Pretty Baby Toes

Mary Ellen has the prettiest toes. Now, I know I'm a somewhat biased observer but she really does. Mama Jo (Andrew's Mother) always said she has a piano-players fingers and beautiful toes for sandals. It's true! For her to be so short...she's under the 5% in height for her age...she has such long graceful fingers and toes. We had fun one afternoon painting them up to look like mine. She always notices if I have my toenails painted and loves to touch them. So she thought it was great fun when I painted hers.

His Two Girls

Yesterday we had the most wonderful delivery! Let me start by saying that this week's been rough. Andrew's been night flying, which is always more work for me and no time with M&M for him. On top of that I've gotten a cold and am afraid the babies may have gotten a touch of one too. So when the delivery men came to the door I almost sent them away. He had to show me the invoice. Then...in the back of my mind I remember Andrew telling me he had a surprise for me and Mary Ellen (his girls) for Valentine's Day but it was going to be delayed. Here it is!
This beautiful hand carved Rosewood chest! This is a prized craft here and is, no kidding all hand carved. Amazing!

Andrew chose the beautiful Navy (it's not this royal of a blue in person) velvet for them to line it with and had my initials inlaid in brass on the inside. The top tray lifts out for more storage underneath.

And do you know what he told me? He said "I thought you'd like to keep some of the babies special things in it like a hope chest for them". Can you believe how sweet and thoughtful that is? Now many of you know were I started with Andrew some 12 years ago and boy has his gift-giving ability improved! I think I've told the story a million times when he gave me rope after declaring he had a "surprise" for me. Now those of you that know Andrew, know that a bundle of rope for him is truly a great surprise. Anyway, I digress...

The next item that was delivered was a jewlery box for Mary Ellen. It is also beautiful Rosewood but hers is inlaid with brass on the top and sides along with her initials on top. She really loved it. So sweet to me that she'll always know that her Daddy gave her this special gift for Valentine's Day! She loves jewlery already. The first thing she does most days is find her play necklace that she got for Christmas and put it on her neck. So we may be in trouble in that department!

Thanks again my love. You continually surprise me with your thoughtfulness. We love you!

Our Love

To quote Andrew, "This was the best Valentine's Day we've ever had"! On Thursday, he surprised me by getting a babysitter and taking me to dinner... Mexican (my favorite) and "La Chocolate" the BEST place for desert. A true treat considering how hard-to-come-by babysitters are here. And on Saturday, I returned the favor by preparing a roof-top dinner for him. We have a great roof-top deck. It's huge and has a great view, but unfortunately it's unusable most of the year because it's so dang hot here! But the weather has been perfect lately. We had a dust-storm the end of the week and I was afraid it would spoil my surprise but it cleared up perfectly by Saturday. A great steak dinner and star-gazing with chocolate covered strawberries...PERFECT! It has been a long haul for us over the past 6 years, struggling with infertility and then being separated for the over a year Andrew was here before we arrived. But God used the time we had apart to heal our hearts and our marriage. I can truly say we are better now after 10 years of marriage than when we first met. So for that alone I'll always be grateful for this assignment, as difficult at times as it was. We are headed into a big transition, as Andrew completes his separation from the USAF and we move back state-side permanently. We feel strongly that God has opened this door and will bless us wherever it leads, if we trust. And of course we will. Just look what He's brought us through already!

Valentine Fun

The weather has been just beautiful here. Very spring-like. I guess the 2 weeks of 50 degree days was as close to winter as we're going to get here! But we have loved going for walks and spending time outside. I took these pictures on two different days with M&M sporting their Valentine finest! They especially loved the flowers and Michael can practice his pointing...his new thing. He loves outside so much he often will point and say "ou-fs"...his word for outside.

The "Ladies Man" and "I Love Mommy" shirts were a fun gift from our good friends Pinto and Aly. They are just so cute in them. Andrew will ask Michael, "Who's the Ladies Man, Michael?" and Michael will slap his chest enthusiastically. Very cute!

