Meredith, Lindie, Kamohelo, Drake and possibly other kids worked diligently at making Liam many birthday cakes and treats out of mud. They all loved playing in the mud and being creative with their creations. The job was messy but they got it done. {And the mothers had a bit of laundry}

We Have 3 Children!

Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave for church we had one of those moments that made us realize we really do have 3 children. Life has been pretty easy up to this point with 3 kids. We were about 1 minute away from walking out the door for church when Lindie took the cap off a black sharpie marker that had a leak. She was wearing her ivory Christmas dress that is still soaking in hopes that the black ink will come out. Needless to say, I had black ink on me and daddy and grandma quickly cleaned Lindie up and changed her dress. Now we are out the door and onto the bus to take everyone at The Village to Church when Charlie decides to spit-up big time. He even managed to get the bus floor. I took Charlie back inside to do a complenoutfit change. Brian left with the bus and kids for church and Charlie and I drove separately. Yes, today is the first time it felt like we had 3 kids that are ages 3 years, 2 years and 3 weeks old.

Before spitting up on his outfit-3 weeks old

I managed to get to church in time to see the children's Christmas program. They did a great job. This is Drake, Komahelgo and Liam dressed as shepherds. You can also see Meredith dressed as an angel.

Cowboy and Bubble Bee

Liam's preschool teacher was very intrigued with the idea of halloween and dressing up, so this year at school she had a halloween party. To help celebrate, I made jack-o-latern cupcakes for Liam to take to school and he dressed up as a cowboy.

The O'Tools and us also had our own little halloween party for our kids. We really aren't into halloween that much, but to help provide a little bit of fun for the kids we decided to dress them up. Since there is no trick or treating here, we hid candy outside for them to find, pretty much it was an Easter egg hunt for Halloween. At least they had a little fun, ate candy, cake and it gave us something to do.

Lindie was not impressed with her bubble bee outfit, so it didn't stay on very long. She also would not sit still for any pictures.

The Little Things...part 1

The Little Things...That Remind Us that We Live in South Africa. After 4 years of living in South Africa we've become accustom to random, bizarre, strange, and peculiar things in life. Most of the time we don't even think twice about things anymore but we still have those times when we say "you wouldn't see that in America".

Today happened to be one of those days. Amber and I took the kids to Clear Water, a play place, this morning and enjoyed a cappuccino while the kids were playing. While we were away for 6 months the owners have expanded the play area by adding more play equipment, petting area of baby animals, kids train, ect. Before we left, before they expanded it cost R20 {$2.63} for each child to play. Since they have expanded the cost has decreased, it now only cost R5 {$.65} per child. Hmm, one would think if you make the place nicer it would cost more to play now. Anyways, that is a good change.

The play area is definitely not up to the US standards for safety but we aren't in the US. Most of the play equipment is made of metal with a hard cement or dirt surface underneath. Part of the new "child friendly equipment" includes an old speed boat, Dune Buggy and Taxi to play in. The doors have been removed and carpet added to the floors for safe playing. (I didn't take pictures of this grand play equipment, I will have to do that next time)

They also added a nice train for the kids to ride on. The train is great & the kids love it. It is made out of old barrels, scrap metal and it has a pull start engine. The train cars are made to look like soda pop cans. I totally see ones of these becoming part of The Village someday. Brian could easily rig something like this up only better.



Seat belts aren't necessary because you cram as many kids onto the seat as possible so there is no wiggle room for falling out!

Don't worry about the rust, just make sure you have an up to date tetnus shot to ride ;-P




Compared to some of things Liam has played in, crawled on and been exposed to since living in South Africa this is really nice.