Edelweiss

How do I begin to sum up a year of joy with this gift from God?  This girl, this invaluable treasure, has sneaked her way into places deep within my heart - places which I didn't even know existed.  She is a dream come true, my daughter, my friend.

I couldn't count the number of times over the past year that I have replayed in my mind the hours and days surrounding Ellee's birth.  Oftentimes if my mind is spinning as I try to settle down to sleep, I'll just begin to focus on her birthday, the utter joy and excitement I felt as she surprised me and started coming early.  Holding Ellee in my arms as I rock her before her naps or bedtime,  I'll think about those early hours with her, just me and her, in the hospital.  She was so tiny, so warm and she made the softest, sweetest baby noises I had ever heard.  She captivated me during those early hours as she still captivates me now.

Within the last month, she has grown and changed by leaps and bounds.  After really fighting her to eat anything besides breast milk, she has finally taken to eating two reasonable meals a day.    She just eats bites of whatever I have for breakfast : cereal, oats, yogurt & fruit or an egg.  Lunch and dinner, though, I make her up some concoction of fresh cow's milk (albeit home-pasturized), fruit, sometimes peanut butter, sometimes pumpkin, and rice cereal.  She eats bites of whatever we are eating as well, but Little Miss Two Teeth has a hard time doing a real number on solid foods yet.  Regardless, I am just thankful that she will actually eat food off of a spoon and has recently started taking a sippy cup.  I have no intentions of weaning her anytime soon, but I feel a lot less anxious knowing she's pulling some nutrition from a source besides me.  She weighs around 20 lbs, so I know she isn't hurting for calories.

Along with her new eating habits, she has developed some new modes of transportation for herself.  She's been crawling for a couple months, but refused to stand up until three days ago.  Even with help, she wanted nothing to do with being on her feet.  I was beginning to fret about why she was avoiding that major developmental milestone, but figured I'd give it a while longer.  Sure enough, Wednesday night, she just started standing up.  Now we can't get her to sit down.  She can climb stairs; she's even trying to cruise the furniture already.  That girl.  She doesn't want to do anything until she can do it perfectly.  It was that way with learning to crawl, now learning to stand, and I bet she'll wait to walk until she can just let go and stroll around the neighborhood.  She's a real stink.

Her vocabulary is exploding!  Just yesterday as I was sitting outside with her on the front porch, she waved at a lady passing by and before I could say anything, she said, "Mme", plain as day.  "Mme" means something like ma'am or Mrs in Sesotho and it's how you greet any married woman.  Ellee can also say Mama, Dada (when she wants to, not often, she's a real stinker), Ky for Kyle, sky, bird, hello, bye bye, night night, bite, bath and yeah.  Of course, bird, bite and bath all sound very similar but in context, it is obvious what she is trying to say.  If I tell her no, she'll often respond with "yeah".  We are so in for it.  On command she can kiss, dance, wave, clap, and laugh.  Her forced laugh keeps us roaring.  I don't know why she's started it, but whenever someone else is laughing, she forces out the most woody-the-woodpecker laugh you've ever heard.  It's hilarious!  She also makes car and plane noises while she plays with Kyle's toys, much to his delight.  We think she's great fun.

For a year I have been singing or humming Edelweiss to my girl as I nurse her before bed.  The words to that song have brought me to tears on numerous occasions because they express exactly what I feel in my heart.  I pray over her, sing over her, wish over her so many things during those quiet, dark hours; my heart is full of hopes and dreams for this sweet child.  Most of all, I pray she will become a God-fearing woman, strong and gentle, caring and honest, helpful, hopeful and joyful in whatever life brings her way.  I pray she will grow into a lovely little girl, and a virtuous woman.  I pray for her future husband and her future children.  It seems so far off now, rocking a sleeping baby in my arms, but I already know the days and years fly by.

Edelweiss, edelweiss, every morning you greet me

Small and white, clean and bright

You look happy to meet me

Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow

Bloom and grow forever!

Home from the hospital

Newborn photo shoot

One month old

Two months

Two months, dressed up for church

Three months

Four months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months

Seven months, dressed up for church (same dress)

Eight months

We'll pretend like this is nine months, don't actually have a precise picture

Ten months

Eleven months

Eleven months, hanging with Tlotlisang

Birthday eve

One year old!

