Changing Blog

Hi faithful blog readers!

We have some security/privacy concerns so we need to change this blog from public to private. Unfortunately, that means you'll need to sign in each time to read the blog. I think if you save the sign in and password for that page, it won't be too bad. I am sorry for the inconvenience. I have to enter email address that we allow to read the blog, so if I have yours already, I will put it on the approved list. If I don't have your email or for some reason you can't access the blog, send me an email. I will wait a week or two to make the change to allow time for people to read about the change. Thanks so much for your patience!

Julia Update - 8 Months

Julia Mireya is 8 months old and she is doing fantastic, still exceeding expectations. She is quite a petite baby at fifteen and a half pounds, but healthy. At night she is a little angel, sleeping from 7:00pm to 6:30am, without waking up. During the day, she takes three to four short naps, usually 30-40 minutes each. She still is fussy during the day at times and prefers to be held. However, she is becoming more mobile and enjoys exploring. She likes her walker and playing on her stomach. She just learned to sit on her own, finally. Even though she can be fussy, that stops when she is being held and she smiles all the time. Whenever we are out with her, many people comment on her beauty (of course!) and how smiley she is. Julia has been slow to catch on with food. She still just plays with it and pushes it out of her mouth. I am hoping one of these days she'll get that it needs to be consumed! A couple weekends ago, a friend of ours who is a pediatrician was visiting Moshi and evaluated Julia. She was very impressed with how she is doing. She compared her to a six and a half or seven month old, so she isn't too far behind. Her reflexes and responses were perfect and she was given a clean bill of health. Praise God.

Happy Birthday Eli

Our little boy is three years old and more awesome than ever. I just love him more and more as he grows. Sure, there are frustrating times when dealing with a little one, but most of the time, he is just pure joy. His speech and vocabulary is incredible. He makes me laugh all the time with the things that come out of his mouth. I am constantly asking, "who taught you that?"

Birthdays aren't a big deal here. However, this was the first one he understood and could look forward to so we did a three day celebration. On Tuesday, we hosted playgroup, a weekly meeting of moms and their kids. Since Eli loves music and instruments, George found a couple local guys to play songs for the kids with a guitar and drum. Their first song... "Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music." An odd choice for a kids party, but I was thrilled. That's my favorite movie. (Monica... I needed you there for that!). Other than the musicians, we had cake and snacks for the kids and they just ran around and had fun. Guess who didn't have fun... the birthday boy. He was pouting and grumpy the whole time. It was frustrating because we wanted him to enjoy his special day and he had been looking forward to it so much. I assumed he was overwhelmed by the attention, but it turns out he had a fever of 102, poor guy. I discovered that when everyone left and he asked to go to bed, which he never does. I am not sure what the problem was since he had no other symptoms and was fine the next day. On Wednesday we went a restaurant that offers a free piece of cake on your birthday. He had been looking forward to having his special cake. Then on Thursday, we went to the place he most wanted to go on his birthday.... Nakumatt, the big grocery store in town. That is his favorite place in the world to go. Overall, it was a fun, cheap birthday extravaganza.

I will end this post with a quote from Eli.

Me: "Eli, your birthday is coming soon and you'll be three!"
Eli: "And then I get married?... To Elsa?"

No Power/Internet

Hi! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We have had major power and internet issues. Most nights our power goes off at 6:30pm and comes back on sometime after I have gone to bed. Some days there is no power as well. I am currently in town using the internet at a cafe to quickly check emails. So if you email me and I am slow to respond, that's why. I wanted to let you know that we are all ok. The kids are healthy and doing well. Julia is 7 months and Eli will be three in 10 days! As soon as the power and internet come back on at home, I will do some new posts.