Snowflakes and Haircut

First off I have to tell and share the pictures of our funny snowflake making experience.  We thought it would be a fun idea to make snowflakes with the boys the other day, so we got out the paper and scissors and started cutting away.  Well, Mike and I quickly realized how we are both not very good at all at making snowflakes.  Especially Mike!  I got a good laugh out of his!  And the boys enjoyed our time and seeing me laugh really hard at "Appa's"  "snowflake".  And the following picture is of me and my new haircut.  After about 5 years of not doing anything really with my hair, except for letting it grow, I was ready, but nervous for a change.  But, I am happy with how it turned out.  Let's hope that it is less work then before!

Here is a cute picture of the boys kissing their little brother.

Mike's beautiful snowflakes!  How do you make snowflakes, anyways?

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Merry Christmas!  May this time of the year bring you much joy and peace!!!!  

Following are some pics of the kids decorating cookies at a friend's house.

Tree or not to Tree

This Christmas definitely snuck up on me.  I guess with Mason being born at the beginning of the month and my mom being here and all of the things going on, I didn't realize how close Christmas was approaching and here I am writing this blog on the 22nd, with only a few short days away.    When we lived in India, we didn't really ever decorate for christmas just because not many people where we lived did, and we weren't really sure how to explain why we put a tree up and some of the other things,  and most of the winters we were gone, either visiting family at home, or in Thailand for the birth of Judah.  So this year, we find ourselves in a city where there are Christmas decorations all around, and I have wanted to decorate, but just haven't found the time or resources to do so.  So it is a strange thing,  I have found myself going back and forth struggling with not putting up all the decorations.  Should I just go and splurge and get a fake tree that is going to cost me almost $50, to have it up for just a few days and then have to put it up in a few days.  And then knowing that we have rent coming due, and we have to leave the country at the end of the month to renew our visa.  Are we going to have enough money to do it all?  Ok, maybe I can do without the tree.  Although at the same time it has helped me to think through what is really important this holiday season.  It truly is a wonderful time of the year to get together with family and friends, and sing carols, and make cookies....but thinking about the real meaning and asking myself, "why do we put up a tree?"  "What is the meaning of the stockings, or where did that tradition ever come in?"  And what is the real meaning behind Christmas?  The fact that a baby was born, not just any baby, but God in the form of a helpless little newborn.  To give the greatest gift ever!  So Mike and I have talked about how we want our boys to not just see all the fun stuff, but to really know that we are celebrating a great gift.  One that will last for eternity!  That is our hope and prayer!

So, although there are no decorations up at our house this year, I will hopefully find some stuff on sale after this holiday season and save for next year, and not let it catch me off guard.  And although we want to keep some of the traditions that make Christmas what it is, we don't want to get lost in the shopping and hustle and bustle of the season,  but give and teach our boys to give in the spirit of the season... and hopefully share the greatest gift anyone can receive! 

Feeling Behind....

Wow, I looked at the date of my last blog and realized that is has almost been a month since I have updated this site.  Amazing how quickly time can slip by.  Well, I guess I have a few excuses for not being so great at keeping up.  First my mom came to visit, and then on the 2nd Mason William was born.  It seems that since he was born I haven't really had a chance to catch up with everything.  He was born on a Tuesday, so I obviously didn't go back to class then and stayed out the rest of that week.  The next week we had off from school, so that was great to give me some time to heal and rest, and then we were back.  Well, my first day back in class I was so lost.  I had no idea what was going on, so I am bit behind in my studies, as well as my blogs.

Anyway, I wanted to share some pics of the new cute little Crane.  He has been a joy and his brothers adore him.  Judah is constantly giving him kisses and Caleb is the sweetest big brother and always wants to hold him.  They have been very cute.  These pictures are a bit out of order because I still can't figure out how to upload them right, but they are all pretty self explanatory.  Enjoy!

Waiting...

