Gardening & Other News

Lately I've been thinking in bullet points, as you can see by this post.

**We have a little garden on our roof. Little meaning, two tomato plants, a few herbs and various flower type things that grow well without water. I wanted to do more, but well I haven't always had the greenest thumb. I am feeling pretty inspired now though since I grew this:

**Auntie arrived from America. She's been with us now a week and we love having her. Not only is she a huge help with the kiddos, but they love her and love to spend time with her. She's already taught William the important skill of closed mouth kisses, instead of the previously super wet kisses we were receiving. I for one am grateful, wet kisses get old after a while.


**William has been taking up some light reading.

**Auntie also brought us the wii. We had left it back in the states and then decided it might be nice to have it. Now we're set for the month of Ramadan. Woo-Hoo!

**Only a month and a few days until we meet Baby #4. Everything is getting set in place. Just need to do a bit of blood work and finish all the random projects I've started. Hopefully I'll be able to show you some of them soon.

**Not much else happening in these parts. Just enjoying the summer and having volunteer teams. Any ideas for names for Baby #4? We've thrown a few around, but haven't landed anywhere specific, plus we love suggestions :-)

Life

Sometimes it is easy to get beat down by the poop explosions, the constant bickering, the never ending discipline and general "uhgs" of life. I've been having my moments recently, moments where I am completely exhausted and annoyed with how things are. So, I took some time this morning and went back over the past few months to remind myself of the joys, blessings and wonderful moments of my life. I looked through pictures and chose a few that remind me to be thankful. Not all encompassing by any means, and some totally random, but good ones that help me to change my attitude and praise the Lord.

  

Sometimes I just need to practice the discipline of being thankful and renew my joy. 

My life is truly blessed.

Summer

Its offical Summer is here. The boys all went and got hair cuts the other day to prove it.

If the haircuts didn't give it away then the sun, Popsicles and playing on the roof in the water would have been pretty good indicators.

Summer is fun. We are enjoying no school, lots and lots of sun and other fun things like ice cream. We haven't been to the beach too much yet, we've gotten spoiled in the past by going during Ramadan and having the entire place to ourselves. We need to head over there though before things get too crazy. The boys are especially enjoying getting to go to work with Daddy and watching more cartoons. 

Ah those were the days.

 So thats life for now. Here are a few pictures from breakfast this morning. I loved them and just had to share. 

Aren't they cute?!

Fathers Day

Being away from the commercials and reminders it is easy to forget holidays like Fathers Day, but I think they're fun and important so I wanted to try and do something special. Thankfully I had brought some freezer paper with me back in February so I was able to make some t-shirts for the boys to wear. I grabbed three old shirts that were stained or that I didn't really like and used extra fabric, fabric paint and freezer paper to give them a special message for Dad.

 

I think Dad felt the love.

 We really do have the very best Dad in the whole world and we're so happy to get to tell him everyday, not just on Fathers Day. Hope all the other Dads felt the love too on their special day. 

Happy Fathers Day!

A Few Things...

...I just opened my last bag of winegums. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do when they are gone. They are my one obsession this pregnancy and without them I am likely to go completely insane. You've all had fair warning.

...William has been eating like crazy. We may have to call him the new "goat". In the last week he's had 10+ Sardines, an entire apple - including core & seeds, a handful of peanuts shells and all, handfuls of sand and who knows how many nibbles from the floor. Seriously the kid will eat anything, and go back for seconds. We are in serious trouble when he hits 15.

...Yesterday we went to the beach. It was lovely. Most Moroccan's still think its too cold, but we enjoyed it and got a nice piece of sand all to ourselves.

...a favorite pass time of late has been to build little houses and then gather books and read them. They are doing their best to be quality, nerdy, homeschoolers and I confess, I love it!

...Today I made this for breakfast. Its basic cornbread, but it was so yummy. When we were in Spain I got some nice corn meal and have been wondering when I might use it. Today seemed like as good a day as any.

...It was a success. Yum, yum.

The Plarn Bag

A few months ago I looked around my kitchen and realized my supply of plastic bags was getting a bit out of hand. See in Morocco the plastic bag is everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. Its also an important part of culture. If you're ever going anywhere with anything - a piece of bread, an apple, a change of clothes, on a trip to Spain - you should put the a fore mentioned items in a plastic bag. To simply carry them, well that would be unacceptable. Therefore there are a lot of bags around and it seems I'm always getting "new" bags from people who've given me things or whatever. So, as I was saying my supply was getting out of hand and I didn't really want to just throw them away...There had to be something I could do with them.

Then I met a lady from town who had used her plastic bags to make a purse. I was stunned, impressed and definitly interested. I got online and looked up the newest thing in recycling - "plarn". Ya, its awesome. So you take your plastic bags, make them into "plarn" and then you crochet yourself whatever the heck you want. So for the past 2 months or so I have been working on this:

I fished it tonight. So excited to finally be done and so excited to have my totally versatile beach bag. Sand, water, who cares its made of plastic bags, I can just wash it out and away we go! Anyway, if you're interested you can find out so much more online. Some of these ladies make pretty nice purses, complete with fancy lining and ribbons. I went more casual, but the possibilities are endless! Save up your plastic bags and make something fun. I'll warn you though, its kind of addicting :-)

Spain

I wanted to post about our trip to Spain, but it was really pretty straight forward. Sun, swimming and pork. Since we can't get pork products in Morocco we loaded up. And since the sun was shinning we took advantage. It was really relaxing and we're all feeling refreshed.

We were able to accomplish something besides getting a tan while we were there. We met the Doctor that will be delivering Baby #4. He is a nice German man who has lived in Spain for a long time. He checked everything out, noticed it all looks good and gave us the go ahead to plan on the 25th or 26th of August for the scheduled c-section. We'll do some prenatal stuff here in Morocco, and then show up on the day of the surgery. I feel pretty modern doing all my prenatal stuff via the internet, but what can I say we're pretty cutting edge ;-)

If you want to see more pictures of our time in Spain, check out this link.
Spain Pictures