Happy first birthday, my beloved girl.  Mama loves you!

~Abby

Guest Room Makeover

When we first heard details about our Mokhotlong home, this room was described as a storage room with very little natural light.  Until I actually saw the room, I imagined how I wanted to re-do it to turn it into a guest room.  Then I saw it.  It really did need some serious work to get it into a cozy state.  Hard work pays off, though, and I am so pleased with the result!

The room is large but it felt so gloomy because it was so dark.  The ceiling was a major issue; in some places it was a bubble wrap type insulation while the majority was a dark brown thick cardboard type material.  The roof was really sagging in about half the room and honestly just needed to be replaced.  I mentioned to our landlord that we'd like to fix it and would foot the bill.  While we were in the US, he and his carpenter guys got in there and took down the existing ceiling and rebuilt it, leaving it higher than it was originally.  Then they painted it white and oh my goodness has it changed the whole room.  Then they primed the walls which were a muddy brown.  When we arrived back from our trip, it was like a blank slate for me to work with.  I was thrilled!

This is the only picture we have of the room before it was redone.  I could just kick myself for not taking a better before picture.

We bought a nice bed with a wooden frame from our friends and picked up a night stand while we were in Johannesburg on our way back into the country.  A while back, I bought a new duvet and throw for the bed.  Right here in Mokhotlong I found up a couple pictures to hang on the wall and some curtains to hang in front of the shelves to hide their mess.  The pictures are of two African women, one with a basket on her head (a common sight in Lesotho) and the other with a child.  I cut and hemmed the curtains and had some extra to make two curtains for the small window.  Hemming curtains by hand is real work, folks.  Having light curtains that can open and close easily helps let in as much natural light as possible.

Trying to get over my aversion to hearts with these cuties I picked up.  They have Afrikaans words on them.

On Friday (our 5th wedding anniversary, romantic, huh?) we painted the walls a light creamy color and put the finishing touches on the room that evening.  I spent Saturday morning on my hands and knees scrubbing the paint drips off the floor from where the ceiling had been painted.  My fingers are still feeling raw from all the pressure I had to apply to get those globs up.  Nevertheless, the floor looks ten times better than it ever has.  A lamp and a rug and a bed heater help to make the room a lot more cozy.  Plus, we put the chimney to our coal stove up through that room so that the heat from it would take the chill off the guest room.  It is actually a fairly warm room anyway because the sun does beat down on the roof in that area during a good part of the afternoon.

It truly looks like a different place now and our landlords (and dear friends) could hardly believe it when we showed them Saturday.  Upon seeing it, they jokingly asked if we could possibly open a B&B together.  I'm tickled pink at how it turned out and can't wait for a guest from far, far away to come occupy it for a while.  Any takers?

~Abby

Tlotlisang

Meet Tlotlisang.  Today is his 8th birthday!  He lives across the street from us and is Kyle’s best neighborhood friend.  Daily he comes knocking on our door asking to play with Kyle.  He has a sweet and gentle spirit we have grown to love and appreciate.

A couple months ago, Tlotlisang’s mother died unexpectedly.  Estranged form his father, Tlotlisang lives with his uncle, our dear friend Ntate Ntsimane.  Long before his mother passed away, he came to live here in Mokhotlong to be cared for by Ntsimane.  I dare say in this boy’s short eight years of life, he has experienced more difficulty and heartache than I have at three times his age.  Nevertheless, his smile exudes friendliness and contentment.  He is well cared for by his aunt and uncle, attends school here in Mokhotlong, and plays hard outside during his free time.

Tlotlisang and his cousin, Tsepo, making sand birthday cakes this morning in our yard.

Ntate Ntsimane and his wife, Mme MaTsolo, care for a number of boys who aren’t biologically their own.  Along with Tlotlisang, they are the caretakers of Tlotlisang’s older brother, as well as 2 or 3 other young boys between the ages of 12-14.  The scourge of AIDS has left so many children parentless.  In other instances, children are left in the village with relatives while parents go to the city to find work in order to support their families.  The boys are responsible for their own cooking and their own laundry.  I’ve personally witnessed Tlotlisang at age 7, hand washing his own laundry.  Once I asked MaTsolo if he is any good at washing his clothes.  With a faint smile on her face, she told me that he wasn’t very good at all.  And sometimes when he is asleep, she sneaks into his room and takes some of his clothes to wash for him, to lighten the burden of his laundry.  All of the boys sleep in a small home on the same property as Ntsimane.

