Animal Friends

Warning:  This post is not for the weak of heart.

Andy and I have at times had animal friends around our house.  These friends are not invited like our dog, Allie or the fish, Princess, Jerry, and Sissy.  Instead these are friends that show up and cause chaos and traps to be set.  We've had rats, mice, opossum with her baby, a snake, ants (previous post on ants), and geckos.  Andy has had fun, anger, triumph, and frustration in dealing with these animals.  He unsuccessfully hunted a rat with a BB gun.  He beat a rat to death with a baseball bat.  He's set loads of rat traps.  He's set out rat poison.  He and I listened and watched while a momma opossum called her baby, put the baby on her back, and then walked away.  I had to get a small, brown snake out of the house while pregnant with Sophia.  Needless to say, I was optimistic that interactions with these types of creatures would not follow us to Dubai.  Everything was fine until a few months ago.

One day while waiting on Andy so we could leave for a date, the first mouse decided to make his appearance.  The mouse ran into the house.  First, I almost hyperventilated.  Then Andy told me to calm down and help him.  Okay.  After several minutes of me jumping from couch to chair and back again, telling Andy where the mouse went, and Andy using a level to poke the little creature out of the house, it did finally run outside through the open front door.  Well what happened not even five minutes later?  That same mouse came inside again!  Same procedure as before.  We shut a bedroom and bathroom door, opened the front door, and my job is to watch the mouse.  After hitting his head on the front door (which was funny), this mouse finally runs back outside the same way he came in.  Through a hole under the sliding glass door.  Andy gets another level and places it in the track of the door and shoves washcloths on either side of the level.  This is our mouse prevention, and it has and is still working. 

How else can a mouse come into the house if our mouse prevention is working?  Well let me answer that for you.  The 3 children that live in my house have a habit of leaving doors open for an extended period of time which in turn invites mice into our house.  On 2 separate occasions a mouse (the same one?) came in through the open back door and Andy and I used our same technique to get the rodent outside.  Nothing spectacular happened these times because we are experts at rodent removal!  Something interesting did happen while we were loading up to come home for Christmas. 

We left the front door open to load up our 5 large suitcases, 5 trunks, and 5 carry on bags.  Unbeknownst to us, a little mouse friend came inside.  We locked up the house and left for our trip.  Two days after we arrived home, Andy abruptly gets up from his chair and chuckles.  He then shuts a bedroom and bathroom door, opens the front door, and says, "Christi, I need your help."  It didn't take but a second to understand that he saw a mouse.  This brown, small creature runs behind a cabinet in the entry way every time he comes inside.  That's where he ran this time, too.  Sophie and I were on the watch for where the mouse would run once Andy started poking at it what the level.  But the interesting thing about this mouse is that he died within a couple minutes of Andy seeing it run behind the cabinet and scratching its back.  Turns out the scratching was really twitching because Andy accidentally squished it while moving the cabinet.  He was then in mouse clean up mode.  He bagged up the rodent and its 2 week mess behind the cabinet.  I was happy that this instance ended quickly, and that I didn't have to be the one calling the play by play for the mouse's whereabouts.  They are fast creatures that can get away from your eyesight quickly.

I'm hoping that this was the same mouse that came in every time.  Positive thinking, right?  If that's the case, then maybe we are now free of animal friends for awhile.  While we were waiting to pick up our food from Pappadeaux's during the wait for our 6 hour delayed flight to come back to Dubai, Boston started talking to a lady about the rats that we had at our previous house.  Now mind you, this is before we got home and had the last run in with the mouse.  Andy tried getting him to be quiet, but there was no stopping him.  He just kept talking and talking.  She laughed, I laughed, and Andy even had a chuckle or two. 

Winter Festival

What's better than seeing a couple hundred kids dressed up in a Winter Wonderland theme sing Christmas songs?  Nothing!!  Especially when 2 of my babies are singing.  I've already told you how proud I get when my kids do something like that, well yesterday was no different.  I was beaming from ear to ear.  Boston and Olivia practiced for weeks to learn the songs, learn their speaking parts, and learn the movements for the songs. 

