Back On My Feet

Well, after suffering a mystery illness that kept me in bed for ten days and after taking a couple weeks to really recover, I am back on my feet and finally feel like myself again.  I'm trying to catch up on several things like homeschooling and blogging and drinking chai.  In light of playing catch up, the photos in this post will seem random at best, but they are still a glimpse of relatively recent days at Tenwek for us.

We had the great joy of hosting some of Eli's cousins here at Tenwek this fall!  Ben and Ryan arrived in September for about a week and helped us celebrate Asa's birthday and go on safari and just see this life of ours.  It was such an incredible blessing to have them come all this way and jump into life with us.  Then, just a few weeks ago, Zach appeared for one night.  He was working with a ministry about an hour-and-a-half from here and was able to escape his duties for a night to come see us.  I was sick at the time but it was so wonderful to have his company even as I laid on the couch.  We felt truly spoiled to have family here with us this fall!

I rediscovered these photos on my phone recently.  They were taken during the week of Harvest Festival, when I ordered 21 pumpkins for people to carve for the pumpkin-carving contest.  They were delivered to our yard and sat around until everyone was able to pick up their pumpkins.  Our boys were very excited about the pile of pumpkins, and Asa chose to literally roll around with the pumpkins and snuggle up with 'em :)  This boy melts my heart.

Speaking of Asa, this boy loves a good mess.  He finds messes, he creates messes, he enjoys messes.  This particular day he escaped outside after it rained and, well, a mess ensued.  Because it's not possible for a little boy to be anywhere near a mud pit and not create a mess!

And because we have three little boys, we often have triple the mess!

While I was on the mend, I asked Eli to take our boys and find a Christmas tree.  They'd been asking if it was Christmas time yet, and I was feeling Mama Guilt for having missed all of Thanksgiving and then missing the start of the Christmas season and offering nothing to our boys in the way of Christmas merriment.  So Eli made the time on a Saturday to head towards the river with a machete in hand and little boys in tow to search for a makeshift Christmas tree.  We did this last year as well and loved it, so we are continuing this new family tradition of finding a random tree branch to serve as our Christmas tree.  The boys were very excited and I felt some release of the Mama Guilt as they put ornaments on the tree and turned on the lights.

We had some friends come over to help with decorating since I was still mostly on the couch and certainly didn't have the strength to stand up and help string lights.  It was wonderful and encouraging to have friends here to start the Christmas season with us!

And even though I was slow in moving around and not doing much, I was sitting up and had a smile on my face :)  It was a good day.

And by far my favorite photo of late is this one.  A little boy fresh from the tub, so excited about the tree that he came right out to see the lights again before bothering with underwear, let alone any other clothes.  I love love love this photo.

So that's my recent miscellaneous photo collection.  I'm so thankful to be back on my feet and hopefully will have my camera in hand a bit more, especially with Christmas upon us!

Harvest Festival

Last weekend we celebrated Harvest Festival, which is an annual event at Tenwek.  It helps to remind us that it's autumn back home and gives us an excuse to have a party!  I helped to coordinate the festivities again this year, which included a pumpkin-carving contest.  As it turns out, doctors (especially surgeons) are really good at carving pumpkins and the results are fun and impressive.  There were many pumpkins carved this year, by kids and adults alike, and this year we added an extra incentive by promising that the winner of the contest would get to throw a whipped-cream pie in Eli's face :)  Well, that was enough incentive for me to stay up until midnight carving my own pumpkin in hopes that I might win :)

But before I could work on my own pumpkin, we helped the kids with theirs.  They love carving pumpkins!  Well, at least they love scooping out the guts and picking out the seeds.  They left the carving to us.

Caleb was adamant about wanting a chameleon on his pumpkin.  Eli and I drew straws and it fell to me to carve Caleb's pumpkin, but in the end it turned out okay.

And then it was my turn: a Wizard of Oz pumpkin!  I carved Dorothy, the scarecrow, tin man, and lion around the pumpkin, plus the word OZ.  I was pretty proud.  We dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz for the costume contest (since the theme was Storybook and since we'd recently read the book to the boys), and so I wanted my pumpkin to match our costume idea.

Here are some other pumpkins that showed up.  It was so much fun!  It was a great start to a great night.

In the end, MY PUMPKIN won Best in Show!  There were a few judges and I was both surprised and pleased.  I promise you the competition was not rigged!  But I must admit that throwing a pie in Eli's face was the highlight of the night for me :)  The other person who earned the right to throw a pie into someone's face was my friend Jenny who won the costume contest, dressed as Amelia Bedelia, and she threw a pie into her husband Ben's face.  The "whipped cream" was not exactly whipped cream and was pretty soupy and apparently did not smell good, but it served our purposes here :)

