Christmas week

I've been telling folks that I just haven't had time on the computer recently to be blogging and I'm not quite sure why other than Layla being sick with Mono for 7 weeks and then Tom has been sick for a full 2 weeks. Toss in Thanksgiving and Christmas and it is just a busy season (=

We had a nice Christmas this year - spent Christmas morning together as a family and then driving an hour away to a Jon and Vic's house for the main meal. We stayed 2 nights with them and the kids just played and played together. They are all at a great age and there were a minimum of fights (= We went to see the new Tom Cruise movie (their town has a theater!) so the moms went one night and the dads went the next night. It was a great couple of days.

We came home to our TOTALLY MESSY house as we just left all the Christmas stuff everywhere and only cleaned the kitchen. They kids are wiped out and still sleeping.....hence I am blogging. Scratch that....Layla just woke up (=

Well, Merry Christmas to all! We should have some pictures to post though we didn't take much on Christmas morning....trying to keep Layla from opening everyone else's presents (=

Gifts

http://simplehomeschool.net/best-educational-games/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SimpleHomeschool+%28Simple+Homeschool%29

Just an idea for gifts! These look so great. We actually have the story cubes already....thanks mom!

We are also big fans of:

Highlights for Kids (Thanks Nana!)
National Geographic (Layla loves to sit and "read" these with me...we flip through and talk about the pictures etc.)
Gods World (haven't tried this yet, but it comes highly recommended!)
Read To Me stories for the Nook or on CD. Layla is into this genre these days.

Catching Up

I thought I had posted these before, but I think I forgot to in the midst of everything else going on. My apologies if you've seen this before on the Picasa web albums...

Sweet Days

 

These are sweet days - Ryan and Layla are really playing well together. Other than the usual fussing at times, they do a great job. They love to play "train" which is Ryan hanging on to Lj's waist while she basically drags him around the house (= They love to take baths and I can get a good 30 mins to clean up the house at the end of the day while the splash around....another great reason to have tile everywhere in the bathroom!

She can feed him in the backseat which is super helpful. He is able to hold a small bowl with stuff in it but eventually it ends up on the floor in the car. We can get a nice bag of popcorn for about 30 cents from the grocery store and she loves to give him one kernel at a time.

When she is feeling responsible for him and talking to him about things she likes to speak in Arabic (= very funny. She's doing great with Arabic at school. She only has 45 mins a day but the teacher knows I am quite interested in her learning as much as she can so I know she is encouraging her. Hopefully it will last (=

Mono correction

I just looked back on my post from Nov 1 and realized that Layla had been sick already and we hadn't diagnosed the Mono yet. I didn't think that 6 weeks had gone by already! Man. Anyway. That was the post where I said I was on a blog-hiatus for a week. More like SIX weeks (=

So now we are in that zone before Christmas where there are lots of little extra things to do and plan. I'm trying to think of a party or something I can do for my local friends here. We are around a lot more kids because of Lj's school so there are some fun possibilities!

Mono

 

There was a lot of this at our house the last month or so. Layla was diagnosed with Mono the day we were supposed to leave for a big three-day camping trip on a beach about 5 hours from our house. We are glad we got the diagnosis so quickly but it was a bummer to miss the big camping trip!

Thankfully she did not seem to have a bad case of Mono. She was not in pain though she was pooped, not very hungry and had stomachaches almost everyday. We had a great dr who helped me understand what was going on. Love it when you can find a good doctor out here!

The doc said she was still able to go to school as long as she felt up to it. The only restriction was not to share cups, utinsels etc. She is old enough to be aware of that so we sent her along to school though she was about an hour late each day.

About three days ago she skipped her afternoon nap and her appetite shot through the roof so we think she is all better! What a relief. I had no idea 4-year-olds coiuld get Mono! For the curious....mono presents just like Strep but does not respond to antibiotics and after 2-3 days there is still fever and general feeling icky.

So hopefully I won't be having to step over Layla while she's laying on the kitchen floor anymore (= It was sweet to see Ryan lay down next to her (=

Nana gave Layla this scooter as a present for her 4th birthday. It has been fantastic. We have so much tile in our yard that she can just go and go! Her funky hair is due to nap time (= We all sleep or rest from 2-4 and then we basically hang out outside until bedtime at 730ish. Love this time of year!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Even without Thanksgiving this week we would have been giving thanks for our internet and phone saga finally coming to a close. Hopefully. About 5 weeks ago Tom's computer froze up and we were operating with one computer then the drama of internet and phone problems started and we are only now feeling like it is over!

So I am back in the saddle again (=

 

We had about 15 folks over for dinner. It was GREAT! We had a smoked turkey that was incredibly delicious.....thanks Drew!

 

This cracked me up. Here we are at Thankgiving and Layla is sitting all by herself at a table CHOWING down on a turkey leg and nothing else....don't know how she convinced daddy to give her a turkey leg and nothing else. You can tell we were both busy while she was at the food table!

 

We also had a massive sand pile because of the construction project going on. It was a great source of entertainment and the kids were sooooo dirty by the end of the night!

 

Still on hiatus....meanwhile check out these AWESOME photos (=
I was in language school with this awesome couple and they have moved back to the area....with three little girls this time! So fun.

Hiatus

There is something about living overseas that includes these seasons of everything breaking down and/or everyone getting sick at the same time. We are in one of those at the moment and the list of broken things, things that have been repaired and then broken again is only growing by the day. So far it has been my car, Tom's cell phone, my computer then Tom's computer, the kitchen sink, the plumbing in Tom's office, Layla has strep or tonsillitis or something, and Ryan has had more diarrhea than ever before and the worst diaper rash he's ever had.....and we were supposed to leave tomorrow for our first three-day camping trip. hmmmm. Tom's computer is still in the shop so he is using mine which means I barely check email once a day. We have pushed the camping trip back a day mostly due to sketchy weather, but we are still hopeful and excited. Maybe I should be feaful and realistic since our last camping trip was when both Tom and I were sick. Awful.

Anyway. Just a note to say I am on blogging hiatus for about a week (=