Overheard

Living with these three boys, we hear things every day that crack us up.  I'm going to attempt to capture the spontaneity and humor of their comments, and may have to write more of these kinds of posts from time to time.

Aden, in the car during our deputation travels earlier this year:  Guys, you have a kid who needs to go potty.

Aden, from the living room:   Mommy I need some more water!  "Not right now. ... Why?"  I've got men throwing up in here.

Wiley

Wiley, as we drove through a parking lot:  Sometimes people don't wave at me, even when they see me.   - not sure if that comes from living as a "prominent minority" in PNG, or if we have just been that effective in teaching him to be polite.

Noah (singing):  If you're happy and you're Noah, clap your hands!

Wiley:  I wish we could stay at Texas and Kugark forever. (Because I like "The Lodge" and I like the sheep.)  - 31 October ...  The Lodge refers to spending his birthday last year at Great Wolf Lodge near Dallas.

Aden and Wiley (eating grapes, driving through Kruger):  We're building up our eye strength. 

Aden to Wiley (in Kruger):  If you had eyes as big as mine, you would be able to see through the fog.

Noah (singing):  My God is too big . . . 

Aden (while very sick, though hoping he would be better any minute, and able to eat again):
       -  I might be better already, it's just you never know.
       -  I don't like being sick, but I like being sick so I can have juice.
       -  I am doing one of my tests now.  Next time I do a test, if I throw this up, I'll have toast.
       -  I'm feeling as good as Wiley.  If I'm feeling as good as Wiley I can have Cheerios, right?
       -  I think sick people eat a lot.  I think people who throw up eat a lot.
       -  I don't know if the next test is lunch or if the next test is another one of the snacks.  This will probably spoil my lunch but I don't know.
       -  I want to wait and have dinner when it's dark outside.  Because I think if I have dinner when it's light outside, I'll throw up.  (Aden believes that throwing up only lasts 24 hours, or one day.  When it's dark, it is time to get better.)
     

Aden

Mommy:  Do you want butter or jelly on your toast?
Aden:  Hmm.  That's hard.  I would say half butter and half jelly.

Aden:  I'm going to take a break from those.  I don't want my oil pastels to go flat.

Mommy:  Do you want toast? 
Aden:  Well, I can only have it if it's not burnt.  When somebody says they want not burnt toast you could put a timer on and make it be for a short time.  - apparently, Mommy has a tendency to burn the toast.  Aden often requests "not burnt" toast.

Wiley:  My favorite food is green beans and all the desserts in the world. 

Mommy (just after lunch, and just before naps, as she watched Noah wander from the table to the kitchen):  Can I get you something, Noah?
Noah:  Ice cream.

Aden (referring to weakened door handles on the car):  Do you want the handles fixed on the car?  (As if he were ready to take the job.)

Noah

We have enjoyed hearing Noah's speech explode over the last several months.  When he first began to talk, he consistently said "Yes" instead of the more casual "Yeah."  Over time, however, he changed to "Yeah," but it was hard to distinguish from his "No."  In an effort to understand what he was saying, Mommy would ask for clarification:  "Do you mean yes?"  Eventually, Noah thought she was correcting his speech, and now when he answers affirmatively, he consistently says, "yesth," often with a bit of a lisp.

Aden and Wiley have given Noah a new nickname.  We are not sure where it came from, but they regularly use the term "Doodely" (or "Doodely Squat" in its full form) in place of his name. With the rediscovery of Edith Blyton's Noddy series here in South Africa, Noah's nickname of "Big Ears" is also resurfacing.

The First Gift of Christmas

Just after Thanksgiving, we pulled out our Christmas decorations and borrowed a Christmas tree and lights.  One of the boys' favorite decorations in the past has been a rubber-like nativity set that sits under the Christmas tree.  It is pretty kid-friendly, so they are allowed to play with the pieces during the Christmas season.  They like to drive the figures around in their cars, acting as chauffeurs to and from the manger.  This year, when we unpacked the nativity set, Noah immediately gravitated to the small characters.  When all the decorating was complete, we thought we would set the nativity under the tree, but couldn't find the Baby Jesus anywhere.  So the search began.  At first Mommy just figured he would turn up somewhere as we tidied up.  But when everything was put in its place, we still couldn't find him. 

