Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

October Update

Sunday, November 10th, 2013

The month of October absolutely flew by!  Not sure why, because we didn’t do anything major but it went fast!  We had a lot of lazy weekends where we stayed in our jammies all day and cooked and relaxed!  We had talked about taking a mini trip, but decided to just stay at home instead.

Ben and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary during October!  Again, we didn’t do anything really, just relaxed at home.  Katie and Joe took the kids for a couple of hours and we cooked a nice meal just the two of us, played Settlers and watched some TV.  It was the perfect way to celebrate! 

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Mikayla is clearly very excited about our anniversary.

The most "active" we got for the month was the monthly Portuguese bacalhau dinner.  The dinner was held at St. Philips this time so we spent last weekend helping set up and cook for it.  We used it as an excuse to get the kids all dressed up looking cute!  Mikayla had a blast playing with some of the kids who came that happened to be right around her age.  She is not used to playing with same age peers, but rather kids who are older!  So it was a nice change of pace for her. 

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Can you tell she dressed herself?

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Halloween came and went, but we didn’t actually celebrate in October.  The week of Halloween Ben and the sisters were both gone so we pushed it back some and will celebrate this weekend.  I will try to post pictures of the kiddos and their costumes in a separate post.

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Love her and her beautiful smile!

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Early morning snuggles.  Mikayla wakes up almost everyday asking us to bring Max in to snuggle with her.

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Max’s Banner

Saturday, November 9th, 2013

A few months ago we asked some close friends and family to help us put together a decoration for the kids room.  Each person was asked to create a pendant to hang.  It could be made from anything and in any design.  The whole idea is that we wanted those closest to us to be a part of his room.  After all, it takes a village to raise a child, right?  We did a similar thing with Mikayla when she was a baby, but we used wooden elephants.  Here is a picture of a few of them because apparently I never blogged about it!

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Here is the "finished" version.  And I use finished loosely because we are still waiting for some and the hope is that it will be constantly added to over the years!

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MAX was made by the three of us.  M was Mikayla, A myself and X was all Ben (it is hard to tell here but it is a treasure map where X marks the spot).

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Mikayla wanted to make a separate banner to hang.

And there you go.  Our little village in the bush of Swaziland!

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Lucky

Saturday, October 19th, 2013

There are certain moments in your life when you come to the realization of just how lucky you are.  Today was one of those moments for me.  I am lucky to have two precious and healthy children I can love and kiss on each and everyday.  There are those in the world that long to have that luxury and privilege.   

I have some very dear friends who have been on the adoption journey for over 2.5 years.  They have had many ups and downs along the way and today was just another one of those battles that they must fight and endure.  They are fighting to love on their daughter while I am lucky enough to snuggle mine daily.  I am luckier than I deserve.

After finding out this disappointing news from my friend my son woke up and I just clung to him.  I sat and nursed him in the dark and all sorts of thoughts ran through my head.  I thought of dear Bella and her precious laughter and catch phrase, "Eat up a Toe" and how difficult her death was.  I thought of sweet Simo who bounced back from deaths door only to die too young when his house collapsed.  I thought of our hundred or so children at the hostel who have lost countless family members in their short lives.  I thought of all those families I know who have tried in earnest to have children, but for whatever reason have not been able to.  I thought of just how lucky I am to have two healthy children to love on each and everyday.  This luck I will cling to as I go to bed for the evening and look forward to their sweet hugs and snuggles in the morning.

Sunset, Max 3 months 139

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You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013

Sometimes my daughter is hysterical!  She will often say things that prompt Ben and I to look at each other and say, "Where does she come up with this stuff?"  I mean seriously. 

