Happy Birthday Madison

Happy Birthday Madidi!! Madison at nine months called herself "Madeedee." It is a cute nickname we use sometimes. Well, she's six and so proud of it! A few days before her birthday she said, "Now Mom, you know that you need to decorate the house with streamers and balloons all over the place and have all my presents out in the morning when I wake up, right?" She added several other things as well, but the norm in our house for birthdays is to decorate and leave it up for a week and have lots of balloons and presents around for the birthday girl. Madion loves parties. Mikeala doesn't care so much, but Madi thrives on it. Can you see all the children? It was suppose to be an outside BBQ and swim party, but it rained all week so it got moved indoors. That was an adventure with 10 plus kids and families. We did hot dogs and hamburgers, chips and fruit with the yummiest chocolate cake ever! It was the first time I "cheated" on my no sugar diet. I had made so many deserts over the week and the two enormous chocolate cakes I made for Madison with the divine cream cheese and powdered sugar frosting put me over the top for temptation. I love sugar...but especially chocolate cake that I make! The frosting turned out wonderful-or at least yummy till we had to open a new package of powdered sugar and then it ended up tasting like soap. The packers put it in with the laundry soap so it was nasty! AHHH!! My friend, Jacqueline saved the day. She made a new frosting and helped me save the birthday cake--can't have everything run smoothly.
Madison got her wish of a decorated house and lots of presents. She even got to sit with the special red plates that Oma and Opa got us for special days. I think it was a success. Bobbing for apples is one of the things that is now permanently on our birthday party to do list. We tried watching a big movie on the big screen, but the kids only lasted about 30 minutes. I just didn't have enough planned for an inside party. Our house was trashed, let me tell you!
Madison also decided to have a fashion show. All the kids brought their favorite outfits and strutted their stuff. Really Madison and one other girl really thought it fun, the other just were humoring Madi. She is our little actress and gymnast. Leader and artist. We went out for dinner on her birthday and were at a restaurant with a big play area. They love it because it has a huge trampoline. Well, Madison had the few kids who were there (strangers) organized into a mock gymnastics practice within a few minutes of "meeting them." She will be our organizer. Now we just have to help her get pointed in the right direction! Love you Madison--for all your spunk, goodness, energy, enthusiasm and charisma. Even with your tears and struggles, we think you are awesome and are so glad you are a part of our family! Happy Sixth!

MarineBall

The beginning of November was a crazy time for us...lots going on at school, Madi's birthday party, and this year--the Marine Ball. We have yet gone to one of these yearly events since I have never felt like stuffing myself in a dress: it is always more fun to dress up when you feel comfortable in your skin. This year Tobias felt we needed to go so we did. I needed some fancy shoes, but can't wear anything too high...going shopping wasn't very much fun. Everything was stiletto and straps. My friend told me I would kill myself. Walking by one of shops in the mall we noticed these cutes crocs. Guess what??? Crocs come in Heels!!!! Can you believe how cute they are? I wore plastic shoes to a fancy marine ball and loved it. My friend got the same pair a few weeks later when we had a fancy affair outside in the pouring rain on grass (under a tent, but on grass none the less. Her military husband was fine paying the 100 dollars (I never spend anywhere close to that amount!). He calls then "utility heels." Plastic can get muddy and then washed off and reused. These heels will last forever!
I had fun with my hair and Tobias DIDN'T have fun with his tux. He forgot that he didn't have any cumberbun till the day of. We called tons of people, but let me tell you, normal people don't carry those things in their underwear draw--but we do now! Tobias bought some for seven bucks on the internet so if we ever have to do one of these dreaded things again, he won't have to stress so much. One of these pictures is his cool tie he wore instead. He didn't really even want to take pictures, but I think it looks hot!
We loved the dinner and the dancing was fun. We don't fast dance and barely slow dance, but it was nice to be together and in a fancy place being more like a young couple. Usually our date nights are dinner and lots of talking. It was fun to do something different; but please don't think I want to do it again anytime soon! I will settle for music in our own house and dancing with the girls. Pictures will follow :)

Halloween

We had a lot of fun for Halloween this year. I absolutely loved Mikaela's clown outfit. They are so cute! The witch was a trial run and Madi's princess outfit was a lifesaver sent by Grandma Diana for a birthday present and Madison could have fainted she was so excited :) Hurray for Grandma!!!

Finished product--HA!

Well, we got our last shipment and my house is so nuts I can't take enough pictures to do it justice. I live no longer in any form of organized anything! After two days of constant unpacking etc. I took one day and just read a book! My sides hurt, my feet had blisters just from walking around our own house! I am going box by box, little space, by little space and wondering why we have all this stuff! Oh yeah, we have been missing all these little things for almost a year now. The one thing I wouldn't even consider editing from our huge load of "things" is our bed. We are sleeping like a dream and soooo happy. My bedroom is the only place that is done except pictures on the wall. It is lovey and a haven. Now we have a drill to put up things in our cement walls, but you wouldn't believe what it takes! After all day and two trips to the store (40 bucks for an extension cord) we finally got the home theater up. Now we have to hang my 1000 OCD collection of pictures! I will take pictures when we are REALLY all done. Maybe in January??
Love to all and hope for less craziness in life.

Finished product

Mikaela worked as hard as I did. No daddy and no Madi, only mom and boxes. We made a huge pit that I left for a few days full of the big brown paper they wrap things in and the girls had a ball :) Mikaela found her bike and then a crown and "veil." I thought it was adorable. She couldn't figure out why the pedals wouldn't go--carpet didn't satisfy her.
Then she found all of the bike stuff and got dudded up for about 30 second outside. We have to work on that one!
This is our main front room. Where the paper pit is, connects to the main room and has the dining set. The wall that it is on is the shared wall with the kitchen. The room I am taking the picure of Layla in all the bike gear is the play room and mom's office. It also doubles as the Bradford "store." You see the picture with shelves of food. I will take another one when all the phone is finally organized. I think I am done with organizing for a while. On with life I say, on with life!

