Tis the Season

we’ve had lots of fun these last couple of weeks making the kids spirits bright by doing lots of activities for Christmas

we made ‘snow’ out of the dust inside diapers mixed with water.. looked so real!

let the kids sleep in the living room – the idea was to sleep by the Christmas tree, but there wasn’t enough space.

Went to Breakfast with Santa at Audrey’s school and had all three kids sit on Santa’s lap

Decorated ice cream cones to look like Christmas trees with icing and candies

Made tons of teacher gifts.. I counted 13 when it was all said and done.  I included all the PE, music, art, arabic.. teachers

Attended Will’s Christmas program

When we were leaving they made it ‘snow’ with a bubble machine

we made and delivered meals to the maintenance men in our compound

Here are the cute delivery kids:

giving away the food was really fun for them.

we had a ‘hot chocolate’ stand… for a cup you had to sing a Christmas carol!

Julia got to meet her future best friend~!

This cutie is our best buddies new baby: Amelia Angelle! we brought them a meal and got to peak at their new baby

This week we are still doing lots of activities as well as preparing to go to America and an early visit from Santa…

Oh Audrey

 

By the way our daughter swallowed a dirham (same as a quarter) about 2 weeks ago… After ANOTHER trip to the urgent care last night because of a deep cut in her toe  (we got that taken care of with steri strips - thankfully no stitches were necessary because of the placement of the cut),  I got them to do another X ray to see if the coin had passed or if it was still there.  Well, unfortunately it is still there.  We are now having to deal with how to get it out.

The first picture is of when it actually happened…

This picture below is the placement of the Dirham now.  sheesh.

A quick catch up

Here is a quick re-cap in pictures from all the slacking I’ve been doing on the blog.  I will not go into detail, but we’ve just been super busy and I’m trying to avoid being too wordy because, well, I’m busy dangit.

Kids playing dress up together and then outside jumping on the trampoline (that recently broke..)

My handsome dude and my beautiful free-spirited Audrey

 

I chaperoned a Daisy Scout Field Trip to the Royal Stables… Audrey (not surprisingly) LOVED the horses.

Spending time between running around town with Julia… these pictures seem so old now even though they were taken just a couple of weeks ago… still funny though!

Made homemade ice cream with the kiddos… we split the recipe in half, then they picked whatever they wanted to flavor theirs...Will: Peanut butter, cranberries & Sprinkles.  Audrey: Leftover chocolates from Halloween chopped up and strawberries.  We froze them in cupcake liners/tins to avoid the difficulty scooping later.

Took Audrey to Emirates Palace with Nancy and Evelyn to see the Russian Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty.

Dumpster diving to get boxes for the kids to paint… they do this at least once a week.

Contributed to Thanksgiving feast at my friend, Claire’s house.  I made Cornbread Dressing, Sweet Potato Casserole, Pecan Pie and Pumpkin Pie.  We had a great time! 

Decorated for Christmas.. I laughed at the sight of Audrey and Charles (myself too) hard at work, while Will hid away off to the side.  He is not interested in manual labor.

Once again, sitting… I love this picture though – Julia’s in it too

Audrey made a cute note for santa that day…

And my creative child made her own flip flop out of paper.  She combined her two favorite things… Arts and Crafts and Flip Flops. Ha~!

Snapped some pictures of Julia.. time is passing too fast.

Took the kids to an Armenian Christmas Bazaar.. the face paint was the extent of that – then we roamed the mall for a bit.

Celebrated the UAE’s 41st birthday.. National Day is a big deal around here.

Went to the Shangri-La Souk to order a gift for someone on our list and decided to take a little boat ride

Set up the Advent Calendar – this is a post in and of itself – I have an activity for each day leading up to Christmas… the kids are LOVING it so far.

Day 1: Read Elf on the Shelf.. Audrey was thrilled the elf was back.. Will was not.  Then I explained that the elf tells santa when you are good as well as when you are bad.. then it was a little better.  This kid is smart!  He was not going to get excited about some elf coming over here to rat him out to santa claus.

Day 2: Make Salt Dough Ornaments and Decorate their little trees..

Whew.. yes, busy indeed. no time to blog…!