This is a short video of our Christmas Even candlelight service singing Christmas carols. Amy was so brave to let all the little girls hold candles with her! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IID6iMMmC64
Grandpa Randy--here is the video of Mercy unwrapping her books from you! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLNUwxIRyE
Mercy's first Twinkie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liMtMdA2SBE
Here are some Christmas morning festivities. The girls heard the song "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" a few weeks ago, so it's been a favorite ever since then. It seemed only natural to get out the hippo hot pads and dance to the song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jowUWgh7Y
The girls opening their kitchen set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMglHIa60y8
Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy--the girls opening their tea set for the kitchen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vELzQkz3Jcc
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Christmas Day pictures
Here are millions of pictures from Christmas Day. Videos to come tomorrow!
More fake snow and the paper Christmas trees that Matt and Charlotte made
Color-them-yourself stocking (thanks Jose and Jesi!) with just a couple little toys for the girls
Our Christmas tree and presents with a care package that just happened to arrive on Christmas Eve! (thanks Jason and Katherine!)
Mercy's first candy cane. Might also be her last for a long time...once the sticky spit started dripping down her chin, onto her pajamas, and onto the furniture I took it away!
Also Mercy's first Twinkie! Charlotte, thanks to Grandpa Mark, already has a particular fondness for them. :)
Then it was time for some peppermint hot chocolate.
And drinking it out of the regular mug wasn't good enough, so we had to drink it out of the tiny tea set cup. (Olivia, didn't we tell you that this is still a favorite toy?!)
Lapping it up seemed to work pretty well.
Then came some gifts from Charlie and Olivia, Audrey and Edward! Clearly Charlotte is thrilled about her Silly Putty!
And Mercy loves her new train!
Egg bake and cinnamon rolls for breakfast with our upstairs neighbors, Jon and Amy and their girls.
Yum!
Charlotte designed a little food art, balancing her strawberry on her cinnamon roll.
Mercy and Charlotte got one large gift from Mama and Daddy. Surprisingly, they didn't try to open it before we told them they could!
The gift was a kitchen set, made out of cardboard and papier mache by an Ethiopian guy who makes all kinds of awesome kid's furniture and toys.
It was loved by all!
No kitchen set is complete without some dishes, so we let the girls open a package from Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy that contained a tea set! This kept the girls busy for a long time, making tea, milkshakes, pancakes, and washing a lot of dishes!
Mercy was actually interested in helping to rip paper off gifts this year, but she usually lost interest before the gift was all the way opened!
Matt was happy to receive the very practical gifts of long sleeve shirts and a fleece jacket. We hadn't anticipated needing to wear long sleeves almost every day here! It's chilly at this elevation! And of course, Matt's prized possession, a package of Oreos...
Our little scientist opened up a microscope as well, to start using for her homeschool science class. She and Daddy looked at lots of things under the microscope today!
A little horse puzzle that was surprisingly difficult, but she worked hard and finished it two times today.
Mercy and Mama with Mama's new scarf.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Charlotte's turn
The last post was mostly about Mercy so I thought I'd give Charlotte a moment in the spotlight.
Charlotte has been busy playing with the neighbor girls in our apartment, Madison (age 8 or 9) and A and J (names withheld due to parental preference. they are twin 4 year olds). If you ask her the best part of her day, she is 90% likely to say "playing with my friends." For the past week she and Madison have been working on a secret Christmas art project that we adults are not allowed to see yet. I'm not sure when the "unveiling" will be, but I'll try to remember to take a picture and post it here. :)
J and A have gotten several care packages with craft kits, so the girls have lots of fun doing those together. Most recently it was a felt snowman with all kinds of decorations to put on. They finished in about 3 minutes, but it was fun while it lasted! While the girls worked, they listened to Christmas music and J and A's dad hung Christmas lights and decorations in their apartment.
She has made several other friends at the school that is attached to our apartment building. The kids there seem to have an excessive amount of recess (like several hours per day), and the teachers don't mind if Charlotte, J, and A play on the playground with the school kids. A few days ago Charlotte took her horse Misty out for a little beauty treatment with some of her friends.