Organized Chaos

This is our life: organized chaos. I couldn't find Mikaela one day after our boxes got here...well, I found her foot first.

I will post the finished product after round five next. Then round six and hopefully last, will be next week--or mid January. We'll see how long it takes once it gets here this weekend! Definitely by Christmas :)

Loves to all.

To NieNie and the women in my life

There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire,
which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which
kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

-Washington Irving

I found this on Nienie's blog...a woman who blogged about her love of motherhood, who almost died in a plane crash, was in a coma for five months and is back in the saddle. I am amazed and dazed at the same time. I constantly want to do and BE more than I am. I am so grateful for good people who do good things. She is an inspiration to me--I will try to make my spark brighter, with or without adversity.

www.nieniedialogues.blogspot.com

OUR FIRST TRIP TO KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

So these are some of our favorite shots from our first trip to Kruger National Park in South Africa. Despite arriving and realizing that the travel agent had made our booking for a month later than what we requested, and having to find a place to stay at the last minute, we had great fun, saw lots of animals, traveled with some new Brazilian friends, and really liked the trip - can't wait to go back!!

Mikaela's New Haircut

We were getting tired of Mikaela's tangles,and she became deathly afraid of "the salon." So, I broke my promise that I would never cut anyone's hair whom I loved. I cut her hair yesterday and it went okay. What do you think? It is hard to mess up someone who is sooo dang cute!

New House

These are pictures of our new house. No, we aren't in it yet, but you can see the difference between this and the temporary house. We are excited!

Our first African House

So this is it. We are here temporarily, but I thought maybe you would be interested in seeing what things look like here. There are two fence pictures, our guard, the pillar in front of our house, and the trees. Madison contributed to most of the pics :) Hope you enjoy.

Mozambique, Africa

We've made it to Africa. A long ride, but it was actually not so bad as the first time we came to Africa as Newlyweds. Back then I hadn't had back surgery so it was murder to be on a 15 hour flight. I figured this time would be awful because of the girls...but they did a great job. They slept about eight hours and each seat had a personal movie player. That kept us all engaged for a long time. Don't get me wrong, it was arduous, just not as much as I thought it would be. That is a good thing!
Adjusting is always interesting. Sometimes really intense, like when your daughter is throwing up and has a fever for four days and no one knows what is wrong, and you are thinking, "Malaria? Yellow Fever? Cholera? Crazy African illness?" Sometimes it is just one tiny thing after another like having none of your own pans to cook in so you use the sterling silver ones they give you and they burn everything in sight. Hence having to make eggs in the microwave for Mikaela. Or when you have to distill your water in this big, ugly silver thing that sits in your kitchen and may clean your water but it still tastes like dirt. We cook with it and wash veggies in it with bleach and brush our teeth with it. The welcome book talks about how mundane things, routine things, get under your skin because there are just so many, all day, that are different or hard or non-intuitive; one example is our kitchen sink has the hot water on the right and cold on the left and you pull up to turn it off and you push it down to turn it on. Weird.
Madison likes school and has been really fortunate to get a great teacher for kindergarten. They also made an exception and let her into the first grade gymnastics class--I begged and they felt pity on me. She starts on Tuesday. One of the slides is her at her fist day of school and Mikaela in her pijamas as we were still adjusting to time zones.
It is more chilly here than we thought, the girls have to wear sweaters but I am happy as a clam. It is like Fall or Spring weather when you wear jeans and a t-shirt or even a sweater at times. The sun is beautiful and we live 30 seconds from the beach. The beaches are disgusting and where we visited there was a dead rat-yuck! Our friends asked if we saw any hypodermic needles---we won't be going there anymore. Life will be a little easier when we have a car and can get ourselves around and go to the nicer beaches up the coast a bit.
All in all, we are happy and surviving. We are in a temporary house, but it is big and nice and we really have no complaints. We just have to get used to a key for everything and the laundry room being outside by the gaurds little bathroom that always smells disgusting. Other than that, there is comfy furniture and we have internet! Not so many mosquitos since it is winter, so we are really doing well. In the group of pictures after the slide show I will put in some of Madison's pictures of the house, the yard and the guard. Then we will send more when our new house is ready.
Love to all--from Africa :)

Holy Shrimp, Batman

I know someone is wondering what kind of lobster or crayfish that is, but it really is a shrimp. We bought four of them at the fish market, and they weighed over 1/4 lb EACH (and cost about $2 each)! Needless to say the girls didn't even finish theirs. I almost asked if they sold saddles for them, as well.

The fish is a red grouper, the first fish we ate here in Maputo (yes, the fish market is Tobias' favorite place so far), and it was DELICIOUS!! We almost felt like we were eating Nemo, though, since he looked more like he belongs in an aquarium. But we will definitely get grouper again. Our favorite so far has been the fresh clams. You buy them live and cook them immediately, and they are fantastic. I think we have eaten more than Mikaela's weight in clams already (and they only cost about 50 cents/lb). HEAVEN!

Do Ya Think Maybe She Likes Him?

Well, our family now has our first dog, a Boxer named Sugar Ray. He is happy, VERY energetic, and just what we need, especially for Africa. Most people here are terrified of dogs, which makes him a perfect fake guard dog because he looks tough and scary, but is as nice as a new puppy. When we take him walking it is like parting the Red Sea, people move right out of the way and give us PLENTY of space. And the girls can't really hurt him, either, since he weighs more than both of them and pulls me around like a little kid when he wants something. We are really happy to have him.