Heard Around the House #14

It has been almost a year since I posted a Heard Around the House! 

 I wish I could push pause on our family right now! I love this time with my kiddos. They are so hungry to learn. They are appreciative. They find joy in the little things. Any activity we do turns into an adventure!

{A favorite spot on the island of Flores}

 They are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, profound things are coming out of them all the time. 

Theological discussion between Jonah and Silas #325:  

Silas to Jonah - "If you don't obey your parents you die!"

Jonah - "No, Silas. It says if you obey your parents you live a long time."

We were driving home from youth group and singing At Calvary.

Silas - "That's my favorite song."

Then he explained the plan of Salvation to me.

Mama - "And that's the beautiful plan of Salvation."

Silas - "I know, you told me about it a long time ago."

Mama - "Are you going to tell your kids about it?"

Silas - "Yeah, but you are going to have to help me tell them how to make oreo pudding."

Jonah - "Silas when we are grown up, Mama is going to be dead."

Silas - "What?!"

Mama - "Kiki is alive and she's my momma."

Silas - "Yeah but she's old."

Jonah "Not as old as Papa."

Mama - "Why do you think Papa is older?"

Jonah - "Because he doesn't have any hair."

Mama - "Jonah, you take after Papa, you probably won't have any hair either."

Jonah - "What?! My hair is going to fall out!"

Silas - "It's ok, Jonah. It will grow back."

Mama - "No, it's not like teeth."

Jonah - "No! ...my hair is going to fall out and it's not going to grow back!"

Silas - "It's ok, Jonah. You will have hair in Heaven."

 

They are so sweet to their mommy... most days, haha!

I was sad the other day about something and Jonah came over and gave me a hug. 

Jonah - "Mama, God told me to give you a hug." 

 For Valentine's each day they get a new heart over their bed that says something about who they are that I love. 

Silas was upset that I wasn't getting any hearts. A couple days into February I found this on my nightstand: (Dada wrote it for him.)

Silas started this "good cooker" thing. The boys say it all the time now to both of us. The boys love it when Dada grills outside, but they do not like it when he is in the kitchen. If Jimmy cooks inside, he always make something we call beefy noodle soup. It is basically an excuse to eat a whole bunch of garlic and cilantro which Jimmy and I love. The boys hate it. It is the one meal that they would rather skip than eat. The other day Jimmy walked into the kitchen and Silas says, "Dada, you have your beefy noodle soup face on. Please let Mama cook!"  

{Celebrating Jimmy's birthday}

One morning I made an apple oatmeal experiment for breakfast. (My bunch is very dependent on routine, especially for breakfast. If you don't give them bacon they get cranky.) Silas tried it and says, "This is SO good, Mama!" Then he leans over to Dada and in a not so quiet voice says, "I don't ever say I don't like something, I just eat it."  

 The other day Silas did something mean to Jonah. Jimmy talks about grace and mercy a lot when he is disciplining the boys... not that they don't get their fair share of punishments, but it IS mixed with grace and mercy. Jimmy gave Jonah the opportunity to practice a little mercy. He said that if Jonah said it was ok, Silas didn't have to receive his punishment. Jonah started off really upset about what Silas had done, but when he heard that he decided he didn't want Silas to be punished, he just wanted to let it go. This is grateful and apologetic Silas afterwards:

 

We celebrated Easter like we have the last couple years, where each day we focus on a different part of the Easter story leading up to the Resurrection. I posted a list of activities here with a passage for each day. This year we swapped out some of the activities for new ones. Some they specifically asked to do again!

 Some of the new things we made were Easter shape cookies, praying hands,

 roosters,

and a crown of thorns.

 They wanted to do the scars on Christ's hands again.

 For Easter Sunday we made a resurrection cake!

 Here is our empty tomb:

 We had a very memorable Easter this year.

 We have a big problem with termites.

Silas calls them "terminites" you know, like some pagan people group in the Bible!

Our house is concrete, but they come up where the floors meet the walls. If you put anything made of paper, fabric, or wood close to a wall, it will be eaten... fast! I lost almost all my cook books a couple days ago. I keep my cookbooks in a plastic crate on the floor in my pantry. It was a couple inches from the wall. The books looked ok, but when you opened them up, the insides were dust and tunnels. We took all the books and burned them to kill the termites. Silas is our little lemons into lemonade boy. He said we all needed to roast marshmallows, so we did!

Jonah usually draws armored soldiers, like the armor of God. He draws them everywhere. The other day though, I was late getting them down for a nap. Jonah's mood is very dependent on his nap time. That day he drew a picture of his emotions instead!