Case in point.  Last night we had a late dinner so Mikayla showered beforehand.  The dinner included rice.  After dinner she showed us her bowl to see if she had eaten enough and I noticed clumps of rice in her hair.  Oy vey!  Off to the shower again to get out the sticky rice.  Ben got her rewashed and dried off again.  Then he told Mikayla it was time to dry her hair (before putting on her jammies).  Mikayla immediately started to cry and scream that she couldn’t dry her hair without her clothes on, leaving Ben a little confused.  So he turned on the hair dryer and attempted to dry her hair.  She started crying more and began to cower in the corner of the bathroom, pitiful I know.  Ben then asked her why she couldn’t dry her hair without her clothes on.  Her response, "because my skin will fall off".  Seriously??  You can’t make this stuff up!!  Ben then responded, "Mikayla, why do you think your skin will fall off if we dry your hair without any clothes on?"  Her response, "Because mommy said so!"  So Ben scoops her up and brings her to the kitchen where I am washing dishes and asks me if I told Mikayla her skin would fall off if she dried her hair with no clothes on.  My response was no, of course not!  Her demeanor immediately went from tears and fear to smiles and laughing!  She allowed Ben to dry her hair, with no clothes on, and amazingly her skin stayed right where it was!

Another funny Mikayla antidote happened a few weeks ago.  She was playing with one of her dolls that go with her dollhouse and he leg popped off.  She took it to Ben and asked him to fix it for her.  Here is how the conversation unfolded:

M:  Daddy can you fix his leg again?

B: Why did you break the leg off your doll?

M:  I did it on accident…No wait… On purpose…wait… Mommy, which one do I not get in trouble for?

Got to love the things that come out of a kids mouth!  Happy Tuesday everyone.

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Mikayla in her silly jammies.  She loves to mix and match her jammies tops and bottoms every night!

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Like Father, Like Son

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

Does anyone else see the resemblance?

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Max at Three Months

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

Our boy continues to grow and change each day.  I forget just how quickly they can change at this young age!  He is still eating every two hours or so (which is a little exhausting for this momma, but so worth it)!  Here are his three month stats:

Weight – 6kg / 13.2lbs

Length – 24 inches

Head circumference – 16 inches

According to our calculations that puts him in the 50th percentile in weight and length, which is much lower than we thought he would be.  He just seems so big to us, and the Swazis. 

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Sunset, Max 3 months 118

His sleeping patterns are still very inconsistent.  At the beginning of the month I thought we had made a turn toward sleeping through the night.  He had a week where he would go to bed around 7 or 8 and sleep until 4 or 5, nurse and go back to sleep for an hour or so.  However, that was short lived.  After a week of this he returned to his old habits of waking to nurse every two hours or so.  he will now go to bed around 7 or 8 and sleep until 1 or 2, occasionally early, and from then on he wakes up every two hours.  We had stopped swaddling him for a short period, but have started that again and he seems to sleep a little sounder at night, even if it isn’t for a long period.  Nap times are hit or miss.  He will regularly wake up for 1-2 hours and then take a short 30-45 minute nap.  He usually takes two longer (1-2 hours) naps mid-morning and sometimes in the afternoon and then will dose off again for a  short period around 4 or 5.  I am trying to make sure he is in the crib for most of these naps, but we are still so inconsistent with nap time schedules.  Not sure how we were able to get Mikayla on such a good schedule!  On a typical day he will take at least one of those naps in a baby carrier. 

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Speaking of, I use my baby carrier so much more with Max than I ever did with Mikayla.  Max is "worn" everyday!  It makes it easier to get things done with a 4 year old around, plus when we are traveling to the hostel for various meetings and groups it is easier to carry him in one than it is to carry him in my arms.  He sleeps great in the baby carriers too, and will fall asleep almost instantly when you put him in one.

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The hostel kids and staff are still enamored by Max and will often fight over who gets to hold him.  If he is awake when we are there, I hardly see him!  That is until he cries and they bring him back to nurse, their default response for when a baby cries.  As soon as I calm him down, often without nursing, he is whisked off again!

