Six Months!

I won't go in to all the details .... we got back from our thailand holiday and too many things happened, I won't bore you with all the details but will tell you our biggest bit of news:

We have a bun in the oven!

a 22 week old bun

we're more than half way through

I'll never have another birthday party!

xxx

Flirty Thirty!

I turned thirty on the 25th of March, I had my first ever grown up party. I shared the celebrations with my wonderful family and friends.

I knew that I wanted a Shawarma (our version of a kebab) stand and my friends insisted on some hubbly bubbly and so I spoke to the caterer and before I new it we had the biggest Salad buffet, a  live Fatayer stand (like a pancake with anything you want on it) and the Falafil and chips were fried right in front of you! They set up the seating, which looked horrifying in the day time and had me VERY worried but these boys really new what they were doing,  my parents house looked amazing, we are already planning the next party and how we can improve on it, which will be quite difficult!

We danced, oh boy did we dance! We shook our bottoms and shimmied our shoulders to some Arabic music, we Salsa’d, and finally we danced the YMCA!  I turned Michele Bubble’s HOME on at three in the morning and the lovely people finally got the hint and went HOME!

In true Laila fashion, I forgot to charge my camera’s battery before the party and so I have none! But have managed to get some from Ghada and will get others, there must have been about forty five people at the party!

Jamal and Tariq (my dress was a present from three very generous girlfriends, my first designer dress!)

Aisha (in the blue dress) made the trip from Abu Dhabi, we have been friends since we were eight! Then There’s Ghada, Anetra and Raghda whom had her third baby eight weeks ago and has the flattest tummy ever!

Raghda and Samih :-)

Amirah, Sami, Nawal(nawal andsami are married and make the loveliest couple) and Nidhal

A toast to the non-alcoholic champagne for the non drinkers!

Breg, Tariq, My mum and my cousin AbdulKarim.  Breg is soon to be the newest member of our extended family!

Salsa with Felix our Venezuelan friend, how we used to dance the nights away! I hadn’t seen Felix since Mohamed and I got married. He is recovering from two years of gruelling chemotherapy but he is looking fantastic and dancing as well as ever! Trying to remember the moves to thriller! Brown girl in the rain? Still that brown girl! This is when my brothers tried to throw my poor mum in the pool, I got caught in the melee but luckily a lovely person tackled them like a rugby player and my mum stayed dry!

Salim told us that he would stay up to one a.m and then fell asleep at exactly one! Sara couldn’t be there, as she had to finish assignments before coming back to Muscat. Tariq made it from Bahrain and arrived fashionably late. I shared the party with Jamal whose birthday was four days later so happy 27th birthday Jamal.

I got truly wonderful presents, ones that make you gasp! Thankyou.

I am blessed to have fabulous family, wonderful friends. What more can a girl want?

Laila

p.s We’ve just had five days in Koh Samui and our now in BKK.

Busy Days!

It’s been a busy week. I have been trying to get another quilt ready in time for tomorrow as well as organising my 30th birthday bash for tomorrow. I’ll be back after the weekend with photo’s, I can’t wait for this week to be over and next week I plan on not leaving the house, unless it’s to do the school run or buy milk!

I’m coming up to my 100th post and hope to do a give away, so stay tuned!

Thank you for all the kind comments re the quilts and the Dubai trip, it’s nice to know that people other than my mum and friends  actually read my ramblings ;-)

I’m off for a cuppa tea, got to try and shift this headache. Oh and the weather is heating up, one word – HORRIBLE!

Laila x

Visitors

Dado and Rita arrived two weeks ago for their annual holiday, so you can imagine we tried to squeeze in as much time with them as possible. Thing is, we didn’t get any photo’s. We had a lovely mothers day despite it being a day late, the kids helped to make some heart shaped cup cakes, we did some sight seeing, lots of swimming, breakfasts, lunches and dinners. They last Tuesday, I was very upset to see them go.

ok, this one’s the best of a bad bunch!!!

 

I managed to get the quilts done!

It’s the perfect size to keep warm whilst watching TV. I stitched in the ditch with this one, boy is straight line stitching very unforgiving!

For Rita’s quilt I used Heather Bailey’s Pop Garden  for the front of the quilt and the back and binding are Sandi Henderson’s farmers market. On this one for the quilting I Shadow stitched, not as bad as stiching in the ditch.

