Nammy & Aunt Tonya's visit

Tim's mom and oldest sister, Tonya, came to visit in June and it was a delightful time! We have some really sweet memories that we'll treasure.

Here are some pictures of our time with them...

Seeing Eve was the highlight for them. Of course, we were so happy for them to get to see her and hold her.

This is how Gloria spent most of her time. ;)

Aunt Tonya got some time with Eve too.

On Friday after church we went to our favorite Arab food place and had Hummus, Falafel, and Shish Tawook. Yum!

There's nothing like the beautiful sunsets close to our house.

Joseph and Faith helped to host and enjoyed showing them around. Here they are at getting their picture taken at another favorite restaurant, Mohammed Noor.

Mohammed Noor is a very traditional restaurant with grilled chicken and rice. They have a wonderful salsa to put on the rice too!

We went to Mohammed Noor a couple times because they enjoyed it so much. One time we sat on the floor in the traditional Arab way. It was a fun cultural experience!

Here's what it looked like after we finished eating.

There were so many pictures taken of Eve! This one was probably our favorite. I love how here eyes are almost crossed...I love how newborns cross their eyes when they're learning to focus.

Faith spends most of her time around the house like this. They enjoyed seeing Faith and her fun personality!

This is how I spent most of my time! ha! Eve has been nursing well, just very frequently.

Sweet memories just hanging out with Eve.

A few days after they got here, Tonya and I took Faith to get her hair braided at the Ethiopian salon.

It's always so nice to have it braided because we don't have to worry about combing it. It's so easy!

Eve made this face with her lips a lot in those early days. It's like everything was new to her and she was saying, "ooooooooh!"

Tim's Dad didn't come on the trip because of work, so there were several Skype sessions with him.

Name loved showing off her youngest grandchild.  Eve is the 9th grandchild on Tim's side of the family.

It was so great to have them around! Carting the baby around was like old hat for Tonya who has 4 children.

Tonya helped so much with homeschool! Jojo loved reading to Aunt Tonya!

Here's Faith reading some books too.

Tim is the expert swaddler!

One last pic before heading off to bed.

Eve wasn't sleeping through the night so sometimes I would get some extra rest on the couch in the daytime. Tonya caught me one day and took a pic.

Out and about with Nammy sitting next to Eve in the car.

This is a pic that Tonya snapped of Tim's work. You can see the ILC sign on top of the building, that's the name of the institute where he works. One day we got to go there and see Tim at work.

Here's a pic at the doctor's office. We had a check up for Eve one day. She had gained weight and that was cause for celebration!

Here's a picture of some typical homeschooling.

One morning Tim and Tonya went to the fish market and got some shrimp. She took pictures, but said that there was a strong fish smell she couldn't capture. It was a cultural experience she won't forget!

Tonya enjoyed seeing her baby brother interacting with the men in Arabic.

Tonya and I got to go to a calligrapher, who wrote her kids' names in Arabic for her. He does amazing work! I love how they turned out. I think Arabic calligraphy is so beautiful!

One night the ladies went to a wedding.  We wore Abaayas and left the house at 9:00pm.

I love this selfie that Tonya took!

Here's a group shot at the wedding. This was another experience that they won't forget! The groom's aunts are friends of mine and they were so happy we came. They loved meeting Tim's mom and sister.

Bathtime was a special time. There's something really fun about watching a baby get a bath!

Eve seems to really love the water!

The second Friday that they were here was a special day. It was Eve's dedication at church. Here's a picture of Nammy holding her before we left for church that morning.

On our way to church they enjoyed the beautiful palm trees along the road.

family dedication picture

Tim handing Eve to the pastor to pray over her.

Jojo hammed it up during the prayer time on stage! He knew Tonya was taking our picture.

I think this pic was taken when we got home on Friday. We had been out late Thursday night for the wedding and then we went out to lunch after church. We were all pretty tired!

We went to our friends' house a couple times. They have a beautiful gate into their farm.

Here's the walkway inside the gate. They do a great job of keeping it beautiful!

