A day in the life 2014

I really can't believe that the first time I wrote a "day in the life" post was over 3 years ago.  (Here is that link- the girls were12,10, 5 and 5 months!).  It was fun to re-read and think about how much things have changed in 3 years which is why I originally intended to do one of these posts every 6 months or so!  Oh well!  

I decided in advance which day to post about in hopes that it would be a fairly normal day- it was.  I'd forgotten that the last time I did this, Jason was also traveling.  That's not intentional.  Maybe I just have more blogging time when he's gone?  Anyway, maybe next one, he'll actually be in town.  Or maybe not.  Actually, this trip Abbey also traveled with them.  We hope that all the girls will be able to take turns traveling with him on various trips in years to come.  

Anyway, back to my day.  Thankfully, unlike the last post, I have nothing to write about from midnight until I woke up since I was quite asleep- that's a pretty big praise since I don't typically sleep that well when Jason travels and the girls have been taking turns getting sick.  

So here it is, Monday November 3, 2014. 

5:45 AM:  My alarm goes off and somehow I manage to get up the first time.  Throw on work-out clothes, put daily load of wash in machine.  Grab handful of almonds while I finish fixing Naomi and Anabelle's school lunches.  Wake Maddie up and tell her I'm leaving for the gym and make sure her alarm is set to go off for 6:30.  Assure her that I will call to make sure they are awake and to talk to Naomi.  

(I joined Crossfit in June and am still trying to figure out which class works best for our schedule- especially when Jason's gone.  I like 6:30 AM because I get it done and it's only a 10 minute drive.  If I go to one of the afternoon classes, the same commute has taken as long as 50 minutes!  The downside of the morning class when Jason is gone is that Maddie has to get herself and Naomi up and get Naomi on the bus if I have a longer workout and don't make it home in time)

Head to the gym around 6:15.  Call Maddie at 6:30 right before workout starts to make sure she's awake.  She is.  Remind her to get Naomi up at 7 and assure her I'll call back. (I can't even begin to remember what our workout was that day!)  Call them again during a 2-3 minute break in the workout to make sure Naomi is up.  Talk with Naomi and and tell her I'd try and get home before the bus gets her (shouldn't have done that- this 6:30 workout is not looking so ideal today!)  Leave gym at 7:20 realizing there's no way I'll get back home before Naomi leaves.  Try anyway and call Naomi at 7:30 to tell her to have a good day when I realize for sure it's not happening...  She's grumpy but Maddie says she's been fine.  

Arrive home at 7:35 barely missing Naomi's bus.  Anabelle about knocks me over at the door- I love the way she always greets me like she hasn't seen me in a year!  Plus, this means she woke up on the right side of the bed this morning- you never know these days!  It's a good thing too, because this is her first day of school.  How is it possible that the baby that was 5 months old last and riding around taxi's in a mobi baby wrap the last time I did one of these posts is now starting school?!   We're leaving in 6 weeks for a 6 month period in the states and I am going to take Arabic classes (again!) for the last 6 weeks we're here so Anabelle is going to a little preschool around the corner from my school.  We have a few other friends there, and she is SO excited.   She's packed her back pack with a gazillion different things and is absolutely horrified when she finds the change of clothes I snuck into her bag at the teacher's request.  "MOM, you don't take panties to school!!"  Indeed.  Allow her to unpack the bag and then sneak them back in.  Not gonna fight that battle.  

Look over the schedule Maddie has planned for herself for the day.  (she and Abbey started Northstar online this year)  Give her my approval and head out the door with AB.  (I can't believe these pictures were less than a week ago and I was happily wearing shorts sleeves- it's COLD now!!).  

Maddie took a first day of school picture for us.  Anabelle is still super excited about school.  (fingers crossed!).  She has, after all, been talking about going to school ever since Naomi started back in September.  

Realize on the way that I forgot to send her a water bottle.  Stop at a small grocery on the way.  Arrive at Bumblebee preschool and deliver Miss Anabelle.  She marches in like she owns the place and doesn't look back.  Head back to the van.  Deep breathe in, deep breathe out.  My baby just started school.  Okay preschool.  For 6 weeks.  But still.  No tears this time- I'm either good at this by now or too tired to be emotional- pretty sure it's the latter...

Arrive back home at 8:30 and check on Maddie who is making good progress and working away.  Make sautéed veggies and scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Take chicken out of freezer for dinner and soak cabbage.  Make coconut/sunflower oil/ lavender mask for hair.  I found this DIY mask on pinterest and I love the way it makes my hair feel and smell.  I try and do it at least 2-3 times a week but usually not that much because I forget.  The water here is awful on my hair plus I've been anemic- anyway, doing what I can!  By 9:00 sit down with breakfast and hot tea and work on the bible study I just started- Beth Moore's Children of the Day study of 1 and 2 Thessalonians.  I'm only 2.5 weeks in but so far I love it!  

