They are always game to play with Play Doh.
And read piles of books. 
We're so glad they got to come!!!
We're so glad they got to come!!! Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Grandpa & Grandma
My parents got here on the 20th, and are staying until the 1st. Aside from a little gringo gut, they seem to be having a good time, and Guildy and Hadley think it's great having them here!
They are always game to play with Play Doh.
They are always game to play with Play Doh.
Hadley Turns 2!
Hadley turned 2 on the 21st! We had a little party for her, which she seemed to enjoy immensely, along with everyone else.
Grandma Susie brought a gluten free cake mix from the States, so she (and Josh and Guildy) even got to have regular birthday cake!
And no birthday in Honduras is complete without a pinata! It proved to be a little tough for the kids, so Josh had to beat on it a little to get it to break open. 
Hadley, Guildy, and Linda scurried around picking up the candy.
After the pinata, Grandpa Ernie played the guitar. Below Linda and Guildy sang "Away in the Manger," which they had performed together the night before at the Christmas program. 
And just for comparison, here is Hadley as a newborn....
Grandma Susie brought a gluten free cake mix from the States, so she (and Josh and Guildy) even got to have regular birthday cake!
And no birthday in Honduras is complete without a pinata! It proved to be a little tough for the kids, so Josh had to beat on it a little to get it to break open. Hadley, Guildy, and Linda scurried around picking up the candy.After the pinata, Grandpa Ernie played the guitar. Below Linda and Guildy sang "Away in the Manger," which they had performed together the night before at the Christmas program. 
And just for comparison, here is Hadley as a newborn.... And as a 1-year-old...
And here are a couple recent Hadley Stories, for everyone's reading enjoyment:o)
Over Christmas, we went out to the island of Utila, and Guildy and Hadley were laying down in the same room during nap time. Guildy had fallen asleep in a most angelic fashion, but Hadley was trying to stay awake. I heard a terrible ruckus of shrieking and went into the bedroom to find Hadley "spanking" Guildy. She had pulled Guildy's sheet off, pulled down her undies, and was spanking her as hard as she could. Of course, Guildy was not pleased with having been woken for a sound sleep by this monstrous little deed. When I asked Hadley why she did it, she said innocently, "I wanted her to wake up." You have to wonder what made her think, "Hey, I bet I could spank her!"
Then yesterday, after marching in from outside, she declared, "That is the saddest cow I ever seen." I don't think there was even a cow, but it must have been something she has heard said recently. At any rate, it was hilarous.
Who knows what she'll be up to next year at this time!!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Christmas Program
Last night was the missionary community Christmas program. Guildy was an angel.
The Browning girls and the Tumlison girls. Hadley and Lisa were supposed to be sheep, but they boycotted that plan. Linda and Guildy were adorable angels!
Guildy and Linda singing.
Waiting angelically while someone else sings:o)
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Things Kids Say
Honduras is a land of many, varied, and unusual smells. One day last week, a mystery smell appeared in our bed room. It smelled just like pee. I sniffed and searched and couldn't find its source, and opted to ignore it in hopes it would go away. Later in the everying, it had, in fact, not gone away, so with Josh's help, we investigated a bit more.
Hadley is going through a phase where she'll answer "yes" to just about any question. So when Josh asked her if she had peed in the bed room, she said, "Yep!"
"Where?" I asked.
"Under the bed," was the reply. She toodled over the edge of the bed, lifted up the bed spread and said, "See!" Of course, there was no evidence of this, so it was just a story rolling out of the one-year-old.
It turns out the mystery smell was something outside wafting in, and it went away without any intervention.
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Hadley also really likes to use the phrase "of course" right now.
Hadley: I'm cold.
Me: No you're not. It's 90 degrees.
Hadley: Of course I'm cold, Mom!
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Guildy and I just finished reading "Heidi," and at the end Peter the goatherder maliciously pushes the wheelchair down the mountain and is subsequently tortured by guilt and paranoia. So it was a good opportunity to talk with Guildy about the difference between intentional and unintentional sins and confessing our sins and asking God for forgiveness, etc. She piped up and said, "Yeah, it was like the time when I broke your yogurt cup on purpose." She has in fact broken two of the glass cups that go to the yogurt maker that came with our house. I thought both were accidents. When I asked her why she broke the first one on purpose, she said, "I just had a wicked thought, and I did it!" I had a hard time not laughing at her naughtiness. I can just imagine her thinking what a delightful crash the cup would make as it hit the tile floor.