Charlotte has also been singing a lot recently, mostly Christmas carols, but other songs too. Dad/Grandpa Mark, she especially loves to sing O Little Town of Bethlehem really loudly, just like the little girl in the movie "Prancer." She is trying to teach Mercy how to sing O Little Town of Bethlehem, and thinks that she hears Mercy sing "O Little," so she is determined to keep singing it to her until she learns the rest. Here is a video of Charlotte singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing while Matt played guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLjC7jrslyQ
In science Charlotte has been learning lots about magnets. In fact, I think Matt (the expert on magnets and hands-on science) is quite sick of magnets and can't wait for the next unit! But here are a couple of videos showing what they worked on one week. In all honesty, the first video is not terribly exciting, but explains the second video, which is "electrifying!" :)
http://youtu.be/nKI9jVXTPCA
http://youtu.be/5qiDKFmGysE
She and Matt have also been "sciencing" (aka investigating) lots of things with a magnifying glass that they find laying around, like this very pinchy ant.
We were so happy to Skype with many people two weekends ago! We all got to see Grandpa Mark, Grandma Cindy, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Travis, cousins Linnea and Liya, Grandpa Randy, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Olivia, and cousins Audrey and baby Edward. The lucky parents also got to see Margaret after the kids went to bed! :)
Skyping with the Byron family was a lengthy endeavor. First, there were olives to eat together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnGGhWe_A8g
Then we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was really fun (let's read more books on Skype! we loved it!). And then, to top it off, we watched the Grinch cartoon via Skype on Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy's TV while we ate supper. Here's what it looked like from our end:
And here's what it looked like in Byron:
Charlotte has been busy playing with the neighbor girls in our apartment, Madison (age 8 or 9) and A and J (names withheld due to parental preference. they are twin 4 year olds). If you ask her the best part of her day, she is 90% likely to say "playing with my friends." For the past week she and Madison have been working on a secret Christmas art project that we adults are not allowed to see yet. I'm not sure when the "unveiling" will be, but I'll try to remember to take a picture and post it here. :)
J and A have gotten several care packages with craft kits, so the girls have lots of fun doing those together. Most recently it was a felt snowman with all kinds of decorations to put on. They finished in about 3 minutes, but it was fun while it lasted! While the girls worked, they listened to Christmas music and J and A's dad hung Christmas lights and decorations in their apartment.
She has made several other friends at the school that is attached to our apartment building. The kids there seem to have an excessive amount of recess (like several hours per day), and the teachers don't mind if Charlotte, J, and A play on the playground with the school kids. A few days ago Charlotte took her horse Misty out for a little beauty treatment with some of her friends.
Charlotte has also been singing a lot recently, mostly Christmas carols, but other songs too. Dad/Grandpa Mark, she especially loves to sing O Little Town of Bethlehem really loudly, just like the little girl in the movie "Prancer." She is trying to teach Mercy how to sing O Little Town of Bethlehem, and thinks that she hears Mercy sing "O Little," so she is determined to keep singing it to her until she learns the rest. Here is a video of Charlotte singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing while Matt played guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLjC7jrslyQ
In science Charlotte has been learning lots about magnets. In fact, I think Matt (the expert on magnets and hands-on science) is quite sick of magnets and can't wait for the next unit! But here are a couple of videos showing what they worked on one week. In all honesty, the first video is not terribly exciting, but explains the second video, which is "electrifying!" :)
http://youtu.be/nKI9jVXTPCA
http://youtu.be/5qiDKFmGysE
She and Matt have also been "sciencing" (aka investigating) lots of things with a magnifying glass that they find laying around, like this very pinchy ant.
