Savannah's First Hair Cut

"Mommy," Savannah said in a sad little voice, "I want long hair." 

"Honey," I said, a little confused, "You do have long hair." 

"No, Mommy, I want long hair." 

 

And she handed me a clump of hair. Savannah has officially had her first hair cut. 

Sadly, she did it herself. 

Thankfully, she didn't do much damage...

 

A Package!

We got our first package in the mail from America today!

Included in the package were these awesome jaw-breaker suckers, 6 fabulous packages of chocolate chips, 2 super cute sleepers for Sophie, little girls underwear, great smelling soap, and a pair of sunglasses.

All much needed and much appreciated items. Particularly the chocolate chips. We made cookies immediately. I would show a picture to you of their chocolaty goodness, but they were devoured before any thoughts of a picture entered my mind. Chocolate first, pictures second. Always.

However, the crown and glory of this package was a notebook. A journal upon which the greatest sister in the world took the time to personally write encouraging notes on every.single.page. How fabulous is that?

Yes. She is just that awesome.

Emily and I have poured over it. Emily loves to read it and follows me around the house reading various pages to me.

It is good to be loved. Always.

Homemade Tortilla Chips

One of the things you cannot get here is tortilla chips. And when your husband can make yummy, yummy salsa, it seems sad not to have tortilla chips.

But, lucky for us, we know people. And these peoples (or as they say in Arabic, beobles) know how to make tortilla chips. So, I tried it... and several phone consultations with a very patient friend later... we had tortilla chips.

Very yummy, crispy, tortilla chips to go with our very yummy salsa.

Life is good, beobles.

It Really Works

Remember that baby sling I posted about awhile back? The one where I couldn't figure out how to make it work for me?

I'm still not sure if I'm using it right...

If I step out of the house... I am using it. It has been awesome to have here since we walk so many places. I even use it if we hop a taxi. I just slide her leg around so I can sit down and don't even take her out of it. 

I've also used it for other uses: in a dirty place I've laid it down to use as a changing table... and I use it as a nursing cover. Pretty awesome.

Pyramids Concluded

To conclude pictures from the pyramids, I will leave you with two of Brian's pictures from the trip:

And our attempt at a family picture! Haha.

The Sphinx

The last stop was the Sphinx.

Unfortunately, the kids were pretty much done with pictures by this point. So this is the best I could do. I'm sure we will go again before we leave, so I'm not really worried about the perfect picture.

Sophie had been rescued from the backpack by this time, so she and I had a picture together to document her existence :)

Brian snapped these couple of pictures as we were walking through the buildings leading up to the Sphinx. I was really wishing I had brought my wrap... but we weren't there very long. However, check out that baby sucking on her thumb! How sweet is that?

In the Tombs

During my birthday visit to the Pyramids, we also visited a couple of tombs that were nearby. The Pyramids don't actually have anything down inside them as it has been moved to museums, but there were two tombs that had some fantastic hieroglyphs and carvings.

Pretty awesome, isn't it?

This next picture requires a little explanation...

Off to the side of the pyramids are a bunch of tombs.The gentleman you see in the picture flagged us down and offered to show us one. So we followed him down a trail and he took us inside a locked tomb which had some magnificent hieroglyphs. As we were walking out, he knelt down and pulled apart two slabs of rock which covered a hole in the ground. From it, he pulled out this skull. Yes, it is a real skull. Not as old as he wanted us to believe, but real nonetheless.

I did not want to hold it at all. No thank you! But as you can see from the picture, he is holding my hands on it. He literally reached down and took my hands and held them on the skull.

I'm actually glad Brian snapped this picture. Because... well, you know. It makes a great blog picture. But seriously, it still creeps me out a little to see it.

The Camel Ride

On my birthday, at the pyramids, Savannah and I rode a camel. It was pure awesomeness! Absolutely fun.

Emily, for some reason, refused to ride. Later Brian told me that she had told him she needed to get used to the camels before she rode it. Of course. It is the first time she's been up close and personal with a camel.

Halfway through the ride, Savannah shouted: "This is so cool! And he isn't even biting us!" Hmmm, maybe that's why Emily wouldn't ride it. Evidently, the fear of being bitten wasn't stronger than Savannah's need to try it out. This should probably worry me to some degree. Or make me proud. I don't know which.

