Sadie Kate Turns 2!

Stop everything.  It all has to stop.  I don't want to accept it.  I can't handle it.  It's thrilling and devastating at the same time.  I am wild about my Sadie.  I want to bottle her sweet little potbellied, whipsy-haired, scrunchy-nosed, tiny-toed self up and never let her out.  I am excited that she's turning two!  Two is fun!  Three, four, five and six (and that's as far as my experience goes) are fun, too!  But I hate losing the babyness in the midst of it.  I love babies.  I have this love/hate relationship going on with my kids and their constant growing and changing and moving on to the next stage.  They are stinking persistent, I tell you.  No matter what I do, I can't make them slow down.

Two major highlights stand out in my mind when I think about this year of Sadie's life.  Firstly, we took a beautiful, relaxing, l-o-n-g road trip to Cape Town in May.  It was really a stunningly gorgeous city and we enjoyed trying to hit the highlights in five days.  I know she won't have any memory of it besides the photos she sees, but to be able to say you visited Table Mountain and the Cape of Good Hope is still bragging rights for life.  In typical Sadie fashion, she did wonderfully on the very long car ride to and from Cape Town and it was a joy to have her with us.

Secondly, in July, Sadie Kate and I sneaked across the Atlantic to surprise our family and friends with a little visit home.  I booked us tickets in June when I learned my grandfather had been diagnosed with leukemia.  It was my hope to see him before he passed away, but we didn't make it in time.  I rest assured that I will see him again in glory.  Even so, we got to visit with my family as well as some of Jonathan's family and it was a very sweet time.  Because Sadie was still under two, she was free and taking her with me wasn't really an option because she was (is) still breastfeeding.  Plus, I knew I couldn't leave Jonathan for so long with all three little people.  I was so unbelievably proud of Sadie during all the travel as she was an absolute angel baby on our total ~40 hours in the air round trip.  I can honestly say she didn't cry a single tear.  The comments from other passengers on her disposition were numerous.  Even as we landed back in Johannesburg on our way home, so incredibly dizzy and exhausted, she remained happy and smiley as we shared a milkshake before boarding our last fight to Durban.

 I loved taking her to my grandparents' houses, the pool, the zoo, the lake, to lunch and for walks around my parents' neighborhood.  It was like having my very own doll baby to dress up and play with for three weeks.  Having time to just spend with her was special and an experience I'll always cherish.

She's jabbering away constantly these days with fairly audible words and small sentences.  She absolutely loves to visit our neighbors, help herd the neighbor's sheep into their pen, play in the sand and dirt, and just generally be outdoors.  I wash so many Sadie clothes.  She gets so dirty and has such fun doing it.  She cut all her teeth without much complaint; she eats just about anything we give her.  She loves coffee and we regularly make her decaf in her sippy cup.  She loves pretzels and chocolate chips and eggs and pancakes and oats.

Her favorite things are her baby, her taggy blanket, and a bumblebee blanket which was a gift for Kyle before he was born.  She likes to rub the ribbon tags on all three of these things.  When she falls asleep, she has two hands full of tags.

She loves breastfeeding more now than ever and I'm completely unsure of how I'm going to manage to wean her.  I limit her to three times per day.  I need to wean her, I plan to wean her, I kind of want to wean her, it's just going to break her heart.  We ditched the paci a couple months ago which was painful but manageable.  But this, this is much bigger.  I really have no idea how it's going to happen. Pray for me.

I'll never forget the balmy, warm night Sadie burst into this world.  It was wild and wonderful.  I've cherished her so deeply after the agony we went through during her pregnancy.  A wise woman (Hi, Mom!) kept telling me she thought Sadie would be sweet and easy after the difficulty I experienced with her pregnancy.  And she was right.  Sadie has been the sweetest and easiest yet and I'm just crazy about her!

Happy birthday, my darling girl.  You are Mama's treasure.  I thank God for you every day.

~Abby

Cause to Celebrate!

I know, I know.  I've been neglecting the blog again.  I had every intention of trying to keep up with it better this year.  But, I've been plagued with fatigue and headaches and honestly, I feel like I'm just trying to keep my head above water a lot of the time.  Two doctors appointments and lots of blood tests have rendered no concrete answers to my situation.  I'll spare you the details of all my attempts at helping the problems, but I'm hopeful some super supplements recommended by my sister-in-law will be the right thing.  They should arrive in three weeks when my parents and little brother come!

In the meantime, school continues with Kyle.  We are enjoying first grade together and he's a sweet and clever little student.  Our school routine is still pretty low key, but we're continuing through the basic necessities.  He is reading wonderfully and last week he finished the 108th lesson of Reading Made Easy, completing the book!  That's a pretty big accomplishment for a 6 year old, so a cookie cake was in order.  Really, any reason to celebrate is a good excuse for a cookie cake.  We also really enjoy our read aloud time; currently we are working through Charlotte's Web.

The tie though....

This month there is a World Race team here in Mokhotlong.  While we don't have any official connection to World Race, we always enjoy having the teams through here.  Visiting with other Americans isn't something we get to do often.  This month the team consists of 20 ~20 year olds.  My kids love walking through the neighbors' yard and up the hill to the mission house to annoy visit with the team in the afternoons.  Because we just can't accommodate all 20 of them in our house for more than a movie night, we are doing a dinner rotation over the course of a couple weeks.  So far we have enjoyed some Cracker Barrel and pizza.  Coming up this week is taco night, Chick-Fil-A night, and spaghetti night.  Some familiar cuisine is a welcome change for them after a month in Swaziland and nearly two weeks here in Lesotho.  From here they will continue on to Asia and then to South America before returning back to the US next year.  I am trying to pump them full of chocolate chip cookies, brownies and cakes to last them for the months to come.  It's the least I can do, really.

Will try not to be so quiet in the coming weeks and months!

~Abby