Saturday, May 23, 2020

Our 5 Year Old

Happy Birthday to our Summer girl!  5 seems like a milestone to me.  I remember looking at clothes that were 5T when she was a baby and thinking they were huge!  Yet here we are, giving her 5T clothes for her birthday!  Summer is quite the little girl.  She is always, ALWAYS full of questions and ideas and thoughts to ponder.  You can just sit and watch her wheels turn and her mind think.  And sometimes in all of her musings, she comes up with the most hilarious things!


She had big plans for her birthday and had me write it all down.  She had every meal planned and about five different activities she wanted to accomplish throughout the day.  The fun really started last night though when she had a surprise sleepover.  She had one a couple months back and has been asking for another one ever since then.  We didn't tell her, we just let the girls show up after supper:)  She was so excited!  So this morning started with her planned breakfast of waffles and bacon with some of her BFFs.


Then a few more people came over for some games, cupcakes, a craft, and some gifts.


Swimming was on her to-do list, so Tucker helped get the pool ready:)


She got to finish off the day staying up late again and watching a movie.

We love our creative little thinker who never (and I mean NEVER) misses a beat!  She loves being with people, she loves to learn, and she can't wait to go to Kindergarten.  Even though our little school down here consists of just a few students, she is very much looking forward to going!


Oh and she got to find out for her birthday that she is getting a SISTER!!  She has been diligently praying for a sister since before I ever was pregnant with this one.  She's pretty excited:)  She has also been praying for a kitty and she informed me that now she only has to pray for that because she's getting her sister.  She might have to pray a little longer and harder for that one!  And I might have to start praying that she forgets about it!


Saturday, May 16, 2020

Life Updates

Well it's been almost a month now since I've blogged and I keep thinking about how I need to do it again.  And I finally am!  We had a few weeks of more isolation than usual because of the coronavirus, but we've backed off a little for now at least.  There has been just a slow spread of it in Haiti, and it has yet to reach the hospital.  The hospital is as prepared as they can be, and if it comes we will likely isolate a little more again.  But until that happens, we've been getting out a little more than we had been.  And by getting out I mean seeing others in the hospital missionary family.  There's not really any getting out for me personally other than that.  I've made one grocery run, but otherwise just have someone pick up a few things here and there for me when they go get the mail.  After several weeks of not even leaving my yard I was starting to feel pretty crazy.  I had been going to the hospital four times a week for my language lesson, but as part of the precautions we were taking, that has not been happening.  I struggle to enjoy language lessons (you can read between those lines), but it was nice to take a short little walk each day and get out of my fenced in area of the world.

Anyway, here's a little smattering of what we've been up to.

Crafts, crafts, crafts.  Summer starts asking before breakfast most days about what she can do for a craft.  Sometimes she's satisfied with just drawing a picture, sometimes not so much.  I really don't mind her doing them, but the level of stress Tucker adds to the scene makes me want to say no all the time.  We've kind of designated the time right after lunch to do more involved crafts.  Tucker is already in bed and it's not the big kid's rest time yet.


Haitian traffic jam!  All it takes is one big truck to shut down a road.  I forget what was being tied down here but it was on the way home from my one grocery run.  It gave me time to eat my peanut butter and honey sandwich I had packed at least!  The bumpy roads mixed with my very beginner stick shift skills make it difficult to eat while driving:)  And with grocery shopping being a 4 or 5 hour experience, snacks are necessary.


Sour cherry season just happened.  They were just so pretty and I just kept buying them!  They are a pain to pit because the pit is actually three small seeds.  But they do make delicious pies and I decided it was worth it.


You never know what's going to show up on the sea container!


We got a new rug!  It looked this nice for about an hour before it started shedding all over the place.  But now the kids have somewhere to sprawl out besides the kitchen or bathroom mats and we will have somewhere to lay the baby once he or she is here.


Sometimes the most random things make me homesick.  We didn't have room in our suitcases for a few things back in January, and those came on the container.  One was a Mickey Mouse silly song CD that Sawyer got from the library when he reached 500 books.  I remember trying to convince him to pick a Veggie Tales CD instead but he was set on this one.  Turns out, they loved it!  They could listen to it over and over in the van and hardly make a peep.  It sure was helpful in driving back and forth between IN and IL!  But when it came here, I played it and they instantly gathered by the CD player and stayed there for the whole CD.  It made me miss driving in our van!


Herrmann's gave us a little date night.  I mean, it was an at home date night but we had a few hours to ourselves!  We did a big puzzle and had a blind baking challenge.  I instructed Danny the whole way through the brownie process.  I did put them in the oven for him so as not to have him burn his hands or arms.  We had so much fun though!  We decided to alternate with them so we will each have one night off a month.  So refreshing for us!


We stripped the kids down to their undies and let the go to town with finger paint.  They had a blast!


Tucker didn't know what to think at first but he got into it after a bit!


We spent the evening at the Nussbaum's last weekend and they had this huge toy gun that Sawyer really wanted to play with, but struggled to manage.


Maybe it's because it was taller than he was!


Mother's Day 2020.  I get so worn out, especially these days being pregnant with no relief from the heat.  But Got answered a prayer I had prayed for a really long time when he gave me a hubby and kids and I don't take them for granted!


Pregnancy update:  I am really not a belly picture person.  I don't think I've ever posted one on any form of social media for any of the kids so far, so this is weird for me.  But I know family and friends like to see it so here it is:)  Yesterday was my halfway point!  And I'm already feeling HUGE.  We are hoping to be able to get an anatomy scan this week and find out what the babe is.  My gut says girl but we will see!


So that's been life these days!  I hear Tucker in his bed.  Nap is over and I must go.  He will very shortly be demanding his snack!  Hopefully it won't be a month before I'm on here again:)