Yippeeeeeeee.....................my mom made it safely to Jordan and all is well. It has been so good to have her here, and although I am ready to have this baby, it has been good to be able to go here and there and show her around first. So, even though we are waiting around for Crane #3 to make his appearance, I am kind of hoping that he will wait until after Thanksgiving. We have people to see and places to go, so it would just throw a kink in the plans, ya know? Although, of course we will be delighted whenever he does make his appearance.
So, we have been introducing my mom to all that life entails around here. School, friends, good restaurants, Safeway (not like she needed to know what one of those was like), life with two little boys at home, and everything in between. Tonight when putting Caleb to bed, he cried for a good 30 minutes for one reason or another, so she got to see the strong willed boy in person. Seriously, I have never met a child more persistent and strong-willed then he is. Oh my goodness.....God give me patience. Other then that, life is going on as normal, until little Mason makes his appearance. I will try and get some pics posted soon.

Time Flies.....

Wow, time just flies by and before you know it a week has gone by in what seems like a flash. I also feel like I have hit a slump in my blogging these days. I guess not a whole lot exciting is going on these days. Just trying to get this language down, waiting on a baby, and the same ol' same ol'. I do have a funny story of something that happened just this past Friday. I went to the mall with another mom from school and we took our kids to a place there called, "Jungle Bungle".....it is one of those places where there are all kinds of things for the kids to climb on and slides and stuff. Well, they were loving it and there was this one really long slide, like the ones that you see at the fair at home that you sit in the sack to go down on. you know the ones that have little bumps as you go down them. Well, we decided to take the kids to this slide and try it out. So, in order to get to the slide you have to crawl up this narrow set of platforms. So, here I am, 8 1/2 months pregnant with Caleb and Judah and another mom and her two kids crawling up into the this little crawl space to get up this huge slide that I probably have no business going on. But we did it! First I went down with just Judah and it wasnt so bad, so I gave my friend the ok and she went down. Then when we get back to the top, Caleb didnt want to go alone, but Judah was gung ho to go again, but it was too big for him to go it alone, so all three of us decided to go. I don't know if it was that we had more weight and went faster this time, or what, but we went a bit too fast and picked up some air on the way down. Yikes! Suprisingly though I didnt send myself into labor, although I was a bit nervous until I felt the baby start moving again. Yikes! I sure wish I would have brought the camera to at least have a photo of the slide. Oh, the funny things we do.

The Countdown.....

Well, my official due date is November 25th, so there are around 22 more days left until we get to meet this little one wiggling around in my belly. Oh my goodness! I cannot believe I am going to be a mother of 3. Yikes! And the way things have been going around our house lately, it is going to be total chaos! I was two days early with Caleb, and maybe about a week late with Judah, so there is no telling when this baby is going to arrive. I just hope he doesn't come before my mom comes on the 23rd.
I just thought I would post a few recent pics for all to see. We will keep you updated. Oh, and wish me luck, I have another test in Arabic tomorrow. Yuck! Mike has taken it already and seems to think I will ace it, but I am not as confident as before.....hmmm....maybe it is because I am on the computer right now and not studying like I should be. Ok, gotta go and get those last verbs crammed in.

Caleb and Judah trying on their winter hats and jammies when I was getting stuff out the other day.Playing in a box that was sent with stuff for the new baby!

The Red Bucket....

The past few days have been filled with some not so fun stuff. On Sunday, both Caleb and Judah woke up with some kind of sickness where they were both throwing up. Ugh! Mike and I thought that maybe it was from something that they had eaten the night before, but we weren't sure. We had been invited to come to a friend's house that afternoon, so we didn't want to cancel too quick and thought we would wait until after their naps to see how they were feeling. We called our friends to make sure they didn't mind, since we didn't think they were contagious, and it was no problem. So we headed on over. Luckily our friends were kind enough to get out their red bucket "just in case", because the rest of the evening both Caleb and Judah puked in it a couple of times. Ugh! You know you have come to a comfort level in a friendship when it is ok to have your kids puke in their living room and you still continue to visit and have a good time. So, thanks Rob and Lea for the red bucket and letting our kids be themselves, sick and all.
Then yesterday and today, they were both home from school and sick with a fever, but tonight they are feeling better. Yeah! We will see how this evening goes and how they are feeling in the morning.
Good thing that I went to school today though, and Mike stayed home with the kids. We had completely forgotten that last week a classmate of ours had invited us to lunch after school. When I got to school today I remembered, but I thought I would see how Mike was doing at home with the kids before I told her I was coming or not. At our break I called and Mike said the kids were really wanting me home, so I thought I would take a rain check with my friend. She seemed pretty let down, and as we were leaving the class Mike called and said the kids were sleeping, so go ahead and carry-on with the lunch. Great! That worked out. Well, little did I know that my friend had planned a surprise baby shower for me. Wow! What a surprise and shock. Almost everyone from my class was there, plus a few extras, and I was blessed beyond belief. And the common gift was diapers....so it seems right now like I have enough diapers for the first few months of this child's life. Let's see though....that is one of those things you always forget how many you go through. But wow, today was a day filled with blessings and surprises.

