Sunday, December 26, 2010

Fruit From Her Labor...

We've gone back and forth about how to handle the whole "Santa" thing with Morgan, especially since she already has such a big imagination, we don't want to "shatter her world" when she realizes the truth (a few years from now)....

Since she's only 3.5 y/o now, we decided to go ahead and play it out this year... it was actually really fun to watch her anticipation and seriousness about leaving goodies for Santa and his reindeers. (And we think she was scared that if she didn't go to sleep Santa would not come, so guess what? She slept the entire night! Yeah for us!)
Here's Morgan, setting out the milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeers... we laughed because we thought she would want to set out more cookies for the "animals" but apparently she thinks they needed carrots. It was cute!

If you look closely at the picture Morgan (and Liz) drew for santa, she wrote out a few of the Arabic letters because she thinks Santa needs to know Arabic too.

In the morning, Morgan awoke to crumbs, a half eaten carrot and an almost empty glass of milk and she was so surprised that Santa and his reindeers ate most everything!

And here she is in her new princess chair that Santa left for her! (we think still shocked that there was "fruit from her labor", meaning she set out cookies/milk and a picture for Santa and in return got a few toys and a full stocking!)

Here's Micah, loving his widgets and building away!

And what would Christmas be without a room full of polly pockets and princess things??? + 2 Happy Children, Full of Sugar!

We hope each of you had a blessed Christmas as well!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Merry Christmas!

This is our Christmas card for this year... we sent it out via email (to view or print out) but if you didn't get one and want one, let us know.

We join you in celebrating the birth of our Savior!
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Randall, Liz, Morgan and Micah

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Belated Video...

Just thought we'd share a fun video of the kids, swimming in November! Its just now starting to cool off in the mornings and evening... somewhere in the 60's... we love it! Although the people here seem to describe the weather as "freezing" but we know freezing; we lived in Illinois for 3 1/2 years! We are quite confident that when we come home to visit, we'll be the ones freezing since we're used to temperatures over 110 degrees 70% of the year. Enjoy the kids!

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Goodbyes are so hard...


Our visit with Liz's family was so refreshing for us. We enjoyed our time with them, loved watching them love on Morgan and Micah and celebrated Thanksgiving with them as well. In between all of our visiting, we showed them around the Big City for a few days and explored new areas of the city we had never seen before.

The guys doing their "guy thing"... Randall had to introduce Liz's Dad and Brother to how the men wear their "hats"on this side of the world...(actually they were gearing up to go hiking with the hopes to keep the flies out of their faces/ears) but still makes for a good picture!
Liz's sister Meghan, brother Chris and Mom enjoying the beautiful view in the midst of the mountains

MiMi loving on the kids! And the kids enjoying their MiMi (hadn't seen each other in almost 1 and a half years)

On the way to the beach... of course we had to take them to the beach in November...surprise! Swimsuits in the Winter! (thanks to Joyce, sporting the Illini hat!) :)

Uncle Chris bonding with Micah and teaching him to play in the sand, not eat it!

And here we all are... on the shuttle, on the way to the airport...

And this about sums it up, their face says it all! Grrr... Goodbyes are so hard these days, but we are so thankful for having time with our loved ones and consider ourselves so blessed to have such a supportive family. Thank you for visiting us and loving on us! We love you Paw Paw, MiMi, Chris and Meghan and miss you already!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Fun, Laughter, and Hugs All Around!

The wait for family to arrive has been way over due... nearly 1 and a half years since we've seen Liz's family. And they are here now, visiting us. Here is an update of our reunion thus far with our family...
In the car, on the way to the Big City where Paw Paw, Mi Mi, Uncle Chris and Aunt Meghan arrived....

Notice both kids with an electronic device of some sort in hand... Hey! A 2 hr car ride can be long for 2 busy, anxious little ones...

And here's Morgan, awaiting their arrival at the airport...At this time it was after midnight, but she was running on pure adrenaline and excitement to see her Grandparents!

They made it, luggage and all and a happy reunion it was!

What troopers...less then 12 hours upon arriving, after sleeping 6-7 hrs, here we are exploring a mall in the Big city. Of course Morgan is thrilled to have her Mi Mi with her and loving all the attention she is getting!

What? An indoor ski park? Maybe because it doesn't snow in the Middle East. Either way, a cool experience for the family and a great way to celebrate Uncle Chris' 23rd Birthday!

A good attempt to "pretend" there is snow here and that its actually cold. Although we think Morgan would be happy with her Aunt Meghan anywhere, as long as they are together!


