Our Girl.

Time for a bit about Marin I think.

She has had a lot of changes in the past 6 months, but she is adjusting well. Three of the obvious major changes have been moving to KSA, starting preschool and having her newest little brother arrive.

Talking things through I think helps her and so that is what we do. She talks about home, Coquitlam, and who the people are that we know who still live there. She talks about how Granny & Grandpa, Oma & Opa, and her Uncles live in Salmon Arm, and how we will visit them there next summer. She also talks about Canada being the country we are from and how she speaks English. She is very aware of all the different countries in the world and about all the different languages that people speak. She talks about how the kids in her class are from different countries and how they speak different languages. She talks about how now we live in Saudi Arabia and asks the name of the town we live in (KAUST/Thuwal) and about Jeddah the city we are near. She also talks about how to get here from Canada you need to fly on an airplane. She has been doing her Canada puzzle (this link is from just over a year ago, so fun to go back and see how she has changed!) once in a while, and is really good at recognizing the different provinces. Today she got out her ABC's of Canada book and said to me "Hey Mommy this is our land! We don't live in it though."

She is a girl who likes to chat. We often tell her that eating healthy food like fruits and veggies is good for your body, so today she was talking with me about food.
She asked "What is a banana?" I said "Fruit". Then she asked "What is a pepper?" "Vegetable" I told her. "What is a lamb chop?" she asked. "Meat" I replied. Then she asked "What is a pig chop?" I laughed, I told her it was meat, but it is called a pork chop.

Having Jeriah join us has been an easy transition for her. She is very gentle with him and says often "we have to be very careful with Jeriah, he is delicate". She gives him lots of little hugs and kisses, and says to him many times a day "I love you tiny".

Starting preschool has been a big exciting change for her, she really likes school! Today was her first day back after a week of holidays, the whole week off every night before she went to sleep she would ask when she would get to go to school again. She enjoys all the different activities at school, Arabic language lessons, playtime outdoors, music class, and library. We can always tell the days she has had Arabic lessons because she says something in Arabic (or her version of it) and then tells us what it means. We don't know if she is right or not but she thinks it is pretty neat. Often when her class has playtime outdoors the other 1st year preschool class joins them and she gets a chance to play with her friends in that class too. Music class is a big hit and she loves to play the different instruments, and sing the songs. She will often sing them for us at dinner time. Library might be her favorite though, she loves books, and she likes the independence of picking out a book on her own and bringing it home. The latest book she brought home is called Food Play and she loves it, it is perfect for her big imagination.
She likes her teacher too, and her teacher has done a great job of getting to know Marin and all the other kids in her class. One of the things her teacher does is encourage the kids to bring recycling items from home, she provides them with loads of tape, glue, felts and whatever else and they have a great time creating all sorts of things. The latest creation Marin brought home was a "bowling pin", made out of a water bottle, packing paper (because we ALL have LOADS of the stuff), tape and colored with felts. Here she is to show it to you.

See.

Then I got the "okay mom enough pictures" look.

Hmm, what else to tell you about our girl... she calls hula-hoops "hooly-hoops", which I think is cute.
She recently got a bike (with training wheels) and really likes riding it, she is good at it too.
We borrowed "Horton Hears a Who" from the Harbor Library (public library), and she thought it was hilarious.
She has seriously good computer/mouse handling skills.
She is really excited to turn 4 years old, she has been talking about it since we got to KSA, and we still have another month and half to go. Oh my she is going to be 4 in less than 2 months!

I will wrap up now...
Marin is our wonderful, cute, smart, funny big girl and we love her!
But you all knew that. :)