We were so happy to Skype with many people two weekends ago! We all got to see Grandpa Mark, Grandma Cindy, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Travis, cousins Linnea and Liya, Grandpa Randy, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Olivia, and cousins Audrey and baby Edward. The lucky parents also got to see Margaret after the kids went to bed! :)
Skyping with the Byron family was a lengthy endeavor. First, there were olives to eat together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnGGhWe_A8g
Then we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was really fun (let's read more books on Skype! we loved it!). And then, to top it off, we watched the Grinch cartoon via Skype on Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy's TV while we ate supper. Here's what it looked like from our end:
And here's what it looked like in Byron:
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Playing together
Sorry for the lack of recent pictures and videos! I have a bunch of them to share, so hopefully you don't get tired of them! I also thought I should post some updates on what the girls have been up to and what Mercy can do these days, since she seems to be changing so much (including growing a lot of hair in the back but not so much on top!).
Mercy's language skills have grown immensely in the last couple of weeks. She understands SO much. She obeys lots of "commands" like sit down, give this to Charlotte, wipe your face, give me/blow a kiss, go get your baby, do you want to eat/go to your chair, and many more. Her verbal skills are skyrocketing as well; she went from saying just three or four words to LOTS. Partly for your enjoyment, and partly so that I don't forget, I'll tell you what she can say!
She can sign more, milk, all done, and sometimes bird (though I don't know who taught her that). When she signs all done she waves her hands in the air over head really emphatically!
She can say mama (but only in a really insistent voice), dada, no no, yes, ball, baby, cheese, shoes (she loves her crocs and wears them around the house all the time), toot toot (my favorite!), duck, quack, more, poop, Amy (maymee), water (wawa), hi, drink, eye, nose, Alice (as in the mole), hamum (an amharic word for eat), bread, cracker (gacka), yuck, dog, bird, and turtle. When she says no she bobbles her little head from side to side; it is so funny and cute! We are working really hard on getting her to say sissy or Charlotte, grandpa, and grandma. If she keeps learning new words this fast, she'll be talking in sentences in no time!
Charlotte is teaching Mercy how to take her dog Emily for walks. It's especially fashionable to take dogs for walks in a tutu and Cinderella outfit...
Mercy's favorite foods right now are bread, tortillas, pasta, crackers, goldfish crackers (notice a trend here?!), cheese, peanut butter, lentils, green beans, and strawberries. I'm guessing that strawberry will be one of her next new words! She has very definite ideas about what she wants to eat. I guess we all do, huh?
Recently, Charlotte and Mercy have been playing together a lot. Like, not just tolerating each other, but actually enjoying each others' company! Mercy likes to be with Charlotte, and usually Charlotte is happy to have her little sister with her. :)
Charlotte has to do homeschool every afternoon, but sometimes Mercy wakes up from her nap before we finish school. Sometimes we have to be done as the "class pet" is too disruptive, but other times we are able to continue working a little bit, as you can see in the picture below. Here is a link to a video from the same math class. http://youtu.be/t8bnJirIl0A
Mercy LOVES to put things on her head. It doesn't matter if it's a bucket, a scarf, a hat, a shirt, or something else. If it fits on her head, she'll put it on and then run through the apartment! Usually it covers her eyes and she can't see where she's going. She has hit the wall many times, tripped over toys, and landed spread-eagle on the floor. If she's having enough fun, she lifts the hat/bucket/scarf off her eyes for a minute, puts it back on, then gets up to run again! Here's a video of bucket head: http://youtu.be/t9Hn4oXEruM
We have a mattress in our living room for the girls to play on and read. Of course you can often find Charlotte with her nose in a book, reading through the same chapter book twice in one day sometimes! Mercy, wanting to be just like her big sister, is starting to sit next to her and "read." Sometimes she will just look at the pictures, but other times she will babble as she turns pages (usually with the book upside down!). Watch a video of this here:
http://youtu.be/OFoLdojxQoo
Charlotte decided that the kitchen cupboard made an excellent "house" with infinite ideas for playing, but the pesky shelf kept getting in the way. We decided to make it more fun by taking out the shelf, so now they have plenty of room to play. It usually involves a few dolls, stuffed cats, pillows, snacks, and of course a flashlight! Here's a video of the fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y529xAtIJds
Last but not least, here's a picture of Mercy "helping" Abrehet make tortillas. I couldn't believe that she sat still on the counter, but she didn't move a muscle and was very content to watch. That is, until there were warm tortillas to eat, and then wild animals couldn't keep her from eating as much as she could stuff in her mouth at once! :)
Mercy's language skills have grown immensely in the last couple of weeks. She understands SO much. She obeys lots of "commands" like sit down, give this to Charlotte, wipe your face, give me/blow a kiss, go get your baby, do you want to eat/go to your chair, and many more. Her verbal skills are skyrocketing as well; she went from saying just three or four words to LOTS. Partly for your enjoyment, and partly so that I don't forget, I'll tell you what she can say!
