Kids Halloween

Last year when we were in Austria the only souvenir that we found that we really fell in love with was a mini lederhosen outfit for Jaydon. At the time we bought it he was much to small to wear it but with kids one thing is for sure, they grow. By Halloween this year he had almost outgrew it so we figured we better make sure he gets some use out it. (The shorts are made out of real leather which was still very stiff and they were a little tight so Jaydon couldn't sit or bend over all night which in itself was pretty funny to watch...) Jaydon was the cutest little Swiss mountain boy in the compound. On our trip to Geneva we even picked up a few accessories for him, the hat and a St Bernard puppy with a cask around his neck. Jaydon was still fighting off his illness and had a fever most of the day but was willing to put his costume on and go out to see his friends. Mommy had to hold him for most of trick-or-treating but he did his best to get into the fun. After the trick-or-treating we had a party a the club house, it was very well decorated and we had to check it out before it got filled with little kids. Fourtunatly we did because that night Jaydon's fever hit 104 so we did not stay for the much of the festivities. All the kids in the compound got into it, I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the other costumes too.
Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinkerbell and a Pirate: A couple African Giraffes: The 3 Musketeers: Will's costume was one of my favorites and his dad put a lot of time into it. He was the Thomas Train conductor. His actual costume was pretty low key (don't forget the train whstile) but the highlight was the train he got to push around the compound! All home made out of cardboard, duct tape and coat hangers...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Olives and more twinkle

We have discovered that Jaydon LOVES olives. Black olives on the fingers is always fun for everyone but he will eat them of any color or marinate. He understands that most of them have pits in the middle and always asks before eating one to know whether or not to look for a pit.

I also found another video of Jaydon singing one of his favorite songs. Can't resist how cute he is when he sings his songs.

Big Kids Halloween

Due to various travel plans we had the adults Halloween party a week early this year. It was good because more people could attend but meant we had 1 less week to plan costumes (which for most people is always left to the last minute). Steve ventured out to the party store on Thursday and did his best to pull 2 costumes together. He was a construction worker in Doha (he had some fake stitches and wounds but of course the adhesive that came with it was already expired). For me he found some fairy wings and face paint. I'm not really sure what I was - the make-up didn't quit turn out the way it looked on the box. I think most people agreed I looked like some sort of angle of death. Everyone got into the fun. Here's a few shots of the other costumes that night. Happy Haloween!

Jacob's 1st B-day Party

Jaydon's good buddy Jacob just turned 1 so we had a party to celebrate (of course). The theme was Texas, down on the farm. All the kids had fun playing with the hay and the water in the trough. Jacob had the honour of having both his grandma and great-grandma in town for the event. The highlight was definitely the cupcakes, or more like the chocolate frosting and M&Ms decorating the cupcakes. Here's a great shot of Jaydon and the birthday boy enjoying the cupcakes (i think this was their 2nd one). We tried to get all the kids together for a group shot, this was the best we got, too many kids and too much sugar. And by the way if you haven't experienced a 1 yr olds birthday party about 30 mins after everyone has had their fill of cupcakes here's a few seconds of video to give you taste of the fun...

Daddy couldn't resist playing with the kerchiefs decorating the party. For Will it was a cape but Jaydon is way too cool for that kind of nonsense.

Elisa's Baby Shower

Our good friends down the street have decided to hop on the band wagon and join the going trend in the compound. We had a cute little baby shower for Elisa and enjoyed the excuse to hang out, eat cake and catch-up with each other. She's having a little girl and has tentatively decided to name her Sara. Elisa is Italian (father) and Finish (mother) and her husband is Spanish so they wanted a cross-cultural name that would satisfy everyone. We can't wait to welcome another baby to the Al-Malki family.

Baby Cartoons

Well September flew by, after getting back from our trip and getting Jaydon back into a regular sleeping pattern he started the routine of bringing home the daycare germs. Unfortunately, it turned into a lower respiratory tract infection so Jaydon's been a bit cooped up in the house. He missed his friends Clarissa's 1st b-day party and now says "Go doctor, chest owie" on a regular basis. He's on the mend now but part of the routine was giving him medicine through a nebulizer.This meant introducing, or maybe I should say, making it a regular routine to sit for 15-20 minutes up to 3 times a day to watch his baby cartoons. He took an instant liking to Cookie Monster and this is now his new favorite song.

He's also got his Baby Einstein videos memorized now and we discovered in the bonus features a twinkle little star song that Jaydon really enjoys - he even tries to do the sign language along with it (too cute).