Head back to the kitchen around 9:45 to put the chicken in the crock pot for dinner and finish washing veggies.  Clean kitchen pausing every so often to think about how amazingly quiet the house is.  Weird.  But nice.  

Dig Arabic books out of bedroom closet and figure out what to start reviewing before I go back to class tomorrow.  The school I'll be going to has a different kind of curriculum but it's been so long since i've done class (2 years I think?) that any little review will help.  Begin rearranging stuff on Jason's desk in the bedroom to make room for a study spot and remember that there are flowers in the living room left over from a ladies event that a hosted over the weekend.  

Decide that will be a much better study spot...

Around 10:30 settle in with another cup of hot tea and my pile of Arabic notes from 10 years of on and off Arabic study.   The Starbucks Memphis mug is my morning tea mug.  That's my mug every morning.  Afternoon tea can be in a different mug, but morning tea goes in my Memphis mug.  Just because... 

Realize around 11:30 that I've left coconut oil mask on too long already and head to shower.    

Study for another 30 minutes before heading back to get Anabelle at 12:30.  Most days she won't get out until 1, but I need to go early to pay and make sure we didn't forget anything major.   Marvel again at how very quiet the house has been all morning- Anabelle must be loud!  Besides the occasional check in with Maddie (who is still hard at work), it's been a very quiet, peaceful morning and one that I very much needed.  

Finish paying at preschool and head home around 1:00.  Anabelle talked non-stop the whole way home.  Presumably she loved every minute of her day.  It went something like this, "My teacher just readed me a story, and I played with all the friends and their names were Lilly and Maya, not the big Maya, but the little Maya, and I played on the slide, and I ate my lunch and it rained at my school, and I sang a song.  And I speaked in Arabic and in Ainglish and in bonjour (french)  (REALLY?) at my school."  And on and on it went until we got home at which time she repeated the whole thing for Maddie not leaving out a detail and not missing a beat. 

 (Just to clarify:  I said she presumably had a good day because if you've ever put a kid in school for the first time, you know that day 2 and day 3 are the more telling days.  Well.  Let's just say day 2 did not go so well.  She pitched a full out screaming crying fit for pretty much the whole hour before we left the house on day 2.  At one point she was standing in front of my full length mirror watching herself cry.  Every so often she would stop and glance towards me and whimper, "are you still going to take me?"  I'd say yes and the crying would start again.  Before we left for the morning, she actually built a barricade of chairs by the kitchen table in an effort to prevent me from taking her.  I was strong and didn't give in.  Before you feel too sorry for her, she stopped crying the second I put her in her car seat and informed me that lovey should stay in her backpack and would I please inform her teacher that she didn't have to eat..  Well, if that's all it takes!  When I picked her up on day 2, she was again quite happy and talkative about her day.  AND, her teacher pulled me aside and said she had indeed been working with her in French because she seemed so interested in it!  So I guess she was write when she said she's spoken in "bonjour"! )  Oh, and below is her unsuccessful barricade:

Anyway- back to our day.  We got home from school around 1:15.  Maddie was already having her lunch- BLT.  I'm in the middle of a 40 day Paleo challenge at the gym which is unfortunately quite challenging when you haven't gone to the grocery in quite some time.  I had picked up a few veggies the day before so I sautéed some cabbage and green beans and mushrooms with a little bacon.  Sounds weird I guess but it was pretty good!  Add an apple with almond butter and there's lunch.  AB ate at school so she went to play in her room and was soon requesting that we have a tea party.  Which we did, complete with British accents of course.  

Naomi arrived home around 2:00.  Mondays are their shorter day- she usually gets home more like 1:15 or 1:30 but it was raining which throws traffic into a complete uproar here.  Yes, I said rain, not snow.  Not even storm.  Just rain.  Naomi joined in playing with Anabelle so I was able to grab a few more hours of studying for Arabic.  

Around 4, I headed back into the kitchen to finish getting dinner prepped.  Naomi has tutoring on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5-6 which makes for a pretty crazy evening and usually requires some sort of crock pot meal or leftovers or something that the girls can cook.  Dinner plans included the chicken from this recipe which we had last week and loved (but I was out of cauliflower, tomatoes and cucumber so that wouldn't' work) with the cabbage and avocado layers from this recipe.  The second recipe called for beef cooked with green chiles.  Beef here is not great and I haven't seen green chiles in ages which is why we went with the chicken from the first.  It was a really yummy combo that I would highly recommend.  So before we left for tutoring, I got the cabbage ready and shredded the chicken in the crackpot and turned it off.  

