Back to School!

We've officially begun the new school year!  Our summer break was short but amazing.  (Photos from our trip to Ol Pejeta are forthcoming).  The boys have started the school year strong, and let me say that collaborating with our friends, the Webbers, has made school extra exciting for all the kids this year, and for the mamas too!  Sharing the teaching load is always a good thing.

We started a new tradition: Back to School campfire!  Last week, while Eli had time off, he made the fire pit I've been asking for.  That man surpassed my expectations for a simple fire pit by creating this beauty in our yard:

He scrounged around the compound to find the needed materials, borrowed an axe from somebody, and got our boy in on the action!  Kai carried bricks, chopped wood, and had the time of his life.  I'm pretty sure he's gonna want an axe for Christmas this year :)

Someone took this video for me.  That boy is too cute!

So the fire pit was completed in a day and ready for campfires!  Having a campfire is such an American thing, as we've discovered.  Our African friends have been a bit confused by the concept of sitting around a fire for fun.  But alas, we are enjoying it thoroughly.  And we inaugurated our school year with a Back to School campfire on Sunday night.

The Webbers joined us for hot dogs (with homemade buns!) and s'mores using the last of our marshmallow supply.  It was quite a treat.

A guitar was busted out, we reminisced about our favorite camp songs, and good fun was had by all.

And then we started school!  Caleb is in Second Grade, Kai is in First Grade, and Asa is in Preschool.  They are growing so fast.

And here's the whole crew.  The Horns and Webbers make up the Chogoria Mission School, as Lauren has dubbed it.  These kids just love each other and are ecstatic to do school together.  And Lauren and I are so happy to be comrades in arms!  

I gotta say this, because it still humbles me and sometimes moves me to tears.  When we first moved here, Lauren told me that they've been praying for three years for another homeschooling family to come to Chogoria.  Three years!  And now we're here.  It is so humbling to know that we are a direct answer to prayer.  Part of the reason God brought us here was for this very thing: being friends, schoolmates, and comrades with the Webbers.  We are so thankful for this family!

 After a great day yesterday, today was another big day: Asa Bubba's first day of preschool!  I am teaching a class twice a week for four little munchkins and I'm just so excited about it.  I had the privilege of teaching a preschool class for both Caleb and Kai while we lived at Tenwek, and I really wanted to do this for Asa too.  There are four kids in the class - three Americans and one Kenyan - and it's such a great opportunity for these kiddos.

Just look at this precious son of ours!  I mighta shed a few tears at the thought of my baby going to preschool...

And oh how this boy loves his mama.  I'm the luckiest Mama in the world!

And here is our class!  Asa feels so special going to school, as well he should.  He's been wanting to do school for so long now.  Every day when I'm doing school with the other boys, he asks for something to do.  "I want an activity.  What's my activity?"  (Except he pronounces it "actibidy"...too cute...)  Well now he's got his own class and he's so happy.

This morning when we walked across the yard to the "gray house" where preschool happens, we heard the hornbills calling in our compound and Asa declared, "The hornbills are so excited for me to go to preschool!"  Oh.my.heart.

We thank God for such an amazing start to a new school year!

July in Review: End of the School Year

It's true!  We finally finished our school year!  Woohoo!  After skipping much of the school year during our Home Assignment (read: constant travels and not a lot of routine for accomplishing school), we had a lot of ground to catch up.  But catch up we did, and I am sooooooo proud of these boys!  Caleb and Kai were rock stars and really got into the groove of regular school after we moved to Chogoria.  We found a rhythm and routine that worked for everyone, even Asa, and these boys got through our curriculum for the year and learned a ton.  Not to mention everything they learned just by living this life we're doing.  These boys are rock stars!

Now Caleb is officially a 2nd grader, and Kai is a 1st grader!  

And I must brag on Kai a bit.  Because of where his birthday falls, he should only be going into Kindergarten.  But he's been doing school alongside Caleb since the start, because he was that 2-year old that didn't want to be left out and who, apparently, could keep up just fine, so now he's already going into 1st grade and will be doing 2nd grade math right alongside his older brother, along with other 2nd grade material like Social Studies, Science, and Bible.  Basically the only 1st grade material Kai will actually be doing is Language Arts.  Our 5-year old is smart as a whip!

Well, the end of the school year called for a celebration.  On the day we finished, Eli took us out to dinner at the hospital restaurant.  I know it doesn't sound fancy, but not cooking from scratch or having to wash dishes afterwards was quite a treat!  And the food was good too.

Then, the next day we made donuts!  It's a labor of love, but such a celebratory thing to do.  They are oh so delicious, and I had to share them with lots of people lest we eat them all.  We made chocolate glaze and maple glaze, and tried adding sprinkles for the first time, which worked rather well.  The boys were pretty pleased, as was I.

Dipping the donuts into the glaze is my favorite part.  It completes the whole process and makes them look utterly delectable.  And it's fun to twirl your hand around as you flip the donut upright, causing the glaze to lay perfectly on top.  There's something so satisfying about glazing a donut!

Kai was enthralled at the idea of adding sprinkles this time.  This picture is one of my new favorites.  Doesn't it just scream the word delight???

And here they are.  So pretty, right?  And trust me, they were goooooood!

