We're leaving and ....A trip to the libary and home again

We are in the busy season of getting ready to travel to the US for 2 months.  We leave on Tuesday....and Jonathan is very excited to ride on the big airplane!
I have aspirations of keeping this blog active during our travels....but it may become inert if circumstances prevent me from  posting.

In the meantime, I have these photos from our walk to school last week that I uploaded but never posted.  Enjoy!

Now that Jonathan is a stronger, more obedient walker, I'm starting to venture out of the house more with both boys.  

So we packed Joshua in the stroller and put a harness on Jonathan for safety and off to school we went for a  visit to the elementary library.

We are SO thankful we have access to this library at school!  We check out about 10 books a week, and it's a treat for all of us, especially on the first day when the books are still fresh!

Ode to the library:
Lord, I am so grateful you have given us access to this library!
I have always loved a library and feel a sense of peace upon entering,
and what would we do without a fresh supply of books each week
to feed the eager and hungry mind of my Jonathan (and myself)!
What a wonderful combination of classics (Babar, Curious George, Clifford)
and character builders (a wondrous collection of Christian classics and newer stories).
Thank you Lord for our library!  I know by the time we are done 
we will have checked out and returned our favorites dozens of times!

P.S.  A few of our favorites so far are Go, Dog,  Go (by Eastman) and A Steam Train Journey (by Puck Scarry) and Inside, Outside, Upside Down (by Berenstein)

We left the library a few minutes ago.  As we round the corner by the high school building, Jonathan decides it's time for his first sit down break and a drink.

We're off campus now and stopped at the corner store for a little box of milk to keep our strength up.  Jonathan has a coin in his pocket he's been keeping very carefully ....time to use it for a ride on the toy train!

We've climbed up a BIG hill and are now walking by the "soccer field."  Time to pause for a moment and watch the chickens pecking in a grove of trees.

In my "critter" post not too long ago, I said I could never photo a butterfly, but lo and behold, here is a beauty we saw on our walk and my camera captured his flutterings!

So, these images are just a glimpse of what we see on our short walk between campus and home ....I didn't get photos of the large house being built on the corner (complete with cement mixer), the neighborhood lady who gave me a bunch a orchids, the banana tree garden being cultivated, the discarded paper kite that Jonathan carried for half of the way,  and the security guards greeting Jonathan at the front gate of the school.  We never know what or who we will see, but with a baby and toddler along, we are forced to slow down and enjoy all of the details!

This week's milestones

I now love laying on my tummy and playing with toys!  I can do this for 30 minutes before I need help from my mommy!

In this photo, Joshua is enjoying his shadow. 

Wow, Jonathan is really loving the diggers and dumpers right now. 
Since we don't have a sandbox (yet?) at the house, I'm letting him use the flower bed, which you can see doesn't have any flowers at the moment!  On this day, he played for about 45 minutes by himself while I had a nice visit with my friend Amy!

Our desk finally came back from the repair shop after being attacked by termites.  Here Jonathan is inspecting the repair job before I reload the file drawer.

"Please shut it, please!" is how Jonathan asks me to close the drawer.  So I do, for a game of "Peek-you" (or peek-a-boo, as most people know it.) 

Critters

Help my house is being invaded by giant caterpillars driving a John Deere tractor!  I walked into the living room the other day and THIS is what I found! 

Well, we do live in the tropics and bugs and critters are abundant ...although here in our small city they are mostly on the smaller side and quite common .....lots of ants and mosquito.   Occasionally we hear of friends who have some real excitement.  For instance last year a 6 foot python was found on the school track (and was was adopted and later released back into the wild by some friends.)  Even more scary, last week a friend reported of a "white tipped viper" invading her daughters' bedroom.  It had been disturbed out of it's rock pile home by some new construction. (That one was NOT adopted, as it was quite poisonous.)  I don't hear snake stories very often though.   Today I'd like to share some photos of some of the critters I have managed to catch on camera. 

 

 He looks awful and he is indeed huge...about half as long as my pinky finger and as big around too.   He is indeed a kind of bee and what you see here is just his skin, actually.  I'm not sure if his insides have been eaten or if he just moved out because he grew.  His exoskeleton has been attached there to our tree for a good month now.....weathering quite a few hard rain storms.  These guys buzz loudly around our passionfruit vines quite a bit.

This guy is a chameleon of sorts ...when I first saw him he was brown, and then he turned green when he scurried off the fence into the hibiscus bush.  Jonathan and I played hide-and-seek with him for about half and hour before he found a better hiding place.

