New Passion...Photography

As a result of our move to Saudi, I have had more time and the financial resources to be able to pursue my interest in photography. I have joined an online forum called Clickin Moms and have found a wealth of information there, I have taken two courses and am hoping to do another one next month and I have  gotten the editing program Lightroom and over Christmas asked for several photography books. All have helped me grow and learn more every day about the art of photography. I only wish I had more time to devote to it...and well now.....I wouldn't mind an upgrade in my camera!


Well several weeks ago I did a newborn shoot for our friends The Perry's of their little girl. I was so nervous and put off asking to do it for weeks. I don't know why I was so nervous...probably because I had never done a baby that little and I wanted to do such a good job for them. Prior to this shoot I did three other shots outside my kids.  I am so glad I did the shoot for the Perry's because not only did I learn a ton, love the pictures....most importantly...they loved them and they were able to capture this time in their lives which is hard to do in Saudi with not a whole lot of photographers around!

I have also done a maternity shoot of a friend here and then her newborn boy shoot (more like 6 week old baby shoot) and then I did one of triplets. Here are some from the pictures that I have done for people since July when I started to actively try to learn photography.....

I don't know where this interest will lead me but for now I am having fun learning, practicing and hopefully growing. And it is always fun to be able to practice on kids outside my own and give friend's some photos for them to hopefully treasure.

Midweek Ramblings...

Another Wednesday and the end of the work week....well it would be but John no longer has weekends and my work never ends.... so....it is just a Wednesday here! 


Some ramblings of thoughts from this week....

• I have also been looking back to last year at this time and am amazed at how much as changed.....last year we knew we were moving but couldn't tell anyone yet, we had a one week old baby, John was spending his paternity leave doing errands/inventory and getting us ready to leave the country in nine weeks and I was trying to recover! Hard to believe that we are about nine weeks away from our one year anniversary in Saudi! I have lived here for almost a year! I remember the time from when Graham was born to when we announced our move to when we left as flying by! Crazy....where life takes you and how much can change!
• I am starting to wean Graham from bottles. He only gets three a day anyways so I was hoping it would be easy. We have gotten off the morning one and I know I should start the afternoon one soon but it is so easy to avoid this....the before bed one....I am dreading that one!
• Peyton's imagination is so much fun. She is always pretending to be something else and insists you call her by her new name...sometimes it is Cat Bones Cat, Fluffy the Dog or the other day she was Penny from the movie Bolt and I was Penny's mom. Also, when we are on vacations and I forget to bring books we do "pretend stories" before bed time. They are always hilarious! She gives me a topic, helps name the characters along the way and we both have fun. Lately even when we are home she requests "pretend stories" and we have had some interesting ones! 
• Graham needs to learn how to walk....he is killing my back and is so heavy! I think with a little more determination he could but he thinks it is funny to stand up and fall down.
• Speaking of things Graham thinks are funny...he thinks it is hilarious to tackle me! Seriously! I am laying in the floor relaxing and he crawls over, leading with his head (or helmet if we were playing football) and tackles me and he laughs uncontrollably. He has a pretty powerful punch for a 12 month old. He might just be our little linebacker!
• Peyton has her first ballet performance next week! I am so excited! She has been doing amazing in going to ballet and school unlike before mostly due to a sticker reward system which honestly has made life so much easier in the mornings with school and with ballet. I might do a post about that and our chore chart later, both has helped tremendously with giving her responsibility for her actions in an age appropriate way.
• We have been walking to school pretty much everyday which has been nice. Her school is probably as far you can get from our house but we don't live on that big of a camp and so it is a long but nice walk. It takes me about 20 minutes and gets me moving in the mornings and Graham and I walk back along the beach which is always a nice way to start your day.
• We are day 14 into the turnaround...and we are doing pretty well. The days are long sometimes but we are managing and it has gone better than expected. I am tired though and it is hard to go to bed early because by the time I get the kids to sleep, clean up...then John gets home and I want to talk to him. So we talk and then I get to the other things I wanted to do that night and then I realize it is late. I need to get to bed earlier because we do have long days and I need my sleep but it is hard to choose what to let go. I do know that the cleanliness of my house needs to slid. I was crazy cleaning and staying on top of things last week because of Graham's party and I knew I wouldn't have a chance to do a four hour cleaning spree so now that the party is done I can be a little more lax and give myself a break.
• We are busy researching and thinking about different vacation destinations for the year which is exciting. Once we get final approval for our vacation in May and I can book it finally, then I will post details about that! I am pretty excited about it! And also about possible trips in October and December. Lots of fun and I feel pretty blessed that our biggest struggle with all of it is picking a place to go!
• This weekend we have a parade and carnival on camp supporting all the groups that meet and that is about it. I am going to try to be more purposeful with our Friday because last week it was a long, boring and very unproductive day. The hardest part by far with John's new work schedule has been the weekends because our friends are with their families and it is hard to find things to do! But this week will be different!

