Harvest Festival

Tonight we celebrated a Harvest Festival with the missionary community here at Tenwek.  The MKs wore costumes, there was a pumpkin carving contest, we went trick-or-treating around the compound, some kids bobbed for apples, and everyone ate hot dogs and s'mores afterwards.  It was a lot of fun!  Plus, the air cooled down after it rained so it even felt a bit like an autumn evening.

In anticipation of the Harvest Festival, we carved pumpkins over the weekend.  Most of the pumpkins here are green, but they carved well and still fit a candle inside!  Caleb wanted a mad face, and Kai opted for a happy face.  Eli is great at carving pumpkins so I left him to it while I took pictures.

The only costumes we have here are superheroes, which is great since the boys love wearing their capes!  So we had Batman and a couple of Supermans for the occasion.  There are a ton of kids at Tenwek right now so it was fun to have them all together and see them dressed up like they'd do at home.

And then there were the pumpkins.  So many creative carvings!  A chameleon, Darth Vader, the Tenwek motto, a rhino, the Tenwek Orthopedic symbol, Walker (the favorite pet dog among the missionaries)...  It was great fun!

Eating hot dogs and s'mores around a campfire was a fabulous way to end the evening.  It's such an American thing to do and it reminded us of home.  Doing things like this are an important way to connect with each other and remember that even though we live in Kenya, a part of us is still in America as we think of the holidays and seasons that aren't a part of the culture here.  We're so thankful for the Harvest Festival at Tenwek!

Three Years With Kai

Three years ago this moose baby made a delayed debut into our life.

After three days of induction, Hezekiah James finally decided to grace us with his presence.  He was calm and content in every way, easygoing and completely chill.  When he refused to sit up until about a year old, then refused to walk until 17 months old, we mistakingly assumed that he would continue exhibiting a cool and calm approach to life.  In many ways he has: Kai is content and easygoing still (minus the toddler tantrums that go hand in hand with every toddler).  He is flexible and patient and knows how to cope with pain.  He is not, however, calm and quiet.  This little boy, who is 3 years old today, is extremely active and adventurous.  He's daring and fearless and careless.  He's not afraid to wander or jump or run or climb.  He gets significantly more bumps and bruises than his older brother, but recovers extremely fast from them all.  He keeps us on our toes at the same time that he impresses us with his ability to try new things and dive in head first.  He's changed our lives forever for the good and we thank God for him every day!

We celebrated Kai's birthday yesterday while Eli was home.  (Eli's been gone a lot this month, traveling for research-related events for the Family Med residents.)  We invited some good friends over for lunch and ate grilled cheese sandwiches.  Kai had previously helped me make dirt cake for dessert.  He loves helping me in the kitchen and routinely announced, "I'm gonna have a taste - just for fun!"  Who can blame him when Oreo cookies are involved?

It was a fun and simple celebration for our dirt-loving boy.  Madison, his friend/babysitter, is one of his favorite people at Tenwek, so it was a treat to have her and her parents here for the afternoon.  We sang Happy Birthday and ate dirt cake and watched Kai open presents.  He was a happy boy!

It's such a joy to celebrate this boy!  He makes us laugh when he "dances" by spinning in a circle until he falls on the floor, over and over again.  He makes us smile when he blasts the bad guys with his repulsor beams like Ironman.  He impresses us with his ability to focus on a difficult puzzle and patiently figure it out all by himself.  He astonishes us with his intellect and ability to keep up with Caleb in our preschool lessons.  He's a kid who would eat nothing but meat if we let him, who plays in the bath tub long after the water's turned cold, and who folds his hands when we pray before a meal and then happily exclaims, "I prayed with you!"  Kai loves to play in the dirt more than anything else in the world and is all boy!  He loves to imitate his big brother's antics but also loves to be chased by his little brother.  He loves to read and wrestle and run.  Kai loves to jump into his dad's arms whenever he comes home, and loves to snuggle with his mom at the end of every day.  He's a joy and a delight and a lot of work and an essential part of our lives!  Our continual prayer is that Kai will live up to his name and live in the strength of the Lord.  We are beyond grateful for these past three years with our moose baby because we know we don't deserve him.

Happy Birthday Kai!

Hanging Out with My Boys

I've been taking Swahili lessons for two weeks now, and it's going great except that I don't get enough time with our boys anymore.  It's been a big adjustment.  We're hanging in there but all of us can feel a loss of quality time.  So this weekend, instead of doing chores or writing emails or studying Swahili, I gave a lot of time to our kids.  We had tickle time, we drew with sidewalk chalk, and we played on the balcony.  It was bliss!

And today these boys are getting time with Eli, which has also been much needed.  He's been gone for a few days, will leave again tomorrow for a few days, and then will be gone for five days next week.  (He's helping with a research requirement for the Family Med residents at the university in Nakuru.)  So we're relishing this time with our kiddos since there are too many days that don't allow for much time with them right now.

Asa's Birthday Party

I intended to post these photos a couple weeks ago, but alas, life is crazy busy with three kids and living cross-culturally, so I'm not as prompt as I used to be with putting photos on here.  At any rate, we had a small birthday party for Asa on a Sunday afternoon with the other MKs.  It was casual and lovely!

I baked a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and decorated it with safari animals.  It seemed an appropriate theme for a boy turning one year old in Kenya!  Caleb and Kai were determined to put more animals on the cake and I had to fend them off from putting the entire savannah on there.

Asa was clearly a bit confused as to why he was sitting in his highchair outside, and why a bunch of people were singing, and why everyone was staring at him.  But he was intrigued with the cake and was happy to play with the animals for a bit.  (I should note why the oddly-shaped balloons are there.  I saw a package of "elephant" balloons in Nairobi and thought it was a great idea.  Well, the dimensions of an elephant balloon are apparently less-than-accurate!  We tried to keep with the theme and ended up with weird balloons.  Oh well!)

His first bite had frosting on it, which he liked, but his second bite was just yellow cake, which was apparently less impressive to him and he wouldn't eat any more.

When we asked the other kids to gather around for a picture, Asa started to cry.  The confusion and confinement were apparently too much!

So I gave him a chocolate chip cookie.  The tears instantly stopped.  Because there's no better way to dry tears than to eat a chocolate chip cookie.  That's my boy!

We cleaned him and clothed him, then let him open a few presents and crawl around.  He was a happy boy once again!

He also enjoyed a few rides in this wagon that another family had lying around.  It was great way to spend an afternoon celebrating our boy!  He's growing so fast and we can scarcely believe how quickly this baby boy is turning into a little boy.  Happy Birthday Asa!