Puzzle blocks and bedhead

Zarya got a Melissa and Doug 16-block 6-sided puzzle for Christmas, and it's a good challenge! She hasn't mastered it yet, and it's great to have a toy that she likes playing with, but that is still hard brain work for her. She needs something to make her think a bit and keep her interested even after three months.

And yes, this really is what her hair looks like every morning. Fortunately, all it takes is little water from a spritzer bottle and some finger curls, and this wild child turns into a cute girl again.

Four months old

Three months old

Four months old

His preferred state of being

And here's Jerod... the world's most easy-going little boy. We love our wee buddy! He grew two inches between the top picture and the middle one - no wonder he spent a lot of that month asleep! He's a happy, great baby. He loves his sister and his parents, his swing, baths, trying to talk, waking up Mama to have snacks in the middle of the night, and TV. He discovered TV this past month - if it's on and he's in the room, he's transfixed. I can just see him as an adult, dozing off on the couch while watching TV, an empty snack bowl next to him. That will probably drive his wife crazy someday, but in the meantime, it sure makes him a laid-back baby!

Sheep!

I can recite this entire book, I kid you not. It's actually a very handy skill, because when I'm washing dishes or doing something that has both my hands and eyes occupied, yet Zarya wants me to read her a book, I tell her to go get a sheep book. She brings in "Sheep in a Shop," or "Sheep in a Jeep," and flips through the pages while I tell her the words. She either hasn't figured out that I'm not actually reading it, or she doesn't care. Or maybe she knows it and thinks it's cool that her mama can read without looking at the words.

We also own "Sheep Take a Hike," which contains some great lines like these:
Sheep squeeze through the trees.
Sheep rush through underbrush.
Thorns dig. Prickers snag.
Sheep zig. Sheep zag.

If you're looking for some short, fun, rhyming books, you know, the kind that force you to read in a dramatic sing-song and actually read every word on the pages, check out Nancy Shaw and Margot Apple's sheep book. Normally I just make up words to go with the pictures in Zarya's books, but these ones are well-worth actually reading. And memorizing, apparently.

Beep beep! Sheep in a jeep on a hill that's steep...

Help for canker sores

Okay, so this post has absolutely nothing to do with missions, cute kids, or anything that you normally find on my blog. However, since over here at our house we've recently discovered a medical breakthrough, it's hard to not share our excitement!

Andrew has had awful canker sores in his mouth for years, often several at a time, and I get them now and then myself. After trying a few things that didn't help, we'd kind of given up on there being anything that would make them go away more quickly, and hadn't even bothered looking for something to prevent them in the first place. Maybe you're in that same painful boat - read on!

A friend (thanks, Anna Malizio!) recommended taking the amino acid L-Lysine to help with canker sores. She promised it was a game changer. Vaguely dubious but willing to give it a go, I bought some of the tablets pictured above for Andrew to try. Oh wow. OH WOW! Folks, life will never be the same again after you give this a try, should you suffer from canker sores. You will once again brush your teeth, drink water, and eat grapefruit without doubling over in pain. And not only that, but you can joke about tossing back some acid with your dinner.

Microwaved baby

Zarya put her baby doll down for a nap in her microwave yesterday. I suppose I should just be grateful that Jerod is too big to fit inside the actual microwave.

Kamgegi Community Check

The following account was written in Swahili by Willy Futakamba, and I translated and edited it. It was in one of our newsletters quite some time ago, and I came across it again recently when looking for something else in my computer. I was reminded of what a great story it was, and thought I'd feature it here.

This picture of me, Pastor Futakamba, and Shem was taken right around the time this story took place in 2010

My co-translator, Shem Koren, and I (Pastor Willy Futakamba) were at Kamgegi village to do a community check. A group of 16 people were there to listen and give feedback on some chapters of Luke we had translated. When we were reading Luke chapters 13 and 17, everyone listened really quietly. In fact, they were so quiet that we asked them if something was wrong! They said that nothing was wrong; they were simply enjoying listening to the sweet words of our translation.

There was one woman there who had been sitting and listening the whole time as we read and asked questions about the translation.  She hadn’t said a word through it all. After we had read several chapters, we asked her to share her thoughts. She said, “When you read Luke 13:1-5 and Luke 17:1-4, I saw that Jesus is able to forgive even if you have sinned exceedingly much. I myself have many problems and sins, but I had not ever heard that Jesus is able to forgive so much!”

She left the meeting at that point, but returned at the end of the day. She had been crying, and we asked her why. 

In return, she asked us, “What denomination are you?’

To answer this, we asked her another question, “Why do you want to know our denomination?”

She said, “I want to know your denomination so that I might go to that church and once again hear these good words which I heard today in my own language, Zanaki.”

We didn’t tell her about our church background or denominations, but instead urged her to talk with the one local Christian pastor in that village, saying that denomination didn’t matter, all are Christians. We then went with her to this pastor’s house and spoke with him, asking him to help this woman with spiritual matters, so that she might know Jesus and be healed. The pastor knew the woman, who was one of his neighbors, and knew her to be a drunk. We explained to him what she had told us, and then we all prayed together. As we left, the pastor asked if he might keep a copy of the translated Zanaki chapters from Luke, so that he could use them when talking more with the woman about Jesus.

(Me again) And that, my friends, is why I love being part of Bible translation! It's not about producing books; it's about lives being changed when they hear the words inside of the books! Would you pray for this woman, whose name I don't even know? Pray that now, several years after this experience, she would continue to seek Jesus and know his love and forgiveness in her life.

Upon surviving my first Pennsylvania winter

Today the sun was out, the snow was melting, and it was warm enough for all four of us to go outside for a family walk around the block. One of us slept through the experience while wrapped in a fleece blanket, but we other three enjoyed being outdoors with the sun on our pale faces.

I have survived. I have made it through winter. However, I was so busy surviving, that I forgot to take a single picture of our snowy backyard. You can pretend this is it - we have snow, we have trees.

Since I shamelessly lifted this from the internet, I'll give credit where it's due: this is an original oil painting done by Mark Altrogge, and is available for sale at http://markaltroggepaintings.com/original-oil-paintings-store/snow-shadows. (Cool side fact: the artist is also our pastor. He can paint AND preach!)

But anyway, it snowed here. Like, a LOT. It reminded me of lake-effect snow that we'd get in Holland, MI, when I was a student at Hope College. We got our first snow in November, then December was pretty green. We haven't seen our grass since then, though! Like, this isn't the kind of snow where it all melts off after a few days, then snows again, melts again, etc. We have had weeks when our furnace has been running 24/7 just to keep up, because it's really, really, really cold outside! Okay, so maybe we don't have the best insulation and windows, but still, I don't care what your house is made of, it was cold enough that Andrew said it made his nose hurt. I wouldn't know, since I didn't go outside.

Yes, you read that correctly: there were entire weeks when I did not go outside the house. If I didn't have a newborn in the house, I'm sure I wouldn't have stayed in so much. But honestly, if it's like -10 F out there and you work from home, why exactly would you want to go anywhere? Staying indoors with two small children for extended periods reminded me how fun coloring in coloring books can be, gave me opportunity to learn that Daniel Tiger is a great babysitter, and that one can either go crazy or learn to find the fun in little things. I learned how to exercise a toddler by chasing her around the dining room table. (It actually kind of exercised me, too, since I was usually carrying a very chubby baby while doing so.) I learned that when I reached a certain point of desperation, it was time to talk to my parents on Skype or call a friend, because one needs to converse with another adult now and then.

And now spring is just around the corner, and I'm pretty excited to take these kiddos to the park! Running around the playground is a little more exciting than the dining room table.