Reese is loving her little bike. She doesn't have much room to ride it around, but she's getting the hang of it.
Another 2 packages came in the mail. We got to continue celebrating Christmas. It was so much fun. I got some Christmas Blend. Thankyou, Thankyou! I had just told Ben the other day how sad I was that I had missed my chance to have Christmas Blend this year. Last year, we had been overseas for a couple of months and my dad flew all the way over to where we were to give us a special New Years. One of the things he brought was 2006 Christmas Blend. We had to go all over town to try to find a way to grind the beans, but it was so special. I had some of the 2007 Blend this morning and got to sit and enjoy it. If there were ever a way to my heart, it's through Starbucks!
Jamin got into the gifts. This was his favorite!
Reese has been playing non stop with this nativity set. She has them talking to each other, running errands, eating, and taking care of baby Jesus. It is just the cutest thing!

Christmas morning I got up and made some fresh cinnamon raisin buns and my precious Starbucks... We sat around and opened our two packages. It felt so much like Christmas, even tho we were so far away from our families. We got things we needed like kitchen towels and those amazing Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (yes, i know about the warnings). Reese got a little bike from us and lots of coloring and art things from her grandparents. Ben's sister sent us some fun stuff. A new shirt for me! Hawaii coffee! refried beans, hard shell taco shells, and never enough seasoning packet! Even a box of mac and cheese! Let me tell you, when you live overseas and can't get those things, those are the best Christmas presents ever!

Our day continued by having some of our friends over for a big meal, songs, games and a funny white elephant exchange! Reese ended up having a little to much sugar by the end of the day and had a bit of a melt down before bed. But, in the end it was such a fun Christmas. The Lord is so good!

Ben has started our own family tradition by making peanut brittle every Christmas. This year we made about 5 batches, ate one batch and made little bowls for our neighbors and friends. So yummy!

Reese was so excited to use her own rolling pin. We made some yummy Christmas cookies! It was so funny how she wanted to make every cookie shape possible. We ended up with a hippo cookie, a turkey cookie and a few fish cookies!

I guess you could say i'm addicted to baby carriers. I love my sling, which Jess made for me, but always have to keep trying out new ones. This one is from the Netherlands, i'm not sure what they call it, but i've heard it called a didymos, i think that is actually the name from Germany? It's really comfortable for long walks. The only down is that it is literally about 5-6meters and that is a heck of a lot of material to wind around my body!


Okay, this is my all time favorite carrier! This is the Ergo Baby Carrier. It is always comfortable, with most of the baby's weight on your waist. The only down side to this is that the little one has to be a bit bigger, they say 6 months, before they fit into it nicely. We were trying it out with Jamin, only to find that indeed he has to grow a bit for him to be comfortable.

I found my sweet little ones sharing a moment early this morning.

I'm finally posting pictures of our living room. Wow, it has really been a production. From trying to drill the curtain hooks through the concrete to making the curtains backwards. But, we are so excited about how it is turing out! The walls are not three colors as the picture might indicate, but just one, probably the most accurate is the one on the curtain wall. Here are the before, working on and final pictures!

This year a friend and I decided we wanted to do some things for our kids, helping them celebrate the season of advent. We are far away from our families and churches and don't have any way for our kids to experience get-togethers and services, so we planned some things ourselves. We invited a few other families and we planned two different Sunday mornings to have an Advent fair.

The first Sunday we had the kids sing some Christmas songs, led by me on the guitar! We had them make paper chains marking down the days till Christmas, talked about and made star ornaments, and did a craft with cotton balls and sheep pictures. They also got to play with special play-dough that was cinnamon scented, especially made by my friend Sonja!

Last Sunday we met again. It was only two families this time, so it was a little less formal. We still sang some songs with the kids, read them the Christmas story and had them color cards. The cards turned out a little differently than we expected so, instead we just hung them on the wall! We had lunch together and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus as we ate his birthday cake afterwards. It was such a fun day for the kids and a special day for us parents to remember!

Here is the picture of Reese sitting with her friends Nehemiah and Evangeline next to our homemade Christmas tree, proudly showing off their "cards" on the wall.

