Caleb Update

On any given day, you can catch Caleb pretending to be lots of animals, monsters, bugs, robots, you name it. His imagination is going wild, and we love all the creative things he comes up with. If you know Caleb, you know he can talk...from the time he wakes up, to the time he crashes. It's a great thing, and lately he has been saying some really funny things. He likes to tell stories and even starts them with 'Once upon a time.' He tells jokes, and he really likes to change the words in a funny way to songs. He's a pretty funny kid!

Caleb loves to be read to, and he is doing great with his alphabet. He knows all the letters and what sounds they make, and he likes to come up with words that start with a certain letter. He likes to count, and we often find him counting things around the house. His arabic teacher told us that she will hold up a flash card with an arabic number, and he can match the card with the right number of objects. He knows a few of the arabic letters, shapes, and colors too. Caleb likes to play. These days we see the boys running around more and more laughing about something, be it hid and go seek, or just chasing each other around. He is a great big brother, and understands that Ben really does watch and mimic the things he does. Caleb also loves his movies, and he especially enjoys getting to pick a movie that he watches for a little while at night after Ben goes to sleep.

Caleb loves going to preschool. It may not always seem like it when we drop him off, but just about every day when we pick him up he asks if he can stay longer. He likes his teachers Ms. Carla and Mrs. Eman, and all of his friends. His teachers said that he is friendly and gets along with everyone in class. Some of his favorites he likes to talk about at home are Khalid, Sami, Donna, Wyatt, and Musa. Thursday was their last day of school for winter break, and they had a surprise visit from Mother Goose. He loves nursery rhymes, and when I asked him what he told Mother Goose, he said, "there is no Christmas in Kuwait." The preschool director told me that when I picked him up and she said everyone was laughing. I was a little embarrassed to be honest, because most people at his school are Muslim. We have never told Caleb there is no Christmas in Kuwait, but I know I have said to others that there are no open signs of Christmas in this country. Lesson learned, little ears are listening!

Caleb is really becoming a big boy. He is doing great with using the potty, and will use it anywhere which we are thankful for. He recently began asking for potty treats again, even though he has been trained since August....did I mention that he is getting clever too! At our physicals last week, Caleb weighed in at 26.5 lbs (one pound heaver than Benjamin), and 3 feet 3 '' tall. He is still about 3% on the growth chart, which has been his norm since infancy, and he has jumped to 25% on the height (from typically 10%). 

Caleb is fun, clever, playful little boy that always puts a smile on our faces. We love you Caleb!

#IAMKUWAIT and Bryan Peterson

Yesterday evening, I attended Bryan Peterson's photography workshop that was hosted by Nikon Middle East. He gave a great workshop called COLOR, and had endless examples of remarkably creative photos that he used to give photography tips and share some techniques. After the workshop, the #IAMKUWAIT photography contest winners were announced. The winning photographs were incredible! The winner first was Bryan Peterson's choice.

 The second winner was Nikon Middle East's choice.

 And the third winner was the people's choice (Facebook). This photograph received over 6,000 likes, whoa! They were all fantastic photographs, and it was fun to see the creative pictures people took around the country. I was not a finalist, but I had a great time at the event and got a lot of inspiration from Bryan's presentation.

And, of course I have no shame! Before the event started, I walked right up to Bryan and introduced myself and talked to him for a little while about a book he wrote called Understanding Exposure, that I recently read. I do think he was excited to see and American, I may have only been the only one at the event. He was a very nice man, and I even got my Nikon hat and shirt autographed :). A very inspirational evening, and hope to put some of the things I learned to practice soon!

 

Christmas Festivities and Friends

We had a full weekend of Christmas festivities and friends. This year it has been a lot of fun for Caleb to begin grasping holidays and their meaning. In the evenings, we read the boys a Bible story, and we have been reading about baby Jesus recently. When you ask Caleb what Christmas is about, he says Baby Jesus. He also thinks about Santa Claus, presents, and candy canes too, but we are thankful that he does know, though not understand yet, the meaning of Christmas. This weekend, we had a Christmas service at church. We sang carols, and then re-enacted the story of Jesus's birth. I was Mary and Ben was Baby Jesus…and it was a plan B performance!

Ben was great sitting through the songs and service, until about 30 seconds before it was time for us to go up. What you do not see is him whaling at the top of his lungs, for literally 5 minutes straight. If you know Ben, you know this is not characteristic of him at all. People laughed and thought it was funny, and eventually during the song, Mary Did You Know, he stopped crying. Turned out it was a dirty diaper that was bothering him. Even with all the crying, it was a nice depiction of Jesus's birth, who has come to save all who believe in Him, from all of our sins. I am so thankful for the church community we have, for the ability to worship in a place that is not free, and for the wonderful people that we have met here from around the world.