And last but not least, real skiing in the Middle East! As they say here, "Ski Dubai, the Coolest thing to do in Dubai!" (haha!) Randall, Paw Paw and Uncle Chris had a great time together, a day full of fun, lots of laughter and many hugs all around!

To Be Continued... Stay tuned for new pictures as we enjoy our time with our family!

Friday, November 05, 2010

Does Something Seem Odd About This???

Last night we got to go out on a date without the kids...Yeah! We have some new friends in our city who are pregnant with their first baby and offered to take care of Morgan and Micah for a few hours so we could enjoy some time alone. And of course we took them up on their offer!

After we ate dinner, we went to a local store to pick up a few groceries and to our surprise we saw some folding chairs which we have actually been wanting to buy because the weather has gotten cooler and its so nice to sit outside at night time. Anyways, when we went to check these chairs out, to our surprise we found out they are from Dick's Sporting Goods in the States!!!
And the other funny thing is that the Dick's price tag read $9.99 but the store price tag was
R.O. 2.5 which converts to $6.50!!! So we just laughed and laughed with the thought that we were buying 4 chairs from Dick's Sporting Goods in the Middle East and saving $3.5 per chair. Does this sound odd to anyone else???

Go Figure! Stay tuned for new stories and discoveries from our city! (And remember this is the same city that does not have 1 American eating place in it)

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Party Favors and Singing

About a week ago, the kids were invited to a birthday party but unfortunately they were both sick and unable to attend. However, we dropped a present by the house before the party began and wished them a "nice party". The next day, Liz received a call from the mother of the birthday boy and thanked her for the gift; informing Liz that she had some "things for the kids from the party."

When the mother arrived, she handed us this plate, full of cake birthday and a bag full of candy, cookies and toys. Nice party favors, huh?
Here's Micah enjoying some of the cake!

And of course, Morgan Never turns down sweets!

And Micah found this to be a fun game; licking icing off Daddy's finger!

And last but not least, this is a video of Morgan singing "Happy Birthday" in Arabic. She amazes us how she is such a sponge at this stage in her life. She hears something and then is able to spit it back out. Maybe we should start taking lessons from her!




Thursday, October 21, 2010

"The Sayings" of Morgan

Sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves, how old is Morgan?
Not because our memory is already going... but because she uses such grown-up words and sounds much older then she really is when talking (at least 50% of the time)

The funny thing is she doesn't always use the "grown-up words" in the right context but that's what's so hilarious about listening to her Talk and Talk and Talk... (she falls asleep talking and wakes up talking) haha! And this is the exact truth! Here are some of the "Sayings"we have heard her say:
"Actually, I want pizza for dinner Rather then chicken"
"I love Micah, He's So Good for me!"

"I Hate bugs! God should Disappear them!
"Micah can't play with my polly pockets, Otherwise I will be so mad at him!

Here's how a typical dialogue goes when Liz is trying to accomplish something that involves giving Morgan a decision to make:

(Liz) "Would you rather have noodles or chicken for dinner?"
(Morgan) "Nothing! I want pizza!"
(Liz) "We're not having pizza tonight, would you rather have noodles or chicken?"
(Morgan) "I'm So Angry at Micah for watching Mickey Mouse!"
(Liz) "Sorry, you already watched a show earlier. Let's pick something for dinner..."
(Morgan) "I can't eat chicken, Otherwise I won't like it"
(Liz) "Ok, then I'll make noodles and you can eat that"
(Morgan) "I love Micah, he's so cute! I'm a good big sissy!"

Needless to say, sometimes it takes a while to get things accomplished with Morgan and its really easy and normal for her to switch topics and throw out random things. She is really 3 1/2 years old going on 10 y/o!!! Yikes! What does that mean for the years to come!!!???

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

A Month in Review...

Kids Will Be Kids:
This month has been so busy for us as we have started back into school full-time, which means summer is over, no more sleeping in and homework every night! In the midst of us adapting back to our school schedule, the kids have attended birthday parties and we've travelled to a different country. Sorry to all of you faithful blog readers, please don't give up on us, we still have plenty to share, just trying to get use to a different routine.

This is a typical scene in our home, especially since the temperatures are still over 100 degrees and its too hot to play outside (for any lengthy amount of time); Micah sitting in his chair, watching T.V., eating a snack!

Morgan was invited to Princess Birthday party (in which she supplied most of the dress-up dresses..haha!) Here she is with some of the girls, celebrating her friend's 3rd Birthday!

