A card to go down in history

From my parents to celebrate Valentine's Day 2011:

"Daughter- You sure have grown up!"

"You almost never pull your dress up over your head in public anymore."

Being around two little girls all the time, I now understand how great of an accomplishment and milestone this is.  I can't wait to give Norah a Valentine's Day card like this in the future. ;)

A Smile

This picture brought a smile to my face today while thinking about the past 5 1/2 months:

Taken by Gloria :)

In the Fridge

I opened the fridge the other day and look what I found...

We always name our eggs.  After all, it's very important for every egg to have an identity.  But thanks to Kate Wright, let's take a closer look:

Do you see what I see?

Dancing Shoes

I may have not been very straight forward about this... but J-Town, Aliza and Norah are not the only kids in Dubai.  They aren't the only talented kids here either.  I know, it's a big day and big news.

For instance, our friend Kalea loves to dance...

And Aliza and I were privileged to sit in on one of her great performances.

Beautiful ballet Kalea!  Beautiful!

Carrefour on a Friday

When you move to a different country things are different.  That's obvious.  But with every new culture comes new tests.  I've been subjected to a few tests, but none compared to going to Carrefour on a Friday afternoon.... accompanied by two small fries.  Carrefour is a grocery store and I had to make a special Friday trip a few weeks ago because I was making something for a party.

You can see the massive amount of people behind the cart housing the girls.  All I can say, still after a few weeks have passed, is... "Wow."

All to their credit: the girls did an amazing job being in such a crowded, over-busy place before even getting to eat lunch that day.  They are the real troopers!

Gloria later explained to me that we all go through these tests and soon there will be new people around that I can do the same thing to.

In her words, it would be "luring an unassuming victim into something that is seemingly harmless and ordinary only to discover that it takes special skills to navigate the C4 on Friday."  I like those words, it's the way I felt... except I wasn't lured, I went willingly.  What was I thinking?

Do I now have the special skills?

YES

Will I ever willingly put myself in that situation again?

NO

Our First Airplane: The Stingray

Does anyone recognize this face?....

It's the face of a flying machine.  A Captain's face.

There is a captain inside each one of us and you'll be happy to know that Yaya discovered hers today.

Because of this beauty:

The Stingray

Courtesy of the Gonyea-Alexanders!

Here she is flying:

The plane must have been really flying because I could never get a real picture of it in the air.

But look how Yaya has her arm extended...  She's a real Captain of the Air now.

"Where's J-Town...

in all this hub-bub?" you ask.

Patiently...  Patiently...  Patiently...  Waiting and watching us.

How "Yaya" Sees "Shoes on Wrong"

This must be how Yaya sees her sister, who I like to call Shoes on Wrong...  After all, she's the one who took the pictures.

I've made a conclusion after seeing these.  I need to spend most of my time on my knees scooting around, so that I can get a daily taste of their perspective.

Ice Skating

After our outing at the park, the girls and I usually head to the mall to do some banking and some drinking of coffee.  I'm really the only one who enjoys the actual drinking of the coffee, but they really like the snacks.  

Last week, after resting at Starbucks we had to run a few errands in the mall.  I was pushing Norah in the stroller and Yaya was ice skating through the mall in front of us...

I have the proof:

The picture above shows a highly technical double camel lux jump slide.

I will say, Yaya made quite a few peoples' days as she was ice skating through the mall.  You can't see the faces of the people in this picture, but I could and it was priceless.  They were looking at her as if she were an angel.

This one is really blurry, but you can tell how fast she was ice skating.

Encouragement to Artists of the Wool

Knitting and Crocheting have become one of my favorite past times over the last few years.  But as an encouragement to others who would say, "I want to learn something new, but I get discouraged when my skills don't improve quickly," I would like to show you the truth:

I once felt the same way...

During a recent skype conversation my father commented on the harsh cold that Connecticut has been experiencing this winter, but added that he had the perfect thing to fight the cold.  Then he held this up:

My first crocheted scarf:

Now, if you're somewhat like me and like to give people the benefit of the doubt... let me point out something.

