Packages!!!

Well, as you enter our house downstairs (the bottom floor - playroom and guest bedroom) there is a pile of boxes from the grandparents - 8 total (4 from each) for Christmas, then boxes for Kylie's birthday and a box or two that Dan and I have ordered, but haven't put away yet for Christmas. Insanity (and absolutely wonderful)! We are very excited for them. :)


Yesterday, we got a package in the mail from our cousins!!! And, since Dan is traveling, I figured we needed something fun to open...so we opened them after naps! Our nice cousins got each of the kids their own Webkinz!!! We haven't (prior to yesterday) gotten into them, but they were so excited for them. Megan got a Velvety Elephant she named "Sprinkles" (like a spray of water, not the kind on ice cream), Jack got a Striped Snake named "Porcupine" and Kylie got a Pink Poodle named "Minty". The names are all by the kids :) We've had fun starting to set up our house with them online and need to figure out how to do stuff with the cousins...so thank you for them!!!

Jack's Shapely Santa

Jack had homework tonight - to make a "Shapely Santa". All the kids were sent home with a shape in red (Jack had a star, but other kids had a circle, oval, heart, triangle, rectangle, square). And they were supposed to decorate him and send him back to school to decorate their classroom. I got out the cotton balls, black satin, sequins, googlie eyes and glue. Jack got out the crayons. That's all he wanted to use to decorate his Santa. Crayons only. Apparently Jack's a boy. :) Meanwhile, Megan and Kylie were foaming at the mouth wanting to use all the art supplies...

Check the post below, too, to hear Jack's laugh. And click on Flagler Family Forum to read about my adventures Saturday with Tricia, Ro and Baby Jaya :) Poor Matt thought he was only watching my kids for 2-3 hours...it turned into 5 1/2! He did a great job, though, fed the kids snack and lunch and watched some movies with them and played DS with his "buddy" Jack. (Jack calls Matt his "good buddy"). It was a great fun time for me and we got to take a water taxi on the Chao Phraya River, something I had never done before! Thank you Mr. Matt!!!

This is Jack

This is what life is like for me when Jack gets laughing hysterically. Only magnify it about 1000x's and add him laughing like this to whatever you say or ask him to do. Cute at first, totally annoying after that. He was like this all night last night. Megan was joining him. Thankfully we were at home and not out some place. Hope you enjoy! (sorry it's sideways, i can't turn it).

Tough Question from Megan

Does God still love Satan?

Any thoughts/Scripture to answer this?

These past 2 days

Matt and Tricia came over tonight for dinner and hang out time. I think the original plan was to play Settlers of Catan, but that didn't happen. We did, however, watch Cinderella II with the kiddos...which has a scene where the King and his right hand man get thrown from an elephant...much like Matt and Tricia. Matt said, "See, that doesn't just happen in the movies!"

While they were here, we heard Christmas Carolers outside our house! We went downstairs to discover them standing in our garage singing "Jingle Bells" and "Feliz Navidad". So fun! With a guitar and tambourine, too! Tricia was smart enough to grab our camera and take pictures :)


Last night, the little kids and I took Moo to get her hair cut at a "real" hair salon. By "real" I mean it's the first time she's gotten it cut by someone other than me. I figured for $4.28 (150B) we could swing it. She got to get her hair shampooed and conditioned, trimmed and then blow dryed. She looks beautiful! And she loved the special treatment.

Oh, and last but not least. Dan called me last night and started out his conversation with "first of all, I want you to know that everyone is okay." Which, while I appreciate the gesture, is never a good way to start out a conversation. It seems that while being driven in this van, it hit an ox cart. That is a cart being pulled by an OX. Dan was sitting in the passenger side without a seat belt. He is fine, no one else in the van was hurt and neither was the ox (who flew across the road) or the ox cart driver or his wife. He did get a small cut on his pinky finger when he put his hand up to stop himself from hitting the window. Crazy.

No Snow, but we still have Christmas in Thailand

Because Dan was unexpectedly home on Sunday night, we got to decorate our Christmas tree and the rest of our middle floor this week! So fun decorating and pulling out favorite ornaments...Jack liked the ones he made in preschool last year, any one with his name on it and the Hokie football ornament. Megan liked the ones she made in school and the angel ones. Kylie just liked the ones that were cupcakes or edible items. That's my girl.

I love getting out our ornaments and seeing the one that says God Bless the USA that my Mom and I picked up in New Orleans after Thanksgiving when I was pregnant with Meggie, the one my friend Janelle gave me at a bridal shower and then she missed our wedding because she assumed it was on Sunday instead of Saturday, the house shaped one that my Mom's friend Mrs. Scott made us that says our last name on it and has been applicable whether it was just Dan and I, or with 1, 2 or 3 children, the Mary Englebreit one that my friend Colleen gave me and on the tag she wrote "I am always the Queen", the random wedding cake one my Dad bought when we went to shop at the Leesburg Outlets in 2002 that read "2000" - the year Dan and I were married (and Dad got it for $0.25), the 3 beautiful, fragile insect ornaments my parents bought Megan (ladybug), Jack (grasshopper) and Kylie (bumble bee) before Kylie was even born in Bethlehem, Pa, and all the great homemade ones my Mom and grandparents have made through the years...plus all the great ones my children have made. Just wonderful. And the great names at left that Dan's Grandpop made us, as well as the JOY sign...so great!

Yay for Christmas in Thailand. Yay for 90 degree weather. Yay for swimming in December. Yay for Kylie knowing that Christmas is Jesus' birthday, but that her birthday is "after Christmas". Yay for Megan being excited (and Jack, although not as excited) for the Children's Christmas performance coming up at our church. Yay for 4+ months living here in Bangkok.

Goings On

So, we had a good weekend with Dan being home (unexpectedly, due to both airports in Bangkok being shut down by protesters) and I figured I would post some random fun pictures of us in the past week or so for your viewing enjoyment.

Jack and his best friend, John, watching a Spiderman cartoon. The whole time, they kept a running dialoge between them without taking their eyes off the show. It cracked me up and totally reinforced the thought that guys tend to have "side by side" relationships as opposed to women who want to sit and talk "face to face". They are adorable together!

My big kids "tatted" up.

The kids posing in front of a "Christmas" display at the mall! So fun in shorts and flip flops!

My beautiful piggy toes! This is my first design on my toes! And it cost me 100Baht, which is roughly $2.85 for the pedicure and design. Not too shabby!
My acrobat, Megan...
and her copycat sister, Kylie.