She can sign more, milk, all done, and sometimes bird (though I don't know who taught her that). When she signs all done she waves her hands in the air over head really emphatically!
She can say mama (but only in a really insistent voice), dada, no no, yes, ball, baby, cheese, shoes (she loves her crocs and wears them around the house all the time), toot toot (my favorite!), duck, quack, more, poop, Amy (maymee), water (wawa), hi, drink, eye, nose, Alice (as in the mole), hamum (an amharic word for eat), bread, cracker (gacka), yuck, dog, bird, and turtle. When she says no she bobbles her little head from side to side; it is so funny and cute! We are working really hard on getting her to say sissy or Charlotte, grandpa, and grandma. If she keeps learning new words this fast, she'll be talking in sentences in no time!
Charlotte is teaching Mercy how to take her dog Emily for walks. It's especially fashionable to take dogs for walks in a tutu and Cinderella outfit...
Mercy's favorite foods right now are bread, tortillas, pasta, crackers, goldfish crackers (notice a trend here?!), cheese, peanut butter, lentils, green beans, and strawberries. I'm guessing that strawberry will be one of her next new words! She has very definite ideas about what she wants to eat. I guess we all do, huh?
Recently, Charlotte and Mercy have been playing together a lot. Like, not just tolerating each other, but actually enjoying each others' company! Mercy likes to be with Charlotte, and usually Charlotte is happy to have her little sister with her. :)
Charlotte has to do homeschool every afternoon, but sometimes Mercy wakes up from her nap before we finish school. Sometimes we have to be done as the "class pet" is too disruptive, but other times we are able to continue working a little bit, as you can see in the picture below. Here is a link to a video from the same math class. http://youtu.be/t8bnJirIl0A
Mercy LOVES to put things on her head. It doesn't matter if it's a bucket, a scarf, a hat, a shirt, or something else. If it fits on her head, she'll put it on and then run through the apartment! Usually it covers her eyes and she can't see where she's going. She has hit the wall many times, tripped over toys, and landed spread-eagle on the floor. If she's having enough fun, she lifts the hat/bucket/scarf off her eyes for a minute, puts it back on, then gets up to run again! Here's a video of bucket head: http://youtu.be/t9Hn4oXEruM
We have a mattress in our living room for the girls to play on and read. Of course you can often find Charlotte with her nose in a book, reading through the same chapter book twice in one day sometimes! Mercy, wanting to be just like her big sister, is starting to sit next to her and "read." Sometimes she will just look at the pictures, but other times she will babble as she turns pages (usually with the book upside down!). Watch a video of this here:
http://youtu.be/OFoLdojxQoo
Charlotte decided that the kitchen cupboard made an excellent "house" with infinite ideas for playing, but the pesky shelf kept getting in the way. We decided to make it more fun by taking out the shelf, so now they have plenty of room to play. It usually involves a few dolls, stuffed cats, pillows, snacks, and of course a flashlight! Here's a video of the fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y529xAtIJds
Last but not least, here's a picture of Mercy "helping" Abrehet make tortillas. I couldn't believe that she sat still on the counter, but she didn't move a muscle and was very content to watch. That is, until there were warm tortillas to eat, and then wild animals couldn't keep her from eating as much as she could stuff in her mouth at once! :)
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Dancing queens!
