Snow Days

I'm thankful that our first two weeks in the States were mild in temperature. We went out with just long sleeves and a light jacket and were fine. But, alas, the midwest chill of winter has set in and with it, snow. The older two kids have enjoyed playing in it, eating it, tracking it into the house, and best of all, the babychinos they get to warm up afterwards (some South African traditions have been carried through!). Em loves accessorizing her snow gear with her various hats and mittens. I don't understand why it takes so long when she had three hats and one pair of mittens, but much thought and efforts gets put into which hat is just right for the lighting, the time of day, and the mood of the day. Sometimes, I don't know where that child came from.

This is her "frog hat" which suited the day because, as she put it, the snow was "wet for the froggy".

Cooper, on the other hand, just loves the snow for it's wonderful taste and the fact that he can throw it... a LOT. No snow balls for this kid, just fistfuls of pure powder right into his own face and he's satisfied.

Our niece, Alexis, is a student at Olivet right now and she came over to show Em how to make snow angels. Em loves looking at them when she's all done, but she's a bit of a cold-wimp and it doesn't take her long to start complaining about the cold in January. She's not a big fan of cold Januarys.

While the older two are outside playing, Harp and I enjoy some play time, just the two of us. I managed to snap this picture of her two teeth, which she is more than willing to demonstrate their usefulness to anything that comes within arms reach. I'm sure by the end of our stay here, there will be little teeth marks on the underside of the drawers, the coffee table and a few chairs.

The only thing that seems to distract her from gnawing is a cylinder-shaped laundry basket. She loves to crawl to the bottom, and then figure out how to get back out.

Family-In-A-Day

I tried to prepare the kids for meeting our families, in person, but even my Emme girl had a hard time translating a picture or skype face with an actual person who could hug and hold her. And to say my family (not to mention anything about Todd's side) is large would be an understatement. The kids have been growing up in a mission-community. There's a uniqueness about these people in our lives. They're often more than friends because, in the absence of family, these friends become family to us. As a result, Em and Coop have been trained to call people "Auntie" or "Uncle." We had to not only explain to our 2 and 3 year old that some people are family by birth, and some are family by church (that was the only way I could come up to explain it to them!). My Aunt Nancy, who is my mother's sister, and two of her three kids came up to visit. Preston, her middle child, is ten days my junior and we have always been great friends. They came to Auburn for a short visit, just one day but I was so glad they did. When they left to drive back to Southern California, our family of 5 headed down to my Grams' house to visit with my two youngest brothers and my extended family on my dad's side. As we were pulling into the drive way, Em asked who was going to be there and as I started naming off all the aunts and uncles, I hear her clear voice in the back of the car saying, "Shooo Mommy! You have a LOT of family!" We feel so blessed to have so many people surrounding our small family, loving our kids, praying for each of us. It has truly been unbelievable.Emme with Cousin Braeden, who is 6 weeks to the day older than her.

My youngest brother, Justin, and my brother in law (Braeden's dad) Chad.

My second youngest brother, Andrew, who was home from University of Hawaii. Dispite this fact, all three kids fell in love with him AND he made each them their own quilt. Em and Coop were over the moon about that!
I was never a girlie-girl. My sister reminds me that I used to wear dresses all the time as a kid, but that was because I, as an all-knowing 6 year-old, insisted on a certain hair cut. My mother knew it would look awful (which it did) but let me learn the hard way. Thus, the dresses I had to wear all the time because the haircut made me look like a boy. Not tomboy, B. O. Y. Boy. My older cousin, Jennifer (above), was in fact a girlie-girl. She always had the bows and ribbons, and true to form, helped both girls get their girliness on during our visit. Em thought she'd died and gone to heaven.Harper, on the other hand, couldn't understand why she had to sit still for so long.

But in the end, even she came around to love the head decorations.

We have a version of the picture above with the same group of cousins at just about every major event in my life: graduations, birthdays, wedding, and now, with what has been coined the "Leslie Litter". Not sure I'm crazy about the sound of that one.

My Aunt Nancy, not to be outdone by Jenifer in the fun-new-relative department, started singing old camp songs. We all made her sing them over and over until her face was red from the lack of oxygen. I'm not sure how fun it was for Aunt Nancy, but the rest of us were having a blast watching!

Cooper loved his GG (aka Great Grammy) and all the fun stories she knew. Grams was great at just sitting and dutifully reading story after story to the three.

My dad, who had a busy work schedule over the holidays, came up for a few days. It's hard to explain what it's like to introduce your children to the family they've known about, but have never met before. The day rounded out with a communal bath, and all of the kids fit in the same tub my cousins and I all used when we were this age.

USA or Bust!

I know there have been many who have been anxious for another post as it's been over a month since our last posting. I'm sorry. I'll get it all caught up soon, just don't hold your breath. It may take me a bit :D

Many people don't know this, but the flight from Johannesburg to Washington/Dulles or New York is one of the longest commercial non-stop flights in the world. The plane ride is 17 hours (give or take) and it feels like twice that. After taking that flight when Em was a small baby, I swore I wouldn't do it again. So this time around, we went up through Frankfurt, Germany. It didn't add much time at all to the actual time in the air, but it did give us a few hours break in the middle for the kids to run around, use a regular toilet, eat regular food and the likes. We got into the airport in the afternoon on December 14. There were decorations for Christmas and my kids were enthralled with a giant reindeer and Christmas tree.

People kept staring at our little crew. Todd had Cooper in a back carrier, I had Harper in one as well, plus all the carry-ons containing extra everything and toys required by three small kids. At first glance, it was just a Mom, Dad, and excited 3 year-old. But then, they'd catch a glimpse of a foot or hand from one of the other two and they would go from slightly confused to jaw gaping open that there were people in this world insane enough to undertake what we were doing.

It took, all total, 37 hours to get from our door in Jo'burg to the door of our friends' house in Chicago. We stayed there for the worst of the jetlag, and since that is our "base" during our speaking, we wanted to slough off some bags, and lets face it, put some time between the 20 hours of in-air time we'd just done and the 5 hours it'd take to get to California. The kids did as well as we could have hoped on the plane, but Todd and I still needed toothpicks to keep our eyes open when we landed. At one point, in the Frankfurt Airport, around 5am local time, the whole crew loaded into a handicapped bathroom because the family one was locked and dividing wasn't an option. We were trying to towel clean each kid, change them from their pajamas and such, get teeth brush, etc. Neither Todd nor I, in our sleep-deprived condition, noticed that there were multiple buttons which would beckon emergency assistance. Nor did we notice that these little buttons were RIGHT at Cooper's eye level. I'm praying the poor man answering our calls for distress got a decent laugh out of hearing Todd and I trying to lunge over bags and kids in a confined space to snatch Coop away from the buttons. Sometimes, you have to just say to yourself, "I'll never see these people again. I'll never see these people again," like you're Dorthy repeating that there's no place like home!

Yeah, we stopped traffic to get this picture, but the kids were so enthralled with this reindeer, I couldn't help myself when I create the minor traffic jam to take the picture :)

We found a little enclave to eat some food, the kids did a bit of people watching, and Harper decided to use these bars to stand and start shuffling after her siblings.

We had a great time waiting for "our big plane" to come in. We had a great time doing our bed time routine in the A11 terminal before boarding the plane. Apparently, there were a lot of international travelers that day who had never seen kids in pajamas before! But the kids bore the stares and looks like champs, actually relishing all the attention. Little did they realize how much attention they'd be getting very, very soon.