Although it's sometimes (actually most of the time) exhausting to be the introverted mother of an extreme extrovert, I'm thankful that she is such an extrovert that pretty much everything she thinks has to come as words. It makes her very transparent, and I appreciate that immensely. I need wisdom on how to balance punishing her for doing wrong things with encouraging her to not be afraid to confess.
Hadley is going through a phase where she'll answer "yes" to just about any question. So when Josh asked her if she had peed in the bed room, she said, "Yep!"
"Where?" I asked.
"Under the bed," was the reply. She toodled over the edge of the bed, lifted up the bed spread and said, "See!" Of course, there was no evidence of this, so it was just a story rolling out of the one-year-old.
It turns out the mystery smell was something outside wafting in, and it went away without any intervention.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hadley also really likes to use the phrase "of course" right now.
Hadley: I'm cold.
Me: No you're not. It's 90 degrees.
Hadley: Of course I'm cold, Mom!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guildy and I just finished reading "Heidi," and at the end Peter the goatherder maliciously pushes the wheelchair down the mountain and is subsequently tortured by guilt and paranoia. So it was a good opportunity to talk with Guildy about the difference between intentional and unintentional sins and confessing our sins and asking God for forgiveness, etc. She piped up and said, "Yeah, it was like the time when I broke your yogurt cup on purpose." She has in fact broken two of the glass cups that go to the yogurt maker that came with our house. I thought both were accidents. When I asked her why she broke the first one on purpose, she said, "I just had a wicked thought, and I did it!" I had a hard time not laughing at her naughtiness. I can just imagine her thinking what a delightful crash the cup would make as it hit the tile floor.
Although it's sometimes (actually most of the time) exhausting to be the introverted mother of an extreme extrovert, I'm thankful that she is such an extrovert that pretty much everything she thinks has to come as words. It makes her very transparent, and I appreciate that immensely. I need wisdom on how to balance punishing her for doing wrong things with encouraging her to not be afraid to confess.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Random Misadventures with Fruit
One sunny morning last week, the girls and I went to the beach, as we often do on mornings when I don't have classes. All was tranquil and well as we locked up and left the house, with no hint of what was to transpire.
Upon returning several hours later, wet, sandy, and needing a round of showers, I unlocked the door and was greeted by a most disagreable smell. A little investigating revealed that the cantaloupe that had ostensibly been ripening on the counter for several days, had, in fact, been rotting and had conveniently chosen to rupture while we was gone.
A friend of Josh's once told him the worst thing he had ever smelled was a field of rotting melons. Well, my encounter with this singular rotten melon was enough to convince me of the veracity of that statement! It was putrid.
Clean up of this mess was a rollicking good time! Murphy's Law of drainage states that floors, counters, window sills, and drains must always slope in the most inconvenient direction in the event of a flood or major mess. The cupboards in our house are in several movable pieces, so the melon-y nastiness had run to a crack between sections and dripped down. Fortunately, I was able to slide out a section of cupboard to get it mopped up underneath. I'm not a big fan of bleach, but it required quite a bit of it to knock the smell back a bit. After several days, there was just a hint of it, and now it's all gone, for which I am very thankful.
So I guess the moral of the story is to keep an eye on my 'ripening' fruit!
Upon returning several hours later, wet, sandy, and needing a round of showers, I unlocked the door and was greeted by a most disagreable smell. A little investigating revealed that the cantaloupe that had ostensibly been ripening on the counter for several days, had, in fact, been rotting and had conveniently chosen to rupture while we was gone.
A friend of Josh's once told him the worst thing he had ever smelled was a field of rotting melons. Well, my encounter with this singular rotten melon was enough to convince me of the veracity of that statement! It was putrid.
Clean up of this mess was a rollicking good time! Murphy's Law of drainage states that floors, counters, window sills, and drains must always slope in the most inconvenient direction in the event of a flood or major mess. The cupboards in our house are in several movable pieces, so the melon-y nastiness had run to a crack between sections and dripped down. Fortunately, I was able to slide out a section of cupboard to get it mopped up underneath. I'm not a big fan of bleach, but it required quite a bit of it to knock the smell back a bit. After several days, there was just a hint of it, and now it's all gone, for which I am very thankful.
So I guess the moral of the story is to keep an eye on my 'ripening' fruit!
Just Turn the Lights On!
The following is an article I wrote for the Circle Banner awhile back. Now that it has appeared in this prestigious periodical, I thought I'd post it for the blog reading audience.
Electricity is expensive in Honduras, so being the budget conscious consumer, I always try to minimize unnecessary lighting. We live in a fellow missionary’s casita (small guest house), which is delightfully comfy and cozy, but lacks a washing machine. So I take our laundry across the yard to my landlady’s house. She has been gone to the States the whole time we have been here, so upon entering her empty house, it had been my habit to only switch on a couple lights, just enough to see to get back to the laundry room.
