Sit Down and Get Comfy...

Ok...so I'm behind in my blogging (what's new) and I finally sit down tonight after cleaning up after not 1, not 2, but THREE puking children, and I go to plug my camera in and get some pics off of it and the battery is dead. Normally I try and stay in order, but I thought tonight I would just post on the actual day that it is (Thursday, August 12) and catch you up on this week, and then try to get back on track for next week. So, grab a drink, sit down and get comfy and get ready to tackle my blog post. :D

First of all, I'm sitting here wiping the tears from my eyes after watching a clip going around on facebook right now. Maybe you've seen it...video clips of loved ones re-uniting with soldiers? Wowzers...talk about get the kleenex out! I have no idea what in the world the music is in the background, or the verse at the end from the book of Moses??- ignore that part, but the videos are just so sweet. One little girl just about did me in! When the camera focused on her, I thought that she might not even remember her daddy she looked so young, but they cut the music out so you could hear her tiny little voice..."Daddy? I missed you daddy! I love you!" Oh Man!! Buckets of tears flowing out of my eyes. Sometimes I just enjoy crying...it is cathartic. Anyway...sorry for rambling.

Ok - my last post was for Saturday and would you believe it? Neither Ben nor myself got a picture that day. But I can at least re-cap it for you. Ben woke up sick...Hmmmm, now that I type that, could it be that whatever virus he had last Saturday is still floating around the house and that is why my kids are puking today? Quite possibly. Anyway, he was up early in the morning and finally crawled back into bed around 8 a.m. and I got up with the kids and shut the door and turned the fan on and let him sleep. Once he finally got up, he ate some breakfast and was feeling a lot better. I didn't think he'd have been able to do it, but he went to the church at 1 p.m. to hold the last Holiday Bible School meeting. Thank God he got over it quickly. I stayed home to get ready for school. I got a lot accomplished and they had a great finishing day to Bible School.

On Sunday we headed to church. Services went well and after our Bamenda service we all stuck around for quite some time b/c it was pouring rain. It was a good opportunity to fellowship with everyone. We got home quite late, but I always enjoy rain in Bamenda. It makes the service so much cooler! I made BLT's for lunch, and once I get the camera battery charged I'll insert the picture of the kids eating them [HERE] :D

Monday, was back to school for the Sinclair kids. As usual they were all excited (for this week anyway!). I took a ton of pics Monday and have enjoyed scrapping them this week in fact (I'll share some layouts at the end). I'll post a few of my school pics since I'm short some other pictures! :D

Here they are...ready for the day. Excited to meet their new teachers via DVD and look through all their brand new books!

Drew is now a 4th grader!? Wow...still sinking in for Mommy I guess.


Sweet Kate...enjoying her first day. For now I have her in the parlour. We will see how it goes. The first week or so is a trial to find out where everyone needs to be.

Haha! I just love this pic of Emma. She is excited to be in the first grade. I think. Her first week was a bit uncertain...I have her in the kitchen with me so I can keep an eye on her. And before I continue...does that phrase sound odd to anyone, "I have her in the kitchen with me." It actually sounds like I live in the kitchen. Well, folks...I DO! :D

Oh my... Faith Ann's first year of school. She is an official K-4 student and she can't WAIT to do her phonics!

She is the only one who got a brand new outfit for today. It wasn't planned, I just happened to find it while I was doing all that cleaning. It was something I forgot to give her for her birthday.

So, all in all Monday was a good day. The school year usually starts out organized, but by the end...chaos. We didn't go to town b/c of our first day of school, but also b/c we were invited to the Yeiters house for Autumn's birthday party. We had a great evening with them, and even though we got to bed late for our first school night, it was well worth it! I have another picture from the party to insert [HERE].

Tuesday went well in spite of the late night. Faith Ann was sick in the night and threw up in her bed...so yeah, Ben could have started all of it the previous Saturday. Anyway, I was frustrated because we had no water all day and I had pukey sheets to clean out. I finally ended up doing it at around midnight when the water finally came in enough to use the shower head for spraying stuff down. Other than all that, the second day of school went great and the kids were done in record time. I'm not sure why I was feeling so much pressure, but by Tuesday I was feeling stressed. I failed to even get a picture on this day (shame on me!) :( Faith Ann ended up doing school on Tuesday...whatever this virus is, thankfully it runs it's course pretty quickly.