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday

Yesterday was Graham's birthday party and I think he had a pretty good time! He is one happy baby and loved the attention, the people and it seemed like he knew he was the birthday boy! 


While I was in the States, I bought as much as I could think of to put together a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed party. I came up with idea from the book and how much we love to read it as a family and how hungry Graham always is and then when I searched for ideas I was inspired by this party by Pink Pistachio and this party featured on Hostess with the Mostess. I also searched on Pinterest for other ideas and also a web search for crafts that teachers have used in their classrooms with the book. 


I went with lime green and red as the main colors for the party and tried to incorporate as much as I could from the book into the day. 


Here are some pictures....

One of my favorite decorations of the day and a project that took a long time was the caterpillar banner which had a picture of Graham from every month this past year. I made all the alternating green circles and tied together with green ribbon and then made the head. I loved seeing all the pictures of Graham and how much he has grown. 

 

On Saturday the caterpillar ate through a lollipop...so we had lollipop flowers in the grass.

I had every intention of making a cake for him but with John working so much and he wouldn't be at the party I didn't want to the added pressure to have the cake to do so I found someone on camp who did it for me. I originally wanted his head to be red but I still liked it and it was pretty tasty....and I had an insane amount of cupcakes left that John brought to work the next day.

Entry way with lanterns and the goody bags that had a thank you note attached with sparkly green pipe cleaner. Inside were fruit roll ups, Graham's favorite cracker...Ritz crackers, a lollipop, silly straw, bubbles and sunglasses. Most of the items were brought back from the States.

This is my sad picture of the food area. With John working and me being solo doing the party and still watching my two kids, I did awful at getting as much pictures as I would normally. But...you get the idea. I took off the huge painting that is normally there and did the wall in streamers and we had an assortment of food that the caterpillar ate through on his journey. I was going to make cute little food labels to help with the storyline but that project got cut....also not included was swiss cheese as apparently that is hard to find here....white cheddar did the trick.

Since the party had a large amount of bigger kids (all of Peyton's friends) I had planned a couple of crafts to keep them busy although the playroom and the toys outside were more of a hit. We had finger print caterpillar book marks and then also butterfly/caterpillar party hats (idea was from Pottery Barns kids). You can see Peyton's and Graham's hats in the next couple of pictures. It was not fun cutting the many circles for the caterpillars or tracing and cutting out the butterflies but it was worth it.

The birthday boy ready for cake! He was so excited and you could tell he knew what was about to happen!

I am so beyond thankful for these two little ones! Seriously two of the best kids (and such different personalities) and I can't imagine what my life would be like without them. Wish that Daddy could have been in our family picture though! How did I get so lucky....seriously!

Graham was trying to put his party hat back on his head....instead he got icing in his hair!

The big kids hanging out and eating cake...and showing each other their green tongues!

After the party...and after nap time....we opened presents. I thought with all the bigs kids, the craziness, that I just didn't want to add opening presents with all of that. I know it is different but I have been to a couple of parties where parents have done that here and it works. We were able to open them slowly, talk about who gave him what and it was so much calmer. Mostly Peyton opened the gifts and Graham loved the cards. And then afterwards...Peyton kept trying to play with all the toys while Graham watched!

A wonderful day celebrating with our friends here who all make life so much easier by their company! I wish I took more pictures but it was crazy with two kids, hosting a party and not having my other half.   Happy Birthday Graham and hope you had a wonderful first birthday celebration!

I got a door....

My prize for the weight loss challenge was $500...which to me still seems crazy that John would offer that. He is so not like that and it was a lot of money! Anyways, I am glad he had a moment of insanity because it worked out for me! John knew that I loved an old wooden antique door from Afghanistan that I saw when we were buying our buffet from a store called Anteak Factory. The door was a little more than my prize money but I was hoping John would show spot me the difference. When I left for Abu Dhabi, I told him to go and look and see if it was there when he was running errands one night but he told me he didn't have time and he also told me to go ahead and spend my prize money at the gold souk in Abu Dhabi which led me to believe that he didn't go and look at the door. 