My first finishes for 2010, thank goodness. I’m hoping to get two more done before my thailand holiday at the end of the month. Wish me luck!

FUN!

Family Fun!

 Remember my trip up to Dubai with the girls for the quilt show, well after the girls left Mohamed and the kids flew in and we had some family fun. This was the first time that Mohamed and I had taken both kids on a trip when he wasn’t working.

The morning after they arrived I took the kids to SKI DUBAI, after the initial reluctance the kids had of not wanting to put the ski suits on (apparently they were ugly) we had a great time. Abdulla loved the concept of fun in the snow and was raring to go (as always), Noora on the other hand was having anxiety attacks. she was worried that she would freeze in to a Noora Lolly, it didn’t help that her nose started running when we got in there and for some reason thought she was melting! She loosened up after a while but was more than happy to take a backseat and let Abudlla try the more daring stuff. Mohameds cold had hit hard on this day and so he did warmer things.

Mixed Emotions!

 

Hold On Tight!

I don’t think I’ll have any trouble getting this boy to ski

on the other hand this little lady continues to confuse me one minute and surprise me the next, I am very proud of her for trying new things even if the idea of it frightens her.

However, my darling daughter is a huge fan of Après Ski, she keeps reminding me of when we went to the snow park and how she loved the mushroom soup, bread and hot chocolate.

The next day we hoped on the metro and headed to Dubai Mall ( the UAE is the first country in the Gulf to introduce trains and so every Omani that goes to Dubai jumps on the metro for the novelty factor – I saw plenty of Omani’s in Dubai most of them were on the metro!)

Sitting up front!  The kids excitement was contagious, every one in the carriage was smiling and having a little giggle. When we got off, every one was waving and saying good bye. Mohamed and I got quite emotional.

Can a person be more excited?

 

Glee?

Mohamed had them “steering”’the train.

On the bus for a short hop to the Mall, the kids were beside themselves!

At Dubai Mall, we took the kids to the Aquarium(I can’t find my pictures) and then we went on to Bloomingdales to meet some friends and purchase cupcakes. The kids loved choosing their cakes and the lovely man behind the counter added lots more sprinkles for them. We made our way to the “’dancing fountains’’ as the kids called them, sat down and dug in!

It took quite a few attempts to get this picture!

We had a lovely dinner at More cafe with Simone, Cyrus and Nicky. Mohamed managed to wangle us a table outside for nine (no easily done) because he spoke Swahili to the waiter.

The kids loved the fountains, they made Simone and I cry and the men looked on unimpressed!

Thanks Simone for taking this photo, this young chick and her old rooster have hardly any photo’s together. I’m sorry I didn’t get any of you and Cyrus but have a great one of Nick. We had a lovely time with old friends.

These two girls go months without seeing each other and yet behave like best friends when they are together. I am sure they must have been sisters in a past life.

 

On our last day, off we went to Aqua Venture @ Atlantis. OH MY GOD, we had an absolute blast. This was the most fun I have had as a parent ever, I can’t wait until they are older to get them on the bigger rides!

This structure in the kids area is impressive, it suits all different levels. We spent most of our day here, the boy wanted to try the fastest/highest/darkest slides ASAP and Noora was her cautious self, taking her time until she was ready and boy did she impress me! She tried every slide but didn’t necessarily go back and do it again.

We also down the lazy river, which was well lazy and then tried the rapids. I’ll tell you the story of the rapids another day, I am still recovering but the wee man wants more!

As you can imagine, a great day out!

On our way home on the Wednesday, we took a detour and drove through Al-Ain and stopped at the Zoo. It is a hidden treasure and the car park was full of Oman cars (us Omanis' appreciate a good day out).

Does my bum look big?

 

remember those push up ice creams?

The zoo was great, the enclosures were not  tiny horrible concrete cells.  The Zoo is affiliated with the San Francisco Zoo and they are about to embark on building a Safari Park, a education centre for children in the Gulf to travel to and much much more, I was impressed and well worth the detour. 

So then we hoped in the car, stuck a DVD in for the kids and settled down for our five hour trip home, ahhhhhh so nice to get home after a week away.

Hope I haven’t bored you.

Laila  xx