The girls and I went to buy a tree while Isaac was at Young Mens last Tuesday. Interesting side note: this is the second year in a row that we bought a tree in a super-grocery store (hyper-market) inside a big mall. Then on Thursday, when Matt was off, we put it together. Literally. Every branch had to be attached. Then, we went all together to buy lights at Dragon Mart. It took some hunting to find some that connect end to end. Loads of lights, but ones that chain are more rare. Matt got them for 15 dhs a box. Later at the mall, he has found similar at a few different stores for 4-6x the price. He is good at finding the bargains there. I don't always have the patience.
I need to take some new pictures because the kids added their own ornaments yesterday. It looks great! They didn't know that I had shipped them. I put a note inside the main advent calendar saying "Hang up your own ornaments." Makenna looked at me with something close to contempt saying, "That's going to be hard to do if they are in storage." Oh, the joy that followed when I pulled them out. In the evening the girls pulled some favorites off the tree and played with them, just like old times. I am so glad they are not too grown up yet.
Yesterday afternoon we ended school early to go to our friends' house to decorate gingerbread men and make Christmas gift tags. The older boys wanted to go play the playstation upstairs, but I made Isaac do one cookie first, (in about 30 seconds flat) and I snapped a quick picture. Then I got busy talking with the other 3 moms and neglected to take pictures of the girls' progress until we were about to leave. It was a fun group with a house full of 15 kids.
I left for a few minutes to drive Isaac to kickboxing, then returned to find one family leaving. The girls wanted to stay longer, so what ended up happening is the other two moms took two boys to soccer practice while the girls played longer. When Isaac's time was up, I took two of the girls to drop them at the soccer field and then went to get Isaac and continue on our errands.
We had to go to Emirates Mall to pay our two monthly bills. You can pay online if you have a local credit card, but we don't want to bother with opening a bank account here. There are a couple of reverse ATM's at Emirates where you can pay utilities, traffic fines, add money to your road toll account (Salik) and more. We usually just stop by once a month after getting a text telling us the amount owed for DEWA (Dubai Electicity, Water, and....?) November's bill was 1/2 of what it was all summer. We also had to pay for internet. There are lots of locations for that, but I usually just do them both at the mall on the same trip. Anyways, the main point is we were excited to see the mall dressed up for Christmas, not just individual store. Now that National Day is over, it's time for Christmas in Dubai? There are huge ornaments and strands of lights hanging. There are icicle lights strung along the different levels. It is lovely.
When we pulled the "pole" out of the box Matt started teasing saying how sad and pathetic our Christmas was going to be and Isaac could hardly stand up for laughing so hard.
Jess is putting her crotched garland on.
Makenna wanted to do the star, but couldn't jam it on hard enough.
Daddy to the rescue.
I need to take some new pictures because the kids added their own ornaments yesterday. It looks great! They didn't know that I had shipped them. I put a note inside the main advent calendar saying "Hang up your own ornaments." Makenna looked at me with something close to contempt saying, "That's going to be hard to do if they are in storage." Oh, the joy that followed when I pulled them out. In the evening the girls pulled some favorites off the tree and played with them, just like old times. I am so glad they are not too grown up yet.
Yesterday afternoon we ended school early to go to our friends' house to decorate gingerbread men and make Christmas gift tags. The older boys wanted to go play the playstation upstairs, but I made Isaac do one cookie first, (in about 30 seconds flat) and I snapped a quick picture. Then I got busy talking with the other 3 moms and neglected to take pictures of the girls' progress until we were about to leave. It was a fun group with a house full of 15 kids.
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