The Jolliff Family

The boys received a HUGE box of books in the mail and they are enjoying looking through them to see what is new!  The afternoon we received them, they took them all out and occupied themselves for a long time. It also included a few puzzles which they have had fun working.

The twins are 24 weeks old today!!!  24 weeks is a great milestone and I'm glad to have hit it with two healthy babies.  Nothing much new to report except the babies are apparently the size of an ear of corn in length and my belly is supposed to be the size of a soccer ball, if carrying one baby.  However, I would go more for basketball with twins!!  :) 24 weeks down... going for 14 more!

With the changing weather, I am slowly get out some of my fall decor.  I LOVE fall and do miss the changing colors of leaves in the midwest.  While we have changing weather patterns, we do not have the colorful leaves, pumpkin patches, or apple orchards.  So, fall comes into the house :) The boys made a canvas of fall trees with their hands and it looks great in the kitchen window!!

It is certainly not the easiest choice to have Sam in a local school.  All of his instruction is in Arabic, besides his English class and his German class.  However, we are so thankful for the opportunity he has to be learning one of the local languages as well as make friends with other kids.   At his school, language is a priority with students being able to study full time in German around the 6th grade.  On Tuesday he has seven classes and five of the classes are a foreign language.  We really think it is great that he is exposed to language so young in life. Sam is making strides in reading and writing Arabic.  Math continues to be the hardest subject for him.  As we reviewed homework with him yesterday after school, he opened up his book and read to me a few sentences in Arabic, now you can enjoy!

When we moved overseas, I packed enough clothes for 3-4 years for the boys.  We have lots of clothes stored in the closet, which has been great!  Last night, while getting Jacob ready for bed, he spotted some pajamas in the storage container that he wanted to wear.  Since the weather at night and in the morning is slightly cool, I allowed him to wear them.  He was so excited.  His brother's wanted to wear some "new" pajamas too! Andrew ready for bed with all his "kids" as he calls his stuffed animals. Sam has been looking forward to wearing these pajamas and he is finally tall enough and big enough to wear them. While it certainly will be cold before long and they will need their warm pajamas, it was just fun for them to wear them tonight!

It has been difficult to enjoy the beach this summer but thankfully we were able to travel to the beach yesterday and enjoy a family day together.  It was PERFECT!!! We took chicken with us to enjoy before we played in the sand and the water. The beach was practically empty when we arrived, which we like!  The boys had a blast digging in the sand. It seriously was the perfect, relaxing day! This boy carried buckets of water to the spot they were  digging. It's always fun to be "chased by waves!"  I love these four guys SO much!  They are my world. Marching around Jericho. Sam ventured out in the waves.  They were fierce yesterday which was perfect for his body board. Trying to surf! We also brought a kite that my dad brought over last spring.  It might have been the first time the boys have ever flown a kite and they were thrilled! We really enjoyed ...

This came home with Andrew today and cracked us up.  No wonder he pronounces his name like this....

22 weeks today and my belly is growing, which means the babies are growing so that is a good thing!    Both babies weighed just under 1 pound last week at my appointment.  Over the past week, including at my doctor's visit, many people have mentioned my growing belly.  I could do an entire post about comments said to a pregnant woman that would NEVER be said to a non-pregnant woman.  But I digress, I'm feeling good and babies checked out healthy last week. Happy 22 weeks to us! :)

I guess I have just gotten out of routine the blogging.  So I'm catching up from the week!   Andrew is riding the bus home after school, to reduce one more afternoon pick up, and is loving it.  He is the last one to get off but doesn't mind because he gets to see where all his friends are living and drop them off.  Look at his happy face when he got off the bus this week!! The boy's planted a garden this year and they grew a watermelon.  While it doesn't look bit, it did actually taste ok... for the one bite ;) Jacob went back to preschool on Monday and was happy, happy!  He loves going to school and has enjoyed his week being in a bigger class with new toys and some new friends. And, I sorted through and got rid of toys this week.  These boys are not deprived in the toy department and so some organization and getting rid of was in order!  I should post an after picture because this picture is just crazy.