Well, I soon learned my lesson about inadequate lighting. As I prepared to leave her house one evening, I picked up my dark colored laundry basked full of dark clothes from the rather dark-ish space where it had been sitting next to the kitchen island. Something caught my eye, and I looked down to see a very hairy tarantula about 4” in diameter hop from the basket onto my shorts and proceed to skitter around and up the back of my shirt. As you might well imagine, this evoked a strong, involuntary motor response! In a series of events that was entirely out of my control, I simultaneously shrieked, threw the laundry basket, and took off bucking and shaking through the kitchen and dining room. The thought of touching the aforementioned creature with my hands was completely out of the question, so I had no choice but to run and shake until I was sure its hefty body was no longer in contact with mine. After a full lap around the kitchen table, I finally slowed down enough to assess the situation and determine it was gone. Of course, I still had enough adrenaline in my system to accomplish some Herculean feat, which was a good thing because I now had to hunt down and kill my new-found foe.
Now we all know that tarantulas are actually shy, docile, rather delicate creatures that pose no threat whatsoever to human life. However, I opted to smash it anyway, because a.) anything that scares me that badly deserves to die, and b.) the alternatives (leaving it in the house to jump on me again later or catch-and-release in the yard) seemed completely ludicrous. After some searching (remember, I still only had on one light), I finally located my tarantula under the kitchen table. I generally prefer to kill creepy crawly things with some sort of long-ish implement, like a machete or a shovel, but in this case I had to settle for smashing it with a flip-flop, lest it scurry away while I hunted up such a tool.
While horrifying in nature, such close encounters with tarantulas seem to be blessedly rare. So if you’re planning a trip to some jungle-y foreign land, fear not. Just turn on the lights!!
Electricity is expensive in Honduras, so being the budget conscious consumer, I always try to minimize unnecessary lighting. We live in a fellow missionary’s casita (small guest house), which is delightfully comfy and cozy, but lacks a washing machine. So I take our laundry across the yard to my landlady’s house. She has been gone to the States the whole time we have been here, so upon entering her empty house, it had been my habit to only switch on a couple lights, just enough to see to get back to the laundry room.
Well, I soon learned my lesson about inadequate lighting. As I prepared to leave her house one evening, I picked up my dark colored laundry basked full of dark clothes from the rather dark-ish space where it had been sitting next to the kitchen island. Something caught my eye, and I looked down to see a very hairy tarantula about 4” in diameter hop from the basket onto my shorts and proceed to skitter around and up the back of my shirt. As you might well imagine, this evoked a strong, involuntary motor response! In a series of events that was entirely out of my control, I simultaneously shrieked, threw the laundry basket, and took off bucking and shaking through the kitchen and dining room. The thought of touching the aforementioned creature with my hands was completely out of the question, so I had no choice but to run and shake until I was sure its hefty body was no longer in contact with mine. After a full lap around the kitchen table, I finally slowed down enough to assess the situation and determine it was gone. Of course, I still had enough adrenaline in my system to accomplish some Herculean feat, which was a good thing because I now had to hunt down and kill my new-found foe.
Now we all know that tarantulas are actually shy, docile, rather delicate creatures that pose no threat whatsoever to human life. However, I opted to smash it anyway, because a.) anything that scares me that badly deserves to die, and b.) the alternatives (leaving it in the house to jump on me again later or catch-and-release in the yard) seemed completely ludicrous. After some searching (remember, I still only had on one light), I finally located my tarantula under the kitchen table. I generally prefer to kill creepy crawly things with some sort of long-ish implement, like a machete or a shovel, but in this case I had to settle for smashing it with a flip-flop, lest it scurry away while I hunted up such a tool.
While horrifying in nature, such close encounters with tarantulas seem to be blessedly rare. So if you’re planning a trip to some jungle-y foreign land, fear not. Just turn on the lights!!
Monday, December 07, 2009
Guildy and Barney
I'm completely in love with the "Blog This" feature on Picasa. I just snagged this pic of Guildy and the McKenney's wee dog Barney off Dr. Renee's Facebook and sent it to the blog.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
3-D
Josh and Guildy watched a short little 3-D Shrek movie awhile back, and they looked too hilarious with their glasses and bags of popcorn. Incidentally, you can't buy regular popcorn in Balfate. So many people have microwaves now that the pulperias (tiny stores that sell a little of everything....food, snacks, machetes, bike parts, a few clothes, etc) only sell the microwave kind.
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