On the Verge...

It's that time of year again!  Abram's birthday, Thanksgiving, and... Nana's birthday!!! Here is a special message from your favorite (at least for now) grandson, Nana: We really do hope that you have a greeeeeeaaaaat day.  Gotta go.

We celebrated Abram's third birthday today. It is November 17th here, but technically he won't have been on the outside world for three years until 1 am on November 18th because of birth time and time zones. So I can still say he's on the verge of three. Today was an epic adventure of a day for our three year old and his sister. We started out at Build-a-Bear. His grandma and grandpa (GiGi and Boppa) have just arrived for a visit and they have been talking about doing Build-a-Bear with Abram since he skyped with his cousin who had done one a few months ago. Abram eventually chose a lamb and dressed him in a Superman costume and Selah chose a bear and we put a sparkly pink tutu and sequin bow on her for our girl with a new found love for dancing attire.  They both love their animals (who Abram named Leon and Mya) and I have glitter all over me from Mya's tutu. So overall, a success. Then we had lunch at Ikea and bought a few necessary items for our guest room. A

It's 1:30am and I can't stop thinking about how God is so good. So I thought I'd write about it and then go to sleep. God is SO good. Even through bed bugs. And having to throw away furniture. And hand foot and mouth. And lack of sleep for the whole family and just overall busyness. I am overwhelmed by the blessings in my life right now. I can't begin to doubt that He even uses the hard things to show us His faithfulness. These are a few of the things I am thankful for right now (think of it as a big chunk of "30 days of thankfulness" a little late): - Mr. Unexpected Simon is getting so strong and feisty in there at 19 weeks. Loving him and getting more and more excited to meet and hold him every single day. - Quinn's parents coming for a visit in 8 days. Love those people and excited to see them after over a year. - Friends from our church in Austin coming to visit and going on an adventure to the Dubai Creek and spice souk. Then for a ride on t

Abram likes to talk about imaginary people. Not "imaginary friends", but people that don't exist with names he has made up (which are often variations of the same name).  Maybe he just likes names. Wonder where he got that from...   Last night, we asked him who he wanted to pray for after dinner. He said "Hyops".  We humored him. "Hyops? Is Hyops real?" "Yeah, he lives in India, in a small town. He's sick. He needs to feel better." (There was some stuttering in there, but I'm not embellishing any vocabulary). Quinn and I looked at each other. Usually, we tell him that we can only pray for real things; no made up people, no stuffed animals, etc. But it was so weird that he was so specific about where this person lived, that we thought maybe God wanted us to pray for a man named Hyops who was sick in a small town in India. So we agreed. Then I reconfirmed his name. "Hyops?" And he said "No. Pyops." And the gl

I may already have a post titled something similar to this about Abram, but I'm too lazy to check. Selah's vocabulary is growing everyday. She says a lot of things imperfectly, but we know what she is saying in context and there are a few words she says pretty darn clearly. Some of the clear, full words: cat, hat, ball, car, all done, up, no, yeah, happy, please, juice, toy, you, me, nose, eyes, Jesus, shoes, yay, and ummmm... Some of the sounds that are definitively a certain word: Seh (Selah), bee (baby), Pah (Poppins, as in Mary Poppins), tup (as in "feed the birds, tuppence a bag" - she uses this to get me to sing the song to her. I guess it's her favorite...), Dohd (George (Jennings)), air-pah (airplane), fow (flower), tee (tree), dess (dress), Da (Dad). The one that can get a little confusing, but I usually know because of context, is "ma". This means several different things: Mom, more, milk, and mosque (which she says during the call to p

If you've been tracking with us for awhile now, you may remember that when we were pregnant with Selah, we had a boy name chosen .  This time, we had a few boy options, but the old standby won out, because we really do like it a lot.  But just like two years ago, we still can't quite agree on a middle name for this kid. That's where you can help. His name is Simon.  After Simon Peter, the apostle.  It's five letters and it's Hebrew (like the other kids) and we like  it. But, here's the thing: We have four options for middle names.  The two that Quinn really like, I have been vehemently opposed to.  I will share them with you in the most unbiased (yeah, right) way possible and you can tell me if I'm wrong.  For real.  I won't be mad. He likes Simon Quinn and Simon Peter. Now, you may be thinking "Wait a minute... isn't Quinn Abram's middle name?" Why yes, yes it is. Much to the credit of his beloved parents, Quinn likes his na

