Cruel Entertainment

Entertainment of the cruel variety is giving your toothless six year old corn on the cob and watching her desperately gnaw away at it. Yes, it's true - I don't get out much. And I have a mean streak :)

Still smilin' though!

Less cruel entertainment is taking The Pack (K9 and Human) for a walk in the Gardens - until Bridger sees a monkey that is... ;)

Kids and pups enteraining themselves in a stream of water and mud

Madea plopped down in the muddy water. Did you sit in fire ants or what girl friend?

And, well, just because they match. Good thing I kept an extra Yellowstone t-shirt from 2009!!

21st Century Family

The H family, the little ones to be exact, are now joining the 21st century! Because I now have an "extra" old computer that I can keep at home, I downloaded some computer (educational of course :) games and the kids are beginning to learn how to use a computer. No one ever had to tell me twice that children need boundaries and limitations and the computer has always been one of those boundaries - you DO NOT TOUCH THE COMPUTER. Until now! I especially enjoyed the looks of intense concentration on their little faces, and Granny was requesting pictures anyways, so here you go!

We quickly found out that the sucker in her hand wasn't the best idea for a new computer learning because the mouse pad got really sticky!

Frankie sat by enviously awaiting his turn. My favorite was when Ella messed up and he responded calmly and sympathetically, "Damn it." Ha! Kids learned a lot from his old ladies interaction with computers!

At last - it was his turn! I just LOVED the intense concentration on his little face and his short, pudgy little mouse finger - on his left hand of course!

Yeah! Got it! All that concentration really paid off :)

A little moral support from his sis

An external mouse helps - somewhat! Ella's never exactly been known for great motor skills.

Then there's her little bro. Take a look at his coloring! Wouldn't it be annoying to have a little brother like this? But it doesn't bother Ella at all - she's not a naturally competitive person thankfully!

My little lefty certainly has no problem staying in the lines!

March Milestones

March came and went, the large majority of the time catching me without a laptop on which to blog with!But here's a wee bit of a synopsis of the milestones in our family that occurred in March.

First Milestone - March 2nd work began on our house! The story of this land purchase and house building is simply mind boggling to me. It just doesn't happen this way here (or anywhere really!)! I will never doubt that it was God's will for us to buy land and have a house built on it simply because with very little effort on my part, it's happening! Richard, my friend who found the land and negotiated it's purchase (the owner never even saw me ONCE!), still just shakes his head at the speed and smoothness of it all. And to find a contractor who is not only an American but who is affordable? Unheard of! Especially in Christian circles, many people think that I need to get married. To me the obvious and direct ways that God provides for me and the kids is a no brainer that I do not. I mean, what poor dude could compete with God?! It would be a totally unfair act to follow.

Second Milestone - The beginning of March we attended a birthday party for our friend, Abi, who was turning 4 years old. And Frankie had a GREAT TRAUMA FREE TIME! There were seven kids altogether - three kids who mine knew but not well, and Frankie interacted with all of them in a normal way. The two little tricycles were a big draw to all the little boys and Frankie exhibited NORMAL little boy behavior making sure he got his turn with them. No shutting down, no getting overly angry, no pouting, but normal assertive efforts to make sure that he got his turn. Yeah Frankie! Post traumatic crap usually rears it's ugly head after an event like this and even if Frank's had a blast, all he can usually remember are the little "bad" things that happened - like his hat breaking, another kid getting the tricycle or pushing him, etc. But NOT THIS TIME!!! His little brain managed to retain ALL THE GOOD THINGS about the party!!! Amazing!! Proof that little injured traumatised brains DO heal! So when ever he has a "brain relapse" day I hold that image of him at the party in my head and it gives me hope. Thank you Lord for the continued healing of Frank's brain.

Third Milestone - March 10th was Ella's three year anniversary of coming home. Yep, the magical three years when Uganda can complete her adoption! We are planning to wait until November however to see if we can get the kids both done together, hoping that they'll make an exception for Frankie at his two year mark. I'd like to be able to get their US immigration business done together when we're back on furlough next year.

To be honest, I never thought that I could love or enjoy any person as much as I have Ella. She is a JOY. Truly an inspiring little person who has helped teach me to love, forgive and MOVE ON from crap that has happened in the past, simply by her inspiring example. She is like an adoption dream story - three years after coming home, even after living in an orphanage for three stinkin' years, she is a perfectly adjusted little person and appears not to have ANY emotional issues. Not only does she adore and appreciate her family but she truly seems to be free from any "adoption issues" or trauma from her past. It has been AMAZING to watch the Lord take a broken, scared, moody little three year old and transform them into THIS - what we have today. I have NO idea why God chose to bless ME with this child but I am SO GLAD and THANKFUL that He did!

