13 months...

Sweet Baby Lauren,
We cannot believe that you are growing so fast. Drinking real milk, sleeping through the night, eating table food, and turbo crawling everywhere! We love you and you make our lives so full of fun, love, joy, and precious moments! Life would not be complete without your laughter, hugs, and your sweet personality. We love you so much!
Mommy, Daddy, Lily, and Easton

She always bangs on things and squints her eyes because the noise is so loud to her!

Her laugh is contagious!

The smile that brightens up the room...

Precious girl

Pea pie!!!

Brown Corn

Last week, Lily runs in the house and says, "Zeria is making brown corn!"

I said, "brown corn? What is brown corn, Lily?"

She replied, "To make brown corn you put the whole thing on the braiser and turn it, turn it, turn it, and then it is done and you eat it!" I was like, what in the world!?

The next day, I asked Zeria what brown corn was and she said, "roasted corn".

AHHH! I did know what "brown corn" was!

Then Zeria said, "the whole time I was roasting the corn, Lily was saying, 'my mama doesn't cook corn like this, she only cooks it on the stove or in the oven, you need to teach her how to cook it like this because this is GOOD!!"

Needless to say, on Sunday at church we received a lot of fresh corn right out of the field, so we roasted it for an afternoon snack! It was so good and kinda tasted like popcorn!

Today's sale at the gate...goat!

At 8:00 this morning, a man came to the gate selling a goat. No, this goat was definately not going to be a pet, but we never told the kids, where the goat went while they were taking a nap later that afternoon. Zeria and Tembo were happy with the goat and Lily and Easton were happy to have a goat in our generator house for the morning. Now, Kendall wants goats to milk. Um...no. Not going to happen!

Easton loved petting the goat.

Zeria, Lauren, Easton, and Tembo with "goat". We couldn't name it...that would definately cause attachment!

Precious Cargo...Handle With Care

As I was cleaning up around the kitchen today, I looked underneath our "island" or bar and found this package that had been hiding out! There was no return address, so we decided to keep this little bundle of joy, laughs, happiness, and LOVE!
Lauren is so precious and we are so blessed by her presence! Lily and Easton love playing with her and we thank the Lord everyday that our children love each other so much!

Slippery When Wet Or Dry...

People really cannot imagine how bad the roads become in the rainy season. Literally, they wash away or become impassible due to lack of sand or rock on the road, resulting in sliding or becoming stuck on the road.
Well for the past 3 months, people have been sliding off of the road in front of our house, almost running into our wall. After each rain, we get to listen to motor revving up while tires spin and vehicles become stuck in the mud. On several occasions, Kendall and I have slid badly on the road and found it hard to gain control even using 4X4.
One afternoon, I couldn't turn the truck enough to get it in our gate because of the black slippery mud outside our gate. So, we decided to get 2 truck loads of rocks and fill the very large holes and slippery places in our road. Our neighbors are now saying, "this mzungu (white man) is good, he fixed the road!"....NICE!!! We love our road now and it is not scary to drive after the rain!

Kendall and Tembo move the rocks with a wheel barrow.

You can't tell from this picture but this is the gate across from ours and that mud is VERY slippery, even to walk on or ride a bike.

This is the turn onto our road. You cannot make this turn easily in the rain, you have to creep through in order not to slide, but you have to go fast enough not to get stuck either! This was DRY compared to what it is in the rains.

See all the skid marks...we haven't fixed this part but it runs along the east side of our wall. This picture was taken after almost 2 days of no rain.

This is the front of our house...those ruts were put there by 2 cars who slid off the road. God truly has angels protecting this wall!