Better Late Than Never...BEFORE

Finally, I am getting around to posting pictures of the inside of our house.  This will be the first of three installments:  BEFORE the shipment.  Next we will have DURING, and then AFTER!

This is what our house looked like before our surface shipment arrived, but after the EBox came.  (So it was much emptier before we got the EBox.  Talk about living out of a suitcase!

This is the living room.  The entire downstairs is white tile floor.  It's very loud and echoy!  All the stuff on the floor is from the EBox, as this was the day the Ebox arrived.  Notice our ugly Company-issue living room furniture.  It was so terrible, we let the doggy get on it as much as she wanted.  Also note the bad-bridesmaid-dress-seafoam-green Company issue curtains.  (It's a good bet that everything you see that is ugly in these pictures is Company issue!)

After the Ebox came, we had Fuzzy Blankie again.  Here are the boys lounging comfortably on our Company issue couch while they watch TV. (read: laptop)

Our bedroom.  Yes, this is the bed that had bedbugs.  No, we did not know about the bedbugs at this point. 

We never did hang that mirror in our room.  Figured we were giving it right back as soon as our stuff came, so what's the point?

The boys' room.  Their comforters came in the Ebox, so at least their room looked nearly normal. 

Baby's room.  Apparently, the Company doesn't think the baby needs very much. 

Dining room.  The chandelier is actually pretty nice, and we kept the dining room table and chairs to rent because we would rather let the children destroy a rental table than a new one we buy.  (We did not own one before!  We were borrowing the one in our house.) 

The kitchen is very long and skinny.  It has no windows.  So you will see in a future picture that I painted a picture of a window on the wall over the sink.  As my British next-door neighbor would say, "Brilliant!"

Next up...the shipment arrives!

Another funny sign

Seen in one of the parks on camp:

 

Absolutely NO hooka pipes allowed under the tiki huts!

(But if you want to smoke your hooka pipe on the white bench in the background, that's ok.) 

seen along the road...

Duly noted.

Lawrence's Birthday PARTY

As I was saying, a mere two weeks after Catherine was born, we had 30 people to the house for Lawrence's birthday party.  It was a Truck Party, as my baby boy is enthralled with any kind of vehicle with wheels.  And he knows all the types, too - "Look, Lawrence, a front loader!"  "No, Mama, that is a bulldozer." Dump trucks and garbage trucks usually elicit screams of "Look Look!" and we have really missed not seeing any ambulances or fire trucks or police cars here.  So we had a Truck Party for Lawrence. 

Our house looked great just as everyone began arriving...mostly because Gramama, Grapapa, and Mike did a super job of getting it ready.  Thanks!

Truck Cake - complete with oreo "dirt".  This is not quite as elaborate of a cake as I had planned, but this was the best I could do with our limited resources.  (E.g., couldn't even find red food coloring.)

Neighbors and friends were there!

It was a lovely evening, and we spent the party in the living room, dining room, and patio. 

We ordered pizza for dinner. 

Lawrence knew exactly what to do at the big moment.  He loves to sing Happy Birthday every day, and then he practices blowing out imaginary candles - so he was ready!

Good cake!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike passed out extra dirt after everyone got their cake.

Thanks to everyone who came and help make Lawrence's birthday party a success!  It wasn't perfect, but it went off, and I think everyone had a good time.  Happy Birthday to our big boy!

Hot Hot HOT

Today I walked outside to the patio and noticed that the wax in my tea light candles on the table was melted, even though they were not lit!

A quick phone call to the Time and Temperature line confirmed my suspicion - it was hot!  It was 113 today.  Yesterday was 109.  Lows are general in the high 80s.  But currently it's a dry heat - only 10 or 20 percent humidity - so I think it feels great!  I have been told this will change in the summer, and the humidity will climb up to 100 percent, and that's when it really gets miserable.  I say bring it on!  When we went to get dinner at 6 pm, after the Sun went down, it was still 101.   Lovin' it!

(It's also a convenient sleeping aid for the baby.  Take her outside and it's like a warm blanket - she gets snuggly and falls asleep!)

Lawrence's Second Birthday

 So while I was away from the computer, Lawrence turned TWO!  Such a big boy!  I am both sad and glad about this - sad because he was such a cute ONE, so happy and adventurous, and so much different than this time last year.  Mike and I marvel again at how the transition from ZERO to ONE takes you from small lump to big lump, but the transition from ONE to TWO takes you from lump to real live person!  I hate to leave ONE behind.  But I am also glad because TWO will bring lots more changes, such as potty training (well, it better bring this change, or else!), starting preschool, and skills like being able to put on your own shoes.  We've already had a few doses of TWOs behavior, too - ugh.  But hey, if he didn't act that way, we would think there was something terribly wrong.  So yay for healthy TWOs behavior; I hope he and I both live through it. 

Lawn mower from Uncle William is STILL a favorite!  Thanks, Uncle William!

