Merry Christmas...Again!

Merry Eastern Christmas!

Because we're American and live in the Middle East, we get to Celebrate Christmas for several weeks each year. Eastern Christmas is January 7, so the kids' preschool had a big Christmas shindig tonight. The people in charge of this preschool obviously are lacking in judgment, as they asked the only American father to MC the party. Actually, they asked me to "present" the party, which made me think I'd be sponsoring it, like a big bowl game: "The Preschool Christmas Program Presented by Jason" or something.

This morning, Lee Anna and I went to school to set up some sound equipment, and that's when they asked if I could sing a song at the beginning, too. So I went home and got my guitar. I enlisted Lee Anna to sing along, but you've probably already seen the video of that. Actually, I had been expecting them to ask me to sing at the last minute, since they did it that way last year, so I'd been practicing with the kids to sing that one.

After my eloquent, tri-lingual introduction (I said "good evening" in English, Arabic, and Spanish, just for fun) we had a guest speaker to teach the parents about raising little ones. Then the fun began.

Sarah Claire's class came up and looked cute while listening to Twinkle, Twinkle and watching their teachers do some motions. They really did look cute.

See how cute they are?

Then the others got their turn. I'm not sure exactly what was going on here, but it looks a lot like Lee Anna and Sawyer are square dancing. Right after the square dance, we were treated to a moving presentation of the Hokie Pokie. I honestly have never seen anything quite like it.

After all of the classes had their moment in the sun (not the sun, really. More like a couple of 75 watt bulbs off to the side of the audience.) Anyway... after that, we were subjected to a rather lengthy video of the kids at play inside the preschool. Here's how my thought process went:

First five minutes: "This is actually pretty good. Glad to see my kids having fun at school."

Next five minutes: "Isn't this the 7th time we've heard the 'Rudolph' song?"

Next five minutes: "Okay, this is too long. That would have been a good stopping place."

Next five minutes: "Man, I really wish the video projector would catch fire."

One dad actually left because his kid wasn't featured adequately in the video. Wow.

Then Baba Noel came to visit. Our Western readers will know this guy as Santa Claus, but I bet you didn't know he played the saxophone! He came bearing gifts and playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Well, sort of. That, too, was like nothing I have ever heard.

And a Happy New Year to all of you.

It's too bad she can't be more expressive

Havin' It Our Way...In Our Part of Town!!

Last week, as Jason was driving up a busy street in our part of town, he spotted something exciting...a brand new Burger King! As you might guess from the picture, this is a building that we've visited many times before, but now it's gotten even better!
Until now, visiting BK has been a rare treat since the closest one was 30 minutes away and had a total of two tables in the whole restaurant. Now it looks like we may be partaking of Whoppers and onion rings a little more often. Probably not a good thing for our health, but it makes our taste buds happy!
Tonight, while we were waiting for our order, Sarah Claire turned on the charm with the man you see behind her in the photo. She turned around and started smiling and waving at him, as she does frequently with strangers. He loved it, and before I knew it, he had given her his box of French fries. She ate it (with some help from her siblings, of course), then climbed down, walked over to him and made the "all done" sign (rubbing her two hands together back and forth). I'm sure she was hoping he'd replenish the supply, but his tray was empty. Luckily, our food arrived soon after that.

What can I say? These guys are always ready to help out their little sis, especially when it involves eating French fries!

Blessed

We feel so loved! Some sweet friends in the states (some of whom have never
even met us!) sent us some wonderful Christmas packages,
thoughtfully filled with fun things for each one of us!
There are enough fun activities in there to
keep these kids entertained for a good while!

We are blessed with precious friends, near and far.
Thank you so, so much to our friends in NC and Pensacola! You are too kind!

Sweet Memories

We're going to miss these faces around here. It's been a wonderful week! We have laughed a ton, eaten way too much delicious food, and just soaked up the joy of getting to be all together. The goodbyes are hard, but are so, so worth it for the gift of being together.

