Christmas Crazies

Rich was looking through photos on my phone last night and came across this little video. He was shocked that I hadn't yet shared it with anybody. The girls have loved playing Christmas music and dancing around the house (or in their dinner chairs). I even captured Millie attaching the Christmas tree!

Butterflies

We recently attended two events where face painters were on hand to fill Angela's face and arms with cute little characters. At one birthday party, her face was transformed into a butterfly. Last weekend at brunch, she had a snowman on one cheek and all sorts of little things all over her arms. She came home from school today and was coloring on her white board with markers. Suddenly she turned around and asked me to make her a butterfly. Before I could react, she took the black (thankfully washable) marker and colored her face. Not quite as nice as the two that were done by professionals, but still pretty cute!

catching up

Oops! Its been over a month since I last published anything here. Sorry. I've been filled with good intentions but my execution has been terrible. There are hundreds of photos to sort through, a handful of videos to upload, and tons of really great stories to share.

We are all getting really excited about Santa Clause. Our tree went up a few weeks ago in preparation for a holiday party we hosted. We had almost 50 friends & coworkers join us last weekend for a party in our garden. It was a really fun night. Angela was a little disapointed that it wasn't 'her' party - as we were getting things ready she asked if people were coming to see her, and if they would gift her presents and kisses. Needless to say, she is thrilled about her upcoming birthday and cannot wait to celebrate with a Minnie Mouse party and all of her friends.

The girls seem to be growing up unbeliveably quick. Angela is a little chatterbox and never stops. Her teachers at nursery love her and she has so much fun playing with all the big kids in our new neighborhood. Caitlin is now scooting on her butt all over the house - she loves following both Angela & Millie. She is getting a bit more consistent with her sleep although still wakes up once or twice during the night.

I put together a selection of photos from the past few weeks below. Easier to post as a slideshow than to try and upload each of them here individually. Enjoy, and hopefully I'll be back soon with more posts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op1n_aXkudc

Winter in the UAE

The seasons are changing and the weather has been perfect lately. It's mid-80's and sunny most of the day, a few scattered clouds and we even had some rain! We put a patio area in the backyard and bought a grill. We have two new bikes and a trailer that holds two kids. The girls are really enjoying being able to spend so much time outside!

Trick-or-treat

If you sense that my posts are lacking in frequency and content, you are correct. My laptop has died which leaves with an iPhone and iPad to use for updates. Sharing photos and typing out posts are not as easy without a camera connector and keyboard!! Maybe Santa will treat me to a new laptop for Christmas this year ;). Or maybe I just need to find time to go to the one HP repair center in Dubai (40 minutes from our house) to see what is wrong with my laptop.

Anyways, we enjoyed a wonderful Halloween this year. It's really exciting now that Ang can understand what is going on. We painted our pumpkins, went to a Halloween party at school and got to trick or treat with some of the neighbors. There were actually some really impressive decorations in the neighborhood. Unfortunately Caitlin had to stay home for most of this as she was sick. Ang must be bringing all sorts of lovely germs home from nursery - the latest round was tonsillitis. It only seems to have struck Caitlin and fortunately she seems to be feeling much better after a few days on antibiotics.

We now have a small bucket of candy to consume, dried egg smashed on the back of our house, and some great memories of a fun Halloween. You can see the photos using the link below. Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38403322@N00/sets/72157628037259148/

Working girl

Rich had to spend a few hours in the office this morning - on a Friday, which is our weekend. I guess he has been missing Ang lately because he invited her into the office with him. Her face lit up and she was so excited to pack her bag for work. It looks like she is having a great time!

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> Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld.

The sandpit

We are doing a big patio project in the backyard and a good portion of our (dead) grass has been turned into a giant sandpit. Angela is loving this and has spent so much time out there digging, building sand castles and making a mess. Eventually the area will be covered in brick tiles - hopefully soon!! Caitlin is happy to sit on the patio and just watch her big sister make a mess. The weather is now perfect for being outside and we are loving it!

(and notice, no diaper on Angela! We are giving potty training a go!)

Farewell, lizards!

Our family has grown by one! This is Millie* a kitten we adopted this afternoon. She is about four months old and was found abandoned at a cat farm just outside Abu Dhabi. The person that rescued her believes that she was dumped after spending some time with people because this cat loves people. She lets Angela pick her up and is currently curled up on my lap, purring away.

We are hoping this helps with the lizards!

*The family that rescued her was calling her cinnamon but we have decided to rename since Angela cannot say anything that sounds even close to cinnamon. Millie is our latest choice, although we are waiting to see if this sticks.

Too cool for school!

Angela started at a new nursery today. We are very excited about this because it's so much closer to our house (less than 10 minutes walk). One change is that all the kids wear uniforms. While I don't really think 2 year olds need uniforms, this is really going to help simplify our morning on school days. Plus, she looks really cute!