The joys and pains....

I went to the Dr. the other day for one of my monthly check-ups and all of a sudden it hit me...."Oh my goodness, we are going to have another child!" You would think that would be an obvious thing as I have been pregnant for some time now and I can feel this little one moving around inside my belly everyday, but the realness of it hadn't set in like the other day. Wow! What will he be like? What will he look like? Will he be a good baby? How are his brothers going to respond?
Parenting is such a strange thing, ya know? It is so much more work then I ever imagined, but at the same time it is so rewarding. Caleb and Judah are such different personalities that I wonder what this next one will be like, and right now, while I cant imagine what life will be like with him, in a year I will never be able to imagine what life would be like without him.

These days Caleb is the ever present 3 year old with a will as strong as steel. Oh my goodness.....from the time the boy wakes up until the time he falls to sleep he wants HIS WAY! It has been quite the challenge. He is a fun boy though and tonight he was being very cute with his brother. We went for dinner at Fuddruckers (can you hear the angels singing?) But what was even better then that for the boys is that upstairs they have this playground like they would have at a fast food restaurant at home, and the boys got to play in it. Caleb was being so cute helping Judah climb up in it and go down the slide. It was very endearing! And Judah was even cuter because he kept coming out and waving to Mike and I and blowing us kiss after kiss and saying, "Ouw you!" (which translates to I love you!) He would keep saying it and looking our way while walking the other direction toward the playground only to miss his entrance because he was so focused on blowing us kisses. He is definitely our cutie!

Even as I am writing this blog, the boys are in their beds to go to sleep. Judah just makes himself comfortable and is down for the night, while Caleb comes out of his room numerous times with any reason he can think of to stall. Tonight he doesnt like the pants that I put him in, so he wants different ones. You really can't win with this boy sometimes.....ugh....but if I left him as he would want, he would be in there taking off his diaper, then would pee in his bed and sometime during the night come and get in bed with us and then pee in ours. So, the pants stay on! Oh the joys.....

Our trip to Wadi Rum

As a school we went on an overnight trip to a place called Wadi Rum. There were about 40 of us total and we had a great time, although it was very tiring. It is about a 3 hour bus ride from the capital of Amman, but a very beautiful and scenic place as you can see in the pictures. Caleb and Judah had a blast playing with the other kids in the sand and just being around a bunch of other kids that also go to the same school they do. It was a great weekend!

Here is a picture at sunset

Me and the boys in the jeep that we took to tour around and see the sights

some camels in the desert

Caleb and our jeep driver

nice family pic

Our walk to where we watched the sunset

Caleb playing in the sand. They were covered in it, and had a blast!

Judah and his friend playing in the sand.

crazy prices...

Ok, most of you know how excited I have been that we now have a Safeway close to where we live. It has been so nice. We went there last night to do some grocery shopping and it was great, but I saw a box of cereal that blew me away. It is true that you can pretty much get anything you want from home, but you will definitely pay for it. This box of cereal was 8 JD, which comes to $11.20. Yikes! Can you imagine spending $11 on a box of cereal. I dont even remember what kind it was, but I know that I saw a box of Rice Krispies right next to it, for about 6 or 7 JD. I love cereal, but we dont eat it here, that's for sure......
Oh, the good old days in Nashville when I used to eat all the Toasted Oatmeal Squares that I wanted......
but for now we will stick with eggs for breakfast....
just something I thought everyone would find interesting.