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Max’s personality continues to grow and change each day.  He is smiling and cooing more and crying less (most days)!  He is even making a real effort to laugh.  It is really funny to watch him try to make noises.  It is almost like he tries to make them in the back of his throat, but can’t quite get the sound to make its way out.  But when he gets going you could keep him talking for several minutes.  Mikayla absolutely adores this and is constantly trying to engage him in "talking".

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Max is still not a big fan of tummy time, although if you can catch him in a good mood he will tolerate it for a few minutes.  While on his back he is able to wiggle around, so much so that if you walk away for a minute he will be in a different position entirely when you return!  He is still rolling from belly to back, but not vice versa yet.  Although he is now rocking himself up on his side, so I don’t think it will be long now.

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Like Mikayla at his age, Max has a full head of hair but it is a little awkward looking.  He has a small cowlick on the crown of his head which makes it look like he is wearing a toupee!  Ben is ready to shave it off, but I am not there yet.  It does look a little silly,  but he is a baby after all!  Speaking of appearance, he is still sporting his three birth marks.  The forehead one is fading some, but still there and the other two are still very red.

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Max really enjoys pushing up and standing on his legs when you are holding him.  And again, just like Mikayla, he loves to face out and check out what is going on.  I think he is going to be social like his big sister! Ben also got smart and started rolling a towel to place in his tub to make bath time a little easier!  Genius!!

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First "swim"!

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I have been meaning to write a post about how we chose Maxwell Simo for our son’s name, but haven’t gotten around to it.  Thankfully my amazing husband wrote one so I will just share his with you.  You can find it here.

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September Update

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

The month of September flew by!  Playing dress up, preschool, snuggles, working and nursing is how we spent most of our month!

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A little early in the morning for Mikayla, but Max is loving his sisters snuggles!

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Dress up fun!!  (Sorry Ben and Katie, hope you don’t mind.)  This is Ben’s version of what a prince would look like, complete with a "baby" stick horse…

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Early morning "burrito" snuggles!!

We started back our preschool routine the second week of September.  Mikayla is doing so good!  I have started using the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  It is similar to Reading Mastery, which I used when I taught at T. C. Cherry.  It took her a couple of lessons to get into it, but now she is loving it and wants to sound out everything!  Even make believe words.  Often at dinner she will "spell" words for us and then have us sound them out and say them fast.  I am also using some of the pieces from the K4 curriculum that Confessions of a Homeschooler created.  The rest of our curriculum I am just piecing together.  We end up spending about 1-1.5 hours a day, four days a week on preschool time.  We also have two art therapy volunteers here completing an internship so they are each coming down once a week for an art class with Mikayla.  It is a combination of visual arts and dance arts.  And Katie has started a yoga class with Mikayla a couple nights a week (whenever we can squeeze it in between bath and bed)!  She is loving it all!

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It is that season of the year when the sugar cane around our area is being burned (it is a 10-11 month cycle).  Mikayla gets excited each time she sees the big burns.  And just for the record, she still refers to the ash as black snow!

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Sugar cane being burned at night.  The picture does not do the flames justice.  They can get up to 60 feet high!

Along with sugar cane season comes the hot snake season!  We have seen a couple around our house already this year.  One was a spitting cobra in the banana fields, a mamba by the office and a speckled bush snake (not poisonous) in a mango tree in our yard.  There have been a lot of spiders this season already and mosquitoes are out in full force!  Poor Max gets bit on his face every once in awhile.

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Can you spot the green snake??

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What about now??

Ben and Mikayla took a father/daughter bush walk to take pictures towards the beginning of the month.  You can see some of them here.  Speaking of pictures, Joe’s dad was in town for a few weeks and he was so kind to take some family pictures for us.  There is an album here on FB, but I will also include a couple of the shots for your preview in case you missed them.

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I got brave and drove a group of us ladies (and Max) to Ezulwini (about 1.5 hours away) for a day of shopping and eating.  It was a fun day and a much needed day off the mission.  Max was a trooper and slept most of the time we shopped.