Wednesday went well. Drew had a longer day than the girls, but that is the way it goes. Sometimes he will be the first one done and other times the last. The kids usually end up racing each other to see who can finish first. Thankfully they haven't started that yet. Ben went to town and when he got home, brought me a gift, and a sweet note encouraging me to keep on keepin' on. I really don't know why I felt so stressed, but I did. We had a good date night though of chicken pizzas. That helped me relax. And unless Ben got pictures on Wed....I don't have any for this day. Have I mentioned that I've been under stress? Evidently stress makes you forget how to operate a camera. :)

And that brings me back to today. I got out of bed to get the kids going on school only to find out that Emma threw up in her bed. Great...more pukey sheets. Thankfully we had water today. Drew said he didn't feel so hot either. So, I dubbed it a no school day. Our first school disk in every subject only has 4 days on it anyway, so to keep it to one disk per week, it worked out well to take a break today. By about 4 p.m. Emma was feeling better, and Drew started vomiting. He threw up right before bed tonight, and as far as I know hasn't been up since. I warned Kate that her turn was coming. She just smiled at me as if to say, "yeah right." Well, I put her to bed in a seperate room and told her to take a bucket to bed with her. Wouldn't you know it, right before I came out here to write up this post (at about 11:30...yeah, I know it's gonna be a late night for me) I heard her call my name as I walked by. She said, "Mom...I threw up two times." "In the bucket?" I asked. "Yep" ... "Good girl." So basically the only one left to get sick is...oh, Me! Please pray I avoid it.

Be sure to check back tomorrow and see the pictures that I have added to this post. It is really, really late now, and I better get to bed! Oh, I almost forgot to post a few layouts.

More fun and games

Another day of HBS. I can tell the kids are getting worn out. Emma is so giddy at bedtime!

I stayed home today. We start school on Monday and I have so much to do. For one thing, Diane is gone to Ngounderie for a month, which means I don't have someone to help me mop my floors or clean my bathrooms. You might think I'm spoiled (and I am) but house cleaning is so time consuming here. What Diane can do in one hour, I can't do in two days! I'm serious! I get interrupted by "Mom I'm hungry!"...or "Time to make dinner!"...."Gotta put the dough in the bread machine" ..."I'm thirsy!" ...not to mention when I move from room to room I get sidetracked. I'll be working on the parlour and head to my bedroom to put something away and notice the load of laundry that hasn't been put up, and get going on that and as I walk into the bathroom realize the sink needs to be cleaned and...before I know it, I've forgotten my first task of cleaning and mopping the parlour! I realize you all have the same struggles, but you also have aids that I don't have...like dishwashers, constant water and electricity, or convenience items for speeding up the meal making process. I'm not complaining in any shape or form. I said from the beginning of this blog that I was going to be transparent so you knew about the life of a missionary wife/mom. Life is just different here, and I am adjusting (still!), but housekeeping is one of those things I'll never fully conquer. I have come a long way though. When we first moved here I could barely get dinner on the table each night by 7 p.m. We now eat at a normal time! :D So, anyway, I worked from the moment I got up until I went to bed and still didn't accomplish what I wanted to, but it did help to have the kids out from under foot, other than Faith Ann. She stayed home with me, but one is so much easier than all four!

So, my reports of HBS are from Ben, but he said that everything went great. They had about the same number of kids, but they all had a great time and two girls went back to trust Christ as Saviour, so it was definitely a profitable day because of that alone!

He got a couple pictures of game time, and I thought they were so revealing of my daughter's competetive nature. Notice here that Kate's friend is clearly posing for the picture, while Kate already has her mind on the race. I wasn't there, but I can imagine her strategizing here, explaining how they were going to run the race, "Ok...let's both start with the outside leg first."

and here you can see one girl is having a blast, just enjoying the game, while the other girl (who shall remain nameless haha!) is focused and quite possibly irritated that she isn't in the lead.

*sigh* that is one thing we are really trying to drill into Kate...how to be a good loser. How to rejoice with those that do rejoice as the Bible tells us. It is VERY difficult for her to lose and it is that selfish nature coming out. Pray for us as we seek to train and raise up godly kids. It is a challenge for all of us parents!

Well...I'm off to finish mopping that parlour! :D

Nature Freak

I'm not really a nature freak, but you might think so. I know I post a ton of pictures of bugs, and animals etc... but we see some of the most amazing critters here! Today the kids came in screaming that I needed to come and see this bunch of worms outside. Well, I went to check it out. From a distance it looked like a big fat caterpillar crawling across the pavement, but upon closer inspection it was hundreds of small worms all moving together. Weird to say the least, and it creeped me out and I sprayed it before I thought to get a picture of it. Ben said that it was probably some rare type of beautiful butterfly larvae. :D Oh well. They are all dead now.

On a much prettier note, this beautiful moth was caught in the gate of our courtyard. I am guessing that our nightwatchman spotted it and stuck it in our gate, b/c it was perched on a stem from one of our rose bushes that grow on the side of our house. I was acting pretty freakish trying to get a picture of the thing too, b/c Penny kept trying to eat it and I kept getting onto the kids for not holding onto her tight enough. But I managed to get several good shots of it.

