Ramadan Kareem!

(So sorry about the terrible picture quality. They're all from my phone.)

The other day, the kids and I got to visit some friends for the big "breakfast" meal at sunset. My friend had spent the day cooking, and by the time we got there 30 minutes before sunset, everything was prepared. She served the dishes ahead of time, and then we waited for the signal that it was time to eat. The kids got to go ahead, so they were pretty much done by the time she and I took our first bite.

They don't have a kitchen table, so we ate on the coffee table in the living room. As you can see from the picture above, that meant that all of the food was perfectly within Sarah Claire's reach. Which means that my time was evenly divided between eating my food and keeping her fingers out of the rice.
This is the typical drink used the break the fast. It also was prepared and sitting out ready for about 30 minutes beforehand. It has dates and other dried fruits in it. You sort of half-drink, half-eat it, but it's good.
My friend had recenly gotten a kitten, and all the kids really enjoyed playing with her. They also enjoyed letting her slide down the slide that you can see in the top picture. I'm not so sure the kitten enjoyed it.
Another night this week, we went to our favorite restaurant to eat the "breakfast" meal. I know the picture above is blurry. Every picture I've ever taken of Sarah Claire with my phone is blurry because she does not know how to be still. But I posted it anyway, because she put that "hat" on her head all by herself and then just grinned and grinned because she was so proud of herself.
Outside the restaurant, they had a special kids' area set up for Ramadan. The kids got to choose a little cardboard cut-out and paint it. They each chose a Ramadan lantern and got to work.
As you can imagine, this thrilled our little artist to no end.
While the big kids were painting away, Sarah Claire was busy making friends with everyone in the mall. We're pretty sure this family might be making wedding plans now!

So those are some of our Ramadan adventures. We've still got three weeks to go, so I'm sure there will be more to come.

Lanterns, Lanterns Everywhere!

It's that time of year again... Ramadan is upon us!

For the next thirty days, our friends and neighbors will be fasting from sunup to sundown, then feasting every evening and very late into the night. These lanterns are a Ramadan fixture in our country, and several weeks before the fasting starts, little lantern shops pop up all over the city. You can get one as tall as you are, or as small as keychain size. They have singing lanterns, flashing light lanterns, and all kinds of other fun varieties.

We're also observing an extra time change this year thanks to the holiday. We're turning clocks back an hour tonight (earlier sunset=earlier breaking fast), then turning them forward again at the end of the thirty days, then turning them back again at the end of September! We're probably just going to be a little confused about what time it is for the next few months.

As the locals say, "Ramadan Kareem!"

Beautiful Feet

(Disclaimer: If you don't like looking at feet, you should probably stop reading now. Consider yourself warned.)

We had a fun little mother/daughter outing today with some of the friends we've made this month. We girls all went to get pedicures!The little girls actually got their fingers painted too, while the moms just enjoyed having their feet taken care of (another mom and I were both told that our feet had "big problems," so apparently it was high time!). The pic above is Lee Anna with her color selection. It turned out really cute!
She went for the alternating look, and then the girl who painted them added lots of cute decorations on top of that. Here's a close-up of her fingers:
And here are Lee Anna's toes, along with her friend Annabelle's. I think it's fun that she has a friend here named Annabelle, since her nickname since birth has been "Lee Anna Belle."
Here are all the girls with the ladies who made their nails beautiful. I know we were a more, um, exciting crowd than their typical customers, but they were very kind and liked seeing how excited the girls were.
And here are mother's and daughter's feet. I don't know that I've ever had a color quite that bright on my toes, but I was assured that it's a great summer color. I do really like it.
And last, you can't see our toes, but here's me with some of my sweet new friends.
It's hard to believe we just met these guys a few weeks ago. They feel like family now, which means we've got some hard goodbyes coming up in less than a week.

Fast Friends

We have really enjoyed getting to know some other families who are here this month. There are lots of kids all around the same age, and they are having a blast together. They spend all day together while we're in our meetings, but they still want to play more after we pick them up! It's so neat to watch how quickly they have grown to love each other. We will have some sad goodbyes to say next week (but we'll be excited to see the sweet friends who are back at home!).

