Spirit Week

In April, Gavins school had a Spirit Week and the pre- reception classes were invited to participate!!  Gavin LOVED getting to dress up and wear different clothes to school and thought he was big stuff.  It has been so much fun watching him grow up and see his personality come out as he gets older!  

Day 1: Fairy Tale Character Day

- Dress up like a character from a fairy tale book.  Meet Prince Charming!

Day 2: Occupation Day
- Show what you want to be when you grow up.  Gavin wants to fix his Uncle Bran and make him better so he picked the doctor outfit.

Day 3: Pajama Day
- Wear your favorite pajamas to school.   Any surprise it's a Batman outfit?!?

Day 4: Culture Day
- wear something that represents your home country.. we went with the red, white, and blue theme!

Day 5: ISG School Spirit Day
- wear school colors.  I told Gavin to show me his school spirit and this is how he posed!

Go Jaguars!

When you're an Expat

There are lots of benefits to living as an expat.  

1.  Living on a Compound-- all your friends are close by, making for easy planning to have a girls night out.  Our group of girl friends went to dinner Monday night at a local Indian Restaurant and had such an enjoyable time.  Everyone was back from their vacations and it was just in time before Steph has her baby this weekend.  Love these girls!!  

Benefit #2 to living as an expat: we're all from different parts of the world, thus allowing for various opportunities to experience one anothers cultures.  This week I had the privilege of attending a luncheon with a British theme in honor of the Queen's Jubilee.  The lady hosting the event did an amazing job of giving us a taste of The United Kingdom, all it has to offer, and what makes it special as well as what it's known for.  We ate some DELICIOUS food-- salmon, chicken tikka masala,  pudding, apple tart tart, and more.  Several women got into the festivities and made their own hats, which were one of the highlights of the luncheon!!  Such a great time with some amazing women.

One Point for Momma!!!

Having 3 kids, I'm learning to pick and choose my battles.  Dealing with water being dumped and poured out on the floor on a daily basis (multiple times a day) was a battle I was over dealing with.  

This was before....

This is after:

It took me about two weeks to find what I needed and in the end I got a half size water cooler to sit on a table, off the ground, one that had a lock button on the HOT side, and a lock for the water tray so Miles couldn't pull that down since he's physically able to reach that part of the water cooler.  Now, all I'm waiting for is the carpenter to come and attach the table to the wall.  I'm so nervous about them knocking that table over or running into the legs.  We'll see how this goes.

Miles was clever the first 2 days figuring out every which way he could to get water himself-- he moved stools, chairs, and toys to use and tried climbing them to reach the buttons.  He also figured out he could bring a cup to Gavin and Gavin would go fill the cup with water for him, THEN, he'd pour it on the floor.  We explained to Gavin how nice and helpful he was being with Miles but that Miles was no longer allowed water in big boy cups from the water cooler!

Our new battle.... the stupid sprayer in the bathrooms... UGH!!  

Hand Print

A few years ago I ordered a vinyl project from one of my friends who sells Uppercase Living products and the project is still in the making.  We started the project by making Gavin's handprint in 2009 on this plaque and now it was Miles turn to put his handprint on it!  I was really excited about doing this with Miles and he was just as excited to make it!

Weekly Happenings

Several of my friends do posts every week on what's happening during their week and I've always wanted to do it.  Sometimes, we do things that I don't get around to posting about them because they don't seem to stand on their own in a blog post or there isn't that much to write about, but the idea of all of that rolled into one post-- not that bad.  So here goes my first Weekly Happenings Post.   Which, I actually have pictures to go with all the fun stuff we did.

• We have had such a fun and busy week.  Gavin's friend, Devin came over after school one day and played for the afternoon.  The kids had a blast running around, playing dress up, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and more. 

• Daddy got to spend all day Wednesday with us.  He rode with Gavin to school and spent some time in the classroom with him.  Gavin loved having his daddy there.  I think Gavin's teacher liked it too.  She put Brooks to work and asked him to read to a group of kids during their centers rotation and let him help a few other ways.  

• I'm on week 2 of Insanity and have been working out every day with a friend.  We're loving it so far and have already started seeing some great results.  I'm in desperate need to get rid of this baby weight!  

•  Brooklyn started sitting in her Bumbo and loves it.  She's been lifting her neck up for a few weeks when laying down so I finally went and pulled the seat out and it's a HUGE hit for her! Check out the seat cover Aunt Steph got her-- I'm in love with it!!

•  Brooklyn also decided she likes sucking on her fingers and that has become a new trend for her. She gets two to three fingers in her mouth at a time and just goes to town.  