Today, Selah is 18 months old. She woke up at exactly midnight on her 1.5 year birthday (approximately three hours ago), right as I was falling asleep. Of course. I am reminded of her one year birthday, six months ago, which was the first night we had any problem with her sleeping since she was about 7 months old and started sleeping through the night. That night, she bawled when I laid her down and didn't stop crying for almost an hour. So unlike her. The next night, it was a little shorter, but still some crying. And the next, just a little whimper before falling to sleep like a champ like her old self. That drama ended right then, but it was about that time that she started waking up for long periods of time in the middle of the night. At first we didn't know how long she was staying awake. I would hear sporadic babbling and then quiet and our noise machine that made it possible for us all to share essentially one big room probably drown out any other sounds while I slep

Thanks, Coloradoans, for posting all the pictures of the snow you just got.  And Texans, thank you for the pictures of your weekly weather forecast, which is comprised mostly of lovely 75 degree days.  It really just makes me really happy for you.  No.  For real. Here in Fujairah, we have been blessed by a little temperature drop.  It even rained the other night!  The kids were very, very  excited. Today was a modest 32/33 degrees (Celsius) when we got out of our car to go to the park at 11am.  That's a wonderful 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  We'll take it!  They were watering the grass at this big park when we got there.  I don't know if they do that often, but it was by far  the kids' favorite part of our trip.  We just let 'em go.  If I had to be dripping sweat in a long sleeve shirt in the 90 degree sun, at least my children could be soaking wet. Then we had some swinging time.  Most playgrounds (unless they are at newer, more ex-pat cen

Ever since I was little, I've really loved names.  I would write stories just so I could name characters.  The stories were mostly just a few handwritten pages, because I would quickly move on to another story where I could name different characters.  I would also name my children.  I don't think this is too weird, right?  And with each guy I dated, I had a different set of names that I would have named possible children.  Mainly just for fun.  It was just a thing.  It really didn't mean that I was sure I was going to marry any of the four guys I ever dated (except that last one...), I just liked names. But one thing was always the same with my imaginary children.  There were always the same number: three.  I thought this was the perfect amount at the time.  They were also always in the same order.  A boy, then a girl, then another boy.  My thought process was that every guy wants a boy first.  This is probably not true. And I am also sure that men who have a girl first

So we are having another baby.  Whew.  There, I said it.  No creative lead up and stunning reveal.  Just there .  Baby.  Bam. That's a little what it felt like to find out that a third child would be joining our ranks a bit short of 3.5 years after our first child was born.  We were content with our two.  A boy and a girl.  Who could ask for anything more, right?  Also, Quinn and I each have just one sister, so it seemed natural for us to stop at two. So that's what we were working to do.  I won't go into the details of it all with you in this forum, but we really were attempting to avoid pregnancy. So this wasn't a "woops" moment.  This was a "many things happening coincidentally" moment.  And so when we confirmed that we were, indeed, expecting another baby, there was a bit of shock (of course), but also peace and assurance in knowing that God definitely showed us His hand in it. We told Abram pretty early on and he has been excited from the g

I posted this video on Facebook. So this is for people who follow the blog that aren't on facebook (read: grandparents) Can you tell we do a lot of pretend flying to Austin, Colorado, and Boise in our playtime? :) Sorry I haven't been posting more.  Lost of stuff happening here and not much time to just sit down and upload and write.  We actually never take out the good camera any more.  Horrible.  Horrible parents, we are. Just kidding.  More like just parents, we are.

