on a clean pair of clothes and when he gets up he's ready to go.

As for TV shows he's all about Diego, Dora, Sponge Bob, and Phineas and Ferb.....not necessarily in that order.e

Our little guy is all about cars right now. He loves his little hot wheels (which non of my others really cared that much for). He has about 3 favorites and always carries two, one in each pocket. He likes to have them in his pockets or hands when he goes to sleep.

He wants to give up naps entirely but I'm not ready. He does pretty well missing one once a week but much more than that can mean trouble. He does lay awake for quite a while at night talking to himself but because we still use the tent bed time it isn't too bad. Well, other than he is quickly picking up on the delay (I need a drink, I need to go potty again, I need to be covered again) thing. Also he regularly wakes us to take him potty at night.

He loves books and is now starting to want to do Starfall word and letter games on the computer- with assistance from me of course. He knows his way around an iPhone like a champ. He vocabulary astonishes both friends and strangers. I think because he is so little it just comes across as advanced but in reality it is right where he should be for his age.

Last week I tried something with him on a whim and here are the results.



Oh how I just love those chubby cheeks. And the smile just melts me every time.



If you get our little guy upset with you he will most definitely call you the meanest thing he can think of which is a....

Stinky Head Butler!

Lastly, just this morning Graham busted out the entire ABC's. Earlier in the week he knew the beginning and ending fairly well but basically skipped the middle. So we did an ABC puzzle and I sang it through about 3 or 4 times then hadn't thought about it since. Then as I said, he just starts singing the entire song correctly.

He's a sponge I tell you a sponge.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Say What?

I am not a fan of playing Monopoly! I'm female what can I say. When I was younger and my brother wanted to play I would only do so if I could be banker and yes- I cheated. Often.

I can tolerate this Junior Monopoly version of game if the boys really want to play because it's quick. I leave the REAL Monopoly playing to Chris.
Pretty sure this game the boys received from friends last Christmas is a knock off (as usual for here).

Our first clue was this:

It should be XLR8 not XLRB.

I was able to overlook the misspelling below:
It says our instead of out.

But this misspelling had us rolling:

Instead of Parts Stored Below.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Wet and Wild

Some of you may question if sending a 5 year old to school with two full bags of water balloons is a good idea. Especially when it's this 5 year old.
But it was Teacher approved.

From now to the end of the school year Wed. afternoons are water play days at the splash fountain park adjacent to the school. Oh what fun it is to be in K4. Last week Ethan asked his teacher if he could provide some water balloons and low and behold she said YES! As if this kid needs any more encouragement.

So, I spent the morning filling about 50 balloons- getting doused along the way.

Ethan I hope you have a "Funderful" afternoon because I'm quite sure that this won't happen next year in Kindergarten.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Proof Of The Tooth

Dad got tooth pulling privileges this time around.
Now you may be thinking: is she going to post about every lost tooth?

My response is.... Only if there is more to the story. I took this picture of Zach placing the tooth under his pillow but later, I'm not sure why, he brought it back out and during the get your last snack, get ready for bed, don't forget to clean up that mess chaos that ensues every evening it disappeared and never did turn up. Now I'm not sure how things will change in 2nd grade but in 1st grade it is still a very big deal to lose a tooth.

As tears of utter desperation began to fall (come on he's waited 7 years for this tooth to come out) I suggested that he just write the Tooth Fairy a note and explain what happened.

Here's what he wrote, errors and all.

Der Tooth Fiary
I lost my tooth. Plesae Give me some moneny any way. and if you Dont bleve me open my moth to LOOK!

It worked!
She came and deposited a nice chunk of change. His note must have been pretty convincing.