Thanks for coming, Mimi, Papaw, Gary, Andy, Claire & Zach. We love you all!

We're Smiling!

There were lots of smiles around our house tonight. Know why?

More bags!

Jason, Mimi & Papaw had a very successful trip to the airport today, coming home with another suitcase and the missing carry-on bags. After eight days in the same outfit, they were really, really happy to put on different clothes...

and to give us the sweet gifts they had brought,

which we were also happy to receive!

Have you ever seen anything as cute as these capes?

These guys are ready for adventure!

It was a happy day!

A Good Start

Some of the bags are here! Five of the eight missing bags were delivered to our house yesterday evening! We're still holding out hope that the others will come soon.Jason and his saw came to the rescue to remove the extra locks that had been placed on some of the bags. And then it was on to the fun part--unpacking the goodies!
Thanks to Mimi, our kitchen is now overflowing with all kinds of wonderful things...and we shouldn't need to buy cereal for a long, long time!

Sarah Claire loved the new duck her cousins sent...

Sawyer was thrilled with his new cars...

and Jason loves the book Stacy made commemorating her trip to visit us last fall. What wonderful gifts!
We also went ahead and exchanged the gifts that we had here before Andy left last night. Andy brought this adorable hat to Sawyer from Ukraine.
We gave these high fashion flip flops to Gary and Andy. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll see that these are most definitely authentic Nike flip flops. They have a swoosh, so they have to be authentic, right? Since they say "ALLOALOA," Jason thinks they might be from the Hawaiian branch of Nike. Or maybe they're a little less than authentic. Either way, the multi-directional swoosh is a nice touch.
And Lee Anna presented this hand-painted vase to Mimi, who loved it, of course!

We've got two more days before this crew all heads back home. It's been a sweet time, and we plan on making the most of these last two days.

Sailing in the New Year

Happy New Year!

What a blessing to spend the first day of 2011 with my whole family!
Here's Lee Anna showing off the beautiful hand-sewn "vishivanka" that Uncle Andy brought her from Ukraine. She loves it! After she opened her present last night, she whispered in my ear, "Mom, I want to wear this shirt on the very first day of summer!" She was thrilled when she realized that with some long sleeves underneath she could wear it even sooner.
We always tend to take lots of pictures on the river. It's a bit more picturesque than much of the rest of our world here.
Aunt Claire spent much of the boat ride on "keep the baby from falling into the water" duty. She did a great job and all three kids came home dry.

I love this sweet picture. Uncle Andy heads back home tonight, but we still have a few more days with the rest of the fam.

Keep checking back for more updates. As a Christmas present to G.G. and Grandpa, we've promised to post on the blog every day this month, but I don't think they'll mind if others check in, too.

Hope your new year has gotten off to a great start!

All Present and Accounted For

Well, it didn't quite happen as planned, thanks to the crazy weather across the U.S. early this week, but our Christmas guests did finally all arrive!Since Andy was already on this side of the ocean, he didn't have nearly as far to come and wasn't affected by the U.S. airport delays. He got here on schedule Monday night, and since everyone else was delayed, we had an extra day to play with him. We showed him our version of snowball fighting, and he told us what it's like to play with actual snow!

Mimi, Papaw, Claire and Zach arrived early Tuesday morning, about 30 hours after they were scheduled to get here. The trip took 60 hours instead of the usual 20, and not one of their bags was able to keep up with them through the delays and detours. We're still waiting and wondering if we'll ever see any of those bags, but we are glad to have them here, with or without luggage!

They all jumped right in to the kid-spoiling. Needless to say, the kids are eating up all the extra attention.
Uncle Gary was the last to arrive, after he was finally able to dig himself out of the snow in New York. Sarah Claire was glad to have one more person to tell her how cute she is.
We're all enjoying the rare treat of being all together for a few days. What a fun way to end 2010!