So, when I got home on Monday and that night got a call about a delivery, I was so confused. Since I would have to vouch for whoever was coming at security I called John and he told me Anteak was coming and I immediately knew it was the door! I was pretty excited and then both kids started screaming, it was bath/bed time and the guys were lost and spoke awful English so we couldn't figure out how to get them here and I was alone and tired from traveling so my excitement turned into annoyance. But when it was delivered and I got the kids were asleep I was able to be excited about i!

The door is SO much bigger than I thought and I had a very hard time finding a place for it in the house. Where I originally wanted to put it wouldn't work because it was so tall and the front entry has low ceilings and is dark. We found a corner to put it and I like it there but know it would look even better in our future house. I laugh because now we have to buy a house based off of a place to put a door we bought and growing up my parents would do the same thing for carpets they had and furniture pieces from their travels. 


Another piece to take back from our adventures in the Middle East! I love it!

Weight Loss Challenge

In January I mentioned how I tended to not take care of myself at all and I vowed to do better. 


Shortly after that, John and I decided to do a Biggest Loser style challenge to help keep me motivated to exercise and eat right. We decided that whoever lost the greatest percentage weight loss between then and the beginning of March would win $500! It was a lot of fun and we both lost a good amount of weight and just before I left for Abu Dhabi we did the final weigh and the winner was....ME! 


I lost a total of 6% of my body weight (8.7 lbs)! John lost 5.4% and only lost the contest by a pound. Earlier in the week I had went and got my assessment done at the nutrition center and what made me even more excited than the total weight loss was how many inches I lost in my waist (4.72 inches) and hips (3.14 inches) and that I lowered my Body Fat % by 3%. I am just happy to be feeling great, wearing all of my clothes and back on the track to being healthy and in shape! And I am really glad that I was able to get pretty close (2 lbs off) of my pre Graham pregnancy weight by his first birthday! 


I need to get back into the routine of working out again. We spent three weeks passing germs to each other and then my trip to Abu Dhabi and planning Graham's birthday party has really put a kink into working out but I am planning to make sure that I am set up to be successful next week. I am also hoping to get back started on the meal plan in a couple of weeks to make sure that I am continuing to make smart choices while John is working so much and life is a little more stressful. 


I will do another post in a couple of days with pictures of what I bought with my $500 prize....

Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was such a fun day celebrating Graham and I hope that he felt loved and cherished! I had planned for several weeks how the day was going to go to make it as special as possible for him since we were so far from family and John was supposed to be working all day and wouldn't see him. It was for sure harder on me than him without family especially when I thought back to Peyton's first birthday and how much family was able to celebrate with us. But....that is life as an expat and we made it work!


We started the day with his favorite blueberry waffles with strawberries on top and then skyped with Grandma Martha and she was able to sing him Happy Birthday. He then had his morning nap while Peyton and I made him a cake and wrapped his presents. We made a small cake for Graham and a big one for everyone to share but I put a candle on the big one as well so Peyton could blow it out and participate. 


Once Graham woke up we worked on getting lunch together because John was able to get a ride home and come home for lunch! He only had about 45 minutes so I needed to make sure Graham's favorite meal was ready...strawberries, green beans and fish sticks. We were able to eat lunch as a family, sing Happy Birthday and watch Graham make a mess of the cake and open gifts. John had to go back to work but we were so happy he got to see Graham on his birthday!

Peyton decided she was going to eat her cake like a baby...

Mommy totally should have put on make up, done her hair and looked a little more like she has things together! I am so in love with my little man!

Graham got a toy car from G and Papa, some books from Grandma Martha and then a ball popping table and mini tool bench toy from me, John and Peyton. The ball table yielded many screams of excitement which was expected.

We played with Graham's toys and then gave him a bath and he was out for his afternoon nap which was extra long and so we spent the remaining part of the day playing around the house, dancing, kissing and cuddling and playing our favorite game....tag in which we all crawl around so Graham can keep up and end up laughing uncontrollably. A fun day with my incredibly sweet little boy and his big sister!


Next up...his birthday party on Sunday afternoon with friends! I planned a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed party and have been having a blast putting it together. Lots of fun and it is turning out super cute so check back for pictures from that Sunday or Monday!