But I need to back up.  Before the Harvest Festival even started, I was baking donuts.  Maple-glazed donuts.  Can I just say, mmmmmm.....  I have now made home-made donuts three times since living here, and it turns out that I am really good at it!  The only way to eat a donut here is to make a donut here, and since I couldn't imagine going two years without eating a donut I decided to learn how to make 'em!  I've done chocolate-glazed and maple-glazed donuts, and the latter was the perfect treat for an evening dedicated to making it feel a bit like autumn.  So after the pumpkin-carving contest and costume contest were done, and after hot dogs were consumed, people dived into these beauties and I received some great compliments.  They were a true hit since missionaries in rural Kenya don't ever get donuts!  I've really discovered the ministry of baked goods since being here, but that's another story :)

After the donuts were made, it was costume time!  I had the idea for Wizard of Oz, and Caleb was all about it because he wanted to be the lion.  Kai was not convinced of the idea, however, because he just wanted to dress up as Batman.  I gave him tons of options but he was not on board.  After a few days, though, Kai had the idea himself to dress up as the giant spider (which is a part in the book that didn't make it into the movie, when the cowardly lion finds his courage and saves all the forest creatures from the spider).  Cha-ching!  The Wizard of Oz was on.  So then we just had to cobble together some costumes, which I must say is not the easiest thing in the world to do while living here with nowhere to go for supplies for homemade costumes.  But necessity is the mother of invention, and one thing we've learned about being a missionary is that our creative muscles are regularly exercised!

The easiest costume was for Asa, our munchkin extraordinaire!  Doesn't this little man make the perfect munchkin???

Caleb's lion costumes wasn't too bad either, since we had leftover animal masks from his birthday party earlier this year and I found some felt in the schoolroom to use.

Kai's was simple enough in that he just needed black clothes to be a spider.  But figuring out how to give him extra spider legs was a bit more difficult.  I found some black felt in the schoolroom and Eli concocted this.  Not too bad!

So here's our crew!

And here we all are.  Eli pulled together a last-minute scarecrow costume, and I figured out how to be Dorothy ("because you're the only girl in our family, Mom, and you have to be Dorothy!" said Caleb).  We didn't have a tin man, so I wrapped a puppet in tin foil and gave him a hat in the form of Kai's funnel toy from the sandbox, and Caleb loved the idea of using Curious George as a flying monkey, who actually had wings on his back but you can't tell in this picture.  It's the best we could do, but not too bad :)

We had a great night at Harvest Festival, which culminated in trick-or-treating around the compound and our kids getting good American candy that some visitors brought over.  It's amazing how exciting a box of Nerds or Reese's peanut butter cups can be :)  We thank God for times like this, when our missionary community pulls together to have a good time and celebrate our own culture when we tend to miss home the most: holiday time.

Four Years Old!

This boy turned four years old last week!

Kai had been asking for months (basically since Caleb's birthday back in May) if it was his birthday soon.  He was VERY excited when the day finally arrived last Tuesday.  He woke me up in the morning and said, "Mom, I'm four years old and I get to go to preschool!  And what's the color of the week?"  I had to smile :)  He was holding his tye-die shirt in his hand, and when I told him the color of the week was green he exploded with excitement: "There's green on this shirt!!!"  And he ran off delighted to have picked out a shirt that matched the color of the week for preschool :)

That afternoon he opened his present from us and got right to work.  Our 4-year old continues his obsession with all things digging and dirt and construction, so combining that passion with play-dough has proven to be quite a hit.  This brick-making machine (which I shockingly found in Nairobi) was the perfect present.  It entertained all of the boys all afternoon.

A couple days after his birthday we had a small party with all the preschool and Kindergarten boys.  We had originally planned a "dig in the dirt" party in our sandbox, but there's been a lot of rain lately and we decided against sending everyone home covered in mud.  Instead, we busted out a bag of Duplos that Grandma and Grandpa Horn gave to Kai, which offered wonderful entertainment.

And then it was time for cake!  I had thought far ahead and planned to make dirt cake, which requires vanilla and chocolate pudding packets (which cannot be found in Kenya) and so I arranged to have them brought over when some visitors came.  I even had gummy worms sent over the ocean!  But, after seeing Asa's tractor cake last month, Kai was adamant about having a cake "just like Asa's" but with a dump truck and a digger instead.  I tried several times to convince him that having a dirt cake would be so much fun, but he would not budge.  He was tantalized by Asa's cake, and so I resolved to make one "just like Asa's" and so make our birthday boy happy.  I spent awhile on this cake.  Thankfully Kai was very happy with it.  (And thanks to my sister for finding those perfect dump truck candles and sending them over!)  We still have the ingredients for a dirt cake - maybe that will be a Christmas treat for us this year :)