We've had so much fun doing crafts for Valentine's Day. We've done lots of hearts and fun cards using their hand and foot prints. My "Mommy Blogs", as I like to call them, have been a wealth of information and ideas. We made candy necklaces, which are Mary Ellen's favorite, and heart cookies. As you can see below Mary Ellen loved to help decorate the cookies. In fact, Miss Independent started crying everytime I tried to help her. She wants to do it all on her own! Michael just loved to eat them!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Wildlife Park

We made a family trip down to the Bahrain Wildlife Park yesterday. Now there is a reason they call it a "Park" and not a "Zoo". Not much to see, but Mary Ellen loves animals so we thought it would be a different way to spend a Saturday. Most of the park is actually a wildlife preserve that the King began to preserve some native animals and can only be accessed by the public through a bus tour. When I came over while I was pregnant we did the bus tour and it was interesting...and quite honestly anything at that point I could do sitting down, I was a happy camper. We just walked around the park this time. Now if you're thinking to yourself what animals are native to the "great sandbox" and all you can come up with is the camel...you'd be close. There were several types of bird, several types of goats and the camel...not much else. It was a nice afternoon, however, in a lush and beautifully landscaped park.

Andrew's pointing out the ducks and all the other birds to M&M. Nice for them to know that a duck isn't just a plastic yellow toy they play with in the tub!

M&M enjoy the Emu and Ostrich.

OK, so the camel is still the favorite! And M&M were able to get real close thanks to three kids who were pulling up landscaping plants to feed them. I guess there are little hooligans everywhere.

You can see one of the little hooligans in this picture...of course Mary Ellen thought it was the hilarious!

M&M taking a break while we wait for Daddy. You can see behind them some of the beautiful lush trees, palms, and rock waterfall that fed into the lake. Welcome sight in a dry and dusty country. M&M love to be in their side-by-side stroller. They'll talk to each other and sometimes hold hands and more often-than-not pester each other. This usually gets one or the other laughing. They were pretty quiet this day, just taking in all the sights.

As you can see in the last picture, Mary Ellen is the one to spot Daddy coming back...oh how she loves her Daddy!

Fun trip, but this will probably be our only visit to this "Park". However, we've already begun talking about the great "Zoo's" we'll be able to visit when we get back to the states!

Bath Time

Bath time has always been a fun time for Michael and Mary Ellen. I, on the other hand have always seen it as work! Tough job getting two babies cleaned, dried off, lotioned, dressed, etc. Especially when they were very little and I was always nervous their body temperature was dropping or I'd slip and fall and/or drop them. Anyway when we were finally all together again Andrew took over the washing and I would do the lotion, ears, dressing and all the rest. So not surprisingly they love bath time even more now. Seems Daddy makes it lots more fun. Thank the Lord for Daddy!

Andrew was the one who took these cute bath time pictures. Mary Ellen loves to splash. If you look close you can see the flying water droplets!

I thought this was a cute picture of Mary Ellen visiting Michael after her turn was over. Michael loves playing with his blow-up goldfish. Mary Ellen has a dolphin.

Michael is so happy in the bath tub and many times cries when Andrew pulls him out to dry off. He has always been my little smiley boy. And especially during bath time!

A Cooper New Year!

Happy New Year!! And what a fun surprise we had when our best friends, CAS and Christy's Christmas gifts arrived on Jan 1st. It had gotten delayed longer than usual and when it arrived we understood why....it was huge! So many wonderful surprises! We just kept pulling gift after gift from amongst the mound of styrofoam peanuts. Of course M&M were thrilled to have yet more gifts to open. I told Christy that with their Birthday being in September I was afraid that every year they were going to expect continuous gifts from September to January! It has surely seemed that way this year!

I did a "nap time" craft and made these funny New Year's hats using left over party hats from their birthday. They kept them on only long enough for some pictures. And they were distracted anyway by all the new gifts they just opened.

I created a slideshow for the Cooper-Gift-Opening-Extravaganza!

Thank you CAS, Christy, David, Carly and Daniel! Your gifts were so generous and we just can't tell you enough what a special family to us you are. We love you so much and can't wait to see you in February!