At 4:30, Naomi and I headed out to tutoring leaving Maddie behind with Anabelle.  Our tutor during a non-traffic time, would probably only be about 10-15 minutes away, but at this time of day, we always have to allow about 30 minutes to get there.  I brought my computer along with my Arabic to study and planned to just wait for her in the car.  Sometimes I make a quick grocery trip while she's with her tutor but I needed so much that I just decided to wait.  Plus, I didn't feel like messing with unloading groceries when we got home at 6:30 right at dinner time.  Anyway, off we go.  We got on the main street closet to our house and I noticed that traffic was ALOT worse than usual- and let me tell you, that's saying something!  I realized we may be in trouble when a good 25 minutes later we were still just minutes away from our house.   I texted Naomi's tutor that we would be late (don't worry we're in standstill traffic).  Naomi and I had all sorts of deep conversation time which seemed to mainly center on food and why I am no longer buying chips, snack cakes etc etc.  Seems that EVERYBODY else brings those to school and NOBODY else worries about eating healthy.  I may or may not have gotten on a wee bit of a soap box with that one.  But all in all, we did have some good mommy/daughter conversation time.  We are now about 15 minutes late to tutoring, have been in the car almost 45 minutes and have still not gotten more than a mile from the house.  Remember how I said rain makes drivers crazy here?  That's all I could figure!!  The traffic was completely and totally out of control.  I called Naomi's tutor back and told her I didn't think we'd make it to her house- she then told me that she still wasn't even home from school and had left to go home at 3:30- this was almost 2 hours later.  SOOOO, we talked about what Arabic Naomi needed to study at home, agreed that I'd send her Arabic teacher an email explaining that she hadn't made it to tutoring and we turned around and headed home.  At 5:30, an hour after we left, we got back home and really hadn't gotten more than a mile from the house.  I would say, "what a waste!" but I really think Naomi needed the quality time so it was worth it.  

Even though we got home at 5:30 instead of the expected 6:30 after tutoring, I still managed to not get dinner on the table until around 7.  While I finished in the kitchen, Maddie and Naomi played with Anabelle and did a quick straighten of the house.  At the moment, it escapes me why exactly it was a crazy dinner hour, but all dinner hours around here are somewhat hectic and wild and I'm quite certain this was no exception.   Especially since we had dinner around 7 and didn't get to our evening Bible reading time until about 8:15- chalk it up to dinner time craziness!  

At 8:15 we sat down to have our evening Bible reading.  Lately, AB loves to sit in my lap and turn the pages of my Bible and pretend to tell a story herself.  It usually involves something about God and a captain and a princess- at least she's getting one of the characters right! 

I've been having us read Colossians 3 over and over.  The big girls are working on memorizing it, and the little girls key parts.  

After bible reading, Anabelle led us in some songs.  (she somehow has the idea that she is in charge around here...).  We started out on the right track with "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do, for YOU!"

...and somehow quickly digressed to a Frozen sing-a-long.  (not before we got our prayer time in, though).  It's a houseful of girls, what can I say?!

Unfortunately, the video of the singing is not wanting to upload- oh well!   I eventually put an end to the singing (and dancing) and finally got the little people to bed.  Maddie and I piled on my bed along with multiple loads of clean but unfolded clothes and folded clothes while watching the latest episode of Once Upon a Time. 

Sometime not very long after that, I sent her to bed and crashed amidst the piles of folded clothes- you can do that when your husband's traveling and you have a king sized bed!  It's amazing what can be stored on his side!  

So that turned out to be a pretty typical day in the life.  Hopefully I won't wait another 3 years before doing this again.  I can't even think about the fact that in that amount of time, my baby baby will be in first grade and my big baby will be in college, and the ones in between will also be far older than they are supposed to be!  Anybody have any tips for stopping time?  It seems to just keep marching on!  

Caca à gauche!

Our family has the amazing privilege this summer of traveling with Jason around Europe.  We are seeing so amazing places and meeting some terrific people.  We are so thankful for these adventures together as a family.  

We started out in Paris.  I love this city so much.  We lived here 11 years ago when we first began our overseas adventures and were studying French.  It's been so much fun to return especially as our older girls are old enough to really appreciate the places we are able to see.  

There are A LOT of pictures in this post because there are LOTS of things we want to remember as a family, but also because I thought it would be fun for you to take a walk with us around the streets of France.  We've made some great memories along the way, laughed at each other and at ourselves and walked, well, a whole stinkin' lot!  (wish is a good thing because we have eaten more than our share of pain au chocolate- but I'll save all the food goodness for another post)...

