30 June 2012

Birthdays Both

Both of my babies were born in July. So, it sort of makes sense to celebrate them together. :) Today we had a 1st and 4th Birthday/4th of July Party here at the Mission Home with some in-town friends.

Sparklers, red and white balloons, a few fun table cloths from my mom and some face paint, watermelon, sweet tea, lemonade, popcorn, peanuts - oh and a cake. :)

Our soon-to-be 4 year old!


And...what's this??? A CUPCAKE??? Are you - KIDDING ME?!?!? WHERE'S MY CAKE!??!?!

Oh, whatever. Hand it over. I'll eat it.

Then wash it down with my big-boy-baby bottle

Oh, i just love this little guy :)

Boppers and a mouth-full of watermelon!



Sparklers!

Pinwheels!

OH MY!

29 June 2012

Mission Home Capers

In between errands, meetings, shopping and doing fun things with the kids, we... well.... here. 
I'll show ya.

Nadia performs routine check-ups on all the in-house toys.

And then displays how living in this country has influenced her idea of beauty. This little get-up is what she created when i told her to go play princess. Is this a head-covering? I think it is.

We bathe the itchy baby in PK crystals - much to his delight. (An aside here: I like to set aside fun things for the kids. When we get a box, when we shop in town, or even when we shopped in the U.S., i squirreled a few fun things for each of them away - so that at times like these, i have something fun to pull out and surprise them with. The headband that Nadia is sporting here, is one of those little "specials". I bought that last May with my mom in MA, and have been saving it for a special treat/surprise). :)

We skype with our families (and play chopsticks).

And this is just a fun photo of Quinn showing you where his nose is. :) He snorts.

28 June 2012

Pool Fun

We had the fun opportunity to spend a morning at the pool with some friends this week.

Pool buddies. :)

Whoah, standing up on the slippery tile.

What a cutie, blue-eyes!

I think it's so funny how Phil looks like he's impersonating a cave man here...

Playing peekaboo with Katrina. What a little ham.

Doing his best to launch himself OUT of his duckie raft.

"Mom, when exactly will you stop humiliating me with these ridiculous glasses?"

Fun slide with Dad!

23 June 2012

Making Time

Will Pink Eye, Ringworm, sore throat and fever keep us from having a good time together?

Not yet. :)

One of the reasons we come out to get a little break is to make time for each other - and for our kids. In our every day life (a whole lot like yours) it's a constant struggle to keep the delicate balance among "The Work", Everyone Else, and Our Darling Children. Getting away from the physical presence of 2 of those things, allows us to focus again especially on our family for a little bit, and make some memories while we work on getting ourselves ready to go back to work.

Started last night with a little grill-out with friends. Thank you, Doug and Jael! Nadia says, "Look what i can do!"

Pals

Q sportin some rec-spec shades. :) LOL! He wasn't really into it. I couldn't figure out how to set them on his head without squishing his little ears down like that...

Earlier today we took a VERY RARE all-family trip to do some supply shopping. So rare, in fact, that i felt the need to take a photo. :) Both kids were so good the whole time! (All 4 hours)

It's a little easier to be good when there are so many fun things to see. Stingray anyone? About $2 a pound, if you're interested...

Found a pan to replace the one i destroyed a couple of weeks ago during The Great Multitasking Catastrophe of 2012. Unnecessarily, my new pan has a giant lady bug on its bottom. That's the only one i could find that wasn't $30. Oh well.

The baby likes it. :)

Our almost-4-year old with her yummy watermelon juice treat for being such a good little shopper. "Mom, you know what? Watermelon juice is so good for you. Because it has WATER in it." :)

22 June 2012

And We're Out!

Today was "Travel Out of the Village Day". Usually that means 1.5 days of travel and 2 days of "recovery". Now, however, it means 1.25 hours of bush plane miracle. :) Thank God with us for this amazing provision! We were the honored first passengers out of our village using our new strip and the trusty mission plane. What a RIDE!!!


And just like that, we're in town. It feels just about as realistic as "Scotty, beam us up".... Nadia is always happy to meet up with old pals - just as we are. :) Here, she makes a goofy face for ya as she eats a yummy donut from Unkie Jael. :)


This is just an adorable photo of our kids. :) This was last week when Phil was working all day each day at the "new" house. Nadia would try to help out as much as a 3 year old can. Here she is helping Quinn eat his lunch, while I make lunch for the rest of us. What a good helper!! (in other news, our portable highchair doesn't work with the table we're borrowing from our partners... so, Quinn has to be strapped with a cloth onto a plastic chair). :)

15 June 2012

Reunion!