 

We do have butterflies come through every day, but they don't land and I can't photo them.  The moths tend to land more and rest a while.  Jonathan was excited to find this guy on our porch yesterday.

 Here's another guy who stopped on our porch last month when my mom was visiting.

Now to tell you about some of the critters who come INSIDE our house.  The lines of ants who patrol the kitchen each evening are just something we live with....but I had to put my foot down when a colony decided to try building a sandy anthill in our bedroom!  Here Jonathan and I are sweeping up a good 1/2 cup of sand that were brought up through holes in the tile/wall junction.  The holes have now been cemented over and no more ants in the bedroom.  Unfortunately they have moved into back bathroom....

What you see here are "termite tunnels."  A few months ago we bought a lovely new desk.  We live in an older house, but I've never seen termites in any of the rooms.  Then last week, I discovered they had bored through the floor and had made "tunnels" all around the bottom of the new desk!  I was so sad I felt nauseated...God's lesson to me not to be too attached to possessions. In the picture, the tunnels you see were built overnight after we had cleaned away the previous ones.   Now those holes have been cemented over too and the desk is still out being repaired.

What is a "termite tunnel" you ask?  The termites have fragile bodies, so they bring dirt and mud (and bug feces) and build mounded tunnels so they can move to and from and around their food sources more safely.  YUCK! 

So that completes this episode of critters around our home!  For the next episode, tune in again to see cecaks, tokeks, massive ant nests hiding inside a blender, cockroaches, and much, much more!

Life around our house May 2012

Finally, some brotherly love! 

More brotherly love!

I'm not sure what inspired it, but Jonathan got all of his library books and crammed them and himself into the bottom shelf where Daddys' clothes are.  Then he insisted I shut the door!

"Swimming" in the backyard

I can't resist throwing in another bath picture!

This is what I hope will be the first of many playdates with Xander.  Xander and Joshua are just 16 days apart (Xander was born first.) 

Squishy goodness and smiles -- Joshua at 3 months

Without further adieu, and in no particular order, with no particular captions (just feeling fortunate to get the pictures on the blog tonight!).....the pictures are self explanatory!

Happy 46th Birthday Dave!

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers."  Psalm 1: 1-3

Our family is so thankful for a husband and father who loves the Lord  and his family and who prays and seeks wisdom from God's word each day.  He's also a very thankful guy, which we feel in how he relates to us.  He is absolutely the perfect husband for me and I love him and thank God for bringing us together!

Happy Birthday Dave!

Dave, these are the best years of your life....but I have a feeling the bestest best is yet to come! 

Grandma Coral's visit!

Grandma Coral's very FIRST meeting with Joshua ....it was smiles all around!

Then my mom came for a lovely 3 week visit!  Dave had a bad cold for a week of her visit, and then I had a nasty case of mastitis that kept me in bed for two days.  So that is why the lack of blogging.....during the moments when we weren't sick,  it was so much fun spending time with her.....much more fun than blogging. I do apologize to those of you few who have faithfully looked for updates!  We didn't travel but we did have fun at home just living normal life with two adorable little boys.


We celebrated my  mom's birthday and Mother's day early.  I realized it's probably been since high school since I was with my mom for her special days in May....so we had a party!

It's the big 60!  Not a grey hair on her head, though!

My mom is one of the most helpful people in the world.  She does dishes,  laundry, washes floors ....all in between lavishing love on Jonathan and Joshua.  Dave and I both had significant illness during her visit.... I don't know how we would have survived without her help.  Also, thanks to Grandma Coral, Jonathan made great strides in potty training and IS NOW WEARING UNDERWEAR full time, except for cloth pull-ups at night!  I'm so thankful God provided for her to be able to come at the perfect time. 

A sampling of some of the fun daily things Grandma did while she was here .....lots of making googly eyes at Joshua and a whole lot of reading out loud with Jonathan!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reaching for the purple egg, with help from Daddy, on Easter Sunday.

I was so thankful Mom was here to share in our Easter celebration this year.  We had 12 days of preparation with the Ressurection Eggs at dinner time ....Jonathan had a lot of fun with them this year although he doesn't understand all of the symbols. 

Post Easter egg hunt smiles!

"I go 'merica too!"

Sadly, the 3 weeks came to an end.  When it was time for Grandma Coral to pack, Jonathan climbed in her suitcase and really would not get out for an hour.  At dinner we talked about Grandma leaving and all Jonathan would say is "Grandma, Daddy, Mommy, Jonathan, Joshua go 'merica too!"  He much preferred the idea of us all going together ....on a big airplane. 

Grandma is back home and we have already seen her safe and sound via Skype.  Mom, thank you so much for blessing us with your visit.