Finally, the bananas are starting to ripen.  Won’t be long before we will have so many bananas around the mission we won’t know what to do with them!!

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Sunset, Max 3 months 082

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August Update

Tuesday, August 27th, 2013

As much as I would love to give a weekly update like I have in the past, that is just not realistic for me at the moment.  A preschooler, infant, husband, household duties and part time job are keeping me too busy to do so!  Instead what I would like to do is give a monthly update on what has been happening in our family.  Here is the August update.

We have had a pretty uneventful August as we continue to find a groove for our family of four.  The schools in Swaziland have a 3 week holiday break that began in the middle of August so it has been pretty quiet around the mission.  There is a small group of children that live on the mission that are just a couple of years older than Mikayla.  She has enjoyed spending the school break playing with them most of the day.  They come up with all sorts of creative games to play and it makes her super tired!  She has pretty much given up her afternoon nap (even though she still needs it most days), but with all the extra play time with friends she has been crashing pretty hard in the afternoon! 

I was going to begin Mikayla’s preschool time the first of September, but have decided to wait until the children all return to school so she can continue playing with them during the day.  Plus, I am still trying to figure out how I want to structure that time!!

We spent most of our time last week at the hostel for camp.  I had a smaller role this time, but enjoyed interacting with staff and children throughout the week.  Both Mikayla and Max did great!!

Ben is back to work full time, but has had a pretty flexible schedule.  He has been able to take longer periods off throughout the day.  At times like this it is nice his office is so close to home because he can pop over and help out when I need him!!

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Mikayla enjoyed some time in the rain during a recent storm.

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Mikayla was dying to go camping, so Ben and her had a camp fire and "camped" on the porch.  It got pretty cold so they ended up camping in the living room before the night was over.

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Katie brought a hammock with her so we have all been enjoying relaxing in the cool afternoon breezes that this time of year brings.

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Mikayla at camp.  She loves to go to the kitchen to get a sandwich whenever we are at the hostel.

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Zodwa, hostel staff, making pap for lunch.

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Kids enjoying sports time at camp.

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Max enjoying time with the kids at camp.

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Max at One Month

Friday, August 9th, 2013

Last Sunday Max turned one month old.  It is crazy how fast this past month has flown by.  Ben and I were actually just talking last night about how much he has grown and changed in the last month and just how quickly it has gone by.  With Mikayla that first month seemed like an eternity, but with Max it has gone too fast.  Maybe it is because we also have a very active four year old to look after!

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Grow with me owl at 2 weeks.

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Grow with me owl at 1 month

Max is quite different from his sister.  While she was always pretty laid back he is a little more high maintenance (although he is starting to come out of this phase).  He definitely cries more than his sister ever did and he is a lot bigger than she ever was!  He is a chunky monkey and eats like a pig!!

Max loves to be held, and during the day actually sleeps better in someone’s arms or in a baby carrier than he does in his crib.  At one month he is starting to get in somewhat of a sleeping routine.  He usually takes a mid-morning nap, an afternoon nap and an early evening nap before calling it a day around 9 or 10.  He sleeps pretty good at night and most nights gets up to nurse 3-4 times and goes right back to sleep.  On rare occasions he likes to have a party around 3 or 4am!  He will often have a crying spell right around dinner time, which has made for some interesting meal times!

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We started Max in cloth diapers after his umbilical cord fell off (around two weeks).  We only have 11 at the moment so we alternate between cloth and disposable, but mostly cloth during the day.  I am also breastfeeding Max and it is going much smoother than with Mikayla.  I had a low supply with her and seem to have an abundance with him!

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Max’s first cloth diaper!