After a week away from school Jaydon got all dressed up in new clothes (including fancy new white shoes) and even got another neat school bag. This one is covered in his favorite things - tractors and has his name on it. I ordered these for his friends turning 1 in the compound and couldn't resist getting it for Jaydon too.

Geneva

Ramadan is over and Eid holiday was here. It was a great opportunity to escape Doha and enjoy some nice weather and scenery. We chose Geneva because it was a direct flight, and we had a lake and beautiful mountains right out our back door. Jaydon immediately discovered the fun of feeding, but mostly chasing, all the bird life around the lake. He also got excited when he saw some other kids playing in the park. They were all speaking french but he did his best to tag along for as long as he could and they didn't seem to mind. We found a swan that was interested in what Jaydon had to feed the ducks with so it came right up to him. Jaydon decided that is was a mingo (as in flamingo) and the rest of the trip called all the swans mingo. This one got a little close for comfort and actually hissed at us so we were sure to keep our distance from these magnificent birds in the future. The first morning we got up and headed out to find some pastries and enjoy the cool crisp morning air. We had a very difficult time finding anything open and after walking around for about an hour realized that most shops were still closed long after they're advertised opening times. We were baffled and pretty sure that Geneva wasn't shut-down for Eid. Turns out it was a bank holiday so we walked around the quite city and enjoy the twilight zone experience of being in a closed city and found some old cannons to play with. That afternoon we visited the Natural History Museum which was a perfect place for Jaydon. He had just as much fun looking at the bird life outside of the Museum as he did in it. He also got to show off how smart he is with knowing all his animals and the place was full of kids his age. He loved the big elephant and thought the penguins were very neat. I think this is the first time he realized just how big most of these animals are. He's used to seeing them as pictures in story books or in the National Geographic. The next day we went to some of the parks and nice flower gardens, always taking time to smell (and sometime eat) the roses. We also got tickets for a short tour around the lake. Jaydon is pretty good at smiling if you ask him to show you his teeth. I'll have to work on some other technique to get daddy to look at the camera. We found most of Geneva's restaurants to be pretty high class and not particular kid friendly. Because of that we ate a lot of meals at our hotel where we were guaranteed to have a high chair or had dinner picnic style out by the lake.Jaydon immediately took a liking to hotdogs, the bread was a bit much for him but was great to keep around for bird feeding. This ended up being a pretty funny incident for Steve and I but not so much for Jaydon. The statute man was flirting with Jaydon and winking at him which he thought was neat. Then Steve dropped some francs in his cup and the statue reached out to shake Steve's hand, Jaydon's eyes got humongous not sure what to think about it...but when the statue reached out to pinch Jaydon check, that's when he decided that he did not like statues reaching out to get him. He started screaming, Steve and I started laughing and the poor statue man lost all his composure trying to apologize for making Jaydon cry. Everyone around turned to stare but probably put 2 and 2 together pretty quick... moving statue + crying baby hmmm. Steve was exploring the features of our new camera and took some interesting shots. A few more shots from the lake including a great view of the Alps.

1st day of daycare

Jaydon started daycare this month. He was very excited and woke-up promptly at 6:30 and ate a very good breakfast of cereal. He's decided hands are so much easier to eat with than those silly utensils we keep forcing on him.
He got dressed and found his school bag and pulled it around the house while Mommy finished getting ready.

Right on schedule at 7:30 he was in the car and ready to go. We made a quick detour to view some tractors then set off to Starfish.

When we arrived he was bright eyes and excited to see the neat play ground outside with a full size sand-box. He immediatly asked for 'shoes off' so that he could go play on the slide and in the sand. I succeded in convincing him that even more fun stuff was inside so he decided we better go check it out. First place he ran too was the big playroom, he decided these toys looked interesting and dug right in. After I fetched him from this room and drug him back to reception not 10 seconds later he was gone again. This time I found him sitting nicely on the carpet in the classroom of the older kids digging right into their game of legos. He couldn't understand why I had to keep ruining his fun. Finally my turn at reception came and they showed us to Jaydon's classroom. He loved it and immediatly went to the cute table and chairs and dug into a puzzle they had laid out. He enjoyed his new friends and only had a few tears for mommy when she left. By the next morning he was ready to go back and have fun with his new firends, teachers, toys and playdoh. When I went to pick him up he was more interested in the play-doh than with going home. The teachers all said that he did great and was a good example at snack time by finishing all his food. Right now he's going 3 days a week with me picking him up at lunch-time but the teachers are already telling me how much he loves it and that they'll miss him when he's gone.