2012 Christmas Card

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It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

I usually have my Christmas decorations up at the beginning of November here because we leave so early in December.  This year we will be in Saudi for Christmas day, so I decided to wait until right before Thanksgiving to put things up.  Yes, I know, it's still before Thanksgiving, but we need all the holiday spirit we can get around here!  :)

Last year, Savannah cried in her swing while we put our tree up- not her happiest experience, so I was looking forward to doing it a much more enjoyable experience this year.  Boy, she did not disappoint!  She was absolutely fascinated with the tree and especially the strands of lights!

Daddy and Savy!

These are cool!

Checking things out!

While getting our tree together we ran into a Christmas light crisis.  Hehe!  Christmas anything is very hard to come by over here.  Our first year here, we were brand new to Saudi and I had to use these terribly tacky chili pepper Christmas lights (the ones Savannah is holding in the pictures) because it was all we had.  Our second year, I was able to find 110 Volt white lights, but I didn't get enough boxes so we could only decorate the front of the tree.  Hey, it was an improvement from the chili pepper lights.  Our third year I looked for more lights, but no luck.  This year, I was so excited when I found 110 V white lights again.  I bought five boxes to make sure we had plenty.  While we were putting up the tree I pulled the first strand out of the box, and then I realized that we had a problem.  Yes, the lights were white, but so was the cord.  We had bright white cords that didn't remotely blend with the tree!  Well, no problem.....I decide to put these away and  just use the lights we've used the past two years (even if the back of the tree wouldn't be covered).   I picked up the first strand and realized that one of the cords had come loose and it would no longer light up.  So, here were my options,  one strand of normal lights, lots of white cord lights, or the tacky chili pepper lights.  Frustrated, I resigned myself to use the white cord lights and try to make the best of it.  Brent forbid me to put the chili pepper lights up again!  So, I got to work.  Oh, boy, it was going to be a stretch to make it look good.  Then, my brilliant husband had an amazing epiphany!  He picked up one of the chili pepper strands and said to himself "What's under the chili peppers."  Who knew that when you pulled the plastic chili pepper off that we would have a perfect beautiful white Christmas light??!!!!  I was so excited!  So we spent the next twenty minute pulling all of the chili peppers off of three strands.

Before

After!  Voila!  My brilliant husband!  

Savannah LOVED the chili peppers!  For some reason she decided that they should go into Daddy's mouth, so she spent the next ten minutes trying to cram as many of them into Brent's mouth as possible.  It was hilarious!

Oh cool!

Have a couple Daddy!

She's smiling and clapping.  :)

Have another Daddy!

Once we got the lights on we were pooped, so we decided to put the ornaments on the next day.

Now the tree is finished, and it brings a smile to all of our faces.  So far, Savannah has done pretty well with it.  She has definitely tried to pull some of the ornaments off, but for the most part she leaves it alone.  She will point to it and give us the look of "What is that thing?"  I will never forget the Christmas light experience, but more importantly the fun we had with Savannah putting up the tree.  :)

The finished product!  This little tree was the one I used in my classrooms.
It has a Charlie Brown quality to it.  :)

A wonderfully crafty friend on the compound decided to add some holiday flare to our restaurant by decorating the Christmas tree there.  Let me tell you..... WOW!!!!  Brent came home from Arabic class talking about it, so Savannah and I decided to check it out the next day.  It was beautiful and it's so nice to see some decor around the compound.  :)

Didn't she do a great job!!!

Savannah thought it was amazing!

Looking at her reflection in one of the Christmas balls.

It makes me so happy to know that it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Murjan Village.  :)

Thanksgiving with our Saudi Family

During the holiday season, it could be really easy for me to dwell on the fact that we are far from family and "missing out" on all of the holiday festivities; however, I am choosing to have a different perspective.  Last weekend we celebrated our fourth (yes, fourth!) Thanksgiving in Saudi Arabia.  Leading up to the big day, I had been reflecting on how many incredible blessings we have in our lives, and how God has providentially taken care of our needs in so many ways.   I am SOOOOOOOOO thankful for our beautiful daughter, Savannah, that the Lord has privileged us to parent.  I am so thankful for an amazing husband who works so hard to provide for his family and then comes home works just as hard to be an excellent father and spouse.  I am blessed with an amazingly supportive family that is willing to facetime at all hours of the day.  :) I am thankful that the Lord has blessed my husband with a great job that he enjoys and has afforded us some amazing opportunities.  The blessing I was most reminded of this year is what I like to call our "Saudi Family."  In His divine providence, God blessed us with like-minded believing friends in abundance over here!  It has been an amazing experience to be a part of each other's lives as we do the Saudi thing together.  We've laughed, we've cried, and we've watched each other's families grow and expand.  So, if I can't spend Thanksgiving with my blood family, my Saudi family is the next best thing!

This year we hosted our Thanksgiving feast here at our house. I braved cooking a turkey for the first time, and I must say it was delicious.  Major thanks go to my friend Cherie for walking me through it!

Thawing it out and brining the day before.

The finished product!  Looks good doesn't it!

Thursday is a weekend day for us, so it was wonderful to be able to relax and enjoy the entire day with family and friends.  Everyone came over about 4:30 and had a fantastic time feasting and hanging out.

Tucker and Savannah

Dancing!

More dancing!

Talking to her PillowPet Unicorn.

Tucker reading to Mr. Bill.