Our partners, Tim and Andrea Ullum are back! Yay! So happy to have them here again.

Nadia and some friends making a Welcome Home sign for Abby and Dina.

Good work!

Yay for the Ullums! Yay for the plane!

Yay for dressups. Oh dear... and high heels. Yikes.

Happy girls :)




09 June 2012

Whirlwind Days

We've swung wildly between laughing and crying. We're so tired we can barely string more than 2 sentences together. But we're so thankful and glad! Among very many other things - we recently had the fantastic opportunity to see the plane land for the first time on our airstrip! It's surreal...

 Here is the mission plane. In OUR corner of jungle. Our pilots came over for lunch. And then flew home. This airstrip will change our current travels into our location from 1.5 days of mud, road rage and sneaky truck problems to (take a deep breath) 1 hour. That's it. 1 hour from our village home to the mission home in town.

Mind boggling!

I never thought I'd feel so sayang toward a teeny little plane. (sayang: darling, endearment, sweetheart, treasure) Things still need some refinement, and a few more trees need to come down. But for the most part, our strip is ready to use! Praise the Lord! What an enormous answer to prayer!

In other news. Nadia's kitten got run over by a truck. We all cried (a good indicator of how weary we are... even Phil had to hide himself away for a few tears). It broke Nadia's heart - which then also broke mine. 

Then Quinn began vomiting (the same day, but 2 unrelated events). Then Nadia woke up in the night with vomit as well. After a night of little sleep, we also are feeling sore, belly-body-head achy. Here she is getting a bath and washing her hair - fun times.

And THEN. . .*sigh* As parents we all hear things from time to time that fill us with dread. Today, we heard something like that. She said, "Um. Guys, i need to tell you something." At the moment, we were both working with a slippery, wet 11 month old boy who had just puked all over himself and the porch - and who also had a runny-buns diaper full. We were trying to clean him off, while not losing our own lunch when T3YO informed us that there was something she needed to tell us. "What?!?" we both replied, a bit at the end of our collective patience. "Um. I sort of... accidentally ....dropped-my-dolly-in Quinn's-puddle-of-puke".

blink.

blink.

blink.

"You.... did WHAT?!?!?!" At this point, neither Phil nor i could even muster the energy to say anything. We did all we could to not drop the baby on the bathroom floor while we howled with laughter at the sheer insanity. How could this even be possible!?!? How could she "accidentally" drop her doll...exactly THERE. We just laughed and laughed until the tears were streaming down our faces. Quinn was all soapy and bubbly and reveling in his nakedness, kicking his fat little legs and trying to get free. T3YO was still on the porch, staring at the scene of the "accident", asking us over and over again if we heard her. We couldn't reply. We were laughing too hard. "It's just too ridiculous. This can't be happening..."


Here is the doll - lying in a pool of our son's vomit - right after our 3 year old "accidentally" dropped her exactly in the middle of the puddle.

06 June 2012

babies, kitties, puppies, fluffy!

I don't know what got into me the other day - but something compelled me to attempt giving the kittens a bath.

This did not incite any favor toward me on their behalf. Surprise.

It did, however, make one little 3 year old a very happy camper. She got to cuddle Little Star Mary until she was all fluffy and dry. They both seemed to need that.

Little Star Mary is not all that impressed with the magnificent absorption powers of ShamWow.

AND one of my friends here just had a beautiful little baby girl! Look how precious that chubby little face is!! :) So adorable. We're so thankful that it was a safe delivery!

Here they are, resting and enjoying each other. :)

03 June 2012

Family Day Off!

Sunday is normally the day we like to try to take a rest from our work. It's not worked out for a month. We've been tired, tired, tired - and so thankful that today we finally got some rest! We started our day by skyping with family over Starbucks coffee (saved aside for a rainy day, emotionally speaking), had pizza for lunch, took a family nap in the heat of the afternoon,

enjoyed a snack on our brand new back porch (!), 

 went for a dip in the river to cool off before dinner


then watched Horton Hears a Who together while munching kettle corn and caramel apples for supper.

We are now nice and sleepy! Little Q (and i) fell sleep right after his bedtime bottle. What a happy day!!!