Seeing the Sights

We're away from home this month, visiting Jordan for a work conference. We've gotten to know some other great families, and this weekend several of us went together to visit some of the sights. It was very, very hot, but we laughed a lot and loved getting to see such neat places.Here are the kids on Mt. Nebo doing their best Moses impression. We're pretty sure that's how Moses looked gazing off into the Promised Land, except maybe without the guard rail.

And here we are sticking our feet in the Jordan River. The kids weren't thrilled at how green it was, but they had fun putting their toes in.

We also got to visit the Dead Sea, but we didn't take any pictures. Lee Anna got in the water briefly, but did not like the way the salty water made her skin feel. On the way home, we stopped at a tourist shop and were looking at some magnets for sale. Lee Anna saw one that said "The Dead Sea" and she said, "We could get that, and I could write underneath it, 'I DON'T LIKE IT'."

Sorry there aren't more pictures. We totally forgot our camera on this trip, so we are relying on other people to document the cool things we're doing. Good thing we have nice friends!

By the Sea

This is where we spent last week. Gorgeous, isn't it?

Mimi, Papaw, and Uncle Andy all joined us for a week by the sea. It was great to see them all, and even greater to spend time with them in such a beautiful place!

Sarah Claire loved the water and tried hard to keep up with her brother and sister.

She did not, however, get a turn on the Waverunner. Maybe next time.

We swam, saw some dolphins and fish, and thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet!

Hooray for Vacation!

On a sadder note, when they left at the end of the week, they took Aunt Claire with them, so we're really missing her. We LOVED having her with us this summer. Luckily, we've got another trip coming up soon, so we don't have much time to sit around and be sad. We're definitely having an exciting summer around here!

Birthday Week 2010

We've had fun celebrating our girls around here this week. With their birthdays just separated by one day, it looks like the middle of June is always going to be a big time for our family!

Instead of one big party, Lee Anna had several smaller celebrations for her birthday this year. First, we had two of her good friends come spend the night last weekend. Their family is going to be spending the rest of the year in the states, so all four kids were glad to have one more play day before they left.

Lee Anna made the birthday crown she's wearing above about a month ago and has been saving it for her big day. We spread out the presents that she had received from grandparents and other relatives, so that every few hours she got to open another one. All of the kids got excited when it was "present time!"
They loved decorating (and eating!) their star cookies on a stick!

Later we got to have some other friends over, and there were a few more presents to open. That's also when we ate her birthday cake (pictured at the top). Lee Anna chose the colors and design, and Aunt Claire made it happen!

On the day in between the girls' birthdays, we took a little mini-vacation to a nearby hotel with a great swimming pool, wave pool, and kids' water play area.

We stayed until the kids were wrinkled up like little prunes and completely worn out. It was wonderful!

Sarah Claire loved the water--and the ice cream!

So that's how we celebrated our firstborn's birthday this year. Stay tuned for pictures of Sarah Claire turning one!

June 15

Six years ago, on June 15, I was holding this two-day-old princess...and now I'm holding this!
One year ago, on June 15, I was holding this brand new little angel...

and now she's one year old!

Happy Birthday to both of my girls this week. I love you!

May Days

Well I am starting to come to grips with the fact that maybe I'm not going to be able to post as much as I used to on the blog. Hopefully at some point I'll be able to get back into posting more frequently, but until then I'll keep popping in when I can.

We've had a fun month full of activity. It started out with four days of houseguests--sweet friends who wanted to see some camels and sand on their way back to the states--followed immediately by Sawyer's fourth birthday. Here's my too-grown-up boy ready for his birthday breakfast on "the special plate.

We had a great time celebrating his birthday with lots of friends that night.
Then, a week later, it was time for more monkey pictures. Sarah Claire is quickly approaching her Big Day, so this is her 11-month monkey picture.
She decided that eleven months was long enough for a girl to stay down, and she took off walking this month. For the first few weeks, she was walking mostly with her arms straight out in the air, which is, for the record, ADORABLE.Here she is with big sis in their precious new dresses, just walking down the hall like she's been doing it forever.We've had to say several hard goodbyes this month, but thankfully we've also gotten to say some fun hellos. We like those a lot better! Just last week we said hello to Aunt Claire, who is going to be here with us for the next month. We are having fun teaching her about our crazy life--and she is fitting right in!

So that's what we've been up to lately! Thanks for sticking with us even when we don't check in very often.