• Gavin has been very interested in when we get to go home to the USA and is so excited about seeing grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins that he talks about it everyday.  For a week, every morning when he woke up he'd ask if we were getting on the plane that day.  Then, every night before he'd go to bed, he'd tell us to wake him up to go on the plane.  So, I decided to use my friend, Christas', idea for the paper chain.  I figured Gavin was old enough to understand the concept.  I let him pick out three colors from the construction paper pack (by the way it wasn't until after we put it together that I realized it was Mardi Gras colors).  Anyways, I decided since we had 3 sets of families to visit that we would "assign" each family a color and on their color, we would write down activities Gavin wanted to do with that family.  This way, every day when we cut a chain, we could talk about what fun thing he was going to get to do in the states.  He has LOVED this and has something to talk about and focus on other then... "Are we going on a plane today?"   He's so excited that the chain is getting smaller.  He's so excited about his chain that he tells EVERYONE he sees about it.  

• We spent some time at the pool this week with friends!  Daddy even got to come with us one day.   We finally found a flotation device that allows Miles to swim "freely" in the pool and life just got a little easier.  We add floaties to his arms with this vest and he does awesome.  He has NO FEAR whatsoever and jumps in the water by himself all the time.  We've taught him how to grab the side, how to climb in and out of the pool, how to float, and even how to kick to "swim".  he does awesome!!  

• Stephanie's due date is around the corner and baby Jacob will be here before we know it.  She told me the other day she was craving one of my cakes and asked me if it was rude to ask me to make her one.  Absolutely NOT!!  So I whipped her up a cake and had my eager assistant to help me.  I ended up giving him one of the icing bags and let him make the star border.  He did awesome!!  

• Our compound held a Murjan Talent Night to benefit an orphanage in Ethiopia.  We had an Italian dinner meal with friends and watched adults and kids perform various singing and dancing acts.  It was a lot of fun and for a great cause!  

• We now have 2 kids in Time Out in this house and found we have a small problem when they're both in Time Out at the same time.  Miles is very much into his punishment and pushed Gavin out of the way when it was his turn.  

• Brooklyn is trying so hard to roll over from her back to her tummy and is so close.  Won't be long.  

That's all folks!

Operation 0520

A while back Brooks and I found ourselves realizing we have had NO TIME for each other.  With a long, busy work schedule for Brooks and the craziness of 3 kids as well as adjusting to life with 3 kids... we seemed to be in survival mode throughout every evening, thus causing us to really miss each other.  Does that make sense?  Our conversations were either constantly being interrupted or the entire time at dinner was spent trying to politely force, I mean, encourage Gavin to eat his food, teach Miles not to throw his food, while either feeding Brooklyn a bottle or helping her to sleep without screaming crying. You get the picture, right?! 

Needless to say, we wanted to spend genuine, quality, uninterrupted time together that had a purpose and wasn't centered around kids and didn't require a minimum time frame because "someone" had to go to bed 15 minutes after the kids went down (to help accommodate waking up at 4am).  

Sooooooo..... we started a date night, otherwise known to us as OPERATION 0520 (our anniversary is May 20).  We were being goofy one night when we started discussing options and brainstorming ways for us to "get away" and just be together, thus the title.  We really hadn't been having date nights since going out to dinner without the kids just wasn't an easy thing to do every single week and we were both over making excuses for the fact that we live here and didn't have options for entertainment or variety.  We also really wanted the chance to gain similar interests-- Brooks loves playing games and I like watching movies.  So, we came up with a list of activities that are important/enjoyable to both of us.  We categorized them to make it even easier to brainstorm more fun things to do.   Within 20 minutes, we had a long list.  We thought about things we could do around the house or around the compound.  We figured out activities we'd need a babysitter for.  We also thought about logistical things to do together (plan our future home, vacations, discuss future goals and dreams).  We were both impressed with how much we came up with that was manageable, doable, and would make our OP 0520 nights a success!

To go along with our long list of activities, we also came up with a few rules to help make it an even BIGGER success.  I know it might sound corny or cheesy that we made up rules, but we really wanted this to work and if we both knew one another's expectations, we could get more out of the time we spend together!

Rule #1: OPERATION 0520 is Priority #1.  NOTHING gets in the way of it.  Nothing can cancel it.  

Rule #2: Be ready for a fun night, every Sunday!  Starts at 8:00pm SHARP!  

Rule #3: No objections, just smiles!  We take turns each Sunday picking/planning the evening.  So, if I choose to watch a movie, Brooks can't object, but rather enjoy it! 

Rule #4: NO KIDS!  

Rule #5: Can't be chores or "to dos"!!!  In other words, we're not going to spend our time cleaning the kitchen or finishing house projects we didn't get to.  

We even keep a "log" if you will of what all we've done every week so that we keep things a variety.  At the end of each date, we rate our activity and talk about if we liked it or how it allowed conversation, whether it was easy, fun, simple, etc.  We're allowed to be honest about it and respect one anothers feelings.  We both agreed it'd be pointless to pick activities over and over again that just weren't "that great".  We've been doing OPERATION 0520 for almost 2 months, weekly and it's been AWESOME.  We've loved spending that genuine time together and look forward to it each week.  Sometimes, we try to surprise the other one with the activity, making for more fun!!  Brooks and I have both said we kinda get giddy on Sundays thinking about our date and what we're going to do!  Just like we use to when we were dating!  

