Our Vacation Pics

Hey guys I thought you would enjoy some pics from our recent vacation to San Antonio and Galveston.

Vacation 2010

Pictures of the Boys

Pictures of the Boys

Scroll down towards the later ones to see pics of them at the river.  Really funny...

Revenge is Sweet

It's tough being the little guy. You are the last one to arrive and get the snack because you have the shortest legs. You're the one that can't get the cookies on the counter. You're the one that never gets to play with the toy you want because the bigger guys either steal it from you or con you into take something lame so they can take it from you and then they can tell your parents that they "traded" you for it.

Being little stinks, which makes those moments of revenge oh so sweet and extremely funny to watch as a parent.

The other day Noah had messed up his clothes and needed to change. Since he is almost 4 I told him that I didn't make the mess and therefore he would have to change his clothes himself if he wanted to get out of the wet clothes. 5 minutes or so pass and then I hear Nate giggling devilishly and Noah screaming. In the midst of all of this I hear a slapping sound before each of Noah's over dramatic screeches.

I rush in there to find Noah hopping around frantically while Nate runs after him. Noah had apparently put both legs in the same leg opening in his jeans and therefore was rendered immobile save for hopping around. Noah had also neglected to put a shirt on before he found himself in such a vulnerable state. Nate maximizing on the situation, pounced on Noah slapping his bare chest and back with squeals of joy. Noah's response, instead of just decking Nate and being done with it, was opting to hop around like mad man, which only heightened Nate's sense of enjoyment as he would run down Noah and smack him. After several moments of this, Nate successfully pinned Noah on the ground and was slapping Noah silly.

By the time I pulled myself together and actually pulled Nate off of Noah, Noah was covered in little red hand prints and Nate was in a much better mood.

Here's to you Nate, you are a tough little scrapper!!

Hello Again

Hello friends,

I doubt anyone even checks our blog anymore because we haven't posted in so long. But I am going to try to start posting again! We have been busy. Taking care of two boys keeps me hopping most days. Clayton is liking his new job at Catholic Charities very much. Start checking in again if you haven't been and hopefully there will be several new posts a week with mostly stuff about the boys. In the meantime here are a few pictures from the past week.

Where are they?

WHERE ARE THEY???
Most of you probably won't even check the post till later next week, since there has been absolutely nothing on here in forever. You've probably taken us off your daily/weekly rotation. I'm sorry that we've been lame. What have we been doing? With having a new baby in the family, pink eye, packing up a house, kidney stones, moving countries, visiting family, getting acclimated to American culture again, and getting off of jet lag; we've been having problems doing anything besides sleeping in our free time. (see pic below)

However I was able to get some photos up on facebook of our trip to Brownwood for the boys to meet their cousins and visit Nana and Papa.

Click here to see pictures

This is a Drill... The Embassy is Under Attack

Yesterday we were at the US Embassy applying for Nathanael's citizenship and passport when the alarms go off and the guards start rolling down the steal doors. After several minutes of this a voice comes on and repeats over and over, "This is a drill. Duck and Cover! The Embassy is under attack! Get away from the windows!"

So we sat down and waited for the hypothetic people to stop hypothetically attacking the embassy, the guards to stop guarding all the steal doors, and all the workers to get out of their safe room.

I think that was a first for me. I've never been locked in my own embassy. Interesting.

Once all the fun subsided we got all of Nathanael's paperwork in. They assured us that it would be between 1 and 2 weeks to have everything thing done. That's nice. 2 weeks is the day before we leave. It would be nice if it came in by then so Nathanael could go with us you know.

This Week.....

This week....wow...

I think that how the sisters talked about their brother Lazarus would be appropriate: "But Lord, he stinketh"

This week stunketh. That's right. Big stunketh.

Lets kick off the past weeks with a play by play.

Nathanael.
He got circumcised. Yeah. A funny story to go with that though: I walk up to the reception desk and tell the nurse I need to schedule a circumcision for my son (as I am pointing to B holding the small baby). The nurse gets up, gets a paper, shuffles some stuff around, and then hands the file another nurse who comes back to the counter where I am standing reading over the file. "You are here for the circumcision," she says looking up at me. "No, I'm good," I reply, "its for my son." I don't know if red would be the right color, but that was the color of her face as she quickly turned around and walked off very embarrassed.