So we've got one more year of homeschooling under our belts.  We get better at it every year, namely myself.  The boys have known no different, so they roll with the punches pretty well, but I feel like I'm in a constant state of acclimating to being both mom and teacher.  It's weird and wonderful, exhausting and exhilarating.  I'm so thankful for the chance to do this, even though I would've never chosen this outside of this missionary life.  I love knowing exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are, and learning how to capitalize on those strengths and nurture those weaknesses.  I love seeing them thrive in this homeschool life, with lots of learning and tons of time to play still.  I love it when Caleb pauses his writing to come give me a hug because "I just wanted to hug you, Mom" and I love it when Kai asks to read me another story because he's discovered the joy of reading.  There are so many perks to homeschooling, which is what I remind myself of in the many moments when I wonder what on earth I'm doing this for.  These boys of mine - these students of mine - make the effort worth it.

July in Review: Chogoria Waterfall

Also in July was our first trip to the waterfall since moving here.  I remember this waterfall very well from our visit to Chogoria last year, and I remember imagining all the trips we could take there if we ended up moving to Chogoria.  Well, we did move to Chogoria and we finally found our way back to this waterfall.  It's gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, and just plain fun to spend time there.  Two of the Webber girls joined us and we had a blast.  Only three kids fell in the water, which I think are pretty good odds :)

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Someday, when the boys are bigger, I imagine making it a regular occurrence to go here.  I imagine taking a picnic lunch, or a book if I'm really lucky, and making countless memories of trips to the Chogoria waterfall.

July in Review: Paper Mache Dragon

Next up as I think back to our activities in July: that one day when I kept my promise to help the boys make a paper mache dragon! 

I can't remember who thought of this idea, but once the idea was spoken everyone was in agreement that it needed to happen as soon as possible.  I made the boys wait until the weekend when we had a day off school.  And since Eli was gone, I needed something to occupy the munchkins.  I'll be the first to admit that it was quite a commitment, and that maybe I went a little overboard, but hey, I'm a cool mom sometimes and do stuff like this :)

First we assembled the body by blowing up balloons and taping them together, and using cardboard to tape on scales.  And when I say "we" I totally mean "I".  Just saying.

Then we hung the dragon in the mango tree in our backyard to begin the paper mache process.

We mighta made a mess, because paper mache is just plain messy.  Also, when Kenyan kids see the wazungu kids putting wet strips of newspaper on a strange-looking balloon creature, it draws a crowd.  And more helpers.  And more of a mess.  But all in all, considering I was single-handedly managing a multitude of children doing a paper mache project, it coulda been worse!

Here's what it looked like when we were done.  It was pretty soaking wet, and heavy, and I wasn't sure what state it would be in come morning, but it actually held up really well and dried amazingly overnight.

Then it was time to paint the beast!  Kai was my best helper for this.  He was focused and careful and oh so happy to see the dragon come to life.  (True confession: we did this part during Asa's nap time because I didn't want his help.  I will never want a 3-year old's help with a paint project!)

I must say I was pretty pleased with the final project.  Kai said the scales had to be red because they were poisonous :)

Asa's contribution was picking out the googly eyes.  I brought over a ton of googly eyes in our luggage because ya just never know how many craft projects will require them!

The only real problem with this whole endeavor was where to put the thing when it was done.  Honestly, there was nowhere obvious and we faced a bit of a dilemma until I realized we could hang it in their closet.  It works for now, until we get a real dresser made for the boys and put it in the closet, in which case the dragon probably won't fit in there anymore.  But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

More than anything, I love seeing our boys get creative.  They have so many ideas, and I love showing them how to make those ideas come to life.  Even though it takes a lot of work on my part, it's totally worth it.  (Especially since I say no to probably 9/10 of their ideas.  A mama's got limits, ya know?)  

So we have another paper mache project in the books!  And now I won't have to do another one for quite awhile.  At least that's what I'm telling myself :)

July in Review: Lemonade Stand

So July was nuts.  Eli was gone a lot and I was holding down the fort, but we managed to have some good times in the midst of survival mode.  A few things are worth going back to mention, which I'll do in a a few separate posts.

First off: a 4th of July lemonade stand!

It was Caleb's idea, because he wanted to copy a Curious George episode in which that curious primate has a lemonade stand.  It was our first time attempting this feat, and we decided to combine it with our 4th of July festivities.  Our friends, the Webbers, joined us and we had a great time! 

I bought a bunch of lemons in Nairobi the weekend before, and my friend Lauren showed us how to make lemonade from scratch (which I'd never done), and we baked goodies to go along with it, and voila!  We were Lemonade Stand Ready!

Check out these cute American missionary kids!

They seriously loved doing this.  And despite spending more time playing in the yard than manning their table, they managed to make a decent amount of money - enough to finish paying for a newborn scale for the pediatric ward at the hospital!  Which was the end goal of the lemonade stand.  That, and to practice money math, and to have a good excuse to bake and eat cookies :)

I was proud of these boys.  I was proud that they had an idea, they persisted in bugging me to bring that idea to fruition, they put in the effort to squeeze all those lemons themselves, and they were totally cool with giving all the proceeds away to a good cause.

It was a pretty good way to spend the 4th of July: celebrating our passport country while supporting our ministry in this country where we currently live!