Jojo and Faith had a couple of Arabic lessons while they were here. Here's a picture of one of their sessions. They've learned quite a bit, but they have a lot to learn still.

One thing we enjoyed while they were here is making ice cream. We couldn't decide whether we liked the strawberry or the chocolate better.

This is a fun selfie that Joseph took! He sure loves Aunt Tonya!

Nammy bought a ring for Faith.

One morning Tim went to work a little late and we went out to breakfast.

It was fun for them to get to have an Arab breakfast with bread and cheese, lentils, eggs with tomatoes, and balaleet (a traditional dish of sweet noodles with eggs on top).

We had plenty of meals at home too...Tonya took this picture of the kids eating their dinner.

After dinner we played Uno! You can see my meal is still at the table. A nursing mom doesn't always get to eat at the same time as the rest of the family.

This is such a sweet memory playing games with them!

Lunch with Queen Elsa!

One day Tonya had a very different experience at the salon. A friend of mine wanted to do her makeup as a model for her business.

First she got threaded. They use thread to trim the eyebrows.

Then she started the make up. She wanted Tonya to be a model so that she could advertise her make up skills. She did a bride's make up for Tonya to model.

Arab brides use more make up than normal on their wedding day. It takes a real artist to do this well. It was a fun process to watch!

She did some contouring on Tonya's face to really transform her look. It was fascinating to see how she did this and how different Tonya looked when she was finished!

Here's the finished eyes complete with 2 sets of eye lashes on each eye!

Here's the finished make up. She made Tonya's lips look bigger! She looked so different!

After getting make up we went to a studio for a photo shoot. Here you can see my friend touching up Tonya's make up before the photo shoot began.

I love this picture! She's wearing the traditional head covering that a bride wears when she gets engaged. She wears a white dress for the wedding day.

It was so neat for Tonya to have this experience. It was also a blessing for my friend to have some pictures of her amazing work! Arab women don't want their picture taken and used for advertisement purposes.

Another day the kids and I took Tonya to the camel farm. It's always fun to be able to feed the camels!

Camels are so funny! It's fun to take pictures of them!

 Tonya took a selfie with one baby camel! So cute!

I loved how the camel smiled for this picture! haha!

Another day Tonya and I took a tour of the big mosque in our city. We took a selfie while we were there.

While Tonya and I did some fun, cultural things, Eve stayed home and slept. She didn't even realize that she missed out on the fun!

Tim's mom didn't mind staying with her. I think she kind of even liked changing Eve's diaper.

Tim worked through the Catechism questions with the kids before they went to bed. Tonya and Gloria enjoyed watching Tim teach his children about the doctrines of our faith!

We were able to fit in a little bit of shopping. One place we went to was a carpet shop and they picked out some coaster rugs to bring home.

Tonya liked seeing these huge pots at one shop we went to! It's amazing how much rice and chicken they can fit in these pots!

They also had some huge spoons!

more shopping pictures

Here's how Joseph and Faith felt about shopping! haha!

In the middle of it all, we continued with home school! Tonya was so awesome helping me get them caught up in Math!

This is a picture of them practicing counting by 5s as they jumped! The kids loved it!

Joseph and Faith loved having Aunt Tonya teach them! She even left them sweet notes that we found a few days after she left.

Aunt Karla had sent Eve a couple of photography props for newborns. We did a couple photo shoots with her in them. Here's a picture of our little princess!

Eve's tiny little feet.

The turtle costume was so cute!

The day before they traveled back Gloria and Tonya got henna done. Gloria got henna on her hands and Tonya got henna on her feet. We went to another Arab friend's house who is a henna artist. She did a great job!

After scraping off the henna mud, it leaves a stain like this. It's pretty bright orange at first and then slowly starts to change.

The next day it is a darker brown.

This is a picture of our last supper together. We went to Papa Johns for the Ramadan Buffet! Yum!

Gloria tried to pack Eve up into her luggage the day that they left! haha!!

She was content in the bag for a little bit. It was pretty cute!