Just a few ideas of things we've done so far: 

- dance on the balcony, under the stars, to Frank Sinatra 

- play Battleship and Dominoes,

- went out to eat to a restaurant 

- played tennis (got a baby sitter while the kids were sleeping)

- planned our upcoming vacations

This has been a great way to help keep our marriage strong, to gain interests in the same things, and to just enjoy one another!!  Try it with your hubby sometime!!

Girls Day

A while back all the girls in our group of friends decided we wanted to start having Girls Nights to get some time with each other without kids and allow our husbands the opportunity to take care of the kiddos for an evening, without us.  Initially, the idea all started because we were basically jealous that for a year and a half, our husbands get together and play basketball every Tuesday, thus leaving us with the kids, solo for an evening and we wanted to return the favor.  Then, we also realized how much of our time together during the days, is focused around kids and we never really have that alone time to  have uninterrupted adult conversations!  So, we officially started our girls nights, last week and it ended up being a girls day.  Two of the girls were out of town on vacations, so three of us, me, Steph, and Laura headed to Bahrain for the day.  We technically weren't without kids, but hey, we left Saudi and were gone for HOURS, so I don't really think it mattered whether kids were with us or not.  

Our morning started out driving to Bahrain and renting a car.  There was a Krispy Kreme donut shop next to the car rental place so we indulged ourselves.  By the time I took this picture, we had already devoured a few of the donuts.  At that moment, we decided to take pics documenting our day in Bahrain to show how much fun we were having.. Yea- we made it to lunch time taking pics and that was it.  Oh well.  

Laura got to hang in the back seat with the babies.   They were very well behaved so she didn't mind!  Very grateful to Steph for being willing to drive us around, even without the GPS that we left back home.

Pretty sure I haven't had a Krispy Kreme donut in months.  It was delicious!

Heidi D-- something about donuts always makes me think of you!!  

Once we got our car and ate breakfast on the road, we stopped off at a local frame shop and dropped off several pieces to get framed.  We then headed to find a home good store.  We knew the vicinity of the store and knew it was near a tire shop.  We found the vicinity and the tire shop and turned.  We quickly found ourselves on the far side of a huge open area that separated us from the home store.  What's a girl to do?  Follow other cars and drive across the huge open area to get to the store!  And, that's just what we did!    

After doing some shopping, we went to eat lunch.    This is one of the buildings we passed. You can't tell in the picture, but in the center of the building are three large propellers that swing and they were actually on that day.

We ate at a Japanese restaurant called Bushido's that some women recommended and it was awesome!  The place was clean, nice, and the food was delicious!  We ordered lots of yummy dishes and even got Steph to try some edamame.  I don't think she was impressed.

 

Look how neat the place was decorated!  I love how the little girls are looking at each other in this pic.

Even outside the restaurant was nice with a pond and beautiful scenery.  It's amazing how just crossing over water brings you to completely different country!

After lunch we hit up a REAL Toys R Us-- filled with real products-- Munchkin, Baby Koala, Fisher Price Brand stuff!  AMAZING!!  I'm pretty sure I even saw something that was Chico brand... I wanted to buy it just because it came from Target.  I found the boys some swim things we had been looking for and a few other random toys, even the game Hungry Hungry Hippos.  I'm telling you, it can be really hard to find things over in Saudi that you'd totally take for granted having in every store you'd go to in the USA.

Next, we went to a local mall and did some SERIOUS shopping.  Okay, so we only went for Marble Slab and Great American Cookie Company, but who cares.  Ice cream and cookies.. what more could you ask for?  We decided after indulging ourselves, we'd head back to our car and start making our way back to the rental car company so we'd have plenty of time to get ourselves situated for our 6pm pick up time.  Before leaving the mall, we ran to Gap and picked up a few things, so we did do some shopping at the mall.

Then, our adventure really began!  Ever since Bahrain had all the protests, lots of areas have been closed off, roads shut down, and police force seem to be all over.  Demonstrations still occur and we have red zones we're not allowed to travel in.  Because of all this, we thought we might have some difficulty getting back to our pick up spot.  And.... we did.  We thought we were being responsible, mature adults by leaving an hour before our pick up time, but that still didn't help us.  We got lost.  We got turned around.  We weren't allowed to drive in certain areas.  It was crazy and hectic.  After an hour and a half of driving and driving and driving AND literally ending right back in the SAME spot we started in, AND being late for our pick up time-- we had to call our CP Chem driver who was patiently waiting for us to come and get us.  Only problem was, he had to take us back to our original pick up spot so we could drop off our rental car, so we weren't even able to head back to Saudi at that point.  We did manage to drop off our car and stopped in a grocery store to look for some needed necessities that we can't find in the Kingdom, and then headed home!  We were extremely grateful for the bags of cookies we bought at GACC since they ended up being our dinner!  

We did have lots of laughs about this and we were all understanding about the issue!  It just made for a fun story to tell our husbands and something that will help keep our first Girls Day Out a memorable one!!