The up's and down's of life in a villa

Welcome back! I didn't really intend to take an almost 2 month break from blogging. The summer was busy and I preferred to spend my evenings with family and friends instead of updating you all with our lives. Since I haven't even begun to sort through vacation photos, I'll save that topic for a future post. I'm sure I'll be feeling home sick soon enough and re-living our trip home through a post will help remind me of many great memories!

As I've mentioned before, we decided to move from an apartment to a villa. I did most of the arrangements before we left for the summer but left Rich to oversee the movers while the girls and I were in the US. We arrived back in Dubai this past weekend and drove to our new home! When we pulled up outside Angela looked a little confused. She asked if her toys were inside and then asked if Gloria was inside too. We answered yes and she ran to the door, gave Gloria a great big hug, and spent the next two hours with her toys.

After only a few days here, we are already figuring out the ups and downs of life in a villa. Hopefully you will enjoy the few favorites I've included below!


Leapin' Lizards!
Last night I walked downstairs and noticed something scurry by in front of me. A tiny lizard. While I hate the idea of these being in our house, they do eat bugs and are completely harmless. So for now, they stay. Fortunately we rarely see them so they don't really both me.

H O L Y C R @ P.......I took a brief break after right the above section and as I walked downstairs a lizard froze just in front of me! Its a good thing Rich was home. After snapping a very blurry picture (just for your viewing pleasure), Rich trapped it and humanely disposed of it on the front walkway. I take back what I said above, I guess they do kind of bother me!

Do you know the meter man?
On Saturday evening our door bell rang, just about dinner time. It was the water meter reader who had been sent to investigate high consumption. It seems something had triggered a reading that showed consumption being 30 times more than normal. We haven't even been home most of the past month, d'oh!! The man had a look around and left instructions of 'might be leak, call plumber'. The maintenance team arrived early the next morning and spent three days fixing out tank and pump. We haven't yet received a bill for the 'excessive consumption' but the meter was running at a crazy rate so we are very worried!

Wheeeee!!!!
One of the reasons I really wanted to move was because our apartment really lacked decent outdoor play for kids. The pool required climbing a steep set of stairs and the kiddie pool wasn't special enough to hold Angela's attention very long (especially because she could jump out and run to the big pool in less than 5 seconds). The new house has multiple playgrounds and swimming pools within a five to ten minute walk! The first playground we discovered was a bit of a let down and was just a small slide. However, yesterday I took Angela for a walk and discovered a slightly (very slightly) better playground with swings. Ang was happy with that....wheeee!!! I'll also point out that there is a gym, grocery store, coffee shop, ice cream stand and Hallmark (random) within walking distance. While its still a little too hot outside, none of this is too far for a quick walk in the heat.

The spice rack
Moving is usually a great time to purge all of those little things that have been hanging around a little too long. In my case, this would be the spice rack. I love to cook and have accumulated a random assortment of spices in our cupboard. I rarely sort through my belongings which became so apparent when I was sorting stuff. Not one, not two, but THREE jars of paprika. Seriously? I can't even tell you a recipe that I use paprika in. Its just one of those things that gets added to the shopping list anytime I need 1/4 teaspoon of it because I can't imagine why I would actually have had it in the first place. Anyways, I have a lot of organzing left to do but am really enjoying the purge (and the fact that this house has so much more space than our last house!).

Once we have finished tidying up the furnishings I promise to be back with updated photos and new stories about our life in this new house. I'll leave you with two pictures of the girls since I don't have many to fill this blog. Ang has jumped right back into swimming lessons and took to her new teacher well today. Caitlin's hair has been tamed a bit - Ang decided to help dress her up today!

6 Months!

Little Miss 'Kai Kai' is six months old today!! Such a sweet & happy
little girl who is constantly making us smile. Her first two teeth cut last week while we were on the airplane, and although she seemed a little uncomfortable she was still as happy as can be! She had her first taste of solids this morning, Angela helped feed her rice cereal. It was a big hit!

A messy little face after her cereal - surprisingly most of it actually ended up in her mouth and not on her shirt.

A special treat

As much as I try to feed Angela healthy snacks, from time to time we give her special treats. Especially when moods need changing. Its amazing how a small piece of chocolate can make her so happy. This morning, as we walked by Krispy Kreme at the mall, it called out to her. She had been very good as I pushed her around Carrefour (our version of Walmart) trying to stock up on last minute items for our trip home so I figured she deserved a special treat.

She picked the sprinkles (surprise surprise) and then asked to go sit in the big chairs (food court). Who was I to say no? I would much rather leave her mess at the mall than have it spread across my car!

The special treat

Start with the sprinkles - have to lick them all off first

Then finally take a bite, this was a very slow process

Yum!!

The doctor

Angela is into all things doctor lately. The minute somebody says ouch she runs for her doctor kit and is ready to listen to your heartbeat, peer down your throat, give you some medicine and a shot or two. Yesterday she discovered something new to add to her doctor kit - the band aids!

