Our Chin Friends

We got together with our Chin friends today. (Just to clarify - even though they're from Burma, they say they are from Chin.) They were kind enough to bring Lillian a dress. His mother, who is still back in their country, made it. It is beautiful. The embroidery on it obviously took some time and it's amazing how well it fits her. I don't know that a dress could have been measured to fit her better.

Lillian was playing with her doll and the dad (or papa in Chin) put the doll on her back in the same way that they carry babies. Lillian was quite proud and wore it on her back for quite some time.

Friends like this make the whole world smaller.

Good way to start the day

It's good to be thankful

"I thank the Lord for my big muscles"
- Elijah, 3 1/2, while posing to show his big muscles

Making a Rocket

A few months back we had to get new carseats because of a minor accident we were in. (Thank you MPI for replacing our completely not damaged carseats at no cost to us.) We threw the boxes in our sunroom to deal with later. It has since gotten warmer and we have been spending time in our sunroom.

These boxes have now become rockets.




This is Elijah and Lillian painting the rocket. We did this several days in a row. Pure joy for both of them.

The lesson learned of course is that kids are happy to play in a box. No need to purchase expensive toys. But we still do. Because kids are happy with those too. :)

Good Bye Cleaning Lady

Good bye Cleaning Lady.

It is with a bit of sadness that I bid you farewell. Believe me, I have enjoyed coming home to the smell of Mr. Clean permeating my house. I have enjoyed the clean floors and the washed dishes drying on the counter.

The thing is, you're not me. And, I'm a little bit cheap.

I love the thought of a clean house without any effort on my part. The thing is, I pay you a good amount of money to do that. I grew up with good thrifty Mennonite values and I always want to get my money's worth. If you're coming to clean my house on Tuesday I stop cleaning up after my self in order to get the full value of the service that you are providing me.

I don't like living that way. I like taking the two minutes to pick something up and put it away. I like the feeling of being relatively organized - that you could enter my house at any moment and it would look lived in but not hoarding-ish.

We'll see how this works. In theory, I think it's great to have someone come clean your house every two weeks. In real life, it ended up being not so great.

So, Cleaning Lady, I will miss your cleaning ways but I will enjoy the "extra" money in my bank account.