Twinsanity!

"Double your pleasure,
Double your fun" - Doublemint Gum

This last weekend, we attended the first ever X2 Twins Festival in the Middle East.  Held at Safa Park in Dubai, it was a big gathering of lots of twins, triplets, and other multiples of all ages.  It was fascinating and fun. The kids got to play and Yvonne got to ogle at lots of other twins and share parenting stories with lots of other mothers who have "double the trouble, but double the fun."

The girls are a bit small for their age and Talon is energetic for his, so we got a few comments about how cute our triplets are.  We corrected some, but at times just smiled and said that so many kids so close together are a lot of work ;)

The highlight for the kids was a dangerously steep inflatable slide that had no supervision and resulted in a fair amount of bonked heads and tears shed... but also a lot of big smiles.

Here are some snapshots of the fun:

Girls & Smiles

"And if I'm feelin down and blue,
or troubled by some foolish game,
she always seems to make me change my mind." - James Taylor

A Strange Land

"so we make our plans
set our sites on a new land
one that's kind of strange." - Joshua Radin

Alright, I know there have been some comments about the disregard for safety when taking video or photos while driving.   But, on the drive home from work the other day I just couldn't resist.  I mean, where else would you see this about a mile from your house?

Big Girls

"She's got a smile it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky" - Guns 'N Roses

It is funny how after you have a newborn in the house, all of your other kids seem to have grown up a bunch overnight.  The girls had their 4th birthday a while ago suddenly they are "big girls" and want to make sure everyone knows.

I'm pretty sure they have been counting down the days for their birthday since... well since the day after their third birthday.  I can't count how many times they would ask me when there birthday is.  I would answer that it was a still a long time and then they would say "well, what in next before our birthday?".  My answer: "oh well, there is valentines day first"... The girls: "Then what's next?"  Me: "ummm , then St. Patrick's day"  "What next?"  "then Easter and Mom's birthday"... We would seriously go through the entire year of events just so they could get back to their birthday again.  Yes, sometimes I would skip some events, but usually they would catch me... "but Dad, what about the wear-greeen day (St. Patricks)?"  or "what about the "wicked witch day?"

Anyway, there were SUPER excited.  And super excited that Grandma and Grandpa were here to celebrate.  It was meant to be low-key and simple, but they still had fun and managed to get spoiled.  Of course they wanted a ton of photos (and had to run over the camera to look at each one after we took it) so, here you go.

They favorite part is helping to make the cakes

Saylor wanted a spider cake and Abigail wanted a fish cake.  I think they are already making list of cake possibilities for next year.

They had to get a photo with their new brother

 

Of course, Talon was right in the middle of all the fun

Thanks for the dresses Grandma and Grandpa!

A room with a view

"Such a feelin's comin' over me
There is wonder in 'most ev'ry thing I see
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes
And I won't be surprised if it's a dream" - The Carpenters

This last week I took Yvonne's parents to the Burj Khalifa (aka: The Tallest Building in the World).  They don't let you go all the way to the top.  In fact, are only able to go up about 2/3rds of the way... but it was still a lot of fun and quite impressive (and still the highest public observation point in the world).



I won't bore you with all the facts, but here are a couple of pics of our adventures on the tower of babel.

A cool scale model at the base of the tower

Directly beneath the tallest building is.... the largest mall in the world

With Yvonne's mom at the lookout point  She is normally scared to death of heights.  I think her fascination won out over her fears (and the glass enclosure helped:) 

We could see the man made world islands from the lookout.

Overlooking normal sized skyscrapers (still very tall) on Sheikh Zayed Road.

We could also see the man-made Palm Islands in the distance

They love their Sheikhs here

Does this even look real?  Overlooking the largest water fountain area.

They had a gold vending machine at the top.  The least expensive amount of gold you could purchase was about $250.  

Sunset over the Atlantis Resort on the Palm Islands

View at night

Born in a Foreign Land

"And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding..." - Elton John

Announcing the birth of our brand new baby boy!

Here are the specs...

• Born: Jan 3, 2012 8:43am
• Weight: 3.555 kilos
• Length: 47.5 cm
• Hair color: Brown
• Gender: Boy
• Name: Rigdon Zayed Anderson

Yvonne and Rigdon are healthy and doing well. They came home from the hospital on Saturday. Little Rigg is eating, sleeping, and pooping just like a newborn champ and Yvonne is recovering right on schedule.


It was an interesting adventure to have a new baby in a different country.  Some things are a bit different (I'll let you covert the baby specs on your own ;).  Things are still pretty chaotic, so I will save the details for another post.  In the meantime, here is a pic of the view from Yvonne's hospital room:

We feel blessed that everything went smoothly and Talon and I are happy that we are no longer outnumbered.  The new little guy may look like an wrinkled, angry old man (don't all newborns?), but the other kids keep telling me he sure is cute.

If you are interested, you can view more photos of the new kid here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/111736034436504926035/albums/5693824939963064289?authkey=CM3JqMPou6_gCQ