Emma Hadassah 2 Years 9 Months

Emma is such a fun little girl! Her imagination is all over the place now which makes playing with her a lot of fun.  Here are some highlights from the last month.

While driving to Maua (Mark’s childhood home), Emma was so surprised that there were trees all along our drive. She kept saying “Kenya has trees here too!!”

Emma is a super thankful child.  She is always thanking us for things such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, when we give her a bath, set her water station up, play with her…etc. She will say “Daddy, thank you so much for getting my play-doh! I like it so much!”

The other day while in the car we were listening to a CD that had our wedding song on it. We explained it to Emma and she said “Guys, this is our song!!” Sure kid, it can be yours too :)

Emma has become a huge backseat driving!! This is how the conversation goes…E: “Dad watch out for those people, move over daddy there is a car, dad watch out for the cows, dad don’t hit the goats!” M: “Thanks, Emma.”

Nowadays, Emma wants to know what we are talking about. She will come up to us and say “Guy, what are you talking about?”

Emma is super animated when she talks. She shakes her head and waves her hands all around.

One night I was trying to get Emma to go to bed so I started to sing “Hey sister, soul sista, it’s time to go to bed sista!” She responded with “Hey mommy, no mommy, I’m not going to bed mommy!"

Emma LOVES art. She could sit there and paint for hours.

She still likes to help with her brother. Especially when it comes to feeding him.

Emma has been learning boundaries when it comes to her brother. She is SUPER affectionate and sometimes hugs her brother a little too hard. :)

We have entered the hard stage of parenting with having to discipline Emma more.  Sometimes I think her attitude is an almost 3 year old going on 13...I will accept any advice you may have on this issue :)

Fun Things We Did This Month:
We got to visit Grandma and Grandpa Fogleman twice this month!! Emma loved seeing them and playing Go Fish and play-doh with them. 

Emma got to feed a Giraffe for the first time! It was also her first time to see a real giraffe. She was excited at first but after feeding the giraffe once, she was ok to just play on a large rock where she could still see them.

We went on a fun hiking trip around Thompson Falls one Saturday.  Emma loved running around and finding big sticks.  She keeps asking to hiking again :)

Tot School:
We are slowly starting to get back into a Tot School routine. Emma has missed it, I have missed it, and we both like structure. Some days we are able to sit and do a whole lesson, other days we are on the back patio and I draw shapes, numbers, or letters with chalk on the ground and she pours water on them.

On days we have to travel or have a lot of things going on, we still try to keep an environment of learning for her as she loves to learn. Hopefully in April we will be on a more set schedule as William is also starting to take longer naps.

Fun Pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William John 3 Months

Will has grown so much this month! He has also done quite a bit of traveling around Kenya.  Here are a few highlights from the past month :)

Feeding: Will is still taking 4oz about every 3 hours. Every now and then he will take 5oz.  He is a really good eater and usually only cries when he is hungry.

Sleeping: Will is a great sleeper. He takes 3 small naps and one long nap during the day.  At night he is sleeping longer and waking up to eat around 4-5am.

Fun Info:

William can now hold his head up on his own! However, he still hates tummy time.

He now wears 6-9month pants. #LegsForDays

Will is so close to laughing. We have had a few small chuckles but are still waiting for the all out giggle.

He is slightly obsessed with the elephant on his lay-n-play that plays music. Every time he lays under it he gets a huge smile on his face and he kicks his feet like crazy. Its super fun to watch :)

Will is smiling a lot these days.  We have tried several times to get a picture of his big grin but each time we pull the camera out he decides not to smile.  One of these days we will get it!

Will got to see a giraffe for the first time! The sun was in his face and he was crying because he was hungry so it wasn’t the best first impression but for the first few minutes he did enjoy looking up at them.

He got to visit Mark’s childhood home in Kenya and meet Mark’s nanny from when he was a little boy.

William has been sleeping a lot more at night. The past few nights he has gone to bed around 830pm and slept until 4-5am! His parents are super grateful and hope this trend stays :)

Will got to meet the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya! During the Ambassadors talk, Will decided it was prime time to be super grouchy so he did not get a picture with him.

He still greatly enjoys playing with his sister, hearing her sing, and getting lots of kisses and hugs from her.

Will is not the biggest fan of going to church right now because the music is super loud as is the pastor when he preaches and it makes it hard for him to sleep.

He got to go on his first hike this month! But lets be honest, he slept the whole time :)

We got to spend time with grandma and grandpa Fogleman twice this month! It was so fun for William to meet them for the first time.  We look forward to seeing them again in October.

Fun Pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

What day is it?!?

We have been back in Kenya for just over a month now and are finally back in the land of the living! Jetlag this time around knocked us all out! In the past, we would be functioning after a week, however, this time around, it took us a month. 

A few days after we returned home, Emma got a cold which made it difficult for her to sleep. This meant that Mark was up with her every couple hours. William continued his normal of waking up 2-3 times at night to eat which kept me up.  The lack of sleep resulted in two parents feeling like zombies and praying their kids would sleep and feel better. 

After a week, Emma was back to her old self feeling great and running around the house.  William had kind of put himself on a schedule of waking up once in the middle of the night and then once for an early morning feeding. We had about one good night of sleep before Mark caught Emma’s cold which eventually turned into a sinus infection and stuck around for 3.5 weeks! Because he felt like he got smacked in the head with a two by four, I continued to get up with the kids at night so that Mark could get rest and hopefully feel better. This of course meant, zombie mommy.

During the day, I decided the kids no longer liked me because they would never sleep at the same time.  For example, Will would take his morning nap, then would wake up right before Emma went down for her nap.  He would stay awake the WHOLE time she slept.  When he finally went back to sleep, you guessed it, Emma would wake up.  This continued for a couple weeks which meant mommy got zero naps. Thanks kids, love you too.

One day, in the few hours we were awake, we learned we needed to buy a new vehicle. So, with little to no sleep, one sick parent, and both kids in tow, we drove to Nairobi and Nakuru to search for a car. It would take a whole other post to write out all the details of searching for a car in Kenya so I’ll just try and sum it up. We are cheap Americans and had a small budget that would not get us anything we were originally looking for. After a couple weeks of looking for a car we settled on what is best described as the smallest car in Kenya.  It was not good for off-roading to the village and it would only seat our little family but I will say, it was a cute little car. Thankfully, our co-workers are awesome and said that was a horrible decision (I blame it on lack of sleep) even if it was cute and found us an 8 seater, 4x4 van that was in our price range! Thank you, Jesus and thank you, co-workers!

To top it all off, we are back in the land where I have to make EVERYTHING from scratch! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All homemade. This requires energy and brain power (both of which I did not have) to think up meals, especially if you have to plan for more than one day. So, we ate all the American snacks we brought back in the first two weeks.  We had planned for them to last at least 3 months. At that time I was too tired to care, however now, I’m sad we don’t have anymore.  So, if anyone feels like sending some KIND bars this way, we would greatly appreciate them.  Oh, and Emma requested some cheerios J

Thankfully now, Mark is back to his old self working hard and driving our new van out to the village to do some surveying for our first water project. I am finding my new normal with work and with two kids who have very different schedules and needs. I applaud all of you mommies who have multiple kids and find time to shower. Please tell me how you do it! Despite our exhaustion and it taking hours to cook anything, we are happy to be back in our house, in our Swahili classes, and getting to share William with all of our Kenyan friends!

Oh and bonus…. our house keeps getting invaded by safari aunts…so there’s that.