Birthday Boys!

The week before Easter Sunday, we stayed home from church, since both Callie and Carson had fevers, which then manifested themselves in weird outward forms. Carson got a hives-like rash, and Callie got terribly sick to her stomach for a day, not even able to keep down water.

Poor baby!

Caleb and Colin were healthy and completed four days of school. We learned about the early Greeks in history, and I made Greek pizza and hummus. The feta and chicken pizza would have been great without the kalamata olives I added. Blech. Double blech. The Greeks can keep ‘em is what Seth said. (I should have put black olives on.)

We had a church service on Good Friday, which was poorly attended since it was rainy. I wrote about my attitude change regarding giving up a “holiday” for church. We tried to get a good family photo, since we were all dressed in red and black, but things fell apart. One baby fell asleep, the other cried, and things quickly devolved into silliness.

Callie was actually the culprit crier, not Colin.

Forget the serious pose!

On Easter Sunday, our church hosted the other two Baptist churches in our region, and the other church brought several people to be baptized in our river. Well, river is a glorified term. There are some reeds there… Seth spent Saturday with the teen boys clearing a path through our new plot of land for our church and digging reeds (which he discovered are astonishingly sharp!) and sand out of the creek to make a baptismal hole. They were successful, and our coworker who was the Baptist for the day, praised our “lagoon” for its depth.

This week we accomplished almost 5 days of schooling. Caleb studied about the Medes and Persians, and we played a game called “Conquer Mesopotamia.” We learned about different classifications of animals in science. Caleb is memorizing some of the differences and also made notebook pages with a picture of an animal as well as a list of the characteristics for each classification.

We moved on to the New Testament in Bible so that the boys would have a better idea of the Easter story. Caleb finished one more 1st grade ABeka reader this week; and he has learned about half of his subtraction facts.

We went into town Wednesday so I could pick up some needed supplies, as we had a serious celebration to prepare for this week! Colin and Carson shared a birthday! Colin turned 4, and Carson turned 1. I wrote about my crazy labor story, if you like labor stories.

I made waffles for breakfast (Colin learned the letter “W” this week, so it meshed perfectly.) Colin and Carson opened their gifts before Daddy went to work on the church property digging fence posts. Dinner was mac and cheese and hot dogs (easy for me) and a train cake (not so easy!) Carson had his first cake ever but surprisingly didn’t eat much of it.

Eating cheetoes till they’re literally coming out of his ears.

Cutie with some cake.

A “4” is on the engine in icing, and a “1” candle is on the passenger car.

Colin’s favorite gift–cowboy hat, bandanna, and sheriff badge.

We go on furlough to America in three weeks! I am so excited. I am on track in most areas to complete my to-do lists before then. Seth is attending a “miracle crusade” in the village tonight, as he is writing his master’s thesis on the prosperity gospel in southern Africa. He will present his thesis to his seminary while we are in America, and then a big chapter of our lives will be over!

Thank you for your prayers and love. We are looking forward to seeing many of you!