We have a five year old!

We celebrated Piper's birthday last weekend. Baby Piper has left the house.
Boy Five years old feels like a giant leap from a four year old.

We had a fab day together as a family and in the afternoon shared some simple party food and cake with a couple of close friends. A perfect day.

Thank you to our family and close friends who called or sent a message, you all made our day. The happiest times are also the hardest when you are living far from home.

Cake batter for breakfast. Why not.

Photographing these two together is impossible at the best of times - this time Piper decided to watch tv and Frankie wanted to practice her downward facing dog.

Love Affair

These two. Together always.
If Frankie is awake, then Lily is right behind her, all day.
Of course Frankie drives her mad, pulls her ears, her tail, bashes her with the odd toy. But most of the time, the two live harmoniously side by side.

Look at me!

Uh huh! That is Frankie preparing to launch into crawling.... at 71/2 months. Given Piper didn't crawl until 11 months I was not prepared for the sight of Frankie up off her belly on all fours rocking this soon.
We never had to overly baby proof with Piper, by the time she could crawl and walk she understood no and boundaries. I think Frankie is going to challenge us a little more on that approach.

She also confirmed what I have watched grow ever so intensely over the past month - she is another Daddy's girl. Her first word last week was Daddy, not even Dad or Dadda like a baby sound, it is an absolute crystal clear, syrupy, sucky 'Daddy'.
This week she followed up with 'bub bub'. It didn't take Piper long to realise she could probably quickly coax Frankie into saying 'bum bum' much to her amusement... until I cottoned on and stopped the fun. No way is 'bum bum' coming before Mum Mum!!

Blue Poo, Trampolines and Fun

The mass exodus out of Dubai for summer begins this week. A huge amount of the population departs until September to avoid the worst of the heat and Ramadan. This is the first year we have not escaped to Europe, we have some exciting holidays planned for later in the year instead.

Piper's birthday unfortunately falls smack in the middle of Ramadan and the school holidays once again. So this year we took some initiative and celebrated her birthday a month early.
She had a small party for 10 friends at Bounce, which has only just opened in Dubai. For those that have not been to Bounce in Australia or elsewhere, it is an indoor trampoline centre, look it up, it will blow your mind.
Piper had simple requests - a 'Frozen' theme and a blue cake! Whilst the blue cake did tie in with the theme of the party, this is not why she chose blue cake. Over the Christmas holidays in Australia, thanks to her cousins - Piper discovered the delights of blue bubble gum ice-cream and the resulting blue poo. Yes, Piper wanted blue cake so she could have blue poo!
She had an awesome time and the genius was booking the party in the morning time slot. The kids were all happy and active and probably the best behaved at that time and it was all over and finished by 11am!

For the record - my cake wasn't nearly blue enough to have the desired effect!

Graduation

Yesterday we celebrated Piper's graduation from pre-school with a small performance at her school. We follow the American/British school system here and school is currently wrapping up for the year, and summer holidays are about to begin.
The new school year starts in September when Piper will begin FS2 (equivalent of Australian prep grade) at her big school, exciting times ahead.

Piper and her best friend (above) will go to different schools next year, which is a bit sad but I am sure these two crazy kids will still see more than enough of each other.

Happy New Year

We are still home in Australia enjoying some downtime as a family of four before I head back to work in the not too distant future. Although not all of us are relaxing in the sun (on the rare occasions it shows up... bloody Victorian weather), Naz is still working this month at the fire brigade and is spending a lot of time travelling between the beach house and work.

We enjoyed a fabulous Christmas and New Year with family - lots of kids, food, drinks, laughs and the usual interesting moments.

Our Internet access has been very intermittent but I will try and put up a few more posts this week of our time in Australia.

Cousins

Life lately in happy snaps

Do you use Instagram? I love it and how easy it is to stay in touch and share photo's. You can follow me under the Instagram name carlyobrien.

Please don't just stalk our blog, leave your Instagram name in the comments section at the bottom of this post or send me a comment via Instagram so I can stalk you too.

Below are a few pics from my iphone lately. I also got a little fancy schmancy and added an Instagram widget to my sidebar where you can see my latest pics.

Kite flying on a lazy afternoon (thanks for the kite Nana Liz)

Our afternoon was interrupted last week by a strong earthquake in nearby Iran that was felt here in the UAE. It was quite frightening and went for far longer than anything I have felt before. We evacuated our apartment for a short time. This pic was taken later in the afternoon, our energy and adrenalin spent tso his is how these two iPad addicts rested.

This is how Piper dresses herself to go to Sushi Train for dinner!
One always needs a tiara to eat Japanese right?

This is what 3 year old fairies do after too much sugar and fun at a kid's party!