The house the boys live in.

Shortly after we moved here, MaTsolo informed me that Tlotlisang was highly concerned about Kyle.  He had sat her down to discuss with her that he believed Kyle needed to be in school.  He told her he would walk him to school and help him to learn to read and write, because he was already helping another boy in the school to do the same.  MaTsolo tried to explain to him that Kyle was much too young to attend school, which pacified his concern for Kyle’s education.

Oftentimes Tlotlisang sits on our front porch with us while we enjoy the morning sun.  Yesterday while we has here, I asked him when his birthday was.  When he replied with, “tomorrow!”, I immediately began to plan a birthday cake for him.  With Ntsimane and MaTsolo currently out of town, I knew there wasn’t a way in the world that little boy was going to have a cake for his 8th birthday.  After nap time, Jonathan and Kyle ran down to the local shop to buy cocoa powder and icing sugar.

With Ellee fast asleep in her crib last night, Kyle and I began to bake a cake for a very special boy.  My son was giddy to help me use the hand mixer and even happier to lick the beaters.  At 11pm last night, I was icing this chocolate cake with this chocolate butter cream icing, per Tlotlisang’s request.  I was so happy he wanted chocolate.  As I don’t have two cake pans of the same shape, I think this cake could easily be classified as the ugliest birthday cake in history.  However, because it tasted great, I don’t think any one minded.  

Eight of the neighborhood kids showed up for the festivities, which was a fear of mine.  Earlier there were only four — boys who regularly play around here.  But by the time I got outside with the cake, that number had doubled - well, 7 boys and 1 random girl.  Oh well, the cake was plenty big enough for each kid to have a good size piece and still leave some to share with Ntsimane and MaTsolo once they return.  We blew up some Happy Birthday balloons and presented the birthday boy with a bag of gifts Kyle picked out for him this morning at Pep (think The Dollar Store).  Kyle chose two motorcycles, a small bag of candy, a bag of marbles and a beanie to go into the birthday bag.  The kids sang “Happy Birthday” in English and then again in Sesotho before they began devouring their cake.  I think everyone seemed to enjoy it because no one left a morsel on their plate.

Occasionally I ponder what exactly my role is here in Lesotho.  With Jonathan busy working with Theological Education by Extension, along with meeting regularly for language lessons, and working towards his Masters, I’m almost always just busy around the house with my kids.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it.  I wouldn’t have it any other way because I believe I am right where I need to be.  But it’s days like today that remind me — I do have a ministry all of my own, and not just to my own children.  It may not be in a classroom, or in any organized setting, but I pray the time and energy I invest in the children who play at my house will produce lasting results.  I pray I am able to show love to “the least of these.”  In a country full of hurting, lonely and dying children, I pray a smile, a chat on the porch, or a slice of chocolate cake will shine a little light into their day.  We love Tlotlisang and the sweet friendship he shows to our kids.  I hope he had the happiest of birthdays!

~Abby

DIY Africa

 Sometimes you just gotta roll your sleeves up and start in the kitchen from scratch.  If you live in Africa, that sometimes changes to almost-always.  Occasionally, I just have a hankering for something and it requires a number of preparation steps ahead of time to achieve the end goal.

Every afternoon, sometime around 4pm, I have a grumble in my belly that tells me it's tea time.  Sometimes I have coffee for tea time, sometimes decaf tea and often times a big glass of chilled water.  In my mind, the real reason for tea time is the tea time treats.  My treat of choice has varied widely over the past year; first it was a rusk, then a piece of pumpkin bread.  Right now I prefer to indulge in a sliver of zucchini bread and/or a small tea cup full of African Sunrise granola and a few dollops of greek yogurt.

After about a minute of Googling zucchini bread some months ago, I settled on this zucchini bread recipe that had like 4-point-something stars and 4,000-something reviews.  I trust recipes like that.  I read tons and tons of those 4,000 reviews and found some ways to help make aforementioned zucchini bread a little less like cake and a lot more friendly to the waistline.  Below I'll post the modifications to the zucchini bread recipe I made.  I won't post a review on the zucchini bread recipe based on the many modifications I made because I can't stand it when people do that....