Boston's video is first.  He is in the 2nd group of kids that come up.  Pay attention to the boy on the far left.  He is too funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FT7UGwGIF0

Olivia's video is second.  She is in the 3rd group next to the boy who is scratching his leg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJG6Fo3fL8Q

The rest of the day was spent riding a camel or canimal as Olivia calls it, eating ice cream, cotton candy, and other treats from the various country booths, and Boston and Olivia got henna on their arms.  Boston has a mean scorpion on his bicep, and Olivia has pretty swirly designs on her hand.   Olivia's present for the end of the day was a .....stomach virus.  Hopefully no one else gets sick before we board the plane on Wednesday.

Conversation With Sophie

Sophie:  (as she's drinking the rest of my Coke)  Mom, mom?
Me:  Yes
Sophie:  That tastes gooood.

Sophia

I'm as proud as a momma bear when my kids do something special.  Sophie had her chance to shine this past Friday at church when her Sunday School class sang "Away In a Manger" and "Jingle Bells."  We were well prepared for the event.  Sophie practiced these songs for several weeks at church and at home.  I bought her new black shoes to wear with a pretty new dress.  The camera was ready.  Sophie even had her own picture session in front of the christmas tree before we left for church.  And most importantly, we left the house with plenty of time to arrive early at church.  I wanted to have the choice of seats near the front, so Sophie could see her proud momma and daddy.

Sophie's class, which consists of 1-4 year olds, walked in with such scared looks on their faces.  Sophie was nervously looking at all the people until she saw Daddy, Mommy, Boston, and Olivia looking excitedly at her.  The kids filed on stage and prepared to sing.  Now I had a pretty good idea of what Sophie would do when it was time to sing because of how she acted at home when we practiced the songs.  What do you know...my baby didn't let me down.  She didn't sing one single word!  She stood on that stage with her body turned away from the audience.  She was facing Andy directly which was good for the video.  Sophie is in the white and black dress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoX-waiyAvw

Enjoy the video.

Changing

In preparation for our upcoming visit to Houston, I thought it would be good to write about how the kids have changed since we moved.  The obvious is that they've all grown, but then there are some new things that aren't so obvious.

Boston
1.  learned to read
2.  learned to tie his shoes
3.  learned to ride his bike without training wheels
4.  learning French
5.  learning Arabic

Olivia
1.  learned to read
2.  very close to tying her shoes
3.  learned to ride her bike without training wheels
4.  learning French
5.  learning Arabic

Sophia
1.  talking more than when we left Houston (interesting conversations with this one)
2.  learned that she is a funny little girl
3.  learned some letters and some counting
4.  learned about time out!
5.  tries to sing the Arabic number song with Boston

Being in Dubai is still sad at times for the kids.  They really miss Allie, our dog.  Allie is a prayer request every single night.  However, they all enjoy their schools, teachers, and friends.  They also love going to the park, swimming, going to the beach, going on a bike ride, and driving their Power Wheels Jeep around the house.  So there is the update for when we come home. 

P.S.  Emily and Wiebe, you'll be able to talk to Boston and Olivia in French and hopefully teach them some more.

Conversation with Sophie

Me:  Sophie, you have clean sheets on your bed.
Sophie:  Sheeps?
Me:  Sheets.
Sophie:  Sheeps?
Me:  No, sheeetttts. (stressing the t)
Sophie:  Ohhh, nice.

Trick or Treat

What's more exciting than dressing up as your favorite of-the-moment character, trick or treating, and getting lots of candy?  Probably not much to kids.  Mine were so excited when their costumes finally came in the mail.  They had to wait a week before they could actually wear them.  Oh, the torture.  Finally Halloween arrived, and boy were they excited.  We came home from school, put on our costumes, and finished getting ready for our mini-party with friends. 

L to R:  Harriett, Annabel, Annika, Olivia, and Sophia

Harriet and Sophia

Lara and Boston added to the group

It was finally time for trick or treating after our mini-party.  Boston had a friend join us and off we all went through the neighborhood.  (He wasn't surrounded by girls the entire time!)  The kids had so much fun looking for the houses that were decorated and asking for candy.  We even had kids ring our doorbell even though I didn't decorate, but I did have candy.  As Boston was going to sleep, he reminded me to continue answering the door and make sure to give the kids some candy.  All in all the kids, their friends, Andy, and I all had a fun Halloween.