The girls love to dance, especially if it involves costumes. Even
Mercy loves to join in and puts many clothing items on her head until
someone helps her put something on!
Recently
the girls did some "cultural dancing," complete with traditional
clothing of course! Here is a link to a video of their dancing. About
3/4 of the way through you can see Abrehet (our neighbor, friend, and
helper) laughing in the background. She thought it was so funny to see
them dancing!
Here's the link: http://youtu.be/tYH_EmkwoTA
Enjoy!
Here's the link: http://youtu.be/tYH_EmkwoTA
Enjoy!
Monday, November 18, 2013
Lions and cheetahs and hyenas, oh my!
This past weekend we joined up with the Bingham Academy homeschool group for a field trip! The homeschool group provides support and resources to families in Ethiopia who homeschool their children. We will have access to their library (books, puzzles, movies, games) and resource room (workbooks, textbooks, materials of all kinds), which will be a great way to supplement what we already have! We can check out 75 items at a time from the library, and an unlimited number of items from the homeschool resource room! And, we get to keep them for around 4 months (since some families who live in rural areas don't come to Addis very often).
The field trip this weekend was to Bethel Pottery, where women who need shelter are taught a marketable skill and are able to gain confidence, independence, and purpose. They learn to make beautiful pottery and weave scarves. Each child on the field trip was able to spin their own clay creation on the pottery wheel! Charlotte made a little pot, and we'll be able to pick it up in a few weeks after it has been fired in the kiln.
One of the other neat things about the homeschool group is meeting other kids and families who homeschool, thus providing a good social support group. Charlotte was happy to play with several new friends her age, including two 7 year old girls, both named Anna! :)
After the pottery making and a picnic in the eucalyptus forest, we drove to Born Free, a wildlife sanctuary and rehabilitation center. Here they take care of animals who have been in captivity but now need a new place to live. Currently they house several cheetahs, lions, leopards, hyenas, baboons, various monkeys, and tortoises. Many of them came from individuals or families who thought it would be fun to have a pet cheetah or lion, until the cute and cuddly baby kitty turned into a wild animal. Others came from zoos, hotels, and money-making schemes to show off captive wild animals. Born Free works toward setting the animals free if possible, in a location where they will thrive. Some of the animals will never survive in the wild, so they live at Born Free for the remainder of their life, but others are rehabilitated and then released. The animals are fed by the caretakers everyday, but the ones who will be released are taught to hunt live prey before they must fend for themselves.
The Born Free Foundation was started because of a book and movie written in the 1950s about a lion named Elsa who was raised in captivity, then returned to the wild. Charlotte loves the movie and the story, so it was really fun to take her to this Born Free location and see it in action! The animals all had beautiful living spaces which were really large and natural.
Charlotte (and her friend Vivienne) enjoying one of the cheetahs.
Mercy was like a wild animal herself during this trip. She was so excited to see the animals she could hardly be held! She loved growling at all of the big cats!
There was this very strange line of gray fuzzy caterpillars inching along. There were perhaps 50 of them in this line!
Cool day to be a kid.
Mercy growling at one of the lions. He was so polite to lay right next to the fence so we could easily look at him!
It did our hearts good to get out of Addis for the day and enjoy the countryside.
Strangely enough, the companion for this hyena is a large dog. Apparently, hyenas do not like to be alone, but Born Free didn't really want to accumulate any more hyenas. Someone offered this very large dog, who had bitten a person and was slated to be put down, to be the hyena's companion. Surprisingly they get along great!
This vervet monkey was rehabilitated and released, but continues to hang around Born Free.
This Mercy monkey got hungry and since we were hiking around the woods/grassland the whole time, there wasn't a chance for me to nurse her. So, we just did what we had to do and had a little lunch on the go. Matt called it fast food.... :)
This pile of dirt really is this orange! They mix it in with concrete to make yellow-orange cement for flooring!
The Florek family.
We love you all.
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