I spent morning nap time yesterday grating zucchini.  But, our electricity was out nearly all day yesterday for some unknown reason, so I was unable to bake my bread.  Today I began my preparations by first making apple sauce.  Although, because I had a number of mealy peaches in the fridge that were no good on my morning cereal, it turned out to be more like peach sauce with a hint of apple.

While my peaches and apples cooked on the stove top, I was busy grating potatoes to make hash brown casserole for dinner.  The menu tonight was inspired by our time working at Cracker Barrel.  CB grilled chicken tenders and hash brown casserole with fluffy fruit salad on the side.  The secret to CB grilled chicken tenders?  Marinated and pan-grilled in Italian salad dressing.  That's it.  Anyway, back to the casserole, hash browns aren't exactly a South African thing.  Thus I was left to make them myself.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy that was (thanks again to Google).

So, my zucchini bread.  Once I completed the peach/apple sauce by pureeing it with my immersion blender, I whipped this batter up:

* 3 cups flour (1 cup white, 2 cups wheat)

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 tsp baking powder

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 3-4 tsp cinnamon

* 1 cup sugar

* 1/2 cup oil

* 1/2 cup apple sauce

* 3 eggs

* 3 tsp vanilla extract

* 4 cups grated zucchini

And I would've loved to add some nuts but alas, I didn't have any.  The recipe makes two loaves.  My modifications make it just sweet enough but not overly so.  And I tried to pack in as much zucchini as possible and it's absolutely delicious.

While my bread baked, I prepared the hash brown casserole to wait in the fridge until dinner.  After that, I worked on the fluffy fruit salad.  Then I started chopping veggies for my new favorite lunch of choice (based on this recipe):

I added chopped fresh garlic, some extra roasted cauliflower I made last night and a bit of salt and ground pepper.  Instead of vegetable oil, I used EVOO and then I used half white and half whole wheat pasta.  I am so glad I have leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch.

Thankfully Little Lady took a long morning nap so I was able to get almost all of this completed while she was asleep.  My back ached when I was done and I was sure ready to sit down, but it feels nice to get a lot accomplished in one day.  And I was very happy to sit and enjoy my tea time snack today....

Hope you'll DIY and give one of these recipes a try.

~Abby

Coming Home

I can't even settle in my mind how it felt to be home, let alone describe it in words.  It felt surreal to say the least.  People talk about reverse culture shock often.  While I sort of poo-poo the extreme emphasis put on culture shock within the missional community, I do understand how one can experience it when moving into a different culture and again when returning to their own.  I didn't feel shocked going back to my home country, but I was much more aware of how it compares to the world in which I live now.  Needless to say, it is vastly different.

We were so excited to see everyone, especially our parents and siblings.  Throughout out trip, we were also able to see and visit with many of our dear friends, as well as all our grandparents and all my aunts and uncles.  We burned up the road between SC, NC, FL, AL, MO, IL and GA.  But it was great to see everyone.  Fortunately my family was able to travel with us along our two and a half week journey through FL and on to the midwest, for which we were all so thankful.  Kyle so enjoyed playing with his Aunt Maggie and Uncle Caleb on any playground we could find.  Plus, it's great to have extra hands around to help with Little Miss.

Bedtime stories with Pops

Leaving is always hard.  It just hurts.  The flight is a miserable reminder of just how far we are from where our family lives.  Thankfully, the internet really does help close the miles between us and makes it seem like we aren't quite so far away.  Spending hours over the Atlantic, though, reminds me that we can't just hop in the car and road trip back to grandparents' houses for a visit.

Can I just say that our kids are the best travelers?  They put up with being in the car for I-lost-track-of-how-many hours.  Then, we boarded the miserable Atlanta to Joburg flight Tuesday evening and they took it like champs.  The Delta ladies in Atlanta saved us the perfect baby spot on the plane, complete with attachable bassinet.  I think Ellee girl had it better than business class.  She did really well sleeping in that thing most of the flight.  We made Kyle a pallet on the floor underneath her with Delta issued pillows and blankets and he also slept most of the flight down there.  When he was awake, he was playing the iPad, snacking on plane food and visiting the lavatory.  He seemed to be infatuated with the itty-bitty can't-change-your-mind-in-it airplane bathroom.  Sleeping for Mom and Dad on the plane was pretty much impossible, but at least we all made it back to South Africa in one piece.