Happy Birthday Tasha!

One of my long time friends is celebrating her birthday today! (Is that even a correct saying?....you get what I mean though...)

This is a picture of the four of us, who have been friends since grade school. I have had some wonderful memories with these guys. From left to right - Vicki, Me, Rochelle, and Tasha!

At one point in life we were the inseparable two. We lived across the street from each other and we did EVERYTHING together. We were cheerleaders, played soccer, in choir and jazz choir, on the swim team, almost any after school or before school activity, we were in it together. I was blessed beyond belief when Tasha and her family moved in across the street from me, when we were in the 3rd grade. (or 4th, I cant remember exactly)
But Tasha, although the miles have separated us, I will always hold our friendship dear. I love you and hope you have the best birthday ever!

Storytime...

Sorry that this video is so dark. The sound of Caleb making up his story is really cute though, so I thought I would post it anyway. Enjoy....

the birthday party

Caleb and Judah were invited to another little boys birthday party from their school. They had a great time and Caleb has made some great little buddies. It is funny because they are all blond-headed little boys....the other boys actually make Caleb look like he has brown hair. But that has definitely been one of the challenges since we have been here, is to find Arabic speakers to spend time with. There have been tons of other foreigners to make friends with, which has been great, it just hasn't helped our language learning out any. :-)

Hot Running Water

It is amazing, and at the same time, hasn't seemed like much of a big deal, but we got a hot water heater put in our apartment a few days ago, and I realized that this is the first time that we have had hot running water in our house for 5 years. Isn't that crazy? After I wrote that down I realized how weird and foreign it sounded, but it was just a fact of life for us that we would have to heat up our water before taking showers or baths, and we just got used to washing our dishes in cold water. We actually had a hot water heater here in the apartment we are in, but it stopped working not long after we were here, and it was SO hot that taking a cold shower wasn't a big deal. But, the weather has been cooling off a bit, so we thought it was time to do something about it. So now, not only can we take a hot shower, but we can wash our dishes in hot water, wash our face or hands in hot water in the sink. It is amazing!!!!!! Living overseas has definitely made me appreciate the little things in life.

ifrahu- افرهو

"Ifrahu firrabi wa'aquulu aydan ifrahu"

"Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!" Philipians 4:4

This was one our first verses that we had to memorize in school and it has been a great one to learn and a good reminder. To rejoice in the Lord always! He is good and so worthy of our praise. When I take times to sit and reflect on how good God has been to our family, I am definitely overwhelmed and filled with reasons to rejoice. I hope that you are able to do the same today! Rejoice in Him, because He is good.

Ugh....

I had been craving Papa John's pizza for awhile now, so yesterday we walked there and finally were able to eat some wonderful pizza. It was funny though because we got there and because of Ramadan,(which is over in a few days...Yippee!) they were only offering the buffet, which was going to cost $14 per person, or you could order take-away. Hmmm.....let's see which one we will choose. I think we'll go with the take-away for only $10. So we ordered our pizza and sat outside at their tables to eat. Not so bad, although within the last few days the weather has dramatically changed and it is a bit cold these days. So we were a little cold sitting outside, but not bad.
Anyway, I think today I have been paying for the pizza all day. I have had the worst upset stomach all day and have just been laying around. Ugh....it has not been fun. The rest of the family is doing well, thankfully....I even had to call our friend and postpone our dinner date because I just wasn't up for doing anything. An expat friend of ours here has asked me to come over and teach her a few simple meals to cook for when she has guests over. So today was going to be our first time, but I had to cancel. We were going to make chicken pot pie. I have developed a reputation of being a good cook around here, because we have had people over for our homemade tortillas and fajitas....so now I have a lot to live up to. Living in India, definitely forced to me to learn how to cook, because if you wanted something, that is just what you had to do. Now that we are here and if we try and buy something already made or store bought, it just doesn't do it justice. It will be fun to cook together with someone though and teach them some stuff....on a day when I feel like eating anyway....

