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!

"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!!!???

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!