Thursday, December 31, 2009

Cookies and Crafts

On December 17th, the kids first day off of school for the holiday break, we had a Cookies and Crafts day with the Godwin's. Anita's mom Granny Sue is in town, so she was running the show in the kitchen.
From 2009-12-17
My kids just loved her and I think they were just so happy to have a Grandparent around.
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We rolled out some dough in front of each child,
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and as you can see the kids even got to eat some dough!(Thanks to Granny Sue being around to chill us Mommies out a little!) They cut out their cookies,
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and then moved on to craft time while the cookies baked.

We had a few coloring pages for them to do and a snowman with cotton balls to make.
From 2009-12-17
I think they had fun!

After they were done with the crafts they watched Polar Express, since we were still waiting for the cookies to cool enough to be decorated.
From 2009-12-17

Finally it was time for the cookies to be decorated, and thanks to Granny Sue's wisdom and leadership we were able to set things up in a way that no one would have to fight over anything!
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Sydney took her time and was very careful about her decorating.
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My kids were a little more "free" with their decorating.
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All the kids did a great job and were very proud of their creations.
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

KG Party

From 2009-12-17

Alayna's class had their holiday party on the 14th. There are 3 KG classes and they all combined for the party, so that means a little shy of 50 three and four year olds!!!!
From 2009-12-17
YIKES! I am the Class Rep for Alayna's class so I was there for the party helping out. Let's just say I was exhausted at the end of the day!

To be fair, the kids were all very good, it just takes a lot of effort to keep 50 kids from getting crazy!

First they got to sit down to a feast and then they played musical statues, and pass the parcel
From 2009-12-17
and finally I read them "The Night Before Christmas". After all of this it was about the end of the school day and all the parents were invited to come in and watch the kids sing Jingle Bells.

Alayna was so proud and had such a fun time.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Winter Wonderland at TES

The Christmas fun just kept on coming! On Saturday we went to the kids school's Winter Wonderland Festival. They had the big inflatable slide that some of you may remember from last year. Calvin had a blast again,
From 2009-12-17
Flying High!

And here is a video Ryan took with his Blackberry....too funny!

Alayna went down it this year too! I missed the mid-air shot with her, but here she is toward the bottom.
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Alayna and Delaney even stopped to watch the magic show together.
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And of course more face painting!
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It was another good day to be a kid in Kuwait!

Silly String

This year St Nick brought the kids Silly String. So when we got back from the Embassy Christmas party we decided to have a silly string fight. It was so much fun! Calvin could shoot it all on his own.
From 2009-12-17
But Alayna need a little help from Daddy.
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Calvin loved shooting all of us!
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But don't worry, we got him too!
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I do think that Alayna probably got hit the most though.
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Good thing she didn't mind too much!

What a fun memorable time. We may not be able to build snowmen or go sledding, but we can have a silly string fight outside, in December, without even putting a jacket on!

Kid's Christmas Party at the US Embassy

As if we hadn't had enough fun at the holiday happy hour, the next day was the kid's Christmas party at the Embassy.
From 2009-12-17
They even had some real trees flown in! It smelled so nice.

Our kids were first in line to see Santa!
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Calvin went first.
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Then Alayna...
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They were so excited and so happy. Oh, to be a kid at Christmas again!
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They signed a big holiday card for the troops here in Kuwait.
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And they did some fun holiday crafts.
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I think the thing the kids got most excited for though was the Secret Shopping they got to do for Mom and Dad. They were so proud of their gifts.
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And they have actually managed to not tell us what they are yet!

Holiday Happy Hour

On December 10th the embassy had a special Holiday Happy Hour with all kinds of special stuff for the kids. There was a magic show,
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And face painting,
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Then the highlight of the night....Santa came!!!
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with a whole bag of candy.
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Santa mistakenly spilled the whole bag of candy and the kids went crazy trying to grab it all up!
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Calvin got quite a bit of candy,
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but he was so sweet and shared it with a couple kids who didn't get any. They even brought in a Harley for Santa to sit on when the kids sat on his lap. It was so cool and both my kids got to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas.
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Calvin took this VERY seriously!
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He was so cute! It was such a fun night and the kids had a total blast. Check out Alayna dancing. (sorry for the sideways beginning)

Don't know how we will ever top the fun the kids have had at the Embassy.

