The new place

Well, we've got a villa for next year.  We could have gotten something much larger but we would have had to move further out than we wanted.  Besides, this is a school villa and they handle the landlord, any maintenance or repairs, as well as the HOA fees.  This totally makes the smaller house worth it.  There is a nice garden (calling it a back yard would be too generous), it backs onto a gated pond, is a 2 minute walk from the pool, 5 minute walk from a playground, and on a quiet street.  The master bedroom is quite spacious but the kids' rooms are microscopic.  Luckily Aidan is small and doesn't require a larger room.

We'll post pictures in August.  I felt a bit weird about taking pictures while the other family was still living in it.  A bit of trivia, the current residents are Patrick and Jennifer Hopkins and they have two kids, a boy and a girl.

We've also nailed down the nursery for The New Kid.  We decided not to reuse Aidan's set because 1) we (meaning Patrick) wanted something a bit more girly, and 2) Aidan was still using parts of the set for his toddler room.  We'll be picking up some pieces in the States and the lighting and rug locally in August.  We've decided not to paint the room.  It's already a nice cream and I was worried that colored walls would make the room feel boxed in and even smaller.

1. MiGi Sweet Sunshine nursery set. 
2. I can't decide on which wall decal I want.  I'm torn between the bird cages or the tree with birds.  I would get the decal in grey and with light blue birds now that we aren't painting.
3. I liked this little felt bird knick knack, and the shop has them in other colors as well.
4. Another bird knick knack, but this one can be used as a door stop or book end.
5. Vidja table lamp OR vate lamp set, both from Ikea
6. You are my sunshine print from Ferntree Studio at Etsy
7. Another idea for a bird knick knack, but I would want it in a soft yellow.
8. Gislev rug from Ikea
9. This is the interior of the Sweet Sunshine bumper.  It's reversible and we would probably put the solid yellow fuzzy side on the inside.  I know that bumpers are supposed to be a no no, but Aidan would get his arm or leg stuck in the bars whenever we didn't have one.

We'll be using Aidan's white furniture in the room as well as picking up one or two white floating shelves from Ikea to use for books.  Since the new house has LOADS of closets, the extra bureaus we have will be used in Aidan's room.  We have some matching floating shelves that we haven't used since Kuwait that we'll put up in his new room to display books. 

Twittering #1

Brandon looks so proud of the
heart attack he's about to have.

Pizza Hut, UAE is a bit creative with their offerings.  We have Kit Kat poppers (Kit Kat bits baked in pizza dough) and the infamous Cheese Burger Crust pizza.  Deni has already requested this heart stopper when she visits.

Because we're all excited about the cute girl's clothes!

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has already gone online and to a store to look at girl's clothes.  So cute!  I've put together my plan for buying clothes for The New Kid and I thought I'd share it in case others were also considering buying clothes for the new baby.

Don't buy new born sizes (NB)
Aidan was 9 lbs when he was born, so he didn't fit the new born items we were given.  Babies just grow out of that size too quickly and I would recommend buying things no smaller than 0-3 months.

Warm weather clothes - 0-3 months up to 10 months
The baby is due towards the end of September and it's still going to be pretty hot and humid here.  Patrick really likes one piece outfits and rompers.  GAP has loads of awesome ones that I will be stalking until they go on sale/clearance.  Winter here is about 70 degrees.  Heavy clothes will be too much, but little cardigans or light pullovers will work perfectly.

I would recommend buying summer clothes when they go on clearance in August and there will be plenty of time to mail it to us.  GAP and Old Navy always seem to be having a sale and I found really good deals last June.  The Carter's brand carried at Target is great and has held up well.  I actually like the fit of Target Carter's better than the fit of the clothes from the Carter's store.  Erin and mom picked up some fabulous outfits for Aidan from a second hand store in Little Rock, so that's another type of shop to consider.

These dresses are super cute: GAP, Old Navy (not the dresses with the large patterns or the DVF line)

Pajamas
Aidan pretty much spent his first month in pajamas, so we'll be stocking up on those.  We still have all of Aidan's 0-3 month pajamas, but anything beyond that we need to replace.  And if you see some super cute girl pajamas for 0-3 months, we won't say no to them. :)  We prefer the footed pajamas with the built in scratch mitts (cuffs that fold over the baby's hands and prevent scratching).  However, I've not seen a lot of these in the US.  I think Relia gave us a Carter's sleep set that included separate scratch mitts and that worked fine.  Patrick is now familiar enough with them that he no longer confuses them for socks.

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UPDATE - Old Navy has pajamas with scratch mitts.

