The Candrians Down Under

Girls With Guns

We took a road trip to the Golan Heights, at Israel's northern boarder, to check out Banias Falls
and Nimrod's Fortress.


My sneak photos of girls with guns

The hike was beautiful and fun, and exploring the tremendous Nimrod's fortress (from the 1200's) brought out our inner Indiana Jones. But the most memorable part was all the young adults (although 18 yr olds look like kids to me now) casually hiking around with rifles. Big groups, all dressed casually in civilian clothes, texting on their phones, listening to ipods and playing around...with huge weapons hanging from some of their shoulders like a mere accessory. We asked someone why they would carry rifles on a casual outing to the waterfall, but his vague response was sort of like, why wouldn't they? The obvious guess is that they were ~~kids~~ young adults in the military...but it still seemed funny for a just-for-kicks trip to a nature reserve. (At least the guns were not loaded.) The area is right on the boarder of Lebanon and Syria, and at times during our trip we could hear loud blasts echo through the canyon from beyond the boarder, just a few miles away. It was a surreal reminder of what is other people's reality, day-in, day-out, just on the other side of the mountain. And a peek into the crazy things to which people right there where we were are accustomed.

Exploring a tower of Nimrod's Fortress

Sensory Table

A couple months ago, I found a good deal on a tall coffee table from Ikea and decided to make it into a sensory table. I finally had a good excuse to use our round power saw (is that what it is even called?) and I'd say that cutting up a table with a power tool was definitely the most fun I've ever had doing a project. Happily, the kids have also had hours and hours of fun with the result. Even without the sensory bins inside, a table with two holes has been fun for the kids all on its own. I can't thing of any other toy or activity that has captivated them for such long stretches of time that require ZERO help or attention from me.
Table + bins: $31
Hours of cooking dinner uninterupted: priceless

Black sand and a pretty collection of colorful rocks

This last picture is with water marbles, which even I can't get enough of running my hands through.
We've also tried rice (colored and scented with Kool-Aid) and seashells.
I got a little kitchen scale, also on the cheap, and hopefully someone, sometime, will learn something about measuring and weighing from it. But if so, it will be on their own, because this is one activity that I revel in doing nothing. (Besides clean up...which is actually far from nothing.)

Family Visitors

We love, love, loved having Rob's sister Andrea + husband Isaac come to visit us last week. One love for the fun of their company, another love for the attention they heaped on the kids, and an extra love for the pictures they took with their super nice camera. (All pics below are courtesy of Andrea and Isaac.)

Rob and Andrea in Capernum (Sea of Galilee behind them)

Rob, Isaac, Andrea eating fish caught (by someone else) from the Sea of Galilee

Ella, Herzliya Beach

Michael, Herzliya Beach

Isaac, Ella

The Mediterranean Sea at sunset (again...picture credit to Andrea!)

Michael posing as a statue at Caesarea

Copy-cat Ella, also posing as a statue

Andrea and Isaac at Caesarea

Michael's 4th Birthday

For Michael's 4th birthday, we went bowling and ate dinner at the Seven Stars Mall. After we sang "Happy Birthday", a girl approached our table. She was an 8 or 9 year old cutie, prettied up from head to toe and wearing a classic pink ballerina outfit and skirt. She handed Michael a balloon from McDonald's and, using excellent English, wished him a happy birthday. He looked at her in awe, with big eyes but little comment, not sure what to make of her. (She was just another kid eating at the mall who decided to do something nice at random.)
At home that night, out of the blue he asked, "Mom, why did a beautiful princess come give me a balloon today?"
He asked about the beautiful princess again this morning.
I wish I had a picture of her and I hope he always remembers that sweet, beautiful ballerina!


In his new Liverpool jersey from Rob. He was bursting with exuberance all birthday long, from the second he woke up till he went back to bed.

His options were bowling with one or two friends, or a party at our house with all of his friends. Lucky me he loves bowling, because I'm way too tired right now for the latter option.

Random quote from this morning: "Mom, why do we have two hands?" How many does he wish he had? Nine.

Conversations with Smalls

Today's conversation with Michael:

Mom, I don't like your uterus.
Why not?
Because that is where the baby is growing.
And why don't you like that?
Because, babies take a lot of time and work, you know?

Yesterday:
Michael: Ella, will you tell me the story again about the umbilical cord?
Ella: Sure. Once upon a time, there was a little baby Michael and he had an umbilical cord. Then he had to get a shot and he cried and he cried. Then he grew and he grew into his normal.

I think we've been watching one too many videos from babycenter.com. I showed them one once (it's computer graphics of a baby in the womb at different stages of development), and they have begged for more and more. My kids are fascinated by them and it cracks me up to now hear them referencing my uterus, placenta, and the umbilical cord. Nearly everyday Michael examines my belly and announces, yep, it's growing.

The videos have given my kids an unrealistic view of what can be filmed, however. Michael has also made requests for a video of the baby coming down from heaven and going into my belly, as well as a look inside of a cocoon to see how it turns into a butterfly.