Another typical scene in our home: Morgan and Micah jumping on a bed! This is usually a daily occurrence, even though we always sing about "The 5 Little Monkeys who jumped on the Bed"... fell off and their Momma had to call the Dr. ....Guess the song is just for fun and not a reality in their little minds!

A Cultural Lesson:
Its pretty common for people to cook their meat underground here, which entails a lot of time and work... but the end result is worth it! The meat is so delicious! Liz recently visited a National Friend who had prepared her meat for a special occasion. When Liz was at her home, the family was pulling the meat out of the ground and welcomed Liz to take pictures:

This is the basket/container the meat was cooked in underground

This is the combination of spices/branches, etc that were in the basket with the meat which helped give it the delicious flavor! (pretty interesting to us, seeing as whenever we want our meat to have awesome flavor, we just use our charcoal grill outside)

And here's the end result! Fresh from underground where it had cooked for at least 24 hours!

Kids Will Be Kids (part 2):
When we uploaded pictures from our camera, we found several random pictures of our table, our T.V., our drinking cups, etc... but the funniest picture of all was this really close-up view of Morgan's face. Obviously she is trying to express to us that:

A. She wants to be a photographer when she gets older
B. She is not really drawing at the desk when she says she is and instead playing with Big People toys OR
C. She thinks that we're not taking enough pictures, so she's decided to take them for us!

Another Trip to the Big City:
Every once and a while, we just have to get out of our city and enjoy some "Western Food" and do some "Real Shopping" at "Real Malls". A few weekends ago, we went to the Big City a few hours away and did just that. It was a great time for our family to get away and spend quality time together (it also happened to be the first weekend after our first week back in language school... if that tells you anything!) haha!
Say Cheese!

Perfect, little desks just their size!

Ready for the show to begin! By the way, they just opened a P.F. Changs (which is one of our favorite American-Chinese restaurants in the States) over here in the Middle East. We totally treated ourselves that day, even though the kids didn't care to sit still for that long of a time, we enjoyed every bite! (A little piece of home for us!)

More Traveling Out of Country:
We recently went back to visit some friends in a nearby country this past weekend. After a group meeting, we all went out to eat as a group of about 25 people (including kids). The service was a little slow, but worth the wait. However in the meantime, Micah was going nuts because he was tired and hungry at the same time (not a good combination!) But instead of sitting, he found his own entertainment:


He hung out with one of our waiters; He would lie down on the floor (not sure why) and the waiter would come over to say hi and shake his hand. Micah loved the attention and kept doing funny things to entertain the wait staff.

And of course, when all else fails "Ring Around the Rosey" has become an all time favorite! Here his friends Eli and Hannah joined in! Micah loved it and especially when it was time to "All Fall Down!"

All in all, we've had a great month and hope to start updating with more pictures, stories and videos more often as we now feel like we have our schedule under our belt. Stick with us and keep checking in! We love hearing from you and reading your comments!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

It's been a while since we've updated and yet there's been a lot going on for us to share. For starters, we are back in the swing of things in our city and have welcomed many new friends who have recently moved here. We have been busy helping them to get settled into their new homes and the kids have new friends, close in their age as well.

Morgan and Micah continue to change daily and are starting to really play together and get along (well, 50% of the time!)... It goes like this: Morgan loves to play pretend and so Micah watches her, then we see him imitating her. Morgan loves to jump off furniture and Micah watches her, then he jumps off the furniture (and then they both get in trouble). Morgan loves to dance around, Micah watches her, then joins in and dances with her! ETC...... ETC.....Never a dull moment in our house!
Here they are are, enjoying some yummy popsicles (inside of course)

Morgan is really into "making this silly face" where she turns upside down and sticks out her tongue or does something funny with her face. She does this all the time and shows everyone!

Since we moved on the other side of town earlier this summer, we go to a different park for the kids to play. This park is really neat as it is set in between the mountains and usually filled with lots of families. Until the weather cools off, we will continue going there at night time.

The kids love the swings!

Look closely!!! Our outside thermometer read 134.2 degrees the other day! Of course, its directly in the sunlight, so it may show a little higher then the actual temperature, but its probably pretty close! It was so HOT that day!

And lastly, we are in the middle of celebrating Eid with our friends and here is a little glimpse of what goes on: Lots of food, New clothes, Lots of visiting with family, friends and neighbors...
Its fun for the kids to get to eat on the floor (as this is a norm in this culture), but sometimes can get a little messy and crazy as everything is within reach to them, so you never know what they will eat or do with the food (my kids are known for playing with the food); Imagine that!!!