Fun With Grandma & Grandpa

This week Phil's parents (Grandma and Grandpa) took a few days off to spend some time with Nadia (and us too). We had a ball doing all sorts of fun things; going to McDonald's for lunch (Nadia's 1st time), going for walks and splashing in the puddles, watching Veggie Tales movies after nap time and plenty of playing with legos. One of the highlights was a trip to Bellaboo's, a children's museum/play place. Thank you, Mom and Dad Svoboda for such a fun morning full of funny memories!

A new favorite hobby: singing in the car.

More interested in playing dress up with the construction gear than building with the construction toys at the play place. :0)

Several buses of preschoolers joined us that morning at the play place, and at first Nadia was a bit leery of all the company (frankly, so were we). She came around in no time, however and caught on to the flow of play (chaos) without a problem.

Gotcha! Just when Grandma let her guard down in the Face Painting room, Nadia swooped in to make her mark. Haha!

Not that she needed any assistance completely covering her face with the face paint crayons, but daddy helped her fill in a few "missed spots".

"Wait. Why are we COLORING??? Can't we be doing this at home!?" Yes, Grandma, we can. But since when do we all get to hunch down at a mini table, crouched painfully on chairs made for mini-people and huddle while our knees ache with joy over the Play Place's pretty crayons? Besides, the world would never know the beauty of "Bespectacled Warewolf Man Grandpa Puppet" if Grandpa hadn't had the opportunity to unleash his creative side at that foot-high art table.

At the end of the morning, after running around, painting her face over and over again, discovering all sorts of new ways to make her parents and grandparents laugh, and several trips down the fun huge slide, we called it a day, loaded back into the van and promptly fell asleep. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa!

Easters

Our Easter Sunday was FULL... celebrating our Savior's resurrection, spending wonderful, long-awaited time with family, play, rest, food... In all it was a perfect, happy, feasting, time of glad remembrance of all that is good in the world and in life. We are thankful for the goodness that God has blessed us with this year and always.

We churched, lunched, played and rested with Tim and Michelle and their crew (Tim is Phil's brother) as well as Michelle's side of the family. Thank you, Svobodas and Olsens for a fun, fun day!

The Two Year Old and The Three Year Old. Peas in a pod, partners in crime, fast friends - Micah Joy and Nadia Renee have begun their love/hate relationship.

The Fab 5.

Left to right: Elijah, Eden, Titus, Micah and Levi

I made the Easter dresses and ties in Indonesia before we left. The batik pattern is special to "our" region in Borneo. We all dressed in Dayak batik this year for Easter.

She's taken like fish to water to all the green, green grass and the fun that spring brings.

Uncle Timmy has been dying to get all those girls out on the paddle boat for a spin. They all loved it.

Nadia talked him into 3 rides :0) Thank you, Uncle Timmy.

Playing in the chilly air by the little lake behind Mema & Poppy Olsen's house.

Apparently we NEEDED to have Easter baskets... For goodness sake. Nadia made out like a little bandit with sidewalk chalk, jump rope, bubbles, fun coloring books and, as is pictured above, brand new, instantly beloved RAIN BOOTS!

"For plashing in puddles in 'merica"

Thank you, Mema and Aunt Michelle!

I love this photo not only for the goony toddler girls in a moment of harmony, but for the happy people in the background. Check out all those smiling adults.

Superhero soccer? :0) Levi and Titus join the "big boys" for a pick up game after our enormous feast of ham, grilled vegetables and too many delicious desserts.

Bubbles!!

Nadia learns about the latest iPhone technology from Aunt Michelle.

Phil and Tim ping and pong.

Little fingers try their hand at the ivories.

After naptimes and a long day of play, too much Easter candy and plenty of fresh air, these five little monkeys vegged out for a little bit before it was time to pack it up and call it a day. (Eden was there too - just cuddled next to mommy on a different couch).

At the end of the day, while tucking Nadia in to bed (she was still a live wire even at the late hour of 8:30pm), and saying 'Amen' to our bedtime prayers, she requested quietly, "Ok, Daddy, now can we pray about rainbows?" :0)

so many things...

The past two weeks have been a blur! So much has happened, and we've been so many places that I'm not sure where to start - or whether or not I should even bother... So, here is a smattering of photos related to what we've been up to lately.

Who needs new shoes? Well, technically Nadia does. But the point here is that before we left for our trip to the States, I culled all her clothes and shoes, searching for appropriate things to wear over here. These pretty little shoes were in need of a bath (again - this is not really even as dirty as they COULD be. We hadn't had rain in a month, so they were mud-free).

After an hour or so of scrubbing and elbow grease her pretty little shoes look nearly new. Airplane ready!

Our travels began on April 13th as we left our home on the equator at 5:30am. All of our connections from Pontianak to Jakarta to Seol to Chicago were smooth, on-time and without a single hassle. Thank you, Lord. (Traveling across the planet while 6+ months pregnant and with a toddler had the potential to be a nightmare - but surprisingly there was minimal whining ((from either of us)) and only one instance of motion-sickness. In all, a miraculous journey).

Before embarking on our trek from Asia to the Americas, we took a day to catch our breath in Jakarta. We took Nadia to a zoo, and for 40 cents a person walked our feet off and exhausted the little one (as well as the overheating, swelling-footed mama). We saw lots of fun animals, and it was just a fun day together without luggage or check-in times or passports and visas.

Taking (another) break from all the walking. Nadia enjoying the borrowed stroller for a few minutes. Most of the time she was the one pushing it around.

Komodo dragon sauntering away

We arrived in Chicago on the 15th to very chilly weather. We were pretty certain that ANY weather would feel chilly to us because of where we've lived for the past two years. But 37 degrees and threatening snow was FREEEEEZING for us! We've been resting and unpacking and catching up with friends and family all week. For some reason, we don't really have photos of any of that time quite yet (Michelle, do you have any of all our kids?). Here are a couple from this morning as the weather finally warmed up enough to take the wiggle worm outside to play.

She learned about dandelions, daffodils, driveways and sidewalks today. :0)

Yesterday, she napped on her cousin's bed while under the close, careful, loving watch of the family dog, Kevin.

yesterday

Today we're traveling. But yesterday we had some fun with our friends/co-workers. Below is our first "team photo"! Yay! We had a great time of meeting and discussing- as well as just having plain old fun.

Here are the people we plan to be neighbors (co-workers, friends, sisters, brothers, partners, etc) with in "the jungle" upon our return to Indonesia this coming autumn.

We are so happy and thankful that all our kids are so close in age, and have already started building strong friendships with one another. It's a huge joy and blessing to watch them play together and have so much fun. It's also so sweet to hear them talk about each other when they're apart. We love you, Pries and Ullums, and are honored to be partnered up with you in this crazy, awesome, humbling task. See you in 6 months!

10 Days and Counting

10 days from today we plan to take off from our capital city here for our journey to the U.S. Needless to say we're both excited and very busy in preparation.

Wild Child

26 Weeks pregnant. Yikes, do i look that tired in real life?! As you can see, Nadia's belly is coming along quite nicely as well.