 

Over the next days, and weeks, we looked everywhere we could think of.  We all hoped we would find the Baby Jesus in a corner somewhere.  We looked under the rugs; pulled apart the couches and chairs in the living room, looking under cushions; checked and re-checked cabinets and bookshelves.  Mommy began to realize that perhaps Noah had hidden the Baby Jesus, or carried him off in his excitement and forgotten that he had done so.  We began to interrogate, "Noah, did you take the Baby Jesus?" "Yes."  Is he in the house?" "Yes."  As we recalled the evening we decorated, we remembered that Noah had gone to play outside just before dinner, and the questioning continued.  "Noah, did you take Baby Jesus outside?" "Yes."  "Did you put Baby Jesus in the dirt?"  "Yes."  We began to wonder if Noah remembered, or if he was just answering yes to everything.  "Noah, did you eat Baby Jesus?"  After all, he was a pretty small figurine.  "Yes."  Then the questions seemed pretty fruitless so we went out to the garden to dig.  Noah loves to dig, and he had been digging pretty intently that evening.  One afternoon all three boys and Mommy dug until they realized there was no way Noah could have buried Baby Jesus that deep on his own.

Digging for Baby Jesus

Mommy began to look online for patterns to make a new Baby Jesus so that there would be something in the manger on Christmas Day . . . though she secretly hoped and even believed that we would somehow find Jesus in time for Christmas.  On Christmas Eve we had our traditional taco salad dinner.  We had invited Auntie Linda Braaten to join us, and she brought bread to share with our meal.  It needed to be re-heated in the oven, and when it was done, Mommy went to pull it out.  Instinctively, she usually reaches for hot pads from the stack on the shelf close to the oven.  But this time, her Christmas oven mitt, hanging on a hook nearby, caught her eye.  When she put her hand inside, she felt something in the thumb.  Immediately she knew it was the Baby Jesus.  Had Auntie Linda not joined us, we would not have used the oven, and would not have found the Baby Jesus that night.  Mommy tucked Baby Jesus "away in a manger" - a small gold box - and set him on the table on Christmas morning.  The boys were thrilled when Noah opened the first gift of Christmas this year, reminding us of the First Gift that God gave us on the very First Christmas.

Cookie Bake

Earlier this week, the missionary ladies had a Christmas cookie bake.  We exchanged several dozen cookies and each of us walked away with many kinds of goodies to share in our homes.  When we got together at Aunt Jodi's house for the exchange, Aunt Brittany had made sugar cookies and Aunt Linda Louw had made gingerbread boys and girls for the kids to decorate.  With a nice variety of icing and sprinkles, the kids really enjoyed it, and now they are enjoying eating some of their creations which they brought home.  Aden had such a good time that he was hoping the party would just move to someone else's house when we were done with the cookies.  He was a very happy boy when it was decided that all the kids should go swimming afterward.  After swimming, we had a nice evening with the Leslies in our home, a last opportunity to visit before they left for their Home Assignment.  The boys will definitely miss their friends for the next several months while they are gone! 

The cookie bake was only a part of our Christmas celebrations this far.  We will blog soon about some of the other things we have been doing to celebrate the season!  This evening we were reminded in our advent devotions that as we smell delicious breads, cakes, and cookies baking in our oven, we can remember Jesus, the Bread of Life, and that we are to spread the aroma of Christ wherever we go.

Noah mostly enjoyed eating the cookies he decorated

Aden got more and more involved in his decorating with each cookie

Wiley's favorite part was to add the sprinkles

Kutsho, our neighbor, taste-tests some of the sprinkles

Cooper Leslie, focused on decorating an angel cookie

Emmerson Leslie, pleased with the taste of the icing!

All the kids and all their cookies

Kruger National Park...Again

Not able to resist the great deals being offered for our lodging, we recently took a second trip to the Kruger National Park.  Besides that though, it was Mommy's birthday and what better way to celebrate.  A trip to Kruger seems to be becoming our new birthday tradition (or at least a good excuse for going).

lunch at the Phalaborwa Gate

We decided to get an early start this time, so we left our house just before 5am.  This was in an effort to beat the morning traffic, but also because we had to be in the park and to our rest camp before 6pm, and it was a good 8 hour drive if you didn't make any stops.  Our rest camp of choice this time was called Olifants, and is situated in the central northeast part of the park.  We managed to make it with no problem, and were thankful to not feel rushed once entering the park, as we worked our way to Olifants.  The first sighting this time belonged to Wiley.  At four years old, he is quite the "spotter," as is Aden.  I think that Aden actually spotted some impala, but they are so common that we don't always count it.  It was Wiley who yelled, "GIRAFFE!" We backed up, and sure enough there was a giraffe just off the edge of the road.  Not sure how the rest of us missed it, except that we were just too excited to be back in the park finally after only two months.