I can scarcely believe that four years have gone by already since this boy came into the world.  He did not come very willingly - only after three days of induction did he make his debut!  But he has brightened our world and kept us on our toes and increased the joy and number of adventures in our life.  Kai is truly an adventurous spirit, happy to try new things and willing to take risks.  He is never more focused, or more happy, than when he's digging in the dirt.  He knows construction machines like the back of his hand and has made a habit of pointing out whenever a book mis-labels a construction machine picture: "Mom, that's NOT a digger!  It's a backhoe because it has a shovel in the front and a bucket in the back.  And this is NOT a digger either!  It's a front loader.  See the big bucket in front???"  His favorite show is Mighty Machines.  Kai also loves all things Paw Patrol and has recently discovered how much he loves the animal kingdom (because of hearing big brother Caleb go on and on about animals 24/7).  Kai and Caleb regularly have "bug battles" in the living room and debate which is cooler: striped-tailed centipede, giant rainforest crab, desert trapdoor spider, or perhaps the vinegarroon?  He thinks the bathroom is a playroom and drives us nuts with his daily shenanigans in there.  Kai loves to read, loves to do puzzles, and loves to help out in the kitchen.  He loves to climb trees and build forts and disappear in the compound in search of a new dirt pile.  He loves learning about Jesus and reminds us that no one can save us but Him!  His favorite Bible story is David vs Goliath, and he prefers to play the djembe when we worship during Home Church.  Kai has a tender heart and thinks about things that surprise us.  When we ask what he's thankful for at bedtime, every night without fail he says (along with Caleb), "I'm thankful for you, Mom, and I'm gonna be thankful for you forever."  And I cherish those words every time he says them because I know he means them and because I know he won't say that every night for the rest of his life, but the words are true and a reflection of this boy's heart.  Kai makes this world a better place and we are beyond proud to call him our son!

We love you, Kai!

Catching Up

For the past few weeks we've been catching our breath, which has been much needed.  For four months prior to this we were going going going and rarely taking care of each other let alone ourselves.  And now God has graciously given us some time to catch up and say hi to each other and spend time together and take a breath.  It's been very good.

Here are several snapshots from the past few weeks.


Home Church

Whenever Eli is on-call for the weekend, I avoid taking the kids to church by myself (read: I avoid the chaos of managing at least two kids fighting over who gets to sit on my lap and the inevitable chasing of Asa up and down the aisles), and choose instead to do Home Church.  We pull out several instruments (many of which are makeshift instruments using toys) plus our djembe and guitar.  I bought the djembe at Maasai Market in Nairobi, and we eventually decided to spend money on a guitar since we left Eli's guitar in America and realized we really wanted one available.  So we make a joyful noise unto the Lord during Home Church, or at least a noise :)  And one time recently we decided to stay home for Home Church even though Eli wasn't on-call.  It was great!

Picking Carrots

We harvested carrots in our garden!  We had a TON of them, and there's no better way to dig up carrots than to send in two dirt-loving boys to do the job.  It was a highlight of the week :)

Eli's Birthday

Eli turned 35!  It was a quiet celebration since he was sick and on-call for OB (which means he was gone most of the day - Kenyan women have babies like it's their job and keep the docs quite busy!).  But the boys made him birthday cards and he had a couple presents to open, including a new fantasy book I ordered and had his cousins bring over when they came to visit (thank you Ben and Ryan!!!) and a new Minnesota shirt from Eli's parents.  Even at 35 it's nice to have a couple presents :)

Bubba in the Kitchen

Asa has discovered how much he loves to help in the kitchen.  This Bubba loves to stir, loves to taste, and loves to make a mess!  He especially loves to make cookies, but who wouldn't?  Sometimes I have to be super sneaky when I'm cooking because if Asa realizes something's happening in the kitchen he wants to be involved, and I must confess that sometimes I prefer to accomplish my task without his "help" :)

 Asa Bubba

Speaking of Bubba, this kid is embracing toddlerhood head-on and voices his many opinions forcefully.  He was such a babbler as a baby and we always anticipated that he'd have a lot to say whenever he had words to use, and that is proving true!  His language is developing at a rapid rate and this little man has lots to say.  And although he can be a little punk sometimes, he's mostly still his adorable self, giggling and squealing and flashing those dimples :)  I tried to get a cute picture of him the other day, but he was most uncooperative.  The second picture below cracks me up!  But check out that dimpled smile with the chameleon :)

Outside Fun

Several other MKs have scooters and ripstiks and are regularly riding along the sidewalk in front of our house.  One day we borrowed a couple of the small scooters for Caleb and Kai to try.  Caleb was a bit nervous but eventually gained some confidence and wanted to do it by himself.  Kai was all about it from the start but hasn't figured out how to ride by himself yet.  Scooters can be tricky!  But it was a fun time and felt like such a normal American experience.

And every once in awhile we have a picnic lunch right outside our house.  When you live/work/school at home and the weather is virtually perfect every day, there's no reason not to!  Usually we'll have sandwiches and such, but this particular day we didn't have bread and I couldn't pull together anything else easily, so we had a lunch of popcorn, apples, and cheese.  Lunch accomplished.  Cooking from scratch all the time can be exhausting and sometimes it's just necessary to have meals like this!

Daddy's Home!

These are good days.  Eli's been home more often and the fun always increases when he's around.  We have a firm "don't beat up Mom" rule in our house, but the boys are welcome to wrestle with Daddy and roughhouse to their heart's content!  Dads are so important for that, and the boys have been enjoying his willingness to indulge their wild hearts :)

So we are thankful for times of rest and recovery.  There's a reason God ordained the Sabbath, and why Jesus went off by Himself to rest and to pray.  Even though we're still working and teaching and parenting, these days feel like a rest compared to the past several months, and we are grateful.