{This photo was taken AFTER nap time!}

Jonah and Eden are my puzzle lovers. (I love puzzles, Jimmy does not.) Silas always participates with Jonah solely for social purposes. They used to only do puzzles with me, now they don't need my help anymore. I'm kind of sad about that. 

 Jonah and Silas really want to be just like Dada!

Jonah - "Dada, when you were a kid did you have a beard?" 

Jonah was really wanting a beard like Dada right now.  

Here is Eden telling Dada, "You're my Little Sweetheart!"

 She's funny. She gets jealous of Jimmy and I. Each morning around 6, she come into our room and fights over the middle of the bed. Then she sleeps there for almost 2 more hours. She's a good alarm clock!

 

Eden's language has developed a lot faster than the boys'. I think because she is not a twin. At church she's always is in the middle of a bunch of Kekchi ladies/girls. She will respond correctly to me if I speak to her in Spanish, but she will not speak Spanish to me. I have heard a little bit of Kekchi out of her.

The most important thing is that her English is definitely southern. There are no one syllable words in her vocabulary! 

It was nap time in our hotel in the capital before we flew out for our last furlough. I was sitting on the bed next to Eden's bed. 

Eden - "Go to sleep, Mama."

Mama - "I'm going to sit here the whole time you are sleeping, but I might not fall asleep."

Eden - "Oh, don't fall, Mama!"

Another time we were in a hotel in the capital, the kiddos were in their beds going to sleep. Jimmy and I were working on our classes for the institute. Eden kept asking me to turn the lights off. I turned off the one closest to her. Then a couple minutes pased and Eden said frustratedly, "Mama, I don't want to see you!" She wanted complete darkness.

At our home one day Eden walks out of her room...

Mama - "Eden, did you sleep during naptime?"

Eden - (With hands spread apart enthusiastically) "I slept a big amount."

Crossroads Baptist in Wichita sent us some fun stuff in the mail. 

 The kiddos loved all the surprises! 2 bubble mailers came with all boy stuff. We thought maybe they thought we had only boys. Jonah and Silas shared their stuff with Eden. Then a little over a week later a third bubble mailer arrived with all kinds of girl stuff. Eden was thrilled!

{Her new Frozen bag!}

We had a new family that attends the institute over to our house the other evening. While we were eating dinner I put a padded blanket on the floor next to the table so the parents could eat and still keep an eye on their baby. The baby was fussy at first but then fell asleep. Eden says loudly at the table in English, "I think the baby's dead." We did not translate that one! 

While that family was at our house Silas knocked Jonah's tooth out with a rubber sword. Jonah had just gotten his first loose tooth and had been playing with it trying to wiggle it out. Silas knocking it out for him kind of fits them perfectly.

Jonah could not have been happier!

 

Now every time we take his picture he yells - "Make sure you get my hole."

That night after he brushed his teeth - "Dada, now there is hole on my toothbrush!"

I wasn't ready for my boys to start losing their teeth. They are growing up too fast!

Mama - "Jonah, I'm so sad that you are so grown up. Stop growing!"

Jonah - "Mama, it's because you keep feeding me so much food!"

Silas - "Mama, when I grow big, I'm going to be able to eat junk whenever I want." 

 This is the kid who refuses to eat potato chips when we are out places because they "take away your muscles"... I couldn't be prouder!

 

Jimmy sold his pickup and bought a different used one that has a double cab since the students ride with him a lot. He had to get someone to weld a new front bumper to attach the winch to. It looks really weird. When the boys saw it they were so excited because they said it made it a "transformer" truck!

The boys love going on errands with Dada. They were riding with Jimmy in his truck the other day.

Silas - "I like to hunt bear and cook it."

Dada - "Is it good?"

Silas - "Yeah, it taste like chicken and dumplings."

Jonah - "You can't eat bear, Silas, they have poop in them."

Silas - "No, Jonah, you just cut the behind off."

Why? For some reason so go most of the conversations when Mama is not there.

Every Saturday is Family Fun Day. We play lots of games and kind of close ourselves off from the rest of the world.

 

We eat dinner on the porch and play in the backyard.

  

It is our day of rest. This day is vital for our family!

{Yes, Jonah, I got your hole.}

{Walking to a birthday party}

 Eden loves animals, but she doesn't mess around with street dogs! This is her "that dog might eat me" face:

{The birthday girl!}

The boys are kind of jumpy around our big dogs still, but not E! She wrestles with them all the time. Bags is still in the puppy stage and is super naughty. She will run inside our house and grab something to take outside and eat without us knowing. Jimmy all the time is saying 'I'm going to kill that dog!" Eden yells, "No, don't kill Baggy!"And then makes him promise not to (not that he ever would.) We thought she ate another shoe the other day and then we finally found it inside the house. Eden said, "I knew that Baggy was a good dog!"

