Merry Christmas 2012

Christmas is more than trees and twinkling lights, more than toys and gifts and baubles of a hundred varieties. It is love. It is the love of the Son of God for all mankind. It reaches out beyond our power to comprehend. It is magnificent and beautiful.

It is peace. It is the peace which comforts, which sustains, which blesses all who accept it.

It is faith. It is faith in God and His Eternal Son. It is faith in His wondrous ways and message. It is faith in Him as our Redeemer and our Lord.

We testify of His living reality. We testify of the divinity of His nature. In our times of grateful meditation, we acknowledge His priceless gift to us and pledge our love and faith. This is what Christmas is really about.

Gordon B. Hinckley, “A Season for Gratitude,” Ensign, Dec 1997, 2

We are thankful for this time of year that gives us a chance to reflect and think about the birth our Savior Jesus Christ who died so we can live again. We are grateful to be a family and we are grateful to know that our family can be together forever - that death is not the end for us! We feel so blessed that the Lord is looking out for us and is aware of our struggles and triumphs. Life may not be perfect for us but we do know we're not going through it alone.

Here are some highlights from 2012:

Our most important news is that we welcomed our sweet baby Tommy to the family in April. He has been such a wonderful addition to our family. Natalie and the kids spent four months in Utah just before and after Tommy's birth. Adam was able to come for a few weeks and be be present for the birth. While in America we made time to visit Yellowstone National Park. Natalie and the kids also spent several days in San Francisco visiting family.

Charlie started kindergarten and is learning so much! He is reading and writing and becoming very social. Charlie also learned how to swim and ride a bike without training wheels. Charlie loves superheros, playing video games, and coloring.

Millie is now talking in complete and lengthy sentences which we can understand 90% of the time. She is now potty-trained and only wears a diaper at night. She is learning her ABCs and loves the colors pink and purple. Millie also loves singing and dancing, superheros, and princesses.

Tommy went from being a snuggly newborn to a busy baby. He is always squirming around and trying to follow his big siblings even though he refuses to roll over or crawl. He is trying very hard to walk but isn't quite there yet. He is happy and mellow and we're so glad he's in our family.

We also found out that Adam's next assignment will take us to Tel Aviv. We will be in DC for about seven months for language training and then we'll head to Israel for two years. We're excited that are first two tours are to such different places so we can have lots of new experiences.

I've been busy taking care of kids and trying to find time to sew, knit, and read.

Due to a glitch with the mail system we haven't yet received our Christmas cards so they're definitely not in the mail. Hopefully next year.

Kinderdag

December 5th is Kinderdag here in Suriname so we decided to get out and celebrate since we missed all the fun last year (we were vacationing in Orlando). Plus Uncle Seth is here visiting so we wanted to show him a good Surinamese holiday.

Charlie was going to act in his very first play at school. Since it was a Kinderdag play we were excited to get into the holiday spirit. Charlie was a bit shy but he still did a great job and we had fun watching him perform

Later that day Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet we supposed to be making an appearance at the mall so off we went. Unfortunately things were just not meant to go smoothly. First, we couldn't find Sinterklaas. We did find this nice statue, however, and decided to take a picture.

Then we found this statue but still no live Sinterklaas.

Then we found an employee who told us Sinterklaas was at a smaller mall a block or so up the road. We walked there but still found no Sinterklaas. On our way back to the big mall Millie very nearly got hit by a car and nearly gave me a heart attack as a result. Back at the mall we found another employee who told us that Sinterklaas was at a complex down the road in the opposite direction. Since it was too far to walk we loaded everyone back in the car and began to make our way through the throngs of traffic. We finally arrived and were able to snap this quick picture.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, it's a bit disconcerting for most Americans. The gist is that Zwarte Piet is Sinterklaas' slave and is always portrayed by a white person with black face paint (ahem, racist). I guess the Zwarte Piet we saw decided to play it safe by using blue face paint rather than the traditional black. One can only hope this signifies a change in thinking. At any rate we enjoyed experiencing a bit of the Surinamese tradition.


This picture shows the traditional Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet in the background.

Since it was late and we hadn't eaten we decided to go to the McDonald's drive-thru. Huge mistake. Apparently that's also what everyone else in Suriname does on Kinderdag. We didn't figure this out until we'd driven past both of the McDonald's that Suriname has to offer at which point we gave up and came home to eat leftovers. Bummer.

That night the kids put out there shoes for Sinterklaas to leave them a gift.

We were also able to participate in a Sub-for-Santa, er -Sinterklaas, and give some small gifts of clothing and toys to a five-year-old boy living in an orphanage.

All in all, I'd say we had a nice day.

Sloths

Over a hundred sloths have been rescued from an area that is being deforested. Right now they are being kept in and around the house belonging to the head of Green Heritage Foundation until they can be released back into the wild. Currently there are eight babies who need to be fed goat milk from a dropper. The adults are fed leaves that are retrieved from the rainforest.

Today I got to go and help feed the babies. What an amazing experience that I will treasure forever!