When you are walking around France, the most important thing to remember is that there is dog poop EV-ER-Y-WHERE.  The French love their dogs who apparently love to take care of their business anywhere and everywhere.  Since so many people walk, I kid you not, POOP.  EVERYWHERE.  For this reason, Naomi declared herself to be the "poop patrol" during one of our first walks from metro station to bus station to home.  She would walk ahead and call out "poop on the right" or "watch out in the middle" etc.  At one point, Abbey chimed in "caca à gauche!"  (someone apparently DOES remember some of her French!)

We are trying to teach the girls the art of blending as we walk and not taking over the entire sidewalk with our loud, colorful American-ness.  We've gotten pretty good at that in the Middle East, but apparently not so much here.  (to be fair, I should say, Jason is actually trying to teach the rest of us this particular art, I seem to be erring on the side of oblivious tourist more often than not....).

In the below picture, we have lots of space, but try squashing our family of 6 in the Paris metro corridors and attempting to keep us together while keeping up with the kids, the stroller, the water bottles etc.  If he's said it once, he's said it 1000 times- "WALK TO THE RIGHT, PEOPLE"....  

One of my favorite parts about walking around in France (and this may seem silly...) is coming up out of the metro.  Maybe it's because of the stress of navigating the underground maze with stroller, kids etc., but I love emerging from the metro to the beauty of the blue sky, green trees and beautiful buildings...

And I mentioned colorful...  Europeans as a whole tend to dress in dark colors, or at least neutral ones.  One particular day we headed out to sight-see in Paris and I happened to glance around at our overall ensemble.  What a colorful bunch!

 As I said before, we've laughed at ourselves a lot!  The girls and I, for whatever reason have had our share of air headed moments....  

During our very cold, very wet day at Euro Disney we seemed to have lost a few brain cells along the way.   After spending literally hours in the downpour,  we were standing in line for a ride and thankfully were standing under a covered walkway.  Jason looked at Maddie still holding her umbrella over her head and says, "Maddie, you can put your umbrella up."  She stares back at home (looks a bit confused) and very innocently raises it up just a few inches higher....  (I guess she did put it UP!).  I also might have spent a few seconds longer than necessary banging on the wrong side of a public garbage can to throw something away instead of moving around to the other side where it was quite easy to deposit one's trash.  We'll blame it on the rain!  

Miss Anabelle has been such a trooper during our travels.  She is little miss independent and is loving every minute.  The first week or so she woke up every day asking, "I'm going to meet new friends today?!"  

She has once again perfected the art of stroller riding.  We really don't use it much where we live!

She's a huge fan of the metro and/or tram.  She loves to get out of her stroller and find her own seat.  Even if it's beside a total stranger...

She also loves to walk (as long as the stroller is a back-up option!) and hold big sisters hands...

...especially if they will play "1, 2, 3 wheeeee....."

Her absolute favorite mode of transportation would have to be the horse though.  Especially this variety... (there seems to be one of these everywhere we go!)

Naomi enjoyed it too!

AJ and Maddie are getting their fill of shopping!  Here they are browsing the streets of Paris....

And here in Marseille....

Naomi has been fascinated by all the street performers.  Music, pantomime, whatever- she loves it and wants to give everybody money!

We celebrated Maddie's 13th birthday in Paris and allowed her to choose a few things she wanted to do on her special day.  We started out going up to Sacre Coeur- one of my favorite places in Paris.  The church on the hill is beautiful (pictured above- the girls and I on the steps), but I knew she would particularly love the artists square around the corner from the church where artist's set up and paint and sell their work.  It's such a fun place to visit!

  

From there we walked down to the Seine River where we had booked a river boat tour of the city.  It was a beautiful day and a perfect way to get a first glimpse of Paris sites.

Naomi has been SO excited about seeing the Eifel Tower!

And what a great first way to see it!

This past week, we've made our way down to the south of France.  We've enjoyed visiting with friends in Marseille and this weekend we're in Montpellier.  Jason and I lived here 17 years ago (WHAT?!) when he was doing his internship for a French insurance company while doing his international MBA.  It's an amazing city and we've had a lot of fun coming back and showing the girls some of our favorite spots.  

Of course, there's been LOTS of walking.  (gotta work off all those French pastries somehow!).  But it's hard to mind walking in such beautiful scenery.  

The port at Marseille....

Say what you will about the French, but they do outdoor space very, VERY well.  I think I'm remembering now why it was such a rude awakening for me to move from France with green spaces and playgrounds on every corner, to the concrete jungle of Beirut! 