The scarf does not taper towards the top of this picture because it is further in the background.  It's not moving towards the vanishing point of this picture at all, it's being held straight up...

Notice the image below:

That is the middle of the scarf, but don't worry... It gets bigger again towards the other end.

Dad, thanks for being so gracious and continuing to wear this scarf with pride.

I love you!

Over-abundance

Sometimes I wonder if I should post something more than once a day because I have an over-abundance of subject matter to talk about.  Just this morning something priceless happened.  Imagine with me:

Scene:  I was sitting in my room, playing worship songs on the guitar.

Action:  All of sudden I hear a knock on my door and respond, "Come in."  Aliza enters.

Priceless happening: I finish the song I'm singing as Aliza listens and then she asks me if she can play my guitar and sing.  She says, "What do you want me to sing?"  I tell her the beginning of the verse of a song and she responds, "A different way?"  Meaning: Do you want me to maybe get part of what you just said into a song that I make up on the spot.  "Yes!"  I say.

Here are some of the things she sang to me:

I gave her the words "We are hungry"
She sang:

We are hungry, we need food to eat.
The curtains do not need food.
We are thirsty, God gave us a drink.
When the storm came we were in the boat,
We dropped him in the water.

I'm not sure who "him" is in that verse...

Next verse:

Lord I want more of you,
We are special.
We are the Lord's special.
You are the glasses that came for the sin in our heart.

That last line is very deep: glasses help us see things and give sharpness to the blurriness in our lives.

Final verse:

We hope Baby Judson gets bigger with you.
It's a different job to watch our children.
We are the girls, we are listening about the thing.
We are the family of the cross,
You gave us everything You mind about.
You gave us the chore and the truth from You.

See what I'm talking about: an over-abundance.

Self-Portrait

I could have stopped with yesterday's post, but there are a few more pictures that really made me laugh when I discovered the 150 pictures Yaya took with my camera.  If you can't treasure pictures, why have a camera, right?  Yaya gets that.  She must treasure the pictures she takes.

Here is a series I like to call Self-Portrait:

I call this Dragon Face

Very deep, can you tell what it is?

An Abstract Series

I love turning my camera on and finding pictures that Yaya took without me knowing.

Here is her most recent abstract series:

Lilah and Henry

Yesterday I got to see not just one of my favorite little people on the planet, but two.  Yes two!  It made my day and filled my week with joy!

Here they are: Lilah and Henry!!!  (They make the best faces!)

You Get More Than You're Paying For...

That's for sure.  Every time I venture into a mall here, I go with that expectation.  Currently, Dubai is celebrating Dubai Shopping Festival which makes the above statement even more true.

This is what I saw the other week when I was at the mall:

A Drumline and Light Show.

Definitely more than I paid for since I was just stopping by to get a pair of socks...

Valentine's Day

Even though none of us are really big on Valentine's Day here, it was important to celebrate the occasion with a few honored traditions this past weekend.

The first one of those traditions was.... Valentine's SHOEBOXES!

I helped Aliza and Norah decorate them.  (If you see Yaya or Norah- Don't tell them these shoeboxes were meant to house all of the Valentines that people gave them... because they didn't get any, but at least they have shoeboxes with holes at the top... just in case.)

Yaya's had a very nice garden theme.

And Norah's had a very nice monster theme, but as you can see she got a little bit distracted and started decorating her baby with the stickers instead.

But then we got back on track...

And of course the second honored tradition is a rose and a valentine from my father:

Gig knows how to treat his ladies!

I'm sure that rose was actually for my mum, not me...  but I wouldn't say that to him of course.

Suddenly, during the second tradition something unexpected happened:

Baba and Gig started singing...

"I've Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher

Baba even had jingle bells in her hand...

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Moments Like These...

that you want to capture forever.

Here's more of Norah's second birthday party!!!

J-Town showed up in style and alertness...

And so did some of our friends, The Jones.

I don't think they were counting on the party being so much fun though:

Sam especially had no idea, until Yaya and Liam started jumping on him.

But Sam made it out okay and got to see Norah blow out her candles!

And everyone ate cake!

Including Yaya, she needed it after she used up all her energy jumping on Sam.