Happy 2nd Birthday Micah!

This is a must see video! Micah turned 2 y/o last Friday, January 14 and the nursery had a little party for him. This gives some good insight to the cultural in which we live in. In addition, shows how much Arabic our kids understand.

Micah is getting so big, its hard to believe he is already 2 years old. So many changes... he and Morgan are playing together a lot more now which also means, fighting a lot more now; they are now sharing a room and learning to share everything; they often have conversations in which we do not understand but they seem to; and we often see them loving on each other and giving hugs! This is a fun stage Morgan and Micah are in and we are enjoying it while it lasts!

Enjoy the video! Happy 2nd Birthday Micah! We Love You!

Stay tuned for more pics and videos as we're having a Birthday party for Micah at the beginning of next month with his friend Lucy!

Starting on a Good Note...

So far, so good... our family has started 2011 on a good note! Randall ran his first 1/2 marathon this morning with his good friend B. One of the directors of our school is big time into running and put together a 1/2 marathon for any of the students who wanted to participate... let's just say there were 3 people who participated, which means, Randall placed.. well maybe a tie for second!

Liz, B's wife and the kids jumped in the car, prepared with water, gatorade, bananas and dates and met up with the guys a little over half way through their run. Pit stop #1...

And they're off! (as you can see, its a 1/2 marathon in the desert!)

Pit stop #2... we drove several kilometers down the road and met up with them again (mainly to check up on them and make sure they were still breathing and not cramping up)... about 1 mile left (1.6 kilometer) at this point, which of course is the hardest part of the entire race

And the winner is... Yeah! They finished and are still smiling!

And the best prize of all... hugging the 2 biggest fans! (the kids cheered Randall and B along the way)

As for Micah, he's never really been around dogs much but he loves Daisy (the director's dog)

And Morgan loved this! A Huge Trampoline! Of course both kids now want a dog and a trampoline at our house... Inshallah.. If God Wills.. as they say in the Middle East

A well deserved power nap! What a trooper, after running the 1/2 Randall played with the kids and even read books to them!

And what would a New Years be without cupcakes???

Celebrating the New Year and celebrating Randall's Big accomplishment!!!

We hope each of you had a great start to this new year as well!

Happy New Year!!!

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!

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