Here's where we walked around and enjoyed our baguette sandwiches today...

Look at this place!  It's just a public park right outside one of the malls!  Fountains, flowers, people enjoying the weekend with their families- beautiful!

Anabelle was fascinated by the playground.  Especially this thing....

(having one of my spacey moments- what would you call this?  The big girls would whisper to her in one end and she'd look so confused as she tried to talk back then figure out where they were...)

And no Saturday afternoon in France would be complete without a little fountain frolicking...

I hope you've enjoyed walking with us through some of our favorite places in France.  Remember, avoid the "caca", walk to the right, savor the beauty coming out of the subway, and don't be afraid to  kick off your shoes and dance in a fountain when you're given the chance!  

"Lubby"

Since Anabelle was about, well, this big...

lovey ("Lubby" since she started talking) has been an important part of her daily routine.

This little pink giraffe, found at Target, became one of the stable parts of a nap time routine that, for the first 6 months of her life, was rarely in the same place twice.

Ok, ok, I know that such a young baby probably doesn't really know the difference...  But this momma needed some stability for the sake of her little one (who thankfully was amazingly flexible with the craziness of our lives during that phase of her life- 3 big moves during her first 6 months of life).  However, by the time she was 7, 8, 9 months old, lovey was pretty important to her too!

Lubby has been quite the world traveler.  Oman, America (twice), Bahrain, Greece (twice).  On one of our trips to America, while walking the aisles of Target, I found an identical lovey that also travels with us, "just in case".  

AB would not be fooled, though.  When we showed her the new one, she quickly said, "that's not Lubby.  That's pink Lubby. My Lubby's purple."   You see, original lovey had become so well loved that she had kind of taken on a grayish color, or "purple"according to Anabelle.  New "pink lovey" just didn't quite have the needed softness to her satin edges yet.  And yes, I did say "she". A while back, AB started referring to Lubby as she and we've all just gone with it.  We typically have one of the girls assigned to keep up with Lubby when we're out and about.  Mainly if we are somewhere where AB is going to be napping in the stroller or something or holding it in a taxi we don't want it dropped.  And we definitely want to make sure Lubby is around for nap time or bedtime!  

The below pic is a sure sign that AB is ready for nap time or bedtime.  She is usually willing for Lubby to wait at home for her if we're going out and about, but if we're traveling or going out for the day, Lubby usually comes along.

Lubby has made her way into quite a few family pictures...

All of our family members (and a lot of our friends!) are aware of the importance of Lubby.  Everyone usually helps us make sure we have her when we are leaving or traveling.  She was even left behind at a Crackerbarrel during our travels in the US and Jason had to drive back to get her.  

Once we dropped her while walking out of the doctor's office and didn't realize it.  Over an hour later when I made my way back, there she was sitting on the sidewalk on a very busy street.  

You've probably figured out where I'm going with this!  We are traveling a lot this summer.  We left Amman at the end of June and will be returning mid-August.  We boarded our plane in Amman headed for our first destination- a meeting in Greece.  As I was helping AB get settled into her seat, I asked the older girls where Lubby was.  I was met by blank stares.  My heart sank!  We were some of the first to board, so I found a flight attendant, explained that my 3 year old had lost something very important in the airport and I needed to see if I could find it.  Thankfully, we were in Amman, not the US, where I'm pretty sure security would not have allowed it, and one of the airport workers escorted me back through the airport to look for Lubby.  No luck.  

Don't laugh, but I think I was more upset than Anabelle!  Thankfully it wasn't nap or bed time and she had several friends around her to distract her.  Momma got a little teary though when I realized that this time, Lubby was actually truly lost.  

AB took it all in stride.  After a few minutes (true to form), our little singer made up a new song.  To the tune of "Let it Go" from Frozen, she started singing, "I want Lubby.  I want Lubby.  IIIII want Lubby."  I want Lubby, I want Lubby, IIIII want Lubby.  I want Lubby, I want Lubby."  and on and on it went.  

Thankfully by the time bedtime rolled around that night, it was pushing midnight, she was beyond exhausted and when I retrieved "new lovey" from her suitcase.  She took it, looked at it for a few minutes, and started rubbing the edges of the silk until she found the perfect spot.  

New Lubby is proving to be perfectly acceptable.  Every once in a while she'll say something like, "real Lubby is still in the airport," but mostly she is doing just fine.  

New Lubby has already been to Euro Disney and proved to be a great umbrella in the rain.

She's taken numerous naps in the stroller as we've traveled around.  

I've gotten over my tears too!  Let's just hope we can hang on to New Lubby...

...we don't have another replacement!!