Today was day 2 of our Holiday Bible School and we had 1 kid shy of doubling our attendance. Two kids got to pick out a big prize for bringing the most visitors and hopefully that pumped the others up to bring more kids tomorrow. Today was different in that it rained ALL afternoon, so our games had to be inside games today. One game that was a lot of fun to watch was candy on a string. Two kids get a candy tied to the end of a string. I'd say the string is about a foot and a half long. They hold it out in front of them and when Valerie blows the whistle, they have to stick the end of the string in their mouth and try and bring the candy up from the bottom and get it into their mouth without using anything but their mouth. It sounds easier than it is. Here is a picture of Jetum trying to do it...she wasn't very successful.Kate is really good at it. I've never tried it myself, but she says her strategy is to twirl the string around her tongue as she brings it up into her mouth. It must work, b/c she won both times that she played!

Jude did a great job with the story today and gave an invitation at the end. Two girls came back and I was able talk with them. After hearing clear testimonies of salvation I was able to encourage them from the Bible that we can know for sure that we have everlasting life. One of the young ladies, Paulette, comes from a Catholic background and is struggling with the assurance of her salvation. Pray that we will continue to have opportunities to disciple these young kids. Some of these children will never be allowed to step foot in our church door other than these few days of Bible School. It might be the only time they hear the gospel in a years time. Please pray with us that we will see fruit that remains.

Holiday Bible School

Today was the first day of Holiday Bible School here in Bambili. The kids were so excited to be a part of another week! The first day is always a slow start, but by the time it was game time, we had around 21 kids I think it was. Ben's job is to do the music for the week. I am teaching a Missionary story today and tomorrow, and then Dereck is teaching one on Friday and Sat. Jude is teaching the main Bible story (Jonah) and Valerie is in charge of the games. Here is a shot of our very first game...tug of war. Man...these kids here are tough! and I learned that mine need to toughen up! :D The two teams are the elephants and the Lions (Kate and Emma are on the Elephants and Drew and Faith are on the Lions.) One little girl on Kate and Emma's team is the cutest thing ever. She is so teeny, and Valerie called on her to do the sack race. I thought Ben got a shot of her racing, but when I went through the camera, I learned he didn't. My word...for a tiny little thing, she took off and was pretty much finished by the time the other girl even started! and I didn't even think she'd be able to do it at all! Look at how adorable she is!
So, anyway, the first day was a success and we encouraged the kids with candy and prizes to bring as many friends as possible tomorrow!

Macro

Ben loves to play with the macro settings on his camera, and he also got some lense reversal rings...or something like that, that he uses to take some really close, close up shots. He plays around with it from time to time. (You can check out a whole album of some of his pictures HERE.) Today he got this neat spider shot.
You can see a faint outline of the web which was pretty cool. You can always click the image to get a closer look, though I suspect neither my Mom nor my mother-in-law will choose to do that! haha!

God No Di Sleep

Family day Monday. As we were headed out to our favorite restaurant, we were behind this motorcycle taxi. The sign on the back of his bike was worth taking a picture of. "God no di sleep," is pidgin for God doesn't sleep. However muchacho isn't pidgin, lol! and I have no idea what FBI really stands for. Maybe he is an undercover agent? Anyway, we giggled at it, What you can't see is the other person stuffed between the girl and the driver!

Lunch was great as always and we sat there for a while while it poured down rain. I shoulda brought my sweater! It was downright cold! On our way home we ran into Valerie, who had just returned from a graduation in a city that is right by the ocean. He brought us some treasures from the sea, and the kids were so excited. I was especially intrigued by this one: Valerie said it is a sea flower and that a fisherman brought it to him. I just love it!

...and I know you all are thinking it...Valerie is a HE?? yes...an odd name for a boy to be sure, but in Cameroon Valerie can be for a girl or a boy.

Church

Just an ordinary day at church. The differences were that Yeiters were out of town and our attendance was very low for some reason. Because Susan wasn't there I brought our piano and attempted to play for church. I am in no way, shape or form a piano player. I have basically taught myself what I do know, which isn't much. I took some lessons from a lady in our church when I taught school for a year, and I also had a college roomate give me lessons for one semester, but that is basically it. Having piano accompaniment really does add to the service, so I wanted to try. I'm not sure if I added or detracted...hopefully I blended in seamlessly and didn't stand out too much. You are probably thinking, "How in the world can someone play hymns with not even a whole year of piano lessons!" Well, google the Hymn Fake book. It is wonderful!!! Of course, I am limited in what I can play, but this book along with the Gospel Fake book gives me quite the repetoire. Everything is in the key of C, you just have to learn some chords, which are spelled out in the back of the book. It makes it sound like I actually know what I'm doing! I'd love to truly learn to play the piano...like, pick up a piece of music and play, but at my age and with everything going on in my life, I doubt I'll ever learn. But I love these fake books. I usually sit down and play about a half hour every day. It is relaxing for me. Anyway, the only picture we got today was this one.
You can see Drew up in the front row with his arms around his buddies. And Tom Mike is probably giggling in the picture because he is leading music and the pianist can't keep up with him!