A week ago, I lost my temper.  I'm not an outward temper looser.  Like, you don't have to be worried if you are around me and I loose it.  You may not even notice.  I really don't do it that  often.  When I loose my temper, I loose it on the inside.  You might see my neck tendons stick out a bit, maybe my teeth gritting (if you are looking closely), possibly some wide eyes and clenched fists, but that's probably it.  So it doesn't seem that bad from the outside, but inside... oh, inside, it's bad.  I never knew how bad until I actually hurt myself doing this inside-temper-loosing.  And God is using it to teach me a serious lesson.   It was a normal day with two kids... (did not mean for that to sound like the beginning of a "Rescue 911 episode, but I'll go with it)... only I was tired and already on edge.  I was just looking forward to the hour that I might get to have alone with both kids sleeping as I took Abram into the kids' room where Selah

Abram had his first swim lesson today!  It was a grand success. By the end of it, he just wanted to swim "by his own self" and wasn't very interested in kicking, paddling, bubbles, etc.  I'm just glad he wasn't afraid of the water. Definitely not afraid. And being the incredibly sweet and thoughtful brother he is, when he discovered how much fun it was he kept yelling to Selah; "Come on Selah!  Come swim with me!"  So Sel and I got in at the end.  Didn't get any pics of that.  But she monkey glued herself to my side and as long as she was there, she was absolutely loving it too. So excited we are getting to do these lessons and our friends have this pool.  We may have a coupla water babies on our hands!

Many, many things have changed "around here" since I've been gone.  We were in a holding pattern for our move from Sharjah to Fujairah for almost a month.  Things got packed and moved, expecting to be able to move, only to experience delay after delay and obstacle after obstacle.  We finally had  to move the day our lease ran out in Sharjah.  So we are ultimately glad that we had it for the little extra time that we did, because we needed it!  Occupying them while I packed boxes for the move (I think we didn't move for two weeks after this). Don't judge me.  We took the kids to a friend's house across the street while we were packing.  When I picked them up, there wasn't room for their car seats in the back.  So for a one minute car ride across the street, these two cuties got buckled in the front together and shared a pretzel.  And I prayed the entire time.  A trip to Ikea for necessities and hot dogs to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Sela

Today was one of those days.  It was actually more like two of those days rolled into one.  The morning was a "Really?!  I mean, really?!" kind of morning.  And the afternoon was a "Wow, the Lord is so good and faithful" kind of afternoon. Even though the city we live in says  that they aren't doing scheduled power outages this summer, we have just happened  to have a power outage the last three Mondays at almost exactly  10am.  The first few I was extra annoyed, because they were in the middle of Selah's morning nap and the sound machine that we have to have running while she is sleeping and the fan that keeps her room relatively cool both shut off and she woke right up, of course.  This week, we have transitioned to one nap a day, so she wasn't sleeping during this morning's power outage and I wasn't as frustrated.  But when the power hadn't come back on after 30 minutes like it usually does, I was getting a little exasperated.  And ho

I would be a horrible parent if I documented every single step that Abram took in blog-land and failed to mention anything about Selah's verbal and mobile developments as of late. She has officially taken steps!  The most she has ever done is five in a row, but it's usually two or three before she lunges herself forward and falls, sometimes quite dangerously.  I would never have predicted this, but Abram was my cautious kid, who took one month to actually start walking.  When he did, he hardly ever fell forward or lost his balance.  I think it's because he wanted to make sure that he could do it well before he did it.  Selah, on the other hand, is more than happy to try over and over again, every time catching herself with those little hands on the hard ground and sitting right up to look for the clapping and smiling.  She still can't (won't?) just stand up by herself without first pulling up on something or someone. But she can stand unassisted now and control

I mean a Quinn planned  date.  I am notorious for shooting down ideas.  In general.  But specifically when it comes to Quinn's date ideas.  I am not proud to admit this and it's convicting to actually type that out, because it's obviously not an admirable, or even likable trait.  It's ultimately sin on my part, since it comes from a control and comfort idol.  I want what I want and what I know and makes me feel safe. This has become glaringly apparent as our list of dates we've been on since moving here eight months ago is a long list of Festival Centre (read: Ikea) outings. So my first step in getting rid of that unfortunate personality trait, was to really let Quinn plan our fifth anniversary date and just be agreeable and do everything he suggested.  Our anniversary was June 15th, but we ended up going out July 3rd, because my mom is here and could babysit the kids starting earlier in the evening (because she could feed  them and put them down much easier than