Noah.
Got pink eye. He has been chased around all week with wet wipes and disinfectant hand wash and is still trying to figure out why we wash our hands everytime we touch him. But he is better now and all is right in the world.

We celebrated Noah's health and Nathanael's 2 weeks with getting Nathanael pictures for his passport (see above) and some Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream. Noah recommends the Green Gummy Bear Apple Sherbet with extra Gummy Bears by the way and Nathanael's only advice for the day is don't get your picture taken where they expect you to wake up from a nap and immediately keep your eyes open. But, with the exception of Nathanael's passport picture, everything ended up pretty good.

Things Have Changed

What can you say? I mean really, what can you say? People said, "oh, having your second will be like such-and-such" or "y'all will be doing such-and-such."

Well, Nathanael is 3 days old and all of us are still here. In some ways nothing has changed. In some ways, everything is different! Nathanael, when he isn't eating, just sits in his chair by the window and looks at.... dirt, yeah, basically just the dirt blowing around (sandstorms the past week, the whole house is caked in dirt). Noah is his normal self just with one more baby to play with.

Noah loves Nathanael. So our role towards Nathanael is really more of a guardian as to a parent. We spend a lot of time protecting him from his loving big brother! However today for breakfast Noah and I went out to catch food for the women and children and Noah discovered powdered donuts!

How things are definitely different:
* Getting 2 boys to sleep at the same time is harder than just 1.
* We have 3 times the diapers as before
* I am taking out the trash more
* Sleep is like that pot at the end of the rainbow: you chase it, but never find it.
* We fill up a car. No more giving people lifts. We are full. Full of kids, toys, car seats, strollers, and diaper bags.
* We spend alot of time changing clothes and doing laundry.

With all that said we are very happy and doing very well.

Nathanael Levi

Nathanael finally made it!

8 lbs 12 oz and 19.6 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing very great. Here is a video and a couple of pics.

Eli and Nathanael

Cross Countries Tour, UAE

After we cleared Saudi we headed into the United Arab Emirates to head up to Abu Dhabi and then hang a right until we crossed into Oman. We were glad to get to see more of the Emirates than just Dubai. Dubai for all the hype is okay....but seriously, if I wanted to live in a "modern city" and be surrounded by Westerners, why did I leave America??? However we did manage to drive up there and go through IKEA one day....which is awesome.

Sidenote: When you cross over the UAE border by car, they make you get your eyes scanned which can take forever when there are tons of people there.....trust us. AND your entry visa is free, BUT they charge you an exit fee........bummer.

On our way back through we cleared Emirati passport control and we at the last checkpoint before going into Saudi and the officer went through my passport and apparently the general that I waited and hour to see and get "stamped" out stamped out my family and my car but forgot to put a stamp in mine, so we had to drive back up to passport control and I had to get stamped out.....we were not happy, no sir. not happy at all.

But in the end, its not really the place as much as the people you get to hang out with while you are there, so it was good to get to hang out with our friends there and it was worth the long drive and the stupid eye scan

Welcome Y'all....or the Emirati Equivalent

Noah sitting on the bridge overlooking the river walk at Festival City in Dubai

Noah playing in a fountain at a really nice park close to Oman. Seriously, when you've got money, you can make it green if you want to.

Aww... the fam.

Cross Countries Tour, KSA

The past two weeks we as a family took a trip to Muscat, Oman......by car. 1,700 miles over 3 countries. It was incredible! Noah did a great job. Our first country to enter was Saudi Arabia.

We were a little nervous to go into the this place that we've heard so much about and is so closed off. We stopped at a mall in Al Khobar to grab some lunch and it was the first time that we actually had to "engage" life in KSA. Every resturaunt there has two seperate sections, one for families and one for men only. They have two separate entrances and are divided by walls. It was a new experience for us.