Fourth Milestone - I turned the big 3-0 this month. Wow! What a last 10 years it has been - phew. I NEVER EVER imagined or dreamed that I would be where I'm at now - the mother of TWO children and one SIX YEARS OLD! How'd that happen?! Not to mention owning property and having a house built - in Uganda no less!

I've been through and learned a lot in the last 10 years- working my butt off through college (19 credits a semester, a 100 mile commute to school, two part time jobs and a work study), attending horribly intensive summer school for three summers(linguistics - blah!), moving to Uganda with stars in my naive little eyes and ready to give my whole entire heart and soul to Bible Translation (sorta missed the point, huh?!), getting slapped and stomped down a LOT, learning to get back up, learning to fight tooth and nail (against other "missionaries". Hmmm....) for what is right, having an entire world and world view opened up to me, being a minority ALL THE STINKIN' TIME, becoming a parent - not once but TWICE- to children who already had issues to deal with, and basically just growing up! Geesh, no WONDER I look so old and worn out...

The most important thing that I learned these last 10 years is that if you know God is telling you to do something, you just need to OBEY HIM and step out and do it. NO MATTER WHAT. Obey first and trust Him later if you have to. Work your butt off if you have to. You just have to know that He DOES hold to His promises, even though it's hard and it may seem like you're floundering. And usually He works things out totally differently than anything you've ever dreamed about!

A drive through the zoo

Today the fam damnly headed to the zoo. The kids had been wanting to rent a golf cart for a looong time and so today I caved. $5 for an hour isn't bad for the chance the drive around in a little golf cart I guess. And it's not like we haven't seen the animals before... ;)

The best part of the zoo was the golf cart today!

Just give it nine or ten more years, little L...

Me and my son :)

This is my almost amazing picture of the Cerval cat! Wish he hadn't of turned is head!

The cerval cats got moved into the old fish eagle pen. Sucks for them but it's great for us! The pen is much smaller so you can actually see them as they pace around and hiss a lot. Again, sucks to be them and they don't seem to be very happy but we can actually see them now. Once I finally get my great cerval cat picture though I think they should move them to a better, more cerval cat friendly pen.

I think the otters were hungry. They jumped out of the water and were talking to us!! Little otter chirps.

On the right you can see the baby monitor lizard sunning himself. Whose he trying to fool?!!

Ella's "all natural" art

L's been on a real kick this last week or so. She's been creating some interesting "art work" out of mud every single day. She takes it quite seriously too. She creates these concoctions, er.... works of art, every morning and they dry in the sun during her nap (yep, six years old and still takes an hour nap every day! How lucky am I?!). She claims to dream about them during her sleep and then is up and out the door when she wakes up, barely taking the time to put her pants on!

Our friend Simon, who works for us twice a week, showed her how to mix the right amount of sand and dirt together in order to build a house, etc. I'm amazed that she can actually do it without getting covered in mud!

Proudly exhibiting some of her creations

She's now putting hand, foot and paw prints in them

I think she's making pancakes here

Ella has been playing a lot lately and it's been fun to see. She has always been a player but never really with toys. It took her two whole weeks after she came home at three years old to ever even play with toys and then she'd usually just stuff them in a bag and tote them around. She carried a piece of chalk around in a sardine can for the longest time and that was it! Or she'd take the hobby horse and pretend it was a weed eater. Her play was usually trying to imitate things that big people did but never really involved a lot of imagination.

Ella's always had a lot of really nice, fun toys that she just didn't really play with (other than to stuff in a bag) until now. And it seems like now she's trying to make up for lost time! She's up at the butt crack of dawn and gets right to work playing with her toys. She gets her little people and toy dogs and creates Dog Whisperer episodes (it's great to see all the different looks she comes up with for poor old Cesar!), her little Polly pockets drive around in their car with their dogs and cat having adventures and it's just been great to see her using her imagination and playing with her toys! Or creating things out of mud outside.

I've read that playing is really important to a young child's development and being as Ella was deprived of a lot of opportunities to play the first three years of her life, I'm letting her play as much as she wants to now. Yes, she'll learn to read, write better and do arithmatic but for now I'm letting the kid PLAY!