They call them "Reversible, turn-cuff handmitts"

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Buying larger sizes
We were given a few outfits for Aidan that he wouldn't be able to fit until he was two or three.  That was fine and actually worked out really well for us.  In fact, the first shirt I bought Aidan was a size 3T and he wasn't able to wear it until last summer.  If you see something you want to get, for either of the kids but it has to be in a larger size, that's fine.  I've actually started buying a few items in the next year's size during the summer to hold us over from March until June.  That way we can take advantage of the more affordable options in the States when we stock up on clothes.

No fluorescent colors
Bright colors are fine but fluorescent colors make my eyes hurt.  We don't mind if it's just a little bit of fluorescent, but not an entire outfit.  Patrick is already avoiding the girl's side of Carter's because it's "blinding".

Hats & Socks
This may seem odd, but we do use hats.  The poor kid will probably take after me and be bald for a year.  Brimmed hats will be great when we're outside and caps are good for the mall, airports, and school nursery.  Socks are almost impossible to find in this country.  Any socks, but especially plain white ones, will go a long way.

Not so much pink, please
I'm not saying no to pink, we just don't plan on picking up loads of it.

Swimsuits
Those one pieces with arms and sleeves (they look like surfing suits) are great in theory but awful in real life.  The kids look like stuffed sausages and are almost impossible to get out of once wet.  I used Aidan's twice, hated it both times, and promptly bought swim trunks.  Aidan was 4 months old when we first took him to the pool, so if you want to pick up a swimsuit get something around the 4-6 month or larger range.

OMG!  Shoes are so cute!!!
No rules on this one, I'm excited to be able to buy them.  Kuwait had nothing in Aidan's size and we couldn't get anything for him until he was almost a year old.  It seems stores only carried 3 boy styles and a bazillion girl shoe styles.  In fact, I'm so excited about this that Patrick will probably come up with some shoe rules to reign me in.

Other baby items
Not quite sure what we need on this front.  We still have all of the major items, I'll have to go through everything and figure out what smaller things we need.

The big 20 week appointment

We had the anatomy scan today and it was so cool!  We could count the vertebrae, focus in on specific organs, we were even able to see blood flow!  The doctor said it seemed to be a girl and later on he was able to view right between the legs - it's a girl.  The baby is developing perfectly!  He also commented that it was a very active baby, which I've been feeling for awhile now.  This one kicks a lot more than Aidan did.

It took us about twenty weeks to figure out a boy's name, so we've started looking at girls names already.

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Aidan's birthday started out with a bang when his nanny, Sara, came over looking like a Birthday Santa.  She had two large gifts and eight balloons, she barely fit down the hallway to Aidan's room. He's normally a bit grumpy in the morning but he popped out of bed as soon as he saw the balloons.

We had a small birthday party in the school nursery this year and Aidan had a great time. I made cupcakes (cupcakes and icing from scratch, probably the last year for that), popcorn, and apple juice.  Sara had also brought a small cake.  The kids went nuts as soon as they saw the sweets and Aidan was excited because they were excited.  He didn't really know what the cake was but he'd been stealing cupcakes with varying degrees of success since the night before, so he knew he liked those.  As soon as I put the candle on the cake Aidan knew what was happening.  He tried to blow out the candle before we even had it lit.  Everyone had a great time and I owe the nannies a treat because the kids were supper hyped up afterwards.





Sara was a little nervous about her present for Aidan.  He loves Dora the Explorer, Charlie and Lola, and Shaun the Sheep.  Sara found a Dora bed set with lots of blue in it and bought it for him.  Another nanny said it was for girls and poor Sara worried.  I assured her that boys love Dora too (they do) and Aidan liked the bed set.  I'm not so sure he cares about the character on the bedding, but the fact that he has a comforter that fits his toddler bed has sent him over the moon.  He hops into bed and snuggles under the covers, then gets really excited and just starts wiggling all over.  Mira and Omar got Aidan a ball that he could sit on and bounce and a tunnel to crawl through.  Aidan will get in it and play cars or just roll around on the floor.





Last night we were able to pick up our gift for Aidan - a kids sized chair.  Or it was supposed to be a chair but Patrick came home with the couch.  We've been using Aidan's booster seat as a chair on the floor and sometimes he uses his toy stroller as a chair, so we knew he'd like this gift.  Aidan loved it!  We put it next to the coffee table so he could eat dinner while sitting on his new couch.  We actually had to put it in his room last night to get him to go to bed.  He was trying to sleep on the little couch while it was in the living room.





  All in all he had a great birthday.

Aidan at the Petting Zoo

Last week KG1 had Posh Paws bring in their "petting zoo".  I guess, being Dubai, we should be happy that we had any animals at all and none of them were on the endangered species list.  The nannies took the nursery kids down to have a look and Sara got some nice pictures.  She said Aidan loved it and wanted to climb into the pens with them, but she was a bit freaked out about how much he liked the snake. 

WARNING: Mom, there are two snake pictures ahead.