We are working on painting again! It is really helping me embrace this place, put down roots and enjoy living here! i'm so thankful for how well it is going. i'll post some pics, but in the mean time, you can imagine how the living room is changing. we don't have a ladder so Ben stacked 6 plastic chairs (our dining room chairs!) on top of each other to reach the ceiling. Since he is 6'5" you can imagine how hight our ceiling are if he has to reach even from the 6 chair hight! We moved around some furniture and now the room is looking a bit bigger and easier for people to sit and converse. My job at the moment is making more curtains. This time we are going with red. The window is high, so the curtains are 3 meters, not sure in feet? but in this country it's meters... I'm so excited about how it's turning out! Can't wait to show some pictures!

Reese and I love starting every morning with either hot tea or coffee. If i get up early with her, we share a drink while our men keep sleeping. Otherwise our morning hot drink has become a tradition at breakfast.

Reese figured out a new way for Mary to travel!

I found some white material in town, borrowed a sewing machine, and made Reese some curtains for her newly-painted room.
Things are coming together. The painting is done, the window treatment are done, and Reese is now sleeping off the floor. Now we just need some things to hang on her wall, and a little bedside lamp.

Double Take

I hate that picture of me! I need to add some more posts so that it will go away! We finished Reese's room. It was a couple of days of working on it. By the end we figured out how to get straight lines along the ceiling and floor and it looks really good. it took alot of patience to get the final look, but we can't be more pleased with how it turned out. Reese is pretty happy too!

We have plans for painting the living room/dining room too. it may take us a few days to get some more energy to tackle that job, but i'm looking forward to how it will give the home a cleaner look and feel like my own. i'll post pictures as soon as i get some curtains up... that's my next job!

Painting Reese's Room

First job, sweeping down the walls
Second job, taping the cooler, outlets, windows
Official 'before' picture
Reese and Ben working hard
What Reese was doing while we worked
What Jamin was doing while we worked
After one coat of paint

Introducing you to my kitchen. Believe me, my standards have had to change a bit, but it is doing the job for the moment. You will notice that i have an itsy bitsy stove. I am constantly using it. It is gas powered by way of the large gas tank to the right of it. It gets filled every couple of months unless you are like me and are constantly cooking and baking and have to have it filled every month! Then you will notice the microwave. I think i am probably the only person in this country with one. It was a special gift from my husband who thought i deserved one. He is so thoughtful... Next, observe big white bucket with spout. That is our water filter. The brown water goes into the top and miraculously clear water comes out. Reese's favorite thing right now is to fill up all of our glasses and cups - using the cool spigot - and leaving them around the house. Here she is showing off her chocolaty hands as we were making a cake for Daddy. Jamin is in on it too. Poor guy, I'm thankful for the highchair that some friends gave us, but he's still a little small for it and so the shoulder straps often get sucked on since they are at about eye level on him.

I have great aspirations for my kitchen in spite of it's lowly look at the moment. First thing is to paint. The color right now is a light yellow, it's fine, but I'm thinking I'll go with some Starbucks colors and get some coffee looking pictures (can i get those here?). I want a shelf along the wall for my baking canisters, a cupboard or stand for the filter and at some point a bigger stove. Who knows, maybe that will be another gift from my generous husband!

Just had to post the cutest picture of my little guy today. He is growing so quickly. Sucking on his hands, laughing when we tickle him and pretending to talk when we ask him questions are some of the things he is doing. On Dec. 8th he will be 3 month old. I weighed him and he comes in at 16lbs and is about 25 inches long. His thighs are taking over his body! We love him and are so thankful God gave us such a healthy and happy boy.

Christmas is coming and we are getting excited around here. Normally a Christmas without family, in a far away place, would be pretty hard. Last year was our first Christmas overseas, and it was hard. But this year we have been finding ways to make it special. We made a tree out of tinsel, a pole and a platter! We strung lights and made a foil star for the top. We found some candles that we light at night and put on our dinner table that give a cozy feeling. We have a playlist on our ipod of Christmas music that keep cycling during the day, and every night we have been reading as a family a daily advent reading from the Bible. We have gotten together with some friends of ours with kids Reese's age, to talk about christmas, do a craft and sing Christmas songs. So, we'll see how the month goes and keep you posted on our Christmas activities!

