Thursday, May 29, 2008

Singing for Joey

Whenever our family travels anywhere, we sing. From "Oh Susannah" to "We are the Dinosaurs" (good ole' Laurie Berkner!) to "This Little Light of Mine", we all LOVE to sing! We let the kids pick what to sing, and the other day Caedmon insisted that he wanted to "sing for joey." We looked at each other, confused as to what he was talking about! Caedmon got increasingly frustrated and kept insisting that he wanted to "sing for Joey." We tried to explain that we didn't know Joey, but we could sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" instead! :) After much whining, I finally said, "Ok, Caedmon, why don't you sing for Joey and then we will see what you mean."

Caedmon replied with "I got the joey joey joey joey down in my heart--where?" :)

Monday, May 26, 2008

Family Reunion

So this weekend was our annual family reunion with Blu's mom's side of the family. Her cousin lives in a mansion...complete with an indoor movie theater, tennis courts, a pool, a racquetball court, game room, exercise pool, etc....



We had a great time with family, but we are exhausted! I wanted to post some recent pics of the kids!

Caedmon loved hanging out by the pool!


Cambree got into EVERYTHING but she was cute doing it!


Blu's parents, Paw and Big Maw, with their 4 grandkids - Brenden, Cambree, Caedmon, and Andie


Second cousins Brayden, Caedmon, and Brady in the bathtub!

Monday, May 19, 2008

My Bush Baby

This time of year reminds me of being pregnant in the bush! Caedmon will be 3 years old in 2 weeks, so the memories come flooding back! I'll share a little about my experience..

We moved to the bush on August 16 and found out we were pregnant September 24. From there, it got pretty rough. I was SOOOOO sick with Caedmon, and October-January is the hottest time of the year in Zambia. I can remember waking up and laying in our bed in our hut ALL day. I had my trusty red bucket that I threw up in that Blu would faithfully clean out for me (without ever complaining once!!) It was a really tough first 3 months and I struggled with depression. But at the end of December, we had our first visitors from the States, my parents!!! They brought us tons of baby stuff, Christmas presents, maternity clothes, and stuff to decorate our new baby's nursery in our hut! My spirits were definitely lifted!!

This was Caedmon's Veggie Tales nursery!


We didn't tell people that I was pregnant except for our closest friends, but I guess everyone in the village talked about us. One day, when Blu was in town some ladies asked him if I was "blah blah" (a Tonga word Blu didn't know..) He was confused and said "um, no..." Then, they told him "Oh!! Your wife is just getting fat then!!" He quickly told them "No she has a baby in her stomach!" They said "oh! Then she is blahblah." So we quickly learned a new word, less the whole village think the white woman was miraculously getting fatter by the day. (Those white people must eat some GOOD food!!)

Our mission flew me to South Africa to have the baby, and we kept that a huge secret from everyone. They would ask me if I was going to have the baby in the bush, and I would just laugh and say "no....." They would smile knowingly and say "ah...you are going to Monze..." (a small town 1 hour away with a small medical clinic!) It was so funny! Many of the women volunteered to come to our hut and help me have the baby right there..but I declined. :)

Most people probably thought that we wouldnt' really come back after we had the baby, but we did! When Caedmon was 4 weeks old, we returned to our hut in the bush. It was a Sunday and we stopped at our favorite church to introduce them to the baby. During the "testimony time" my favorite old woman, Margaret, took Caedmon from my arms (freaked me out just a tad) and took him to the front of the church where she rocked him and sang a song dedicating him to Jesus. It was precious.

As we drove back to our hut, people along the road screamed and waved and we could hear them yelling "mwana!!! mwana!!!" (baby!) Someone actually told us that our baby looked like Baby Jesus, because that was the only white baby they had seen from the Jesus Film!! One lady in town, a dear but a bit mischievous friend named Otria, had spread a rumor (just for fun I guess?) that the white woman had triplets, so for awhile people just swarmed our house trying to get a glimpse of the babies!

It wasn't all fun for me..there were some hard times. People would come over at all hours of the day yelling from the road "We want to see the white baby!!!" It got pretty old. I was amazingly calm when we went to churches and people asked to hold the baby. There were only 2 occasions that upset me--one was when a woman put her finger in Caedmon's mouth...I about flew through the roof. Another was when a young girl (about 12) asked to hold him and I let her and the next thing I knew, she tossed him into the air. A Zambian belief is that if you don't toss your baby into the air when they are young, you will do it one day when they are older and they will just die.... People constantly complained that I didn't dress the baby warm enough. At 80 degrees they wanted him in socks, hat, sweaters, and then bundled in a blanket.

But all in all, it was fun having a bush baby. One church told us when we left that we would have to bring Caedmon back one day and they would tell him how much they loved him and prayed for him when he was just a baby. :)

Blu went into the bush and cut some sticks to make Caedmon a "bush crib!"

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

You're Gonna Miss This....

Sometimes it's so hard to be a mom, ya know? If you have kids, then you definitely know! My kids are 3 and 18 months. Caedmon is at that age where he can pretty much communicate what he wants but gets frustrated very easily because he's still not big enough to do what he wants. Cambree is at that age....well, her dad calls her "devil child." :) The other morning, we woke up to find both kids soaking wet, Cambree's bottle in the toilet, the bathroom flooded, the kitchen cabinets emptied, and yeast dumped into our fishbowl (poor Nemo!) Days like that are hard. But today, I heard a country song by Trace Adkins on the radio and it really made me sit back and think...

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days
Hadn't gone by so fast

These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

I AM gonna miss this! So the next time Cambree takes a one hour nap or Caedmon flushes a pop tart, I will be singing this song!!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Blog Block

After oh so many of you have been on my case for not writing a blog, I decided I should at least post one with a confession. I have blog block. Yes, like writer's block. I cannot think of absolutely one thing interesting to write about.

This isn't a pregnancy journal, but if you're interested I am 11 weeks now (oh you can see that from my ticker at the top of the page) and throwing up only once a day or sometimes none! My first appt is this Friday. (praying it's not twins!!!)

Um, interesting things going on in my life...went to the lake last weekend on our Junior/Senior Retreat with our youth group. Got really sunburned and now my entire face is peeling and I have fever blisters so I'm pretty miserable. BUT I did catch a fish! (and Blu didn't...) Blu wouldn't let me waterski since I'm pregnant...

Africa stories...the well has run dry!! Ok, not really. When I was there, I wrote a very detailed email to my parents every day. My mom printed out every single email and made 3 huge 3ring binders for me that is like a journal of our time there, so there are definitely plenty of more stories to tell!! But I'll have to find a good one.

Kids...they're great. We just put Cambree in a toddler bed (her thunder thighs kept getting caught in the crib slats!) and we just figured we would put her in it and she would maybe stay up a little later playing...NO. She absolutely freaked out!! Screamed like it was the end of the world for like an hour and a half!! But by day two she's getting the hang of it! She's at that "tumble age"--she fell (or was pushed by her brother) off the back porch today and the whole left side of her face is banged up.

Oh here's a good Caedmon story. Yesterday he was holding a paddle and a ball and I hear a SMACK and then Cambree starts crying. Here's how the conversation went:
me: Caedmon, what happened?
C: Cambree hit herself.
me: Caedmon, did you hit her?
C: No.
me: Caedmon, are you lying to me? Did you hit her?
C: No.
me: You better tell me the truth right now!! Did you hit her?
C: No.
me: (trying a new tactic) What did you hit her with?
C: The bat.

Blu just finished his semester of seminary and will graduate in December--yay!! We can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel!

And look at that...I guess I did have a few things to blog about!