playing church

Below are pics of the girls playing "church." Ayden lined up the chairs and they sang together, collected the offering and then read scripture together, she even called Addie up and one point to pray, too cute! Just a little funny, since we haven't been in a church building now for 2 years. But she still thought the chairs should be in a straight line you should stand for some songs and sit for others, and of course she didn't mind telling her sister what to do. She even went and got change for them to put in a basket for the offering.
Guess if they are going to pretend, this is what i want them pretending. The funniest part was when she read out of the Bible to them she had to make sure that Addie and Annielynne were on the right page, (they can't read yet.)

And of course afterwards there was dinner on the grounds! They had to sit in the "church" chairs and eat their pizza!

Shots!

Since leaving America our children have not had vaccines. So we decided to catch them all up while we are here and it is a bit cheaper! I think Annielynne needed 7, Addie I think had 6 and Ayden only need 3. We did these all over a two or three week span and with 3 dr. visits. But we are all caught up now, except for Kirk and I still need one more. We also had to have blood test just to make sure everything is good. Getting blood from little girls is not an easy thing! They did great through the first set of shots, no tears!!! But after having to get blood drawn the second and third set of shots wasn't near as fun for poor little Addie. They had a really hard time getting the blood and then they had a bad test and we had to go back the next day and they had to redo it. Not fun!!! So for the last set of shots Kirk had to hold her down while she was screaming, it was crazy and a far cry from the first set when they were all excited to be going to the doctor. It was so funny the first time they went, they were really excited to be going, crazy kids I have!!! I guess since it had been almost two years since they had seen a doctor they forgot what it was really like. But Ayden even after the shots and blood being drawn she was still all about it, wanting to watch everything, she says now she wants to be a nurse! She loves watching Abram get his check up and shots. Crazy girl!!!

new Abram stats

Went to the doctor yesterday for his 5 month check up
Weight 8.6 kg or 19 lbs 97 percentile
length 66 cm or 26 inches 95 percentile

all is good with him, he is just growing too fast!!!
He had two more shots yesterday, he hardly cries, he is the
easiest baby. He cried for about 15 seconds, the amount of
time for the them to put the bandaid on and me to pick him up.

going

Annie lynne is our child that loves "to go." If we are going anywhere she wants to go. She walks to the store with Kirk or I every time we go. Here she and Kirk and walking to the store together.

more b-day pics

Yesterday morning we our cinnamon roll b-day pic. and annielynne got her present that her sisters pick out. She had been wanting a friend for her dog "red rover" so now we have rusty. I had to be a little creative with the wrapping paper since I didn't have any. The girls put him in a pillow case and then we wrapped it in wax paper. we had also ran out of tape so we stapled the wax paper to make it stay! Good thing she is still to young to notice or care about any of that.
Last night we had some people over and we sang happy b-day and we had found these candles here that are more like fireworks, big sparklers! She loved it, no one could get too close to the cake, but the girls loved watching the show!
She had a great 4 year old day!

annie lynne is 4

Annie Lynne's b-day was yesterday, but since we were going to be busy we went on Sunday night to this little place that had these few little rides. Nothing great, but she loved it. The girls got to ride four or five rides and even though Ayden was a little big for some of them, she still had lots of fun. Kirk was a little concerned about the upkeep of these rides but they were never more then a few feet off the ground so we figured they were okay. Of course, the swing ride was the favorite, it went the fastest and highest!
Below is Annie lynne eating her special meal. She got to choose the place and she picked Burger King, she wanted a "cheese booger" We were going to get her a kids meal (a special treat) but they were out of toys, go figure! but she had her own tray with her burger, french fries, and drink. the rest of us were sharing meals and drinks and she said, "mama, I can share my drink with you." I said "no, today is your b-day you get your own!" She got this huge grin and said, " i don't have to share with anybody! She was so excited!"

everyday stuff

School time!!! The girls have done great doing school this year. Below we made feather pens and used berry juice to write. We are doing Am. history this year and they love it!



This park is really close to our house, it is really nice to have close! Hard to believe that Addie and Annie lynne almost balance each other, i think they are only about 3 pounds apart!


One of our Christmas presents last year was an e-reader, here is addie reading one of the books we put on it for him. I think we will start using the e-reader a lot with school. Kirk even found one of his books for school that he could load, saved a lot in shipping cost!!! And you can get books from the library which will be a great help with homeschooling!!!