Reese likes using Daddy's professional microphone. He uses it for recording linguistic data, but took some time out to record Reese singing her rendition of "Twinkle Little Star", yes, only one twinkle! She also has a song called Ha-bee-dee-da, we think it is a form of Halleluiah, that she loves to belt out!

Thanksgiving this year was certainly different than any other i have had! We missed our families so much, but God blessed us and gave us a wonderful body of believers to spend an amazing Thanksgiving with. It was wonderful! In a country that doesn't have very interesting food, we were all able to band together and create a turkey, stuffing and mashed potato celebration. We met with other American friends and spent the evening talking about the things we were thankful for and getting to know one another better.


Reese spent some time with some of her friends Heidi and Petra on the trampoline!

I never thought in a million years i would be cloth diapering. But i have to admit i'm in love with it. Thanks to many people who have encouraged, educated and blessed me with diapers.

I first began tentatively investigating cloth diapering before Jamin was born. Disposable diapers here are alot more expensive than in the states and so i just wondered if it could save us some money trying cloth. I began researching on the Internet about diapers and emailed a few friends that i had known did cloth, getting their perspective and hearing about what they have used. after a little while i began realizing that the days of bulky prefolds, plastic pants and diaper pins are now a thing of the past. Instead a new generation of cloth has appeared on the scene. All in one diapers, that are not much bulkier than a disposable that easily are velcroed on and easily velcroed off.

As i researched i prayed, i asked God if these really were better for us to start using, to provide for us some of these new amazing cloth diapers so that we could save money very month and help the trash problem in this country. Well, God provided in amazing ways. First through a website called cottonbabies.com, a company that not only sells cloth diapering things but also provides grants for people working overseas to receive cloth diapers for free. We felt very blessed by their generosity and excited to start using the things they had given us. But, then my amazing friend Jessica decided that she wanted to buy me more! She bought me 14 bumgenius! diapers. check them out at cottonbabies.com. They are rated #1 in cloth and anyone who has used them raves about them.

And now it has come to be my turn! I can't say enough good things about this product. Even if we were living in the states i would choose cloth. Now that diapers like this are available, disposables don't even tempt me. the ease of using a bumgenius! diaper is just like a disposable and not only are we reducing our land fills, we are keeping our babies bum's clear of chemicals.
I'm excited about cloth and have done so much research i feel like a pro. if anyone has questions shoot me an email!

We have some new pets now! A pair of turtles just joined our family this week. Reese seems to like them and Ben is getting a kick out of finding the best way to care for them and create a habitat they will thrive in. Jamin and i just watch the goings on. We are still trying to figure out what kind of turtles they are, and so far they don't have names. If anyone has suggestions we would love input!

Here's my little princess ready for bed in her new pajamas!














After a long day we pulled out some new pj's for both of them, they looked so cute so i had to take their pictures.

We are finally back to our "home" overseas. It took even longer than expected due to complications regarding Jamin's visa but God knew we supposed to be here and nothing ultimately kept us from returning.

The past few days have been filled with seeing friends, unpacking and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! Ben put up some clothes lines for me today and i was thrilled! It was cool enough to hang out on the balcony today and we all had a chance to relax.

Reese had some fun too. She found out that Jamin is a perfect sized baby for her stroller!

We finally got the go-ahead from the doctor to leave! We had already had everything packed but Ben wanted to weigh everything to make sure it was with-in the baggage limit...














It took a while but we ended up with 8 bags, 4 carry-on's and 1 guitar. Thankfully my parent's 15 passenger van could handle it all.


Here we are about to leave. It was about 4am, Reese was saying goodbye to Grandma on the phone and Jamin is hanging out in the sling - his second home for about a week.

Thankyou, Thankyou all for praying. Every one of Ben's tests came out normal and we have nothing what-so-ever to worry about! His heart is completely normal and is in perfect shape. We praise God for how he has answered our prayers, protected us and led us through all the things we had to do this past week.



In the mean time, we have had a wonderful visit with my brother Ben. He will be 20 soon and since he moved out of the house we don't get to see him as much as we see the rest of my family. It has been so good to catch up and hang out. Reese loves having him around too!






we had a great party at our church on the 31st. we didn't have time to dress up, but Reese got to play in the bouncy castle and Jamin got a ride in my AMAZING sling. i never had used one until a friend made one for me and convinced me to use it. i love it and Jamin does too! check it out!