Our Ladybug

On December 10th Calvin had his Class Production. This year it was Year 1 and Year 2 children combined. The Year 2 children had all the speaking parts and the year 1 kids were just the chorus. The production was about Little Red Riding Hood combined with other fairy tales. When they brought out Mary Mary Quite Contrary Calvin's class were some of the bugs in the garden. He was a ladybug or as they say over here a "Lady Bird"!
From 2009-12-17

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After the show there was a little reception in the "garden" for the parents to take pictures and then they went back to their classes.
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He was so excited to have us at school with him.
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As we were leaving Alayna's class was out having their snack.
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She was excited to see us, but didn't run over or anything. Just waved excitedly!

It was a great show and we really enjoyed it, and Calvin was so proud.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Mommy, I lost my tooth!

On Monday morning I took the kids to school as normal. First I take Calvin to his play area and get him settled and then I take Alayna over to her playground and stay with her till the bell rings. Well I was with Alayna when all of a sudden I hear Calvin's voice, so I turn around and see him standing there with a tissue in his mouth and an outstretched hand. He is saying "Mommy, I lost my tooth!" and sure enough his little tooth is in his hand.

Now this seems like a nice story about a kid loosing his first tooth, but that would be too boring for the Bakazan family! See, the problem with this scene is that his tooth was NOT loose, not even a little loose!

So I ask him "Calvin, What happened?"
Calvin responds with THE biggest smile on his face: "Mommy, Cameron kicked me and the tooth fairy is going to come tonight!"

If I wasn't in shock, I might have actually thought it was cute. He was so excited and proud and was showing anyone who would look that he had lost his tooth. Meanwhile, I'm freaking out a bit! First of all his not loose tooth has been KICKED out of his head and I am not really sure how concerned I need to be about that. Secondly I am holding this little tooth in my hand and scared to death that I might loose it before I get home and that he will never forgive me for it!

I took him to the school nurse who assured me he would be fine and then I took him to his class to start the day and informed the teachers of the situation. At this point I head home still not clear on what happened. Once I got home, and my head cleared a little, I realized I might want to go ahead and take him to the dentist anyways. We went right after school; they checked it out and all was fine.

By the end of the day, we also had figured out what happened. He and his friend were swinging on this bar taking turns kicking each other, and apparently the last kick made it's way to Calvin's face. Now his friend is almost twice his size, so if anyone was going to get hurt in this game it was definitely going to be Calvin. Clearly he was just as much to blame for this as his friend was, and did get in a bit of trouble for it.

Oh what a day! All part of having boys I suppose. Here is the little bruiser without his tooth!
From 2009-12-07
The tooth fairy did come, and left $5 and 1KD! Pretty generous fairy if you ask me!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we hosted some of the people that work with Ryan as well as a few of our American friends. It came to a total of 18 people (14 adults and 4 kids). It was perfect, because that was exactly how many chairs I had!
From Thanksgiving and random

A few months ago Ryan saw they had turkeys at the PX, so he just decided to grab the biggest one they had....it was 28lbs! Here is the before picture:
From Thanksgiving and random

We are very glad he grabbed it when he did though. The only turkeys that were left the week before Thanksgiving were tiny little breasts.

The cooking all went according to plan and the turkey was done right on time.
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The kids looked so cute and they were so excited for all the company to come.
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We had the obligatory kids table, which meant they had a lot of fun, but didn't eat a whole lot!
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It was just a wonderful day with such a great group of people, and we were so thankful that they all chose to spend the day with us.
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We feel so blessed and thankful this year that we have so many great friends in such a foreign land.