Stickers and Staches....

Benjamin loves stickers! Give him a pack of stickers and they will be all over his body, on papers, and on the walls. 

Here is their bedroom entry wall that's been getting decorated for the past couple of months :)

And don't forget to decorate your closet too!

The boys were excited to get some new sweatpants and sweaters tonight from grandpa and grandma P.

Nathan had a good game of Simon Says going...

And who says little boys can't grow a mustache?

And the highlight of the evening was starting to decorate for Christmas! Stay tuned for more...once we find the rest of our Christmas decorations :).

Happy Tuesday!

Sharing a Thanksgiving Meal

This weekend our church hosted a Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I was so excited they were doing this, because so many people in our church are not from America. While there are some American families, there are also people from Jordan, Canada, UK, Bolivia, Honduras, Germany, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, India, Philippines, China, Japan, Korea, and Australia. I'm sure I'm missing some countries, but this is what I recall. It was wonderful to share this tradition with others from around the world. I made a green bean, cranberry, and almost dish (thank you for the cranberries mom P), stuffing, and two pumpkin pies.

 Some of us arrived early to get the room set up.

 We started the afternoon with worship songs and a Thanksgiving message from our pastor.

 We had a lot of volunteers to serve food to the guests.

 The line was long, but there was plenty of food to go around. In addition to traditional Thanksgiving dishes, people brought many dishes from their home countries. There was plenty of food and even seconds to go around.

 After the meal, we played a Thanksgiving and Jordanian trivia game. We were teamed up by table, and I was the only American at our table. Nathan was outside playing with the boys by this point, and it may have been better to have him on the team and me playing outside. Let's just say one of the Korean guys on our team knew American history a little better than me...kind of embarrassing, but we all had fun.

 And then came the delicious home baked desserts :).

It was a fun afternoon of fellowship and sharing our Thanksgiving tradition with our church family!

Ajloun and more

This weekend we visited Ajloun Castle and took a drive around Jordan. It was a beautiful day to get in the car and go. We got to the castle mid morning and had a couple of hours to explore.

Entrance to the castle.

Boys making sure the walls were sturdy, they sure are, been around for close to 1000 years!

Views from the top.

Tes enjoying the view into Israel.

Heading down, down, down.

Snack break after the castle.

It's the olive harvest time, and we saw a lot of people raking olives out of the trees. We tried to find the local olive press which was apparently down the road, but we could not find it. They say the best olive oil comes from Ajloun. We did buy some manually pressed oil from a small shop, and we all agreed it was the best we have had!

We found a nice place to have a picnic for lunch.

Then look who we found, Uncle Hap! He was in town for meetings, and we had a quick meet-up during his lunch break. Without a doubt, the boys said the best part of their day was seeing Uncle Hap!

Heading out of town, see the castle on top...

We took a different route home though the Jordan valley and went through several small villages.

Approaching the valley

And into the biblical wilderness

There were so many greenhouses along the valley. It was amazing that just a couple hours prior, we were in the mountains and cooler weather and in the valley it is always warm. We turned off on our side of the Jordan river, across from where Jericho is to head back home.

It was a nice day to explore, show Tes around Jordan, see Uncle Hap...and watch an old sports car with monster truck wheels drive like a maniac!

International Day

Yesterday was International Day at the boys school. Kids were supposed to wear National uniforms from their home countries. Well, we didn't have any colonial outfits or Indians, so we stuck to baseball, a good old American sport. The boys rocked their Miami Marlin baseball jerseys and hats - thank you cousin John, and they looked adorable :).

Between the teachers and parents, we received tons of pictures from the class phone chat groups throughout the day. We had to bring in food from their country, and they were both assigned to bring in cupcakes. My attempt at American flag cupcakes :).

The kids looked so adorable in their costumes. In both of their classes it is majority Jordanian and Palestinian, and also kids from Lebanon, Iraq, and a few from America. This is Caleb's class.

And a guy shot. Caleb looks bored in this picture, haha!

All the American's in the four KG classes.

On to Benjamin's class.

The spread of the day. Wish I could have been there to eat all the delicious food!

The boys had a lot of fun at school that day, and we are glad for the exposure they get to so many different cultures.