So thankful for technology!!! Annielynne and Brogan are making faces at each other as we talk on skype together.
What did people do before skype???

abram

Abram in his red neck swing! We didn't want to buy anything since we are here for such a short time, so Kirk just hung his car seat up for him. He loves it and i love having somewhere to put him. He sleeps great in that thing!!! The only thing we have to watch is how hard the girls push him! oh yea, it is tied up with broken jump ropes, sure hope it holds :)




Abram is finally turning over, On September 18th he finally flipped over, below are pictures of the day before when he was trying to and then he would get mad so we would just turn him over!
Also thankful for big sister, a few day later I realized I never wrote down when he turned over and I couldn't remember what day it had been on, luckily Adyen had written it in her journal! Glad one of us is keeping up with things!

abram's update

Today he went for his 3 month visit
weight 7.9 kilograms or 17.4 lbs 97 percentile
height 64 cm or 25.2 inches 95th percentile
head circumference 40.5 cm or 15.9 inches 50th percentile

He is growing so fast!!!



almost as big as my sister!

Abram's first cultural experience

I went out walking today with a friend, we went to another area of the city to just walk and pray. Right before we were about to catch a taxi we were invited into a home. It was an interesting experience all the way around and Abram got to have his first cultural experience. After we had been there a while it was time for Abram to eat, I asked the mom of the family if there was another room I could sit in to feed him as here in Jordan men and women visit together so her husband and sons were in there with us. She took Abram and was leading me to another room and she realized his diaper was really wet. So as she is walking down the hall she unbuttons his clothes and takes his diaper off and throws it on the floor. Then she brings him into the bathroom to wash him. Instead of wipes they just run them under water. So she sticks his booty under the cold water and uses her had to wash him all over down there (using no soap) and then uses the same hand and washes his face and head. Of course, he is screaming through this. Then she brings him in the room and lays him on the bed and I had by now gotten out the burp cloth to dry him with so she dries him and then proceeds to tell me the way his diaper was was wrong and she show me how to put on a diaper correctly. (i was thinking, I do have 4 kids) But I didn't say anything, she then shows me how to fold a cloth diaper and tell me that would be better. which i'm sure it would, but I do not want to clean that!!!
Anyway, it was so funny and Abram survived.

The family itself was interesting to visit with, they knew no english, so it was a challenge but it was good Arabic practice, something I have not gotten a lot of since being in this country. The mom and dad had been married for 30 years and they got married when she was 13 and she has had 10 kids, but one died. So know they have 9 and most of them live in that house still. It was a little weird for me because in our other country the men would never have stayed in the room but here we visited with the whole family. Of course, finding out we were American they wanted us to help their children find American spouses, always something we are asked. But please remember this family, we gave them our number, but I don't know if they will call, but when I had the mom alone, while i was feeding Abram, she told me that it has been a hard 30 years, i don't think they have a very happy marriage. Hopefully we will be able to talk to them again and tell them more about where true Joy comes from and that there is a God that loves her.

Addie's tooth

Last Wednesday Addie lost her first tooth eating an apple.
She was soooo EXCITED!!!!!!

Pyramids

The Pyramids! Really amazing to see! Of course, the girls favorite part was the carriage ride, and probably mine too. It would not have been fun to carry Abram around and try to hold on to the girls in the hot sun.







Climbing on the Pyramids. The girls were really disappointed they thought they could climb to the top, especially Addie, our little monkey. They did make it about three big rocks high before the guard came over and made them come down a little :)

more of Egypt

Our last night there we went out to eat with Mandy and we actually ate at TGI Friday's; it was great to have some American food, but the really neat thing was we at on a boat that was docked in the Nile River. Just amazing to sit there and think of all the history!

Ayden, our little book worm. I finally made her put the book down so she could at least see the Nile and we talked some about how cool it is that we have gotten see the river; but then she went back to reading!

The girls had been wanted to ride in one of these little taxis call "tuttuts." They don't go up and down the main roads, but instead just up and down the side roads and back into the neighborhoods. The girls loved it, it is small but you can cram as many people as you want in there! The next picture is just a better view of what the "car" looks like.



one more pic from the village, of course this mummy is just a replica but we saw plenty of real ones in the museum. guess you really can't go to Egypt without seeing one!

more from the village

This was one of the girls favorite things!!! Ayden especially liked the eye liner!
and you really can't go to Egypt without getting a Pharaoh mask!