In typical Dubai style we attended a children's birthday party at the 5 star Al Qasr hotel this weekend.
As you can see Piper made a classy departure!

Early morning road trip through the desert. Yesterday Naz and friends competed in a triathlon type event in the nearby Emirate of Al Ain ( blog post to come soon). I am also proud to say the early morning was worth it, Naz finished 14th!!

Don't forget to leave a comment below and share your Instagram name!

Piper's First Day of Pre School

Last Tuesday was Piper's first day of preschool. After a year with the school of Dad it was time to get back to the real world.

She was so excited on her first day and bounded off to school excited to play with friends and experience new activities, importantly the only tears were from Mum. Structured pre school runs from 8am to 1pm with extra curricular activities in the afternoon (we have Piper enrolled for full day care due to my working hours).

Her school activities include Arabic and French language classes, sport and water play.

All the current changes happening at the moment between, moving house, new nanny and Naz preparing to leave has been a little overwhelming for her and we have had a few tears this week but all will settle down soon.

Life Lately in Happy Snaps

From left to right starting from the top:

1. Rocking it out to old school Kylie with Mum

2. Happy Lily (we have finally found a great dog beach just out of town)

3. Sandstorm last Tuesday, the building disappearing is the Burj Khalifa, it also poured with rain for about 5 minutes, the most rain we have seen in 10 months. Temperatures at the moment are averaging between 42 and 48 every day

4. Example of Dubai's dedication to wasting money. This sign etched in metal and professionally erected is a direct result of Lily's love of swimming in the pond. Crazy dog hating country, honestly have a look at the pond, she was not harming a fly

5. Beach fun - unfortunately beach weather is now over until winter, it is far too hot and the water is bath water warm and not in the slightest bit refreshing

6. Our little model and poser, this was taken today. For her birthday we spent the day at KidZania and she played her little heart out

7. Last photo ever taken of Piper with her dummy (or yodgee as she calls it), two weeks ago she decided she was grown-up and threw it down the rubbish chute and has not asked for it once since. The only tears were from me, I am pathetic I know

8. Atlantis Hotel at the end of the Palm

9. Happy 3rd Birthday Piper!! Taken tonight, we celebrated with Magnolia Bakery cupcakes from Bloomingdales

Someone's having a birthday party

This week we are in full preparation for Piper's 3rd birthday party on Friday. Her birthday is still two weeks away but the mass summer exodus from Dubai's heat and before the beginning of Ramadam has started, so we are holding her party early while her friends are still here.

I will update post party but for now here are a few photo's.  A princess themed party (who knew a 3 year old had so many opinions on a party) and as with the past two years I will attempt to make her birthday cake myself, this year she has chosen a princess castle! Actually she wanted Shaun the Sheep again until she got her little hands-on my cake books and found this one!

Helping bake cupcakes

Handmade party decorations..... I have a lot to finish

Chocolate crackles of course.... copha not available over here but after 4 different supermarkets I finally found an alternative product

The princess castle I am attempting tomorrow night

ABC Practice (video)

 Piper has discovered how to work the video function on our iPhone. She loves making videos and playing them back again and again. This is her practising her ABC's on the weekend (this was very early in the morning - you will see from my voice).

Watch through to the end...... the attitude is hilarious. Our almost 3 year old going on 13!

Chef Piper

Helping make homemade pizza's! She loves her new little ikea stool.

It was a big day

Asleep within minutes of getting in the car after a big day exploring Bur Dubai! A little Australian girl with white blonde hair is so rare in the area we were today that Piper got paparazzied everywhere we walked by locals. She is getting used to this kind of attention now and happily poses when she feels like it and other times she is quick to tell them NO!

The proud Mumma post (and super grateful wife)

Our little girl has gone from a baby to a grown-up in the past week and as exciting a milestone achievement as it is I am also selfishly a little sad my little bubba is growing up so fast.
Piper is officially daytime toilet trained (night time nappy only).
While I would like to take credit for this achievement unfortunately the only thing I can take credit for is buying her first knickers! This was all due to the hard work and hours put in by her Daddy.
Last week I had management from Australia in town and a huge proposal due in to a client so on top of the long hours I had been working I also had evening work functions every night last week. During this time Naz and Piper took on the toilet training challenge with great success! Don't get me wrong there were a few accidents, embarassing and awkward moments followed by tears but they won in the end.
We went to the mall last night for a couple of quick jobs and as we were leaving to head home Piper yelled out "toilet, I need to do wee" and off we went. She was so patient and grown-up about it all I had a teary departing the toilets with my little grown-up lady.
So basically this is a blog post to say thank you to my wonderful husband and let the world know how much I truly do appreciate his support and all the work he is putting in at the moment as a stay at home Daddy over here with very little support. Thank you xo