At around two weeks, Max rolled over for the first time (belly to back).  He has been doing it pretty consistently since then, but absolutely hates time on his tummy.  As soon as you put him on his tummy he starts screaming.  We keep trying, but so far he just seems to hate it.  Which is ironic because he loves to fall asleep on your chest where he is essentially on his tummy!  He also has really good neck control (both of our kids have had this).  He can hold his head steady for several seconds and is even able to lift it up when on his tummy.  That is when he isn’t screaming.

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He is starting to enjoy playing on his back.  He will occasionally "talk" with us making small cooing sounds.  And he is starting to smile some, smiles that are not your typical gas smiles. He also has more periods of wakefulness than he did two weeks ago.

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We took Max up to the hostel for the first time last week when the kids were there.  They were absolutely in love and almost knocked us over when we got to the gates.  They all wanted to see him and said what a beautiful baby he was.  I don’t think he will be short on people who love him.  He handled the interaction like a champ, slept right through it!  😉 There are also some cultural differences between raising an American infant and a Swazi infant.  The biggest is the way we bundle up children.  For us Max is sufficient in a long sleeve outfit with pants, a lightweight blanket and maybe a hat depending on temperature.  In Swaziland they bundle their babies up until they are sweating – thick wool blankets and at least three layers of clothing in 80 degree weather!  We often get scolded because Max is not bundled up appropriately!  Just one of the many differences we are finding.

Mikayla is in love with her brother and has been a great helper this past month.  She is on "diaper duty", helping to take care of dirty diapers and pick out his outfits each day!  She loves to snuggle with him and hold him on the couch.  She even seems oblivious to his screaming.  Yesterday he was crying really loud and Ben was talking to him to calm him down.  Mikayla told Ben to that he was being too loud.  When he asked her if Max was being loud too she said no!

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Max was born with three distinct birth marks.  One on his forehead that looks like a triangle, one on the crown of his head and one on the back of his neck.  All three are still very visible, although the forehead triangle is starting to fade some.  Ben likes to refer to this one as the arrow to show "white people’ where to feed the baby!!  His eyes have bounced between being brown and blue, but within the last week they are consistently blue so we are thinking we will have two blue eyed children.

We are starting to get into a pretty good groove and it feels completely normal to be a family of four!  We head to the doctor next week for a six week check up and some shots.  Anxious to see how much my (not so) little boy weighs!

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This Week’s Happenings May 1-12

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

For the last couple of weeks I have been part of the planning committee for our term break camps.  Each school break the kids that stay at the hostel return home to be with their families.  Periodically during these breaks we will bring those that are 15 years and older back to the hostel for a fun filled camp.  The camps consist of sports, guest speakers, life skills training and much more!  Last week was our camp for this school break and it kept me super busy!  Mikayla and I would leave the house each morning and not return until supper or later!!  I was the "behind the scenes girl".  I did not have a super specific role, but floated around and helped to fill in the gaps where needed.  I was on my feet a lot and running around, which made me super tired!  Not sure how I taught kindergarten right up until Mikayla was born!!

Part of the camp was a mural project.  We took the theme "Live Your Best Life" and had each group (there were four) complete one of the words in the theme on a large board.  The kids spent the first day brainstorming, then Ben took their ideas and created the designs.  I then projected them onto the board and traced them. The kids took over after this painting and filling in with additional thoughts and ideas.  I think they turned out pretty good for their first big art project.  Thanks to all my time at Kaleidoscope I was able to help get this project completed!!

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Another highlight from the camp week was the Cabrini staff vs. Camp kids soccer match.  It was quite entertaining and actually a really well matched game (with the exception of a couple of out of shape gentlemen)!  Here are a couple of shots from the game. Oh and the kids won (1-0) in overtime!!

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Staff in blue, kids in green.  Anyone notice something out of place in this picture?

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We spent the weekend recuperating from camp and relaxing!  I had a fabulous Mother’s Day where Ben and Mikayla let e watch movies and relax on the couch all day.  They served me food and wouldn’t let me lift a finger!  Just what this momma needed!  Love my family.

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