How you know your kid lives in Lebanon

1) they sing songs in French they learned in school, and songs in Arabic they learned at church, and French songs translated into English they learned at school

2) they pretend they are the U. N on their plasma cars

3) they don't have school Friday because of All Saints Day, and no school Monday for the first day of Ashura ( Shiite Muslim holiday )

4) while playing in the sand box with a neighbor; his mom speaking to him in Norwegian , I'm speaking to the other mother in Arabic, while speaking to my kids in English 

5) Jonas asks to go to the bathroom at school by saying "khlas toilet" khlas means "stop it" one of his few Arabic words he uses combined with toilet = sentence 

Halloween in Lebanon

We went to a Halloween themed birthday party this weekend. We had a great time.  If it is not clear, Christy was a pirate, Jonas Spider-Man, Zaki a cowboy, Bill his horse and Anna-Lena a parrot. 

Just one of them days

Just cleaned the stove and decided to make myself a pot of tea. Whaaa whaaa whaaa

Their first movie

We were suppose to camp out this weekend.  But after batteling a cold all week almost no one was up for sleeping outside. (No one who got a vote anyway) I felt bad, literally and for canceling a fun time with friends, so we joined our friends for plan B.  "Partly Cloudy with a chance of Meat Balls II 3D", which for kids this age the 3D is a waste because they don't like to wear the glasses.  They were so cute, and I had just enough energy to enjoy it.  When I asked Zaky what his favorite part was, he replied "when that boy was running away from the animals and climbed up the tree in the jungle" (this was the commercial for Tarzan coming at the end of the year!) Ha ha!! As all good Aunts have taught me, we had pop corn and a purse with goodies.

My Way

She often gets her own way!

Anna -Lena's new room

Bill is all done painting this beautiful mural, then I (Christy) go and stick butterfly stickers on the other wall. Bill was not pleased but I think it finished off the room. She is scheduled to move out of our closet after I clean the carpet.

Birthday card

She enjoyed her birthday card from grandmama and grandad, but in a different way then she will twenty years from now.

First day pics

Sayings

Grandmom Bowers started a game while she was here of telling Jonas "your a shmujins pookins" Jonas would respond "no your a mukins shapookins" and so on. So the boys now play this with us and each other. The other day Jonas was saying "mama your woobie sahoobie", I respond "no your a hoobie"Jonas comes back with "no your a boobie, no I'm a boobie" ( seeing he does not yet know the meaning of this word, I chuckle a bit then calmly tell my 3 year old, "no your not a boobie".

We were walking Dow the street the other day when Zaky asked "what are those lasers doing there?"  Then I looked a little closer to notice these red ropes, and yes they did look like lasers. Love his imagination.