That afternoon, our friend Abeer and her two boys came over to play.  Caleb and Firas were like two peas in a pod and played so nicely together. When we first met them, shortly after arriving in Kuwait, Benjamin and Faris were only 5 and 7 months old, and Caleb and Firas were barely 2 & 3. Now they run around, laugh, and play together so well. It's amazing to see how much they boys are growing an changing. 

We had a pizza party at the house, then went to our neighborhood park to play. One thing I love about living here, is the beautiful sunsets just about every night!

Faris is a fun and handsome little two year old.

The boys traded a plasma car for a scooter for the week:)

Double trouble on the swings!

                                      

Abeer is such a loving and sweet mom. I love watching her with her boys. It was a fun day, and we are going to enjoy the remaining time we have with them before moving this summer.

Tes was up before the sun came up this morning to prepare a Christmas meal of Pancit, a traditional Philipino dish, for run-away Philipino women that live in a safe house close by. Tes has such a big heart, and it was so kind of her to prepare the special meal for these women who are in great need.

 Next, we went to a friend's 5th Batman birthday party at one of our big malls. This place was a kids paradise of games, toys, and candy. Caleb was asleep the first half of the party, but that didn't stop us from getting his face painted in his sleep after Ben was done :).

 Ben was cute and enjoyed some of the games. When the sang happy birthday, he must have gotten scared and began crying. But a ballon will always cheer him up.

 There was a monstrous ball pit and climbing structure that the boys…and mom enjoyed.

 And Caleb found a rocket ship to take him to outer space.

 After the Batman party, we did a quick change and headed to the Embassy for the Christmas party and visit with Santa. The boys did such a nice job practicing their Santa smiles.

I'm not sure what happened because there were no smiles for Santa, but there were also no tears, so it was a success!

 Bye, bye Santa.

 It was potluck, so we had lots of great food, time to enjoy with friends, a big bouncy castle and field for kids to run around.

True buddies :).

 It was a full, fun festive weekend for us all!

Benjamin Updates

A couple of weeks ago, we had parent-teacher conferences at the boys' pre-school. Both boys had got a great report, and today I'll tell you all about Benjamin.

Benjamin has developed and changed a lot since starting pre-school. He loves going to school, and just about every morning he gets out of the car, puts his backpack on, and goes right inside without even giving us a hug or kiss! Benjamin's teachers adore him, and say he is the sweetest boy in the class. He loves to hug and kiss his teachers goodbye and wave bye to all of his friends.

 The biggest change we see is how much more he can communicate with us. He likes to repeat words he hears, and he is good at letting us know his needs and wants. Benjamin loves to sing, dance, build, do crafts, and color. His teachers said he always wants to help with craft time, and really he just likes to help out with anything going on around him.

He doesn't look thrilled in this pictures, but Benjamin loves stickers and stamps! Most days when we pick him up, he has stamps all over his arms and face and stickers all over his shirt. He'll do just about anything for a sticker these days :). Maybe we will have 2 kids out of diapers before leaving Kuwait...

Benjamin loves to play outside, and he is turning into quite the little monkey. He likes to swing high and fast, go down the slide, and climb all over things.

Benjamin is growing, growing, growing. He is 2 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 25.5 lbs, only one pound behind his big brother. We love our sweet big boy to pieces!

#IAMKUWAIT

The other night on Facebook, I stumbled upon a Nikon photography contest called ‪#‎IAMKUWAIT‬, for people living in Kuwait taking pictures of Kuwait. The contest is being judged December 11 - 15 by Nikon, world famous photographer Bryan Peterson, and popular vote on Facebook, and the winner receives a Nikon D750 DSLR camera. I've never entered a contest like this before, but thought why not?!

I submitted a photo that I took of a foggy sunset at Mutla Ridge in January of 2014. Mutla Ridge is the highest point in Kuwait at a whopping 306m, and is located 8km south of the Iraqi border. The ridge is famous for its role at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, as the road that the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. Today, people enjoy visiting the ridge to admire the natural rock formations and ripple sand, mountain bike in the winter, or explore the ridge by 4WD. It's a pretty awesome place to visit!

I'm really not counting on anything coming of this, but it was fun to enter. We'll see what happens on December 16th :).

'Tis the Season

I love this time of the year, when we begin preparing for the Christmas season. Where we live, there are no overt signs of Christmas. It is kind of an odd feeling, but it makes the meaning of Christmas even more special to me. Admittedly, we have had our tree and some decorations up since the day before Thanksgiving :). Here are the boys helping decorate the tree.

And you can guess what happened next…

We cleaned up and moved on.

Our tree is top-heavy with breakable ornaments, but there are plenty for the boys to play with down low, and in the middle too!

 We enjoyed putting some of our holiday favorites on display.

 And this year we got an Advent calendar to count down the days till Christmas.

Stockings are hung.

And some accents are out and about around the house. Christmas movie watching is in full effect. Tonight we watched Polar Express for the first time, and the boys loved it!

I love walking into our decorated home during this time of year. Feeling thankful for the start of this season, and enjoying spending evenings together in our cozy home.