William is FOUR!

It is hard to believe that this little boy was almost 2 when we moved here and now we are celebrating his FOURTH birthday! He requested over and over a beach birthday party, but at this point in the game I needed easy (we’ve just had wayy to much going on)– so we had it at a place here in Abu Dhabi called Play and Learn.  They did it all, we just showed up with cupcakes and party favors. Nice!  I knew he’d love having his birthday there since he is a huge fan of playing there. 

I found some plain little cups at Ace Hardware of all places and bought a bunch a couple months ago knowing that I’d need something for party favors.,. SO glad I did that and had them here.. I also found 2 bags of suckers leftover from Halloween (shame, I know) and added a pack of gummy bears to it and… boom. party favors complete.  The kids loved them, so that is all that matters.

Ben 10 is a strange character if I do say so myself.  for some reason Will loves him… I “think” he is some sort of monster fighting super hero dude?!?  Anyways, He thought it was SO COOL that his name was on the Ben 10 cupcake toppers.. ordered the digital file from etsy… I just love doing that.

Cakes are expensive here and pretty nasty – I’ve never eaten one I really liked, so I made the cupcakes / icing.. cheap and good. can’t beat that.  It dawned on me the day before the party that the parents will be hungry since the party was from 11-1 so I made turkey/cheese panini’s and put out a big basket of chips… since we had a bigger turn out than we anticipated from the parents, Charles and I cut the sandwiches in half at the last minute to make them go further.. ha.  the kids got burger king kids meals

I requested that there be no microphone used. yes, in this small room they usually have a party host shouting loudly over the bumping club music (that I also did not allow).  I had to bring in my own CD so they would not play the rap music with cuss words in it.. I’m serious.. they play the most inappropriate things  for kids… it is super annoying to go to these parties usually, but with those two changes it was really pleasant.

Video of them singing happy birthday to him… Charles said when he was little he acted the same way.. it embarrassed him!! sweet boy!!

Lots of kids came from his class!

When we got home we opened all his gifts, his friends were super generous and he had a BLAST with his new toys!

This last week at school Will was ‘Star of the Week’ – They have the privilege of bringing home Angus the dog and are supposed to bring back pictures of themselves with Angus to share with the class.  Will was ALL ABOUT this and was extremely thrilled to be ‘star of the week’ – he told me over and over again how excited he was.  how precious.

Another big deal this week was Will’s first field trip!  We went to the Royal Stables.  I drove Will, 2 of his buddies and baby Julia.   I was floored that parents just let their 4 year olds just go with whoever…  There was only a few of us that drove and the rest of the parents just let their kids hop into a car in a foreign country with people they did not know (and have never met!)... I could not believe it.

It was cute to watch him interact with his buddies and see how he was in that setting. I have to say, I did not give Will enough credit. He was really well behaved and is much more obedient than I would have predicted… however -

One of the kids was an extreme behavior problem the whole day and at the very end he tried getting rough with Will… After he gave Will a swift punch, I was glad to see Will standing up for himself and defended against the boy.. but of course I had to say..”no, Will, Don’t hit!” as they were locked up holding each others shoulders.. I wanted to tell him Good Job, Son.. he deserved it. Lets be honest after a long day with that child I wanted to wrestle him too. ha.

Oh and I asked Will who he thinks the prettiest girl in his class is and he said “Marine” (she is the one in the flowered dress waving)… I’m glad to know my boy has good taste. She is precious.

March 2013

So, I’m committed to getting caught up – Here is what this month has kept us busy doing….

A trip to my happy place, The Hiltonia!  It was a little chilly, but still relaxing even with all three kids at the pool by myself.

We got home that afternoon, showered off everyone and then I enjoyed the view from the balcony as the kids painted.  Come to think of it I still cannot figure out where I put those paints.. been looking for them ever since!

Trying to not to miss these sweet moments thru the hustle and bustle of our house:

It seems like just about every other day Audrey has some ‘event’ to attend for Girl Scouts or whatever…. On this 1/2 day of school they scheduled a ‘beach bash’ where all the troops just basically had a big picnic & playdate on the beach.  I left Julia home with a sitter and soaked up some time with the big kids.

Daddy’s traveling has slowed a bit – so the kids are having fun with him the little bits of time that they can squeeze in.

Audrey accomplished her goal that she had to set at the beginning of the year – she chose “count to 100 in arabic”  I remember thinking, “oh my word – we need to change this” but knew that would be a terrible lesson to teach her.. so we stuck with it and before we knew it she could count to 100.  As part of the class requirement she had to present to her class how she accomplished her goal.  I was blown away at the confidence she had to stand in front of the class and count for them, answer their questions and explain how she learned this.  Way to go Audrey!

When lately Audrey is getting to do all these over the top things we wanted to make it a BIG deal that Will had his 4th birthday.  He felt so special and I promise to post about his party soon. 

His birthday breakfast request… cinnamon rolls and bacon.  We added sprinkles just to be fancy and as our McManemin birthday tradition continues, we decorated the house while he was asleep so he would wake up to see streamers and balloons everywhere!  Most of the work above is by Audrey… she went to town and stayed up late making it for him.

Grandparents sent money and I took him shopping – it was a really fun trip to the toy store getting to tell him, YES you can have this and YES you can have that.. he stayed in disbelief and was totally thrilled.

He has started to enjoy drawing lots of interesting pictures… I remember this looks a lot like Audrey’s early artwork

Julia has been EXTREMELY busy being precious.

oh wait, what? another event for Audrey… if this is first grade I cannot IMAGINE middle school!

This was last week at the Mother Daughter Tea Party.  I had to hire a sitter for Will and Julia and shared a sweet time with my biggest girl.

Audrey’s class picture…. a $15 one I might add.

aaaand as If we don’t have enough on our plates, I threw an Easter Party for Audrey’s friends.  I invited all the girls in the class and expected many to not come due to religious reasons or just schedule conflicts.. but every.single.girl came. I had twelve of those cuties here.  Only problem was that Will came home from school sick the day before with a fever… I debated back and forth on what to do and eventually decided to just keep him upstairs while the party was downstairs.  Sweet boy listened and did not come down even though it was KILLING him to not be in the middle of it all.  I ran up and down, back and forth for 3 hours.

I found these clay pottery eggs at the Iranian souk in the Mina port area…

The girls enjoyed painting them – I thought this would be a better alternative to having 12 6-year-old girls dying Easter eggs.

I divided them up into 2 groups of 6 so it would be more manageable.  While half of them painted eggs, the other half made bunny hats and masks.   

Lunch: mini pizzas, fruit, cheese, veggies and cheese balls.

After they did all of that I taught them the bunny hop and then walked back to the school to start the Egg hunt.  To simplify this I kept them in 2 smaller groups and got them to hide eggs for each other.

Getting ready for the egg hunt:

I separated the eggs by color so that the girls would have to find their assigned color to avoid one kid getting all the eggs – remember some of these girls have never heard of this kind of ‘game’ before. They all LOVED IT though.

The very next day we had the ACS gala (fund raiser by the PTA for Audrey’s school – by the way, Will got accepted to go there next year also!!! both kids at the same school.. booyah!!) 

The event was at the beautiful Emirate’s Palace.  Charles and I got there a wee bit early so we snuck in a mini date at the cigar bar where we grabbed a glass of wine (no cigars!) and caught up…

speaking of getting caught up.. this event was 2 days ago, so I’d say I’m current!  I just need to get the pictures off of my camera from Will’s birthday party.. stay tuned for that.