Decoration Help

I need some help or ideas....anyone have any. I really want to decorate our apartment and make this place feel more like home, but I think I am challenged in this area. I want to paint, but am not sure what colors to choose, or even how to begin, or exactly how I could pull that off with two little ones running around the house. It doesn't help not having a car, or being 7 months pregnant, but this place and our plain white walls are beginning to drive me crazy!
Any help or ideas anyone has would be great!

Thank You April (& Eric)!!!!

Sometimes I think I have been blessed with the bestest friends in the world! Yesterday we got these two huge packages from our friend April in TN. What a blessing! The boys were so excited and Mike and I were so excited. She sent so many new clothes for Caleb, that he was actually excited to get dressed before school this morning. Which is very very rare! How fun it is to get packages from home. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Also, it was very cool because some friends we have met here that are with the embassy, let us use their address, so it was sent by US postage. If you are interested in knowing more, let me know......

But again, thank you April!some cute new maternity clothes that she sent me, that fit amazingly. I dont know how you did it, without knowing any sizes.Judah and his new hat

Caleb and one of his many new outfits

all is well....

So, life is going as usual here in the good old M.E. Ramadan is still on for a week or so, so we haven't seen too much of our neighbors. They seem to stay pretty quite during the day and then they stay up late at nights. The other day I had a doctor's appointment and got to see the baby, while Mike took a taxi home from school with the boys. Well, he forgot his key that day, so he was locked out. While he was outside waiting for me to come home our neighbor was leaving to go to the mosque to pray and gave Mike his key and told him he could wait at his place. Very nice.....
So, they go up there and Mike found an open can of Pringles and a bottle of Pepsi. Hmmmm.....somebody's been cheating..:-) We thought it was pretty funny. The same neighbor when he came home invited us all, kids and all, to go to the park at 10. When he first asked, I was wondering if I heard him right. Yes, he meant 10pm, and said " Yeah, the kids can run around and there are kids to play with and stuff. We can stay til about 11 or 12." Ummm.....well, thanks for the invite, but we all have school tomorrow, so we will have to plan another day for a middle of the night outing... Definitely a different culture!

We do see some of the women who normally sit out in the evenings, sitting out in the afternoons. Although there is not much visiting at that time because we are coming home from school and one of us either has Judah who fell asleep in the taxi ride home, and we are ready to get in the house and eat. So, hopefully once Ramadan is over, we will see our neighbors a bit more. At regular hours.

I have some cool news to share. We took our first oral test at our school and I found out my results today and I got 100%. Woohoo!!!! I thought I did well, but not that well. So, that was an encouragement. I know I am learning...
well, take care and we will talk more soon....

Happy Birthday Paige!!!

Ok, so we haven't been the best Aunt and Uncle, and I have come to the conclusion that just because we live so far away it is no excuse to not at least wish the special people in our lives a Happy Birthday. So, I have tried to get my act together and get all the dates down and our sweet neice Paige is the first one to have a birthday!

So, we want to wish Paige the Happiest Birthday ever.
We love you and miss you and wish we could be closer so we could share this special day together in person.
Sweet Paige! Is she not the most adorable thing.....One of my fondest memories of Paige is when I first met her, before Mike and I were married. We were visiting their house and Paige was somewhere around 3 0r 4 (I think...), but anyway, we were standing in their kitchen with her and her dad and she points to her dad and says, "We love each other..." It was the cutest thing!
Here is a picture of Caleb and Judah last Christmas with some of their cousins on the Crane side of the family

Crap Shoot Tuesday....

My good friend Maile, who I have been friends with for geesh......over 20 years now. (wow, that makes me feel old).....Anyway, she is an amazingly creative and talented person and she has started a game on her blog, called "Crap Shoot Tuesday", where you can share a picture that didnt turn out the greatest. (did I mention she is a photographer...) Anyway, you can see her site here.
So anyway, here is my "crap shoot"....I love this picture because it is of Caleb and a new little friend of his, named Madelyn. It is perfect of her, because she is full of energy and one kid that will put Caleb in his place and give him a run for his money. So, it is perfect that she is all out of focus, because she just doesnt sit still. And you can see the chaos all around them as they are playing together in this room. Classic....

some new pics

Here are the boys building a fort in our tv/laundry room.

Heather with the pregnant belly and Judah just after his bath.

