The View From Here:: September 2008

Eating Bananas in the Window at 5 AM and other random Benjamin Moments

9.22.2008

Life with our almost 2 year old and only boy is never boring and is speeding by way too quickly. Here is the latest photo updates on Benjamin.

Benjamin in Prayer. Quite pleased last week when Benjamin woke from his nap and began to eat lunch that HE reminded ME to pray before he ate!

The infamous "Eating Bananas in the Window at 5 AM" photo. This happens on a regular basis. If it weren't so cute it would make his sleep deprived parents weep. At least he sleeps through the night, right?

Getting no-nos and Getting the arm caught, literally, in the cookie jar! (All the more irrate because mom is taking a picture instead of helping him get his arm out.)

Benjamin with buddy Elijah. We've waited for a year and a half for these two to become buddies and now that they are really clicking, Elijah is moving away! The life of a third-culture kid.

A familiar face. For those of you who've followed our time here, you may remember seeing a picture or two of this young lady. She is Gunay, our kids surrogate single aunt (for those of you who have ever been "the single aunt" or had your kids spoiled by an unmarried aunt, you know what this means) and the kids adore her. She came in the door not long ago and Benjamin ran to the bathroom and got the plastic stool almost as tall as himself and carried it in front of her. He then proceded to climb the stool so he could give her a hug and a kiss. A little Romeo already.

He does a great job of looking sweet and innocent all the while plotting his next move. We love him!

Back to School Days

9.14.2008

Back to school time world wide.

Here are some pictures of the girls' first days of school. Sophie started at the end of August and Annie's preschool began about two weeks later. Needless to say, Benjamin says, "Shoes, On, Bye-Bye" the whole time they are gone!

Annie escorting Sophie up the hill to her school, thus beginning the first day of Second Grade (or Grade Two, for you Canadians).

Happy Days Are Here Again. Sophie is still at that wonderful age when the beginning of a new school year is a highly anticipated event.

Annie and Benjamin with a friend, hanging out in the school yard while the moms and dads pray inside to dedicate the new school year.

Sophie wearing some new duds...a dress is a rare sight for this tomboy!

Annie, waiting for her school to start, practices writing her name "without Sophie's help"

Sophie is awarded with a Student of the Week award in recognition of her Summer Reading Challenge efforts (87 books, and over 1000 pages) and her helpfulness in the classroom.

Sophie and schoolmates singing during weekly Assembly.

Annie disembarking for her first day of school.

Annie with her beloved teacher, Miss Kamala.

Potato-head Fashion Diva

9.12.2008

Annie's only aspiration in life is to be a mom (I LOVE that!) and to her, being a mom means wearing lip gloss and earrings. Below her interpretation of "mom-ness".

...did you catch the fact that the earrings are from Mr. Potato Head? My sister-in-law, Heather, caught it right away. Add that to the tally of things that add up to being a mom --- recognizing random toy pieces separated from their counterparts. It should be game show. I would so totally win...maybe if Heather were my partner!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

9.08.2008

Happy 4 year anniversary to us! Its hard to believe we've been here four years. When we left Canada four years ago to come here, we thought we would be back in Canada this fall. All the more reason why we decided to really celebrate this anniversary in style.

For the parents' celebration enjoyment we all went out to eat to the first restaurant we found here with American cuisine. French Fries, hamburgers, and Chicken tenders were on the menu and we had a great time. Funny to think the first time we ate there (when we visited here 5 1/2 years ago) we only had Sophie, then the next time we ate there we only had the two girls, and now celebrating we got to include Benjamin....It may not seem like a big deal to you guys, but for people who, in a sense, live as nomads, this kind of constancy is pretty great!

So going out to eat isn't the kids idea of celebrating (they'd rather have store-bought frozen chicken nuggets!), we took them to a play park known as "Koala Park" and no, we haven't moved to Australia. They had a super time and hopefully will remember this anniversary for a while to come!

The tremendous threesome enjoying some outside time (without the threat of being rundown by crazy drivers!)