On the way back, a horse with a rider past us. Brian started talking with the camel owner about being from Texas and how there are horses there and something about cowboys. So of course, Savannah started shouting: "Yippee! Yahoo!"

It was such an awesome birthday. And there are still more awesome pictures to come!

Happy Birthday to Me!

More pictures to come from my birthday trip to the Pyramids!

The Girliest Room in the House

 Is the girls bedroom, of course! This is the sign that some of their new little friends made for them. They still have it taped to their door.

Recently we went to a large store and let them pick out new bedding for their beds. Cute, yes? I thought Savannah would pick the same as Emily, since they both like Strawberry Shortcake. But Savannah's favorite colors are pink and yellow, so Tweety it was.

This is a closet substitute: a massive piece of wood furniture. We use it for lots of different things. A bookshelf in the middle section. Clothes in the drawers. The tall doors on the left side is used as a toy box. The doors on the right have a few hanging clothes and shoes. The top cabinets I use for storage. Very functional. I love it.

The Smartest Room in the House

It is hard to get pictures of square rooms... but I'm doing what I can, just for you!

This is where we keep our books... (hence, the name The Smartest Room in the House - and I couldn't think of anything else to follow my theme;)

This is where we sleep and where baby Sophie sleeps... we actually just bought a crib for her yesterday, which was really exciting. I'm looking forward to setting it up and using it!

I'm showing you this picture to point out that right next to our bedroom is the girls bedroom, and I plan to show you that room tomorrow. If you go out our bedroom door and turn right, there is the Busiest Room in the House.

We have been told that Egyptian homes typically do not have "master bathrooms" like in the States. Nor do they usually have built in closets. They use massive pieces of furniture, which you saw the corner of ours in the second picture, right corner. I actually really like it. But don't use it as much as it was intended to be used, due to the cost of hangers. You would pay several dollars for 6 clothes hangers. And I can't bring myself to do that. So we fold everything and put it in the middle section.

The Loneliest Room in the House

This is the kitchen... don't picture your typical open-to-the-living-room/dining-room American kitchen. Instead, picture going into the small bedroom in your house and putting kitchen cabinets and appliances in it. Then imagine yourself preparing, cooking and cleaning up from meals isolated away from the other members of your family or friends while they are laughing and talking in the living room.
 
Yes. The loneliest room in the house.

 Now, don't get me wrong. I love to cook. I don't really even mind cleaning. And as far as kitchens go, this is a great kitchen. We have a gas stove that has a rotisserie in it. There are lots of cabinets and plenty of counter space. We have a microwave and a dishwasher. (Granted, the dishwasher hasn't worked since we moved in, but we do have one that may work eventually.) And there is hot, running water. Which is always awesome. 

However, I strongly dislike being closeted away from everyone else to do hours of work. Music helps a lot and so does talking about it with your husband, who is great about pitching in and just hanging out.

Oh, and one funny side note: the brand of dish soap sitting on the counter? Fairy. Yes, Fairy dish soap.

The Longest Room in the House

This has got to be the longest rug I have ever seen.

Period.

The Busiest Room in the House

 

This is a picture of my bathroom, it is, hands down, the busiest room in house. On top of all the typically bathroom business that takes place here, my washer and dryer are here. The dryer is in the corner by the sink and the toilet. In the picture on the right is the washing machine and the tile to the bathroom.

I am incredibly grateful to have a dryer. The majority of laundry is dried by hanging it outside a window on a clothesline...

With as much laundry as I have to do with three small children and two grown-ups, I'm so grateful my flat came with a dryer.

I don't think we have been in the house, but the washer and dryer has been going. Laundry is a full-time job here based on two complications:
    The first thing is the size of the washers and dyers. You can fit one queen size sheet in a load. Or one pair of jeans and 3 shirts. Or about 4 or 5 child sized outfits.
    It takes about 2.5 hours for the washer to run a full cycle. Then it takes 2.5 hours for the dryer to dry the laundry and sometimes longer depending on the type of material or amount of items you have stuffed into the load.

So where ever you are and whatever you do, just know: 

over here on this side of the ocean, I'm doing laundry.