Our little music lover....isn't that the sweetest.....

Having fun in the bath....

Mr. Bubble-man!

Life in the M.E......

So, life has been going on as usual....or I guess it seems usual to me anyway. It is amazing how living in another culture you can get so used to the random and different things that you see, and then you think about how things are in your home country and realize how different things really are here. Ramadan is still in full swing and it has been interesting to witness what goes on. The other day we decided to walk to "the beloved Safeway" and do our grocery shopping after we had finished dinner. So that put us out walking at around 6:30 and the traffic was crazy. Cars were buzzing by at lightning speed to get to their destination so they could eat. It was actually pretty funny.....Seriously, you could tell people were driving like maniacs because they had to get home before 7pm and the call to prayer went off. Then we get to the grocery store and this was the time to be there. It was pretty dead, other then the other foreigners who had all probably eaten before they came as well.
Another evening we went to a restaurant right around the corner from our house and it was dead. We were the only ones in there, although there were many people taking food out. But legally you are not allowed to eat until the call to prayer, so we had to wait a few minutes when they brought our food out. You will see that often too. People will be sitting at tables with their food all ready to go and then they wait for that call to sound and first eat a date and then their meal. Oh, a funny thing happened in the restaurant when we were there. I took Caleb to the bathroom and in most bathrooms here they have a bidet(not sure on the spelling...), or a sprayer of some sort to clean off the bum. Well, Caleb has become accustomed to this and likes it, but it just so happened that the one on this toilet, he thought he would push the button and see how it worked. Well, the button got stuck, and I am right in the line of fire being squirted to death, before I can get over to turn it off. Caleb and I had a good laugh, and luckily I was wearing a black shirt, so when I came out of the bathroom you couldn't tell that I was soaked. It was pretty funny!

cranky taxi drivers....

So, since the majority of the nation is not eating or drinking anything from sun-up until sun-down, people tend to get a little cranky. Especially since it is so hot here and they are technically not even supposed to drink water. Ugh....We experienced it first hand tonight when coming home from the grocery store. We had to make a trip to the grocery store, which you would think might be kind of deserted, but was crowded as ever and lots of things were out of stock. I guess it makes sense, because when you go to the grocery store when you are hungry, I am always more likely to buy more then I would when I am not.
So anyway, we catch a taxi for our ride home and load all of the stuff into the trunk. When we get to our house, first the taxi driver gets out and wipes down the seat where Caleb was sitting. Ok, I understand, he is a messy little kid. But then he tells us, "yah-la, yah-la..." which means "go, go..." because we were taking too long to get our groceries out of the car. While he is also rambling on about some complaints about Safeway. Who knows what he was saying, but Mike and I realized that he just needed to get something to eat. He only had one more hour until he could break his fast, so he was definitely cranky.
It has also been a very interesting thing to observe, that when the call to prayer goes off at around 7 pm, the streets are dead. Everyone is somewhere eating....So for about 20 minutes to half an hour the streets are very quite and you dont hear much of anything, although I imagine in a more crowded neighborhood they say that you can hear the noise of forks and plates clanging. Very interesting....

Ramadan

Many of you may already know what this is, some may not. Ramadan is the month of fasting the the Muslims observe and today is the official day that it has started. They withhold from any kind of food or water from sun-up until sundown, and then after that they can eat. From what we hear, it is not only a month of fasting, but also feasting. Once the sun goes down they have big feasts. We have been told that more food is consumed in this month then the rest of the year, but I am not sure how true that is.
So, it will be interesting to learn more about this observance. One really interesting thing that we have learned here is that you cannot eat anything outside during sunlight hours or you can be taken to jail. Apparently as a pregnant woman though, I am exempt, which is nice. Also, any restaurants are closed during the day and don't open until 6 or 7 in the evening.
Just some interesting things that I thought I would share.....
If you are interested to know more, you can read more here.

Habibi

This is a term in Arabic that means "my darling" or "sweetie" and one that they use for the children. So now Caleb and Judah here "habibi" all the time and no longer "oh nani". It is a sweet term that almost everyone uses in reference the kids.

A bit busier...

