Madison in January

Each month I hope to capture our sweet Madison growing! These are some of our favorite pictures from the month of January! I honestly cannot believe how fast these babies are growing. I'm so grateful to be their mommy!

These pics were taken on her first night out to dinner with Mommy and Daddy, she got to go to the Intercontinental Hotel with us to eat for Mike's Burn's and McDonnell Christmas party!



Here are some of her sweet faces that she makes!





What a sleepy baby she is!!



Giving mommy and Hannah some smiles!


Madison and her big sister Hannah with their new pigs from Grandma Wiederien!


Doesn't she just melt your heart!!

Camel Races

Well as I have said in the past, there are some things we get to do that we will only get to do in Doha! Here is something that I will never get to do again, how many people can say they have been to see camels race! Well the Sartains can officially say they got to see some camels race. This was quite the experience I must say! First off you just pull up to the start in your car and then you follow these camels around the track, while trying not to get hit by the other cars driving next to you! It's unbelievable.

I guess at one point they use to put small boys on the backs of these camels to race them around, but then they thought that was getting to be a little to dangerous (smart thinking)! So they moved to the mechanical monkey jockey. The guys racing the horses have a remote control in their car and they push a button that makes the mechanical monkey whip the camel to get them going. So to do that these cars again follow the camels all around the race track as well.

Here is a pic of a racing camel with his monkey!


They line the camels up behind this gate then they raise it up and these guys run them out and get them going!


And they are off!!



Notice all the cars following these camels, at times we were 5 wide, this was worse then driving down Salwa Road in traffic! They were honking their horns and going crazy!


Another pic of the camel trainers getting them going!


How often do you see a sign that says Camel Race Track!

Batter Up!

One thing we have found difficult here in the desert is trying to find things for the kids to do and keep active.  Well thank goodness for friends sharing some great information, we were able to sign Hannah up to T-ball this year.  So every Friday morning we headed to the American School of Doha and played a game of T-ball.  Hannah was a little shy to start the season, but by the end of it she was running for the ball and running the bases by herself.

She even had her own cheering section from me and Nathan, Dad was usually on the field with her!


They always get the names from the Minor Leagues back in the States, Hannah was lucky enough to get on the team "Sand Gnats", that seemed fitting for our desert adventure.


Hannah and Dad running the bases!


Batter, batter swing!


This little girl certainly had a good arm on her, who knew?!!  And by the end of the season she was able to catch a few ground balls!





To end the season the league had a get together and trophy ceremony to celebrate their completion of a great season and all their hard work!  What would a party be without a few blow ups!





Hannah patiently waiting for her trophy with some of her teammates!


A high five from the coach!



One proud little girl, this was her first trophy and she was SO excited!

My First Smile

What can be more precious then your sweet baby giving you that first smile, that first sense of acknowledgement that she knows who you are! I was so grateful to capture her first grin on camera!! Say Cheese!

Nathan can write!

So one day we are sitting around and I thought I should teach Nathan how to write his name. So I handed him some paper and a pen and began to tell him the letters of his name. Well to my surprise this little guy already knew how to write his name! I am continually surprised by my kids and how much they know already. So proud of you Nathan!

Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum

One thing to do in Doha is to visit a few of the museums here. This museum is the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, it is actually a collection of his arts and artifacts he has accumulated over the years from around the world. You have to set up a private tour to get to see it, so Burns & McDonnell set up a day for us to see all these collections! It's hard to believe this is one person's collections! Notice the Al Thani in the name, he is part of the Royal family.

The wood work is just amazing here with so much detail!


Can you imagine being transported in this?



A bus from the days.


He had an amazing collection of cars in just one building, truly amazing! Felt like we were home actually looking at a car museum!






Just a neat picture of the sun setting as we were leaving!