Happy Birthday, Spongebob

My two year old is now singing Happy Birthday to Spongebob.  Teddy Bear turned 5 this week and today was his Spongebob themed party.  A good friend helped me make marshmallow fondant and we made the most amazing cake.  I will never be able to top this cake, no matter how many more birthday parties I throw over the years.

One thing I love about Teddy Bear is how fun and at-ease he is with people of all nationalities.  He has a knack for Arabic, and is a total boy. He's enthralled with light sabers, and his BFF bought him one for his birthday.  The kids had a blast tearing through the house playing today. His invite list for his birthday party included people from six countries.  Not a single child that came to today was 100% American, most were 50% this and 50% that.  I guess at times I feel more comfortable with an international crowds.  Abu Tulip has a scholarship to do some graduate study in the States next fall, and I'm worried about fitting in there.  I love our international life, and the amazing people I meet on a daily basis.

Here is the cake, before and after the party.

  Happy Birthday to my sweet 5 year old.

    ~ Um Tulip

Contradictions - or why I love living here.

Since it's blog about my adopted country day and I have a huge to-do list today to catch up on life, I'm just going to link to a friend's blog.  To peak your interest, the title is: Nuns....bikinis....camels....and my husband.

Life here is full of contradictions, and that's one of the reasons I love it.  I love the mash of cultures and beliefs and the way we all live out our faith, whether we think we are or not. 

Mammabean also posts her reasons to love it here.

I love that I can teach English at an Arabic school and be confident my three boys are getting an excellent bilingual / bi-cultural education, then head downtown to barter for curtain fabric and head to the western part of the city to sip a latte with my mother-in-law at Crumbs cafe. Then end the day with a choir practicing both traditional folkloric music and Mozart's Requiem.   The day is sprinkled with two languages, laughter and more serious discussions of faith and politics in a region full of turmoil.  I'm so thankful to be part of it all.  And that all happened just last Monday.

We said good-bye to my mother-in-law Thursday evening.  I can't write about it much now, because I miss her so dearly and my post would just be weepy.

That and I really need to catch up on stuff around the house.

~ Um Tulip

Star Wars storms our home

Those of you with boys in the house probably know that Lego Star Wars is really cool.  I had R2D2 underwear as a child, but not until recently did I realize the reprisal of Star Wars.  Teddy Bear very proudly talks about Dark Vader, Light Savers, and the Storm Creatures.  He also likes the "Teddy Bears that jump up and down a lot"  (aka Ewoks).  Isn't he adorable?

I had a lot of fun shopping at the Lego store in Columbus last month, and got all sorts of figurines and special pieces.  Then I happened to walk buy a high-end cooking supply store and saw Star Wars pancake molds in the store-front.  I couldn't resist.  Here are the results.

If you spray the pancake molds with non-stick spray (what is that stuff made out of anyway?) they pop out okay.   I want to do sugar cookies soon.  They were a huge hit.  The black / red / yellow lego structure is the "bad guys spaceship" and is shaped like a slice of pizza.  It is on a hinge to open up sideways.  The blue / white / grey structure is the colors the boys chose for the "good guys spaceship" and has a rooftop that opens to access the computer and stash of light sabers.  The only question that remains is: who had more fun building the lego spaceships - me or the boys?