New House New Bugs and New friends

As you know, we;ve just moved house. It quickly became apparent that though we've moved less than a mile away, we have a whole new world of bugs. One of them bites and it hurts like the dickens. Poor Layla. The other two, sadly, we think are some kind of termite. It would have been FABULOUS to know this BEFORE we moved in so we could spray the horribly effective and toxic stuff before we moved in. sigh.
Vic and I can trade houses - she needs her house sprayed as well.

On the upside, I've mentioned that there are 10 little girls who roam the sands in front of our house and about as many boys. Of course the boys stay away because they know our little one is only 2. The girls however.... are around all the time. We are learning how to manage this. I've decided to allow only 2 at a time because any more than that overwhelms Layla.

She sort of ignores them now. They play on their own in the playroom, but they will all draw together. Anyway. I'm just being very chill about it all and letting her to do what she wants. She only has gotten onto an arab ramadan schedule this last two weeks so she hasn't even SEEN her friends from school most of the summer. We tried at the beginning but they didn't wake up until 1130 or so and by that point Layla was almost ready for lunch and a nap! Not so great. Now, however, she stays up until about 10 or 1030pm and wakes up about 930am. Glorious.

Anyway. Do keep thinking of us as we transition and now as we head off to Africa for some much needed family time in the mountains where it is HALF the temperature we are currently at. Here it is 120, there it is 65 degrees. yikes.

Simply must post these.....

          Daddy came back from a trip this morning and brought a dress back for Layla. Sadly, Ryan doesn't want to take it off!
We've realized that while he is a very happy and smiley boy, most of is pictures just have his mouth wide open and hollering (=

It is a bit scary how much he looks like a girl! He has learned how to pose from his sister of course!!

Moving during Ramadan

Sweaty, dark and loud.
It is 115 degrees at 2am. Tom and I are alone in the old house which is a very echoey tile shell at this point. It is too hot to move during the day and fairly decent at 2am when there is a breeze.

It took us almost 7 days to move out of our place - the truck wasn't big enough when we did our big move on Sunday but we had many kind friends help us on three different days when we filled cars and then one small truck.

Our new place is freshly painted and looks awesome and full. I know everyone says this, but WHERE did all this stuff go in our old place?!? Granted, my two huge storage cabinets are sitting empty still and my pantry shell that held all manner of DIY things and random house things is now in the kids' playroom for toys. I keep turning over strategies on what to do first to make the biggest impact. Tonight (meaning at 1130pm) I decided it was arranging the plants on the front steps and moving out the massive purple throne chair that was left here by the previous two families.

I have no idea where this chair came from, but it is HUGE. Our house helper wanted it in her room (help yourself!!!) but we could not squeeze it through the door. So I'm going to try and move it from our main room and put it outside on the front step partly as a conversation piece, partly as a place to dump bags or children while getting in or out of the house, and partly as a place to sit and have a cup of coffee outside whenever that sounds appealing again.I will take a picture of it once it is in place.

Each chunk of time I have to work I ask myself what will give the most impact or I end up just doing totally random tasks the whole time. When that happens I feel like it is pushing sand uphill. Lots of moving about with very very little effect.

Must go find a place to put something away now.