The day of Lawrence's birthday, we went to Ras Tanura to the beach.  We walked on the beach path, played on the beach, and then went to the snack bar for lunch.  It was gorgeous!  And everyone had a great time.  

Walking (and scooting) up the beach path

The Persian Gulf

I'm going to make a onsie like this for Catherine that says "1/12th"

All my boys

Tuckered out

Also tuckered out.  The "I'm full" dribble of spit up indicates that she is in a Food Coma.  Also notice the Arabic Sprite (pronounced /sup-right/).

I've noticed that when you take pictures of Arabic women, it's hard to tell if they are approaching or receding, since their entire heads are covered.  After careful study, I think these women are receding.  There should be a Doppler Effect law for them.  Perhaps the red head scarf indicates they are redshifted?  I will work on that an equation for that.

Back home after dinner, we ate cake!

Presents were after bath.  The boys wanted to wear their matching glow-in-the-dark rocket ship jammies.  Everett is an enthusiastic helper when it comes to opening presents for someone else! 

Lawrence's two big presents were a monogrammed armchair (yay, embroidery machine!!) and a sand and water table.  Everett decided he needed to sit with Lawrence and hold him in his lap in the new chair...

and read him a story.  Up close. 

The next morning, the sand and water table became a sand and water seat. 

Happy birthday, Buppy!  We love you!

My Return to the Land Of The Living

Hello again from Saudi Arabia!  I am finally back online after a month of ignoring everything but the bare essentials.  Even though we are still overwhelmed and sleep deprived, I have finally decided that it's time to claw my way back to the Land Of The Living and get back in touch with all of our devoted friends and family - if nothing else so that you can see pictures of how much Baby Catherine has grown!

So much, yet so little, has gone on in the past month.  Baby Catherine has gained about 2 pounds over her birth weight (I say "about" because at her one month checkup - which was the first time she had been back to the doctor - they don't do all the 5 day, 7 day, 14 day etc. well baby visits here (!!) - they did not take off her clothes or diaper for the big weigh-in.  She had gained 0.995 kg, which subtracting out a guesstimate about her clothes and her full diaper, comes out to about 2 pounds.) At her low point, she was about 6 pounds at 10 days (we weighed her with a luggage scale), so she gained about 3 pounds in 3 weeks.  Go, me!  She has lost all her wrinkles and has gained some fat rolls, and she has lost that curled up newborn look.  She is just starting to smile, and she coos at us, too.  She is a very good baby - happy and sweet - but she likes to eat every hour or two.  (Hence the weight gain.) (Straight from my hips to your lips, babe.)  Can't wait until she can stretch a little longer between feedings, though. 

Everett and Lawrence presented Baby Catherine with toy after toy while she was lying on the blanket.  Before she knew it, she was surrounded with their favorites!  A Boeing stuffed 747, an alphabet spider, the twinkle twinkle musical star, a pirate bear, Thumper from Bambi, and a raccoon.  Sweet brothers! 

Yeah!  I have so many things to play with!

Gramama and I like to dress her up.  Mike says she is a doll who happens to be alive.  He's right!

This was my dress when I was a baby.

In other news, Lawrence had his second birthday in the middle of the month.  My baby boy is two!  I had a party with 30 people here for the event.  Yes, a huge birthday party 2 weeks after having a baby.  It was fun, but admittedly hard to prepare for.  I will post a blog entry and some pictures tomorrow about his party.

We've had 5 weeks of visitors so far; Gramama and Granpapa were here, and Gramama just left.  We had a wonderful time and were very sorry to see them go.  While they were here, we toured downtown Khobar and did some shopping, showed them the town where Mike grew up and his old house in Ras Tanura, went to the beach two times, and tromped them all over the compound here.  It was busy, but not.  Lots of chores to do around the house, lots of entertaining the children, but most of our time was spent in the house quietly, and only a couple of hours per week outside camp doing errands or trips.  That's pretty normal for us, so they got to see what life is really like here.  Our adventures in the last 5 weeks will be another blog post soon. 

Next up, Grandma and Grandpa are coming on Friday, and we are ready!  We can't wait for them to come!

So now that I've resurfaced in the real world, I will do my best to get back to posting on a regular basis.  I miss everyone that I have not been in touch with for the past month (which means EVERYONE, as I have not talked to anyone at all!) so hugs to you all and bear with me as I try to get back to a normal schedule.

PS Got 3 consecutive hours of sleep last night - hooray!!  Luckily, the sleep deprivation we've been experiencing from having Catherine here is hardly more than an annoyance this time around.   I remember thinking I was going to DIE if I had to wake up again one night after Everett was born.  This time, I think we were already so sleep deprived from moving and having two little ones already that it hasn't thrown us for as much of a loop as I was expecting.  Still, I am looking forward to the day when I actually get 8 hours in a row.  Hopefully not long now!