I am overjoyed about having baby #3! But I will definitely feel more overjoyed again once it feels more like a baby and less like a parasite making me sick all the time.

The top two reasons I am excited for another child:

I was taking some pictures of something else when Ella grabbed the magnifying glass and walked up to the camera just like this. Too perfect!

Copy cat picture with the other cutie.

Orderly Ella

A few months ago I started finding washcloths around the house, only to discover that my baby Ella likes to get them out to clean. I thought it was just a phase, but she's kept up with it for so long and so often that I'd say it's shaping up to be a full blown personality trait. My girl loves to clean.

It was especially charming on this day, when the kids were outside making giant bubbles with some friends. Everyone was going nuts over the bubbles, when in ran Ella, babbling to herself, "It's dripping all over, we gotta clean it up", as she headed straight for the drawer with the washcloths. Then she ran back and dutifully wiped up the drips as the other kids made the bubbles.
How did we ever get a child like this in our family?!
And how does the same girl make such a blissful, almost artful mess of food all over herself and the surrounding region every time we sit down to eat?

On a related note, nearly every other night for the last few months, Ella will start to cry within a few minutes of me leaving the room as she goes to sleep. As soon as I come in, she calms down and says in her most proper voice, "Mommy, my blanket has been messed up." It cracks me up. The way she delivers it feels to my ears like the equivalent of "mother dearest, I would like to bring it to your attention that my blanket is not in its proper position."

Five Step Process to Eat Your Dinner

Before I forget... Last week Michael and Ella were painting in their underwear out back. He wanted to take off his undies and I told him no. My kids are no strangers to running around naked and I couldn't come up with a particular reason why I cared, but this time it just struck me as a bad idea.
Soon after I went inside to help get dinner on, Michael ran inside naked and crying that his bum hurt. Turns out, he took off his undies and almost immediately sat down on a brand-new colony of stinging ants. OUCH! His poor bum was covered in red stings. Every remedy I tried to help reduce the sting just made him scream harder, and the one thing that finally helped was stuffing an ice-pack into his undies. Ella got one sting as well and together they created quite the cacophony.

Now, if only this type of experience would produce perfectly obedient children. Unfortunately they forget quickly. But mothers don't. I will definitely be referencing back to this.
We ate dinner rather late that night after the kids finally settled down. But dinner is often a little interesting in our house, as it is always a task to figure out how to get Michael to put his food in his mouth and chew. I am in utter disbelief that I have produced offspring that actually eats more slowly than I do. SLOWER THAN ME! It is hard to fathom. He actually eats a decently good variety of food and is even willing to try new food. But the time it takes for him to put it in his mouth!!! We have tried all sorts of tactics - but ultimately there is no forcing with food and we usually end up clearing the table and having the dishes done before he finally announces "I think I can finish this in just ten more minutes!".

Anyway, Michael really likes signs and step-by-step processes, so somehow this night we came up with the 5-Step Process to Eat Your Dinner (and repeat). He loved it so much he turned it into a song, and he did actually end up finishing his one slice of pizza sometime before bed. At which time, Michael insisted on sleeping with the ice-pack in his diaper.
I guess the humor of it all just made it a really amusing night, the kind that makes me just love having a family. Here are a couple random videos I took as I tried to soak in my goofy kids.

Ella Turns 2

Some bits about Ella as she turns two:

She is a messy eater and refuses a bib - so she always eats topless.

She is so very good at self-entertaining. She is very easy going with a pretty long fuse before she gets frustrated. If she does get upset or hurt, she settles down pretty quickly. She has a long attention span. Basically, the stuff that makes her a pretty easy kid. She is a make-believe queen. Her favorite make-believe games almost always involve food. Her favorite books revolve around food, too. She loves an odd book I never really intended for her; it's called "It's Addition" and it has little rhymes about adding things like scoops of ice-cream and lollipops. But she's asked me to read it probably 50 times. So she often will say things like, "Mom, I have equals two pillows". Or "I want two plus equals three spoons" and other nonsense.

Last month she entered the "Don't look at me" and "Go away" stage. So funny. I could hardly believe it when one morning she even told Michael to stop smiling at her! I thought I still had a couple years before a kid might start with that stuff.
She's always begging me to play crack-the-whip with her in the backyard. I always feel like it is a rough game for her little body but she loves it and likes to be whipped around till she falls over.
She is as silly as can be. She teases me by pretending to offer something and then taking it away. She changes lyrics to songs in silly ways and then laughs her little head off. Like, "Ring around the Rosies, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all... climb on Mommy's back!", as she climbs up my back, laughs, and then demands a horsey ride.
She mixes up words in the cute ways that kids do. Spaghetti is said "spasgetti" and I love the stereotypicalness of it. She calls sunscreen "scumscreem", which always lightens my mood as she yells "BUT I DON'T WANT SCUMSCREEM!".

Bumper cars on her birthday. One of the great things about living in Israel is that they had no qualms about letting her on.