We were able to spend the night in Al Hofuf on our way through and on our way back. B and I both went into some culture shock there. Nothing in English, crazy traffic, mixed in with everything being closed down for the call to prayer and B having to cover her head caused some stress! Oh, and we got lost in Hofuf going to the hotel, going to eat, on the way back to the hotel, and on the way out of town! We now know 800 different ways to not get where you need to be!

The driving there on the highway is AWESOME!!! No speed limits and nothing to slow you down!!! However, no matter how fast you drive (100 mph) Saudis still drive faster and they don't have any problems with double or even triple passing people...or passing you on the shoulder. It is like a game of "anything goes" at 100+ mph!! It was truly fun for me and stressful for everyone else in the car!!
Here are the pictures as we went through Saudi Arabia. I will try to post each country separately.

The first thing we saw in Saudi!! This place must not be that bad, right?

This is my hot wife!!!



Al Hofuf at sunrise

Camels roam along the highways in herds. It was just like driving through Texas and seeing the herds of cattle....well sort of.

The last thing we saw as we passed into the United Arab Emirates (it says the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)
I will try to get pics of the UAE up soon.

The Battle at Hamster Wheel

You always hear of parents getting all these presents for the their kids and either 1) they like the box and the wrapping paper more than the present or 2) they use the present for two minutes and then derive some "new, improved" way of using their new toy that usually involves danger.

Noah got a blow-up hamster wheel for Christmas which he likes very much and learned how to run around the house in it. It was very cool.

Then Noah decided that his hamster wheel was a better fort than a wheel, so it turned into Noah hiding in the fort and popping out and throwing balls at us.

However, things took a turn for the worst when Noah realized that he was fighting a losing battle. 4 adults against 1 toddler hardly seemed fair, so Noah insisted that Daddy join his side. (I tell Noah that I am always there for him and ready to stand by his side to fight the storms of life with him, but this really wasn't what I had in mind.)

3 adults against Noah and Daddy seemed to work for Noah, but the only problem was that while Noah could duck down and avoid the shrapnel from the enemies' ball grenades, Daddy, no matter how hard he tried, couldn't get his fat head out of the line of fire!


So Noah tried to even the score once again. This time he recruited his H2 to come and fight with us against the Axis of Evil. So now it was: 3 adults vs. 1 Toddler, 1 Daddy, and a Hummer H2.

The Battle at Hamster Wheel raged on and on, neither side giving in. The standstill eeked on until hunger overtook both sides and Daddy's leg fell asleep, so they agreed to make peace, not war, and break bread together.

The Boys

The Story of Mo and No

Morgan came all the way from Illinois to see Noah for Thanksgiving, so Noah wanted to take her out on the town and show her the sights in order to "woo" her. Here is their story.

Since Noah couldn't drive yet, there was a mutany on deck until all the non-short people agreed to take the twosome out....

The young couple enjoyed a burger and fries at Chili's.

Then Noah in all his slyness took Morgan up to the tower overlooking the Persian Gulf at sunset. Apparently this picture was taken after he tried to give her a kiss.

They then went out for Mexican food and listened to live music. (note that Noah is wearing his beans.)
Then, because Noah is a nice young man and from good stock, he got Morgan home early and they dressed up in their finest to take pictures with Morgan's mom. Because we all know, you've got to win the mother-in-law as well as the girl.

Ummm...MiniVan?

We were driving yesterday and saw this...... Three big dogs in a little convertible. What can I say?

The Pwoods Have Landed

We had a great week last week with Corey and Rachel here. Believe or not we don't have any pics of all 5 of us though.

Noah and Uncle Corey

Swing Low

Nice...

Noah and Aunt Rachel

More Day at the Park Pics

These are two pics of Noah playing in the sprinkles from two days ago.

Saturday in the Park

The weather was beautiful today (low 80s), so we went on a picnic in the park. Noah loved the park, the grass and trees, and loved running wild; that is until the sprinklers came on. Then he forgot about all that and just loved the sprinklers!

Sorry about the shoddy quality of the video. We used our camera for it and I uploaded it at a low quality to save upload time. Sorry. :(