Well, life has definitely picked up the pace since our school has started and it has been so nice. We are meeting lots of new people, challenging our brains and the kids are able to get to their daycare and play with friends. Tonight we just got back from someone's house for a night of fellowship and potluck, which was SO nice. It is about 9 in the evening, the kids are finally in bed and I thought I would say a little something here. Although I should be studying.....
School has been going really well and we are learning some of the common greetings and simple little things to say, like where is your mother, how are you?, bag is big, where is the cup, etc, etc.....
The boys have been doing good at daycare, after about the second day I think they are used to the idea and haven't grabbed on to my legs and cried again. That was hard....but now they are adjusted and will go in and go right to the toys and start playing and blow us a kiss goodbye. Ahhhh.....relief!
Also, I am doing good after my burn incident. It is really amazing how little I was touched by the whole experience. I have a little sore on my nose and had some dry skin that peeled off, but other then that I am good. Praise the Lord!
well, I must get going and study. I will try and write more soon.
Ma'asalaama....which means goodbye in Arabic....

A Brush with Death

Do you ever have something happen in life, that you only realize after the fact how lucky you really were? Well, yesterday I had something like this happen. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and making some cookies to take to the neighbor's house, because they had invited us to come for tea in the evening. So, I have the cookies in the oven and dinner on the top of the stove. The stove that we have here is a gas stove...and Mike had just changed the new tank for me, because it had run out in the middle of everything.

Anyway, I dont think that really has anything to do with what happened, because somehow the flame in the oven went out....so while I am cooking something on the stove top, I remember I need to check the cookies inside. The inside of the oven which has been filling up with gas for I am not sure how long. So I open up the oven, and within a few seconds this huge blast of flame comes flying at my face and it sounds like a bomb goes off. One of those instances that happens so fast you are not really sure what happened. Luckily, Mike and the kids were in the other room, so the kids weren't touched. And Praise God, I just got minor burns. A little bit of my hair was singed around my face, my eyelashes are little nubs, I have no hair left in my nose, but amazingly if you look at me you cannot really tell anything happened.
WOW! I could have been blasted through the wall, I could have had my face melted off....had I waited another 10 minutes to check those cookies who knows what would have happened? It sure makes you appreciate life and be thankful for the little things. So, all in all I am ok and just amazed and thankful! It makes you realize how vain you can be too, because I was worried and thinking about how I am going to have to go to my second day of class with a big burn across my face, or big blisters on my face, but none of that happened.
So, we were able to finish dinner and then go to the neighbors for tea, and they didn't notice a thing. I was too embarrassed and it was too fresh to say anything to them. But we had a good visit. Although it is so challenging here because they invited us to come at 8 or 8:30 and the kids normally go to bed around 7:30 or 8:00, but we went for the sake of relationship. Then they proceeded to offer and give our kids every sugary thing imaginable. Ugh....we didn't end up leaving there until about 10:30. Caleb and Judah were great! Probably because they got to eat so much junk and then they just crashed. It was a good time to get to know our neighbors though....although I think next time we will work something out better.
Ahhh.....life in other cultures.....

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, my chai didn't seem to be so much of a hit the other day, but I was determined to not let that discourage me. So, I made chocolate chip cookies to share with the neighbors. Who can resist chocolate chip cookies, right? Well, they were a hit. The one lady that seemed the most against my chai the other day, really loved the cookies. In fact, our immediate neighbors asked if we had any more, so that opened up a door for me to go over their place.
It was kind of cool....I felt like I was let into their world. A place where they were laid back and didnt have their heads covered. We talked about all kinds of things, from weight, to religion, to cooking. Actually at one point, I felt like they were trying to convert me to Islam. It was interesting. It was a great experience and Mike was encouraged when I came back home with big smiles.

1st Day of PreSchool

So, a new chapter in our lives has begun. The boys will be out of our care for about 4 hours of the morning Monday-Sat. The first day went well and they did well . They were not too sure about it once we were going to leave them there, but the teachers said that once we were gone, they were fine. Whew.....I was a little anxious on how it was going to go. Especially with Judah because he is definitely a "momma's boy". We'll see how it goes when he has to go back on Monday. Mike and I will start our school on Wednesday.