Me and one of my little buddies.

Check out the claws. They use them like fingers to hold onto things. 

The babies were separated from their mothers but other adult females have become surrogates and are helping to care for the babies. It's pretty adorable to see them snuggling. Now if only the surrogates had milk the babies wouldn't need our help!

There was an anteater there as well.

An adult eating some leaves.

I forgot a couple big ones

In my last post about all the major milestones we've been hitting at our house I forgot a couple big one:s Charlie learned to swim and caught his first fish!

Look at him go! 

The champion swimmer!

Tommy and Millie love the water too. :)

Isn't this pretty? This picture was taken off the dock in the backyard of an acquaintance's house.

Just the girls.

Charlie and his fish!

We've been busy around here

Millie is officially a big girl and out of diapers (except while sleeping). This picture just captures her personality to a "t" right now. 

Tommy is a champion sitter and has been since about 5 months. However he still doesn't roll over and hates being on his tummy.

The "bald boys" in glasses.

Millie's prize for learning to use the potty - a pink scooter!

Play dates with friends.

Millie learned how to ride her trike!

Charlie learned how to ride his bike without training wheels! Adam had a big talk with him about how he'd probably fall down a lot and he might get hurt but he'd have to keep trying until he figured it out. Then Adam took the wheels off and helped Charlie get on the bike and off he went. He didn't even fall once. I guess it was time. :)

So proud.

I spent a couple of weeks sewing up these super hero costumes and then a couple days before Halloween Charlie decided he wanted to be the Hulk instead. Not this year bud.

At the Embassy Halloween party with our great friends, the Ibrahims.

Tommy turned six months!

The week before his six month birthday he got his first two teeth. You can barely see them poking through in this picture.

Mills

Charlie

Tommy got to try solids. I was planning to wait a couple more months to let this guy have any solids but he just wants to be like the big kids so bad that I gave in. he doesn't really eat much but we put some food on his plate and let him play. We're trying the baby-led-weaning approach this time so we're mostly steering clear of "baby food." So far Tommy has tried apples and watermelon and rice cereal. He's mostly a fan of licking it and squishing it and making a mess.

Back to School

Charlie started pre-k on Monday. It's every day from 7:30am-2pm. I was worried that the day was going to be too long for my baby boy. I think he was a little worried too. When I was about to leave he got a scared look on his face and we had to go talk for a minute. I assured him that his teacher would call me if he needed me. I reminded him how much he loved preschool in Utah and how he scared there too but he had so much fun that he never even needed to call me. He seemed to feel a little better and with a hug and a kiss I left him behind.

Turns out we were both wrong to be nervous. The first day when I picked Charlie up he said, "I thought you said I got to stay all day." Hmm, I thought that pretty much WAS all day. Guess not.

The second day when I picked him up he said, "Mom, I LOVE going to preschool at SIS!" I'm so happy that he is happy!

And surprisingly, things have been a little easier at home too. Millie is perfectly content to play by herself and actually seems to prefer it to playing with me most of the time. This leaves me with time to take care of some things I've been needing to get to for a while. So, it's a win-win. What will be even better is when we get it set up so Charlie can ride to/from preschool with the other kids so I don't have to wake up as early or delay naps for Millie and Tommy.

Things are looking up!

my big boy

on his way in

a favorite friend

the director welcoming the students

Brownsberg Falls

The muddy, bumpy road to the park.

Some birds. Not sure what kind.

An agouti is hiding behind the tree. Adam actually ate one of these on a previous trip to the interior.

Cool trees.

A poisonous snake just off the trail.

Our first hike as a family of five. Tommy did great!

Our hiking group - minus Milad who was taking the picture.

Millie hiked with Milad most of the day.

Beautiful rainforest and hot husband.

The waterfall.

Millie didn't enjoy the waterfall but she did enjoy playing in the water downstream. 

We didn't know we'd be swimming so we didn't come prepared with swim clothes but we didn't let that stop us from playing in a waterfall in the jungle. I mean how many chances do you have to do that?!

Natalie fully clothed and Charlie stark naked.

Beautiful Lake Brokopondo.

Some post hike snacks.

I think we wore them out.

We had a fantastic day and I'm glad we went, but I also had one of my most terrifying moments as a mother. While we were hiking down a pretty steep part Charlie tripped and started rolling downhill. He tumbled head over hills 4 or 5 times before he hit a tree. It all happened so fast and there was no way we could have stopped him if not for the tree. Charlie was understandably upset and crying but he calmed down pretty quickly and we continued on our hike. Later while we were in the waterfall he fell again and hit his head on a rock. He got a pretty good bruise from that one but was otherwise okay. Things could have been so much worse and I'm sure you can imagine all the thoughts running through my head as I saw my little boy rolling down a mountain. We were a two hour drive from Paramaribo and it's not like the medical care is great even if we'd made it back. We are feeling very, very blessed that our Heavenly Father was looking out for us on our hike and all Charlie remembers now is the fun he had. Blessed for sure.