I glanced up to see her standing behind the sofa with a rather guilty look on her face.

I went to investigate to find an entire box of band aids laid out on the back of the sofa.

Clearly she knows this isn't where band aids go - as she quickly ran away from the mess!

This was all fine because the band aids actually kept her sitting quietly playing. Unfortunately, by the end of the day she had figured out how to open the wrapper and the entire back of my sofa was decorated with colorful bandaids!

You never know til you try....

There has been an ongoing discussion in our house about taking the bottle away from Angela. This idea started back in March after her 2 year check up when the doctor suggested it. I was so hesitant to do anything about it because for over a year now she has had a bottle for every nap, every night before bed and for most of her night time wake ups. Plus there was so much change with a new baby in the house, I really didn't want to disturb her routine.

Today is the day. Big girls don't use bottles and big girls sleep in big beds. It's nap time and she just drank her milk in a sippy cup (only protested slightly before she realized it had milk in it) and is snoozing away in the guest room 'big bed'.

So I guess I was wrong about my little girl. She isn't so little anymore. It's time to hit the stores and find this girl a bed!

(sorry for no pictures - Ang does look pretty cute at the moment but I'm not risking ruining her nap for a picture).

It's Grammy's birthday!

The girls made a very special birthday message for Grammy's special day!

Conversations with a 2 year old

Ang: 'daddy works'
Daddy: 'does mommy work?'
Ang: 'no'
Daddy: 'what does mommy do?'
Ang: 'mommy, Kai Kai, MILK!'

Making milk - its a full time job!

Five months!

Caitlin is five months today! She is such a happy, sweet baby and now has the cutest little giggle that we almost always hear when she is in the bath. She has perfected rolling from her back to her front - although she gets her arm stuck under her so she ends up frustrated, stuck on her belly. We've seen her roll from her belly to back many times, she just doesn't always have her arms in the right place. I'm sure she will figure it all out soon.

Sleep has gone backwards a bit. Lately it is taking her a very long time to settle at night so I spend close to two hours getting her to sleep. I'm hopeful this is just a phase because it is quite exhausting!

We've made no progress with her allergies. She is definitely allergic to all things dairy and possibly soy. If I have the smallest amount of dairy she ends up miserable for days - a bad excema reaction on her face and legs, a very gassy tummy and lots of spitting up. I've been trying to keep my diet incredibly bland and feel horrible everytime I slip up on something that bothers her. I love that I can offer her a great supply of milk but am really looking forward to the day that I can have ice cream again!!

It's now less than a month until our trip home which is very exciting. We can't wait to see everybody, and of course for Caitlin to meet the rest of the family!

Sorry for the grouchy face pictures - she had just woken up from a nap!

home sweet home

Although we have loved life on 'the Palm' in Dubai, we've decided its time to give up the apartment life and will be relocating to a villa in August. The community we are moving to is called the Meadows. The villa has five bedrooms (2 more than we have in our apartment) and has a large back yard. There are lakes with walking trails around them and we will be less than a 10 minute walk to a local shopping center (with grocery store and coffee shop).


As with any rental property, I'm sure we will find faults with the new home. Its not as new or fancy as our previous apartments. The maintenace will increase as we have a backyard to take care of (growing grass in the desert should be interesting). But, I think it will be a great place to live as a family while are in Dubai.

View of the neighborhood mosque!

View from the back bedrooms - lake directly behind the villa and 'mansion' villas just behind that.

The front

The back yard - this is just one section, it's much larger.

Toes!

Caitlin has discovered her toes - and her ability to get then into her mouth! She has spent the past two days with her toes in her mouth. Even if she is sitting up she tries to get them in there!

just hanging out

Such cute sisters!

School's out for Summer!

Ok, school isn't out quite yet, two days to go. We had parent teacher meetings this morning, a field trip to the Aquarium on Tuesday and the end of term party is on Wednesday.

I find it quite entertaining that they have 'parent teacher meetings' for two year olds. However, it was nice to hear so many great things said about Angela this morning. Apparently she saves all of her tantrums and moods for home and is an absolute angel at nursery. The teacher actually said that Angela is the only one that doesn't give her a hard time (no pushing, biting, yelling, crying, etc). I've attached the handout that shows some of her favorite nursery activities.




We also received her class photo's - so cute! I'm still trying to contact the photographer to see if I can purchase additional copies. Unfortunately the package they offer the nursery is a single copy of each photo.

I have Angela signed up to attend a nursery program that is three mornings a week for the month of July. I think she will enjoy getting out of the house and into a building where the a/c is cranked and there are lots of toys (and messy play)!

Happy fathers day!

The girls were so good to their daddy yesterday. Angela brought a special cupcake home from nursery, but unfortunately wasn't patient enough for Rich to get home from work to enjoy it with her. She saved him about half of the bottom!

Rich made it home from work in time for some pre-bedtime snuggles.