Wow, what a haul!

Here are two very happy little girls with all of their presents. Having a great day here in Qatar. Hope you all are too!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

The sun has set on the Middle East and the little ones have just gone to bed. We've opened our Christmas jammies, opened and read the book from Oba and Oji (thanks guys!), left reindeer food out for the reindeer and a trail of glitter to lure Santa to our door and left a plate of cookies for Santa along with a personalized note written and illustrated by Maya. Not much left for Brian and I to do but wait for the little ones to drift off to sleep. Christmas is the best when there are small children in the house! Happy Holidays to all!

Cookie Tree

Ok here is the finished product! Maybe it lists a bit to one side and maybe I photographed the best side, but we sure had fun. Now I just have to keep the kids from eating it before Brian gets home!

Year in Review

I'm going to try to do this every December. It will be nice to have a 1 page sum up to our year. Wow we were busy this year. I hope all of you had as much fun as we did in 2009!

Making Cookies

I found this super cute kit the other day and thought the girls and I would have a lot of fun making this tree. We got all of the stars cut out and they are in the oven! Can wait to get them all cooked and start the decorating. Will post the final product later, no matter what it looks like!

Merry Christmas

It is expensive to send cards from overseas, so here is our digital version! Wishing all of our Family and Friends the most joyous Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Dressed Up

We were all dressed up and ready for the Christmas Party so I took a few photos of the girls. Here are two I really like.

Kids Christmas Party

Every year, Brian's work throws a Christmas Party for the kids. Santa was available to hand out presents to all of the Children. Gemma was leery of Santa at first and wouldn't sit on his lap but after she opened her present, she thought he must be a good guy and sat on his lap. She even threw in a cuddle!

Fun at the Park

We are really enjoying the cooler weather. As I type this post, it is 73 degrees out! Yea I know it is a little chilly but we've all got our winter clothes on! Anyway, the other day we took our bikes and went to the park. I love Qatar in the winter.

Qatar National Day

We celebrated Qatar National Day today at Maya's School. They sang several songs and danced the Qatari Sword Dance. We had a great time.

Professional Photographers

I'm sitting here going through all of my pictures from our trip to Sri Lanka. Dad and Brian pretty much had the cameras the entire trip. We have some beautiful pictures. I'm wondering why I have about 30 pictures of this statue. Hummm

We miss you!

Oba and Oji we miss you!

I dare you....

to find something cuter than this.....

Christmas Tree

I wanted to have a tree this year that was Arabic-ish. As much as a Christmas tree could be. Did some shopping around and found some ornaments that looked Arabic to me. Had to tear it apart and start over but I am pretty proud of the end result!

That's My Girl

Today Maya was looking at our little wooden nativity. She looked at me and said, Jesus died a long time ago right? I said yes. She said he must have been veeerrryyy popular because they made statues of him and everything!

Before and After

I know, I'm a little slow. I wanted to do this a year and a half ago but never got around to it. The first picture was taken during the summer of 02 when we visited Brian's parents in Santa Fe, NM. Little did we know we would be living near there 5 years later! So enjoy our before and after shots. Please no comments about Brian and I aging. We are a little bit sensitive!

Halloween

The night before Halloween we went to a party hosted by Bechtel. The girls saw lots of their friends and had a really good time. On Halloween we arranged for the kids to do some trick or treating on our compound. I was amazed at how many people participated. All in all, we had a great Halloween.

Pirate Party

Maya got invited to her friend Euan's Birthday party. It was a pirate theme and I have to tell you without a doubt she was the prettiest pirate there!

New Bike

Boy have I been slacking on my posting. Gemma got a new bike. She had two others but the peddals were up on the front tire and she could never quite reach. So we decided to get her one she can actually ride. She is a crazy girl on this bike and I have a hard time keeping up with her. She calls it her beautiful bike and you can usually catch cugga out for a ride on the back.

Rain Finally!

We finally had some rain here in Doha today. How refreshing.

Ok so it was just Judyfe and I with the hose but the girls loved it. I look at those beautiful faces and I see pure joy!

Jardin De Luxembourg

On our last day in Paris we just took it easy. There was this great play park near our apartment. The girls had a blast. I wish I had better pictures of this one ride thingy. It was a large oval shape and the kids pulled those black round seats up on a platform and sat on it. It was tilted just so the kids would just go flying around that oval like crazy. Scared the life out of me but Maya wouldn't get off of it! They had a great time.

Arc de Triomphe

I was doing so well with my postings but then I fell behind so I'll just take a minute and finish up the Paris Trip.

Paris Disneyland

Wow am I tired. We left the apartment this morning at 8:10 and didn't get home until about 6:45. My feet are killing me. But my kids are happy. We had the best time at Disneyland. The girls were really good, we rode countless rides, ate Mickey Mouse shaped pizza, saw Mickey Mouse, chatted with Snow white and came home. I have no idea how many Weight Watchers points I walked off today but I hope it was a lot. That pizza was really good! Now we are just praying for a LONG night Mommy and Daddy need it!

Louvre

We did it! We braved going to the Louvre with two small, strong willed children today. I have to say that they were relatively good. Of course we did have to threaten them with not going to Disneyland tomorrow! We can now say we have seen the Mona Lisa!