I guess it doesn't take a lot to make me happy and proud - my kid is six years old, playing with her toys and mud and I am delighted! I think that if I had biological children I'd take little things like this for granted. Having children "with pasts" forces you to take nothing for granted! Even things as simple as playing with toys and mud :)

Back to blogging again (I hope!)

Well, I think I'm back to blogging more regularly now as I've gotten a new computer and aren't stuck on a desk top at the office anymore. Yeah, a desk top - and a big old clunky one at that with a key board that sounded like a herd of elephants was thundering through the office everytime I typed something. Even the mouse on it was noisy! It is good to be one a lap top again :)

Here are some pictures from last week. Same old same old - kids, dogs, gardens, etc.

Gotta love the look on that face! I do believe that she's growing into her ears however.

And while most Ugandan three and six year olds (yes, three!) are slaving away memorizing things in school, my two were hanging out in the Gardens doing things like this...

Chip off the old block

Who knew pieces of grass could be so fun? And don't my children look brilliant? They will change the world some day, I'm sure!

The kids packed along some of thier sand toys to play with on the beach and at the springs in the "jungle" in the Botanical Gardens.

Ella took this picture of the Pack Leader and the rest of the Pack

Sometimes we get a little tired of being stared at. What you lookin' at, huh??

Going feral - but at least she still wears clothes!

Bridger thinking of what he would do off that leash and wishing that I wasn't so mean

We went out to see the progress on the house last Friday and well, didn't find much. The rain has started which brought the work to a halt. They were going to fill in the foundation with murram but since it's been raining it looks like if there's any progress they'll need to fill it in with hardcore. Hardcore is more expensive but so is delaying - the sooner I'm moved in the sooner I won't be paying rent to the landlord! It's all God's deal anways so I'm letting Him worry about it ;) I have such peace about this project that it's totally unnatural.

Loads of murram that can be put in our parking and goat and chicken rearing area

The kids on a teeter totter in Jinja this weekend

Our pups

We banded our cat's balls a couple of months ago. You can guess what Ella is holding in her grubby little hand...

Hairs

Ella got her hair done last week and here is the result. We let her little noggin have a rest for a while after her last due, but, wimp that I am, I was getting sick of doing it. Once a week was just too much ;)

Although she has extensions, it's not extended much past her real hair. It's getting long!

It's a bit too long to leave long so our favorite style has been to pull it back into two pony tails. We hope that it lasts two months.

This is Frankie's new due! It took about five minutes to do - with a sponge!! I really like it as it's just as easy (as far less painful) than combing it out, especially as it gets longer.

Our tool - a simple dish sponge! Amazing what one can learn from the Internet...

Random pics from the H Fam

It's difficult to blog now since I don't have a computer at home but thought I should try to post something at least once a week anyways!

Thursday was Ella's three year anniversary of coming home :) If I had my puter at home I'd probably post something poetical about that major milestone, but since I don't, I'm not. Three years IS a big deal though, for so many reasons. Now we can get her adoption finalized and do the immigration work for her to become a bonafide U.S citizen and to receive a Montana birth certificate. We're going to wait until November however to see if we can get her and Frankie finalized at the same time. It would be really nice to save on legal fees and to have their adoptions both finalized by the time we go back to the States next year on furlough. I'm so ready for this legal work to end!

We went to the Botanical Gardens on Friday. Here is Ella trying not to drop the neighbor baby.

"Guardians of The Babe"

We made some failed attempts at getting us all (one adult, two kids and four dogs) in a family picture. It didn't work :)

Loved Ella's goofy face in this one!

The dogs are looking every which way but at least the peeps are smiling!

Ella, Frankie and James

The baby looking at me in wonder. This is just the look of Kathryn's babies - it cracks me up!

James, Kathryn and Frankie, bringing up the rear.

Pictures of our building site from Saturday (12th). The foundation is coming right along!

Ella, showin' 'em how it's done... How cool is it that a kid can "help" build her own house?!

The future landlord and landlady - Yikes!

These delicious tomatoes were from our very own tomato plant!

Apparently Piglet likes dressing up in polly pocket clothes. Who knew?

Frank got into a tangle with a fuzzy caterpillar - five minutes after a dose of antihistamine and he was fine!

We visited the rhino's at the zoo a couple of weeks ago. They were happy to see us, you can tell ;)

We gave this fellow a massage with sticks (not pictured) as their skin is really thick! We did have a wild animal injury when Ella's fingers got squished between the pole fence and the rhino. No, we are not going to sue....

Note: Rhino's like to be scratched behind their ears but NOT on their bellies!

Ella marched along carrying her jeweled purse with water in it :)