Merry Christmas from Qatar!

Christmas is Just Around the Corner

Christmas is full-blown in the Walker house as we prepare for the holiday season.  We started by decorating the tree at the start of the month followed by making some of our own keepsake ornaments.  The festive spirit was complete once the girls and I made and decorated Christmas cookies.  We are all excited now for the big day!

Kaelia's Big Swim

After weeks and weeks of swim lessons, Kaelia has finally decided to swim by herself in the big pool.  Ironically, she does not think she learned to swim from her lessons.  She was so excited to tell us today that Taelyn taught her!  Justin and I were encouraging her to jump in to the pool, but she refused and wanted arm floaties (which we no longer have any more).  Eventually, Taelyn convinced her to come in.  Once Kaelia was in the pool, she realized that she can, in fact, swim and float.  Instantly, she started coming up with different "tricks" to do, including the "Twist Sister" where she twists while jumping in to the pool.

Cannon Ball

Twist Sister

On another note, the girls both finished their swim lessons today.  Taelyn made some nice gains in her freestyle form.  Here is a brief video of her final swim at lessons.  The video isn't great because we are not supposed to use cameras at the pool, but you can get the idea.

Future Inventor

Today was "Job Day" in Taelyn's class at school as the students learn about the communities and the jobs around us.  So each child came to school dressed as the job that they would someday like to pursue in life.  Taelyn has changed her mind a bit since she said she wanted to be a museum curator last May.  For the last few months, she has come up with a series of invention ideas and has decided that she would like to be an inventor when she grows up.  She showed up at school in a make-shift inventor costume along with her inventor notebook with all of her ideas to invent someday.  Some of the inventions are actually really good ideas too.  Her most recent idea is the Freezerwave - a machine where you put food or drinks that you want to get cold quickly.  She explained it as the opposite of a microwave.  We have already encouraged her to think about getting a patent!  Here are a couple of the other ideas from her notebook.

The Plug Purse: a phone charger built in to a purse.

And our favorite ... The Butt Bra: a bra for a butt to keep it from jiggling!

Early Thanksgiving

This year, we planned on spending Thanksgiving with our next door neighbors and closest friends in Qatar, the McInnis's.  However, they will not be around next weekend, so we bummed up the festivities to this weekend.  We got together yesterday for a classic Thanksgiving feast and were all quite thankful that we could get the necessary ingredients here in Qatar.  I was even able to find whole cranberries!

The biggest highlight of the day, though, was the turkey trot.  Qatar obviously does not have its own
turkey trot race, and this was always one of our favorite parts of the holiday in the US, so I put together my own turkey trot for the kids.  It started off as a shuttle relay where the kids took turns running back and forth in front of our house.  Instead of handing off a baton to the next kid, they handed off the leash to their dog.  It was a pretty funny sight!  Then the kids all took one lap around the complex with the dogs and finished the run with a home made turkey trot medal.  All kids and dogs earned the reward!

Turkey Trot Relay

Turkey Trot Loop around the Neighborhood

Little Readers

Taelyn has really taken off with her reading this school year, and loves to read and write little booklets.  One day, she overheard Justin say that his stomach was hurting, and she decided that she wanted to do something nice for her day to make him feel better.  So she got Kaelia and I together and told us that she wanted us all to make a book for him.  After putting our hands together and yelling "Girl Power!" she directed us to the playroom to begin.  We all drew pictures on some paper, and then Kaelia and I went off to play together.  This was not good enough for Taelyn, however.  She continued to make more and more pictures.  Then folded the papers and turned them in to a book format and started to add text.  She then asked me how to spell a few words while she sounded out others, and before I knew it, she had created her own little book called Justin's Race.  Taelyn read her book to Justin afterward, and it certainly made his stomach feel better!

Taelyn's passion for reading books has also inspired Kaelia.  Tonight, in fact, Kaelia asked if she could read Taelyn's homework reading book.  I expected to read the book to her, but she took over right away and told me the title.  Then page by page, she read the words to me.  She sounded out some of the words that she didn't know and needed help with a few others, but for the most part, she read the entire book!  The more and more that she read, the more excited I got until Justin and Taelyn, who were reading on their own, heard the commotion and came over to watch Kaelia read too.  Taelyn was also helpful if Kaelia got stuck on a big word like "hungry."  What is amazing to me, though, is how Kaelia could pick up the skill of reading without any help from us or from school.  She has not been explicitly taught phonetic sounds, but she showed us tonight that she can sound out words and identify sight words.  I think she just takes in what her sister is learning and tries it out for herself.  We are so proud of her and of both of our little readers!

New Water Tricks

Since starting swimming lessons, the girls have taken more risks in the pool and learned a few tricks of their own.  First, Taelyn has been learning about the freestyle stroke, but she decided to see what would happen if she applied the same concept on her back.  Without even knowing it, she taught herself the backstroke.

Next, Kaelia has been more adventurous than ever in the pool and decided to practice somersaults.  One day, she just came up to me while swimming and told me to "watch this."  Then she just flipped over and over again!

Finally, the girls have also learned about swimming between someone's legs, and they love doing this.  Just recently, they started taking turns going through one another's legs, like a little game of leapfrog.