watching the Olifants River at breakfast

Olifants Rest Camp was one of the highlights of our trip.  We were assigned to a family room, which has a common area for the kitchen, dining table, and couch.  It was covered, but had an open side to it that overlooked the river below.  We were able to sit and watch the animals from the comfort of our room, even while we ate.  The boys loved this as we could see hippos playing in the waters below, elephants coming for their evening and morning baths, giraffes coming for a drink, and various birds who were also enjoying the waters.  On either side of the common area was a room that had two single beds and a bathroom.  It was very hot, so air conditioners were on and doors and windows would be closed.  Knowing that we could not put the boys in a room by themselves, we tried to figure out what our sleeping arrangements would be.  We considered splitting mommy and daddy up, while each took a boy or two.  In the end, we decided to move one of the beds from one room over to the other room so that there were three beds.  We then pushed them all together and made a larger than California King-sized bed that all five of could fit in.  It was just another chance to create a family memory on an already memorable experience.
Because the common area had an open side to it, the insects, birds, squirrels and small reptiles roamed freely.  The boys really got a kick out of a sign that was in our room that warned us of hungry monkeys.  It was suggested that we turn our refrigerator so that the door was against the wall.  We made sure that we did after seeing a family of Vervet Monkeys running around the rest camp's grounds just earlier.  The next morning, we woke up to enough bug carnage that we had to wear our shoes outside of the bedroom.  Mommy had made homemade donuts for the trip.  We enjoyed those as we watched the sunrise and the animals, as they began their day with a morning drink/swim/bath at the river below.

blue wildebeest

From Olifants, we headed north to our next rest camp stop of Mopani.  The terrain was quite a bit different, with more open areas and not as much "bush" right up to the road.  There seemed to be different kinds of animals in this area that we hadn't yet seen in the park, such as wildebeest and ostrich.  We had a few close encounters on Day Two.  At lunch time, we saw two bull elephants fighting, and when they noticed us watching they chased us off.  After that, as we watched from a distance, they seemed to make up by throwing dirt on each other.  In the evening, after we checked in at Mopani, we took a shorter loop to look for animals before the camp gates closed at dusk.  Mommy decided to give Daddy a break and took a turn at the wheel, but we quickly realized that driving in the park is a bit too intense for her!  On a side dirt road, as the sun was getting lower and lower in the sky, we came across a very large herd of buffalo and zebra.  We made it through without incident, but not without Mommy panicking several times asking Daddy, "What do I do?!?"  She was quite worried that the buffalo were angry that we were on their road, and at one point, just as the last of the herd crossed the road in front of us, another one started to come closer and closer toward our car.  Again Mommy asked what to do, and just in time we drove away down the road.  Mommy was so worried that we had spent so much time waiting for the buffalo and wouldn't make it back to the camp, that she wouldn't stop for anything the rest of the way.  While Daddy was trying to get some photos of elephants and other animals along the way, Mommy just forged ahead, determined to make it back in time.

the martial eagle

After unsuccessfully attempting to make pizza on the stovetop, we called it a night and went to bed.  It rained in the night, but by morning the rain was gone and it was overcast, which was a nice break from the hot sun of the previous two days.  The rain seemed to bring out thousands of millipedes all over the road.  They looked like 6- or 8-inch sticks, but on closer inspection we realized they were moving.  We got an early start to begin making our way south through the park and saw some new animals we hadn't seen yet, including wildebeest and many, many birds.  One of the most exciting finds was a martial eagle.  The boys have talked about the martial eagle since they first discovered it in the bird book.  When they play safari, someone either spots a marital eagle or is a martial eagle, so to see one in the wild was especially rewarding.  We actually ended up seeing three different martial eagles through that day.  We also saw our third of the big five on the last day, when we spotted a rhino lying under a tree about 100 meters from the road.  Unlike our last experience in the park, this was the only rhino we saw this time. 

As we neared the gate to leave the park,  we came across another herd of buffalo crossing the road, though this time we were not the only vehicle around.  One of the vehicles ahead of us was a large bus that basically drove through first and cleared the way for everyone else.  As we slowly made our way down the road, with the herd on either side of us, Noah looked out his open window and yelled, "Stinky Diaper!"  Apparently, after that run-in with the buffalo the day before, Noah didn't feel a need to hide how he felt about "their kind."  We covered a lot of ground, which included crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, but unfortunately we didn't see any cats.  So we decided that just gives us a good reason to go back.  With birthdays coming up in February and March, we won't have to wait too long.