The food was fantastic!  We had lots of great dishes, and more desserts than we knew what to do with. (Aren't leftovers a great thing- especially when it's dessert!)

The Delicious Spread!

The Dessert Table

Dinner!!!!!!  Little girl loved turkey!

Tucker enjoying his Thanksgiving dinner!

The Crew

Just as we had all sat down to dinner, the doorbell rang and we had the most wonderful surprise visitor!!!!  It was Sadju, the driver who took us to the hospital when I was in labor.  Two months after Savannah was born, Sadju went home to India and then returned to Saudi with a new job.  While we were so happy for him, we were so sad to lose such a beloved driver!  Sadju happened to be on the compound and we are sooooo glad that he stopped by!  This was the first time he'd seen Savannah in over a year.  :)  It was such a special treat!

 After dinner, we headed inside for another special event!  Our friends Stephanie and Micah were able to bring their Slingbox technology over so we were able to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade live from the States!

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

We realized right before we put Savannah down for the night that we hadn't taken a family picture throughout the day.  Well, let's just say Savannah didn't appreciate having to pose for a picture right before bed!  LOL!  It was comical!

The best we could do!  :)

Savannah got one last picture with her Aunt Heather.  I have a picture of Heather holding Savannah last year at Thanksgiving, and I wanted to make sure I got one of them together again.  It's funny because a lot has changed in a year.  Heather just gave birth to her precious son Luke a week and a half before Thanksgiving.  I wanted to get a picture of me holding him this year, but I had the sniffles and didn't want to give that to their sweet bundle of joy.  There's always next year!  :)

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out, watching the parade or football, playing games, and just enjoying the time together.  We truly do have so much to be thankful for!

Sick in Saudi....

Well, the last four weeks we have been running a gauntlet of sickness in the Railey household.  It started out with all of us getting a stomach virus, getting over that, then getting the flu, then getting colds.    Both Brent and I agreed, that it was the sickest we have been in years!

Being that sick for that long was miserable! It reminded me how much I appreciate good health!  Our health is truly a blessing from God, and I often forget how fragile our bodies can be.  I'm hoping and praying that we are done with the germs and bugs for the rest of the year, and we're looking forward to getting back to normal everyday life.  :)

Halloween 2012

Every since I was a child, I have always loved this time of year.  Fall weather, the holidays approaching, and everything that comes with it!  Now that we have a child of our own, this time of year is a thousand times more special and we cherish making special memories with her.  

As I scrolled through Facebook over the past two months, I have been secretly jealous of all the precious pumpkin patch pictures that my friends have been able to do with their kids.  Well, a sweet friend of ours on the compound decided to create her own "pumpkin patch" so that all of our kids could get pictures near it.  Unfortunately, real pumpkins are CRAZY expensive over here.  I'm talking like thirty dollars for a two pound pumpkin (seriously)!  Needless to say, real pumpkins in the Saudi pumpkin patch aren't possible..... but inflatable ones are!  :) On Tuesday we went with Savannah's friend Jack and got some pictures.

The kids didn't know what to think at first.

Blowing kisses to the pumpkins. 

Jack

This was the best shot I could get of them together.  They wanted to move! 

They discovered a slide in the yard after pictures and had a blast!

On Halloween morning, our friend Lindsey invited us and all of our baby friends over to her house to play and decorate some Halloween cookies!  Lindsey is ridiculously crafty and creative, so it was precious!  This was Savannah's first taste of cookies, and it was fun to watch her try them out.  I think she ended up liking the icing best of all!  )

Savannah and Miles

Isn't Lindsey creative!

Brooklyn and Jacob 

I'm ready for my cookie!

On second thought, I'll just eat the icing, Mom.  (Look at my face too!) 

Tucker

Amber and Jack

Brooklyn

Stephanie and Jacob

Savannah's cookies

All the moms together!

Playing in the Jump House afterward.

Later that night, we got Savannah transformed into her zebra outfit and headed out to Trick-or-Treat around our compound.  Savannah is cutting teeth (three came through this morning) and has been very fussy, so she wasn't too happy about being in her costume at first.  That soon changed when she saw her friends and got to go get candy!  :)

I'm not happy! 

I'm still not happy!

Things are getting better...

Things are good now that she is with Tucker.  :)

And they're off....

The community on the compound does an awesome job trying to make sure that our kids get as genuine an experience as possible.  So many of our friends and neighbors waited on their back porches to pass out candy to the kids and everyone loved it!  Thank you for helping make things special for our kiddos!

Stopping by the first apartment building table.

Brooklyn 

Gavin and Savannah 

Savannah and Miles 

Adriana, Lauren, and Ian

Love these two!

Heather- our expectant "mummy"
Luke is due in three weeks!  

Stephanie, Jacob and Gizmo

Ready to pass out candy!

I'm definitely having fun now!

Thank you Mrs. Lori!

Big Girl- Getting her own candy!

This Halloween thing is great!

After Trick-or-Treating, we headed to a friend's house for a Halloween pizza party!  We had such a great evening together!

This morning, I realized that I never got a great shot of Savannah dressed up in her costume smiling and happy, so we got suited up again for some shots.  :)  Remember I said earlier that three teeth popped through today?  Well, here is what she thought about taking pictures again....

Again, Mom????

Side Shot

Well, after a few minutes and whipping out her favorite stuffed animal, she was all smiles!  

Yay!

Isn't this the cutest zebra you've ever seen!