As she's finally outgrown her fierce attachment to mommy-only, it's cute to see the ways she bonds with dad. She has always been pretty resistant to letting anyone fix her hair, but last month she finally let Rob start putting in pony tails. So he is usually the one to fix her hair before church. It looks the way you might expect from a guy, but still totally cute and totally sweet that she likes him to do her hair.


"Look mom, I'm Papa in the Pail!" Her rendition of that picture in Dr. Suess's ABC book. (Related, if you know the book, Ella and Michael both call scissors "zizzors" because of the Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz.

She is silly and sweet, cautious and confident, independent but still loves to snuggle. Her nicknames, Peaches and The Sweetness, suit her perfectly!

She pretends to be a bird and calls Michael's football container her nest.

p.s. It cracked me up on the morning of her birthday when Michael was so confused that she hadn't grown up over night. The first thing he said when he saw her in the morning was "But mom, she's still a baby!" and then a steady flow of things like "why isn't she bigger now?", "why didn't she grow?", etc.

Roaches

Does this count as serendipity? Today I found a cockroach lying dead in the dustpan! Short of crawling into the trashcan to die, you don't get any more convenient than that.** This is the second time I have found one dead in the dustpan. Strange and totally helpful of them.

Last week Rob picked up his huge stand up paddle surf board, and at the very moment he was completely loaded, a giant 2 inch roach ran up his arm! He couldn't do anything! Luckily (???) after it ran up his arm it flew away before attacking his head and forcing him to die or drop the board.

I used to find it incredibly difficult to kill roaches due to the "crunch factor". But I have invented a genius technique that involves plugging both ears as I bring down my foot. It's like it never happened.

Cleaning up dead roaches is a daily occurrence around here in the warm months. When we haven't used the guest bathroom tub (in the basement) for a month or longer, when I do finally go in the tub has a near-complete layer of dead bugs littering the bottom. Welcome visitors!

I have seen, more than once, roaches run across the food on the conveyor belt at the check out in the grocery store. (Also a lot of birds live in the fresh produce section of my store. They are kind to all living creatures in this store, apparently.)

Who knew I'd ever have so much to say about roaches.

**After Rob read this he told me that last night he got a soccer ball out of an unused trashcan in the basement, and inside it were several dead roaches. Such cooperative roaches we breed in our house!

Michael at Church Today

Today Michael was assigned to read a scripture in Primary. But since it was testimony meeting this week, he decided he wanted to tell his scripture to the whole congregation as well. As soon as he could, he eagerly marched right up to the podium. Sadly, someone else went up right in front of him, probably thinking he was a child on the loose instead of someone who wanted to speak. He turned around and you could just see the disappointment welling up as he walked back. His eyes teared up as he loudly gave us (and everyone else) his sad play-by-play of what just happened. We pacified him by having him go to the front row so he could be first in line for the next turn. Of course everyone was watching by then and the other lady let him go first. He confidently stepped up to the podium, mouth on the mic, wiped away one last tear, and delivered. " '...be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only...' James, chapter 1, verse 22. And I just want to bear my testimony, that if you are good, or bad, you can just be happy. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
Lots of smiles in the room. It was hard not to laugh out loud at a) the "or bad" part and b) the conviction that he delivered it. He had read the scripture earlier, but he decided right then and there to add the bit at the end. His confidence is astounding, particularly when facing a room full of people. I hope he never loses that total lack of inhibition. It is one of the most joyous things about him.

The Grand Canyon

Last month during our R&R trip back the the States, Rob and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a river rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. My sister aptly remarked on how perfect we must be for each other if our ideal anniversary trip would entail sleepaing on the ground, not showering for days, and only getting to take a backpack worth of stuff with us. We both thought it was the perfect trip and a fun reminder of how perfect we are for each other.

The hours just melted away on the river. It felt both serene and adventurous. A lot of laziness as well as a serious hike from the river all the way up to the top of the south rim. Cat naps on the boat under the hot sun whenever I felt the slightest bit drowsy, sandwiched between exhilarating rides through frigid rapids. Just the way I'd like life served up all the time.

Even the 8 hour drive home was a good time. We stopped whenever we wanted, taking in some side adventures of ziplines, rock shopping that just blew my mind (I really love cool rocks and fossils, much to Rob's surprise after he thought he knew everything about me), and eating some of very fine small-town shakes and burgers. On a side note, I must say that the people and lifestyles in those small little rural towns seem every bit as intriguing and culturally different to me as those I meet abroad. It was a reminder of how big regional differences are even just within the US.
It was really nice to leave behind all the worries of being a parent for a few days and have Rob all to myself (and myself all to Rob). But I also can't wait to do it again when Michael and Ella are old enough to come along!

The milky looking river behind us is the Little Colorado. We hiked up where it fed into the Colorado and got to float down it in our life vests, even through a few small rapids. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

The "DUKE". Couldn't resist a picture. Never have I sat on a toilet with such a great view! One of the rules of the river was "you can't get privacy, you can only give it."