Dinner in the Atlanta airport..... The Varsity

Upon our entry into South Africa, however, we were detained for hours because of a false alert that was scanned into Jonathan's passport by someone in Maseru.  We've tried and tried to get it overwritten but alas...  I almost lost it a few times during the two hours we spent arguing with immigration about not paying a $100 fine over something for which we are not at fault.  By the time we finally got out of that office, our bags were way past the carrousel in luggage pick up and we had to go hunt those down in an office somewhere.  There we found one was missing.  After hunting that one down, we took a taxi to where Rocky was parked.  It took us nearly an hour to find someone who could get us the keys to the office where the keys to Rocky were hanging, as it was after-hours by that time.  We unlocked Rocky to find that he was dead as a doornail and then had to locate the biggest vehicle in the property to try to jump that giant engine.  Finally....... hours after landing........ we headed to our friends' house in Pretoria (about thirty minutes from the airport) where we were to spend the night.  The next day we got Rocky a new battery and visited our friends and their new baby.

The kids love baby Ty

Friday we started the ten hour drive from Pretoria back to Mokhotlong.  We stopped half way with friends and fellow AIMers and spent the night before trekking up the mountains on Saturday.  We arrived late last night, Rocky full of suitcases, groceries and a few small furniture items we procured whilst in Pretoria.  It felt so nice to be home after days of traveling to get here.

While we were gone, our landlord (and dear friend) did some maintenance on our house and it looks wonderful. The coal stove we bought has been pretty much installed, which just a few lose ends that need to be tied up before we actually start using it.  The ceilings, which up until now were unfinished, were painted white.  And our guest room ceiling was completely repaired, eliminating the bubble wrap that was in some places patching the existing ceiling,and leaving it looking much more welcoming than before.  I was so excited to see that!  I will post photos once it is photo worthy.

Because we have now entered into freezing temperatures at night, we purchased some much needed heating paraphernalia.  We bought a mattress heater for our bed, two wall heating panels for the kids room, and a hot water bottle wrapped in a plush dog for Ellee's bed.  I spent all day Sunday putting things away and doing laundry.  Today I deep cleaned this place because the ceiling repair left the house full of dust.... as if Mokhotlong isn't dusty enough to begin with.  Tomorrow we go out to the village of Molumong to visit our AIM teammate for our weekly prayer get-together.  It's about a 40 minute drive from home.

It is good to be home, to spend time alone as a family and to have time to play with my kids.  It is nice to sleep in my own bed.  It's fun to watch Kyle meet his toys all over again.  Truly, there is no place like home.

~Abby

Kyle Turns Three!

Kyle's long awaited birthday finally came and went yesterday.  He's been saying for months that he was almost "three more olds."  Since we found out last summer that we'd be coming to the US during the time of his birthday, I've been thrilled to know we'd be surrounded by family for this special day.  Last year's second birthday felt really lonely without any family to celebrate with us so it was wonderful to have lots of love surrounding him this year.

With each passing month, I enjoy watching him grow more and more.  It has been so fun to witness his vocabulary explode and his understanding expand over this year.  I love being able to have real conversations with him.  He often snuggles up to me and wants to chat "for a while."  Watching him with Ellee has been such a joy.   He is so gentle and loving towards her.  I can't wait to watch them run and play together before long.  He reminds us often that soon she'll get bigger and we can put her shoes on and they can play together outside in the yard.

Since Monsters are some of Kyle's new favorite friends, we decided to go with a Monsters themed birthday party.  I ordered the basic party supplies online and requested a Sully cake and Mike cupcakes from my favorite cake lady, Tracey.  We put together a few snack-type foods to serve to a few friends and lots of family.  A small party is nearly impossible when the family makes the minimum at about ten to begin with.  Nevertheless, we kept it simple and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd post pictures from all four of Kyle's birthdays.

Here he is on his original birthday:

And his 1 year birthday :

And his 2 year old birthday :

Monsters 3 year old birthday :

Happiest of birthdays to my favorite little guy!  I can't wait to see him grow and change even more this year.  He is such a joy to have in our lives.

~Abby