My Girls

While I was pregnant with Hannah, a wise friend (MP) said:
"You think your kids will be the same-they're from the same set of chromosome donors (aka parents), will get roughly the same discipline, diet, upbringing, etc, but they'll be totally differently! TRUST me."
And you know-I took her at her word, she has THREE boys, so she should know...

What I didn't do though, was trust her with the "TOTALLY different" part. Can one get any more different than Donna and Hannah????

DONNA: Tidy, quiet, shy, ma/pa vas (yes-still!), sensitive, an angel.
HANNAH: Messy doesn't quite explain it, loud, a tiny bit shy, not been ma/pa vas yet, doesn't feel a thing, a clown.

But I love them both-totally differently (which another amazing friend told me I would!-JB), but SOOOO much, more than I thought I had, and there's more to come-differences and love-I'm sure!

Christmas at Wafi

Christmas at Wafi this year was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! We have just finished reading the book together-Donna loved it, so this was an added surprise-timing was great!!!

Double click the picture to make it bigger-I hope you can get a bit of a sense of how well done it was!

Miramar, Fujairah

We had the absolute privilege of staying at the Miramar Hotel in Fujairah the first weekend of December. We had a fantastic break, I took MANY photos and read one of the best books I've read in a long while.

The book is called "Just so something" by Kevin de Young, http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2009/02/20/just-do-something-chapter-1/

The basic message is: if you want to do something, and it is within God's revealed will, and you will glorify God by doing it-do it! Stop worrying about the future, stop waiting to figure out what the Lord has planned, trust that God has the future under His control already and... just do something-and do it for God's glory, of course! Or as Kevin puts it "God’s will is not a bullseye to hit, but a life to live". I don't think I learnt anything totally new, but this guy just put things in a way that made such crystal clear sense to me that it lead to a time that will stand out for me in terms of personal growth in trust in our all loving and sovereign God. I saw things more clearly than I have in a very long time-it was a blessed time for sure!

There are more pictures that I put on my Facebook page, please click on the link to see them there.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=165128&id=628056638

Hannah Dancing!!!!

UPDATE!

I do apologize for our long silence-we are OK! I have just tried very hard to prioritize-and everything computer related has taken a very back seat! But to let anyone who might be interested know-we are doing really well! Our family is growing, our little baby is crawling, our little princess is blossoming, Ryan is booming, and I'm getting there! The Lord has been so good and kind and patient to us, He is a Great God!

Hannah is a joy. She has her moments; she teeths badly and her nighttime "routine" has been a nightmare, but ... she is a joy! She makes us all laugh with her games she makes up-she's very interactive and loves doing stuff where she's in with the action. She's eating well, crawling fast, starting to stand alone, loves to bath and swim, and absolutely adores Ryan. She cries when he leaves for work! As cliched as this may sound-she is growing up much too quickly!

Donna, continues to be our princess, and she too is growing so much and too quickly. She loves Hannah, and is my little helper-she loves to help! She is "coming out of her shell" as the saying goes, and is slowing figuring out that other people are not as scary as she thought! She has got such a eager, fast learning brain-it amazes me how easily she picks up concepts! Donna still loves to swim, enjoys cooking food more than actually eating it, dances like the dying swan itself-but it's beautiful-and yes, absolutely adores Ryan!

(Sorry-I downloaded this picture twice and I cannot find a way to delete it!)

Anyway-there we are-all well, happy and still here! We're going away this weekend-so hope to post something about it when we get back-but...don't hold your breath!