This weeks pictures

Whew- what a week. Filled with a family tragedy back in the States, then a smaller tragedy at our own home here. Yuck. Before that I had a lot rolling around in my head to blog about but now there's pretty much nothing left in there. So I thought I'd just post some pictures of our last week. I mean, if you have a blog you have to post something I guess!

A big event was getting new desks!! That's right, the kids actually have a place to do their school now!! Frankie'd pretty much dropped out because there wasn't room at the table for the poor lad. Too much junk on it. So now he has his own little desk and I guess I'll have to teach him something.

Ella is halfway through 1st grade Bible, Science and History/Geography. I'm proud of her. She's doing well despite a VERY crappy teacher. Who complains a lot... :(

Another wonderful thing was this "new" little fridge and sink set!! Oh my, the kids LOVE it!

It's got a really cool little faucet hooker upper that I need to get rigged up to some water. But it's cool even without running water and a great place for keeping your plastic food out of the jaws of the puppies!

She likes it :)

Ellie and Madea sleeping amidst the shoes

Kitchen helper helping to clean off the groundnut sauce that boiled all over the top of the stove.

Thanks old buddy

A little peanut butter in the Kong helps keep a teething puppy occupied for a while

Saturday the kids friends A came over for the day. Her mom took this picture a while back and I thought it was a cute one. These three are just as ornery as they are cute - TRUST ME!! They're a fun bunch!

After watching an Andy Griffith show where Opie was working to earn money, Ella was inspired to work for her own. So we found an empty jar and made her a little bank to save her money in - a foreign concept for L. She has started cleaning the kitchen on the weekends and earning around 500 shillings a pop - but ONLY if it's done well. She is pretty impressive - a six and a half year old cleaning the ENTIRE kitchen? Like, washing the dishes, putting them away, sweeping the floor AND clearing the counters?? She does it and I help her check her work and point out anything she's missed. Yes, I'm picky. Even though she's only six. I want her to learn that you really do have to do a GOOD job if you're going to get paid for work - money is not automatically owed you. Your job is to keep your employer happy - not the other way around!

I was of two minds about this. On one hand I really do want to teach my child to work for her money and learn how to manage it and all that, but on the other hand I don't want the kids thinking they should be paid in order to contribute to the family. I mean, I never was! And I'm still not :). But in the end I figured that a six year old cleaning an entire kitchen on her own was above and beyond a six year olds normal call to duty!

Frank was a bit pissed at first that he wasn't getting money too, but I explained how he could when he got older - now he can practice taking care of his stuff and doing smaller work without pay, in order to prepare him for the day when he was bigger and could do bigger jobs that you get paid for. He thought about that and the clincher was when I asked him if I got paid for any of the work at home that I did :)

The fruits of her labor -and another tooth! 4,000 shillings (less than $2.00) before she tithed 400 shillings of it.

The youngsters children's church was leading the church services today at church and didn't Frankie just wake up this morning looking like this! He got into a tangle with something that stung him last night, so woke up looking like he was at the receiving end of a bar fight. I gave him some antihistamine (which didn't' appear to do much good!) and took him to church like this. And he even sang in the choir! Only in Africa man... anywhere else I'd get thrown in jail for child abuse!

L's the one with the microphone pointed at her head, and Frankie's the little dude in the orange shirt beside her.

We got to church at the ungodly hour of 8am and FROZE during the first service. It was freakin' cold!! Started to rain and just didn't quit. I wimped out after the first service and we didn't stay for the second. Rather we came home, put on some warm clothes, ate pancakes, drank hot cocoa, the kids watched two hours of The Andy Griffith show and I dozed on the couch for a total of THREE hours!! Yeah, what's up with that?? Sure was nice though :)