We bought an old armoire from a carpenter in town who was moving to the States. I have been fixing it up during nap times for Eden's room. Jonah wakes up one day and comes in the hall, "Mama! Eden is going to love that!" My boys are so encouraging to me.

Jonah and Silas decided the giraffes were a mama and a dada. 

Eden - "Where's the baby?"

Jonah - "I don't now but I'm the snail."

Silas - Jonah, it's not a snail it's a peahawk."

Jonah - "It looks like a snail."

Silas - "I know, Mama says it's a peahawk."

Lately Jonah and Silas have been choosing to wear matching shirts. The other day I said, "Wow you guys really look like twins today, even your shorts match."

Silas - "Yeah, even our underwear matches!" 

(Jonah and Silas both giggle.) 

Silas - "Are there tuba stores in the States?" 

Mama - "Why?"

Silas - "I want to buy one." 

Mama - "But why?"

Silas - "Because they're big... and awesome." 

Silas comes up to me the other day with his pirate eye patch around his neck and says,  

"Mama, I lost a nipple." That one had me laughing for a while!

Silas - "Dada, 'I'm real busy today."

Dada - "What do you have to do?"

Silas - "Well mainly I'm focused on building this cool rocket ship out of my bed."

{Their introduction to Jello Jigglers!}

The boys were super hungry and I said it was going to be a while before it was time to eat. Silas came really close to complaining until Mama shot him a look.

Silas - "I hate supper... I mean the devil. I really hate the devil."

Each night as I kiss Eden goodnight, she says, "I love you really much!"

There are English commercials now on our English news station for some reason. Usually they are medical commercials for older folk.

The other day a bug flew under Silas' shirt and bit him all up. We put some Benadryl cream on it, but by the next morning it was itching again. 

Silas - "Dada, that cream didn't work, I think I need some Recticare. Recticare relieves the burning and itching."

{Making some Nobakes late one night!}

As we are driving down the dirt road to the institute...

Jonah - "Why did all these people throw all these rocks in the road?!"

Silas - "No Jonah, that's how they make the roads." 

We were at Kiki's house and she groaned as she was doing something.

Silas - "Are you ok Kiki?"

Kiki - "Yeah, I'm just old."

Silas - "After you get old you die." 

{Mother's Day}

Silas came up to Dada to settle an argument he and Jonah were having. Jonah was absolutely certain the Moses was still alive when Dada was born. He thought they had to have been friends since he knows so much about him.

Later Silas asks - "So did the Devil get kicked out of Heaven before or after you and Dada were born?"

We need to either work on our time frames or clarify that we are not ancient!

Jimmy and the boys watched the movie The Patriot for memorial day. We later found a cool wooden musket at the thrift store. Jonah was really happy. He kept telling me it was just like the Sea Hawks' gun. I did not understand what he meant. Then I realized he got his football teams confused.

Jonah on his tiptoes smiling real big - Mama, when I stand on my tiptoes I'm 6!

Heard Around the House #13

 The kids' 2 bedrooms are going to be finished in the next couple of twelve months. The boys sleep in what will be my parents room when they move here (Yay!) and Eden sleeps in our closet. We were discussing who would sleep in which room. Silas felt bad for Eden because she would be alone in her room. (I predict she will end up sleeping in the boys' room for the first couple of months.)

Dada - "Well Eden isn't a twin."

Jonah - "Yeah, me and Silas are twins, he takes care of me and I take care of him."

Beautiful definition of twins!

Eden is VERY independent. Much more than even the boys are now. It started with her pushing us away so she could do it herself and she would yell "Got it!" Now it has evolved into her saying, "I do it!!!" She gets so disgusted with me if I try to help her... with her shoes, getting into the car, filling up her water cup, anything really. She always wants to help ME though, so I don't feel completely rejected!

{We were trying to make cupcakes that looked like the ones in Eden's book.}

{"No Mama, I'm an angel I would never eat another cupcake if you told me not to!"}

Eden wouldn't let us help her potty train either. I explained it to her and she did not like the idea at all at first. She fussed at me when I put cute little pink panties on her. Then I said big girls use a potty and that only big girls could help me in the kitchen. (That is our thing. She sits on the counter and helps me with nearly every meal.) That rule broke my heart, but it only took a couple days. Soon she started asking for panties. The first time she used the potty (she wouldn't use it with either one of us in there helping her... HARD-HEADED!)

I was in the laundry room and I heard her start to cry, not a painful cry, but an angry one. Then she yelled, "Mama, bop!" Sure enough she had bopped in the potty and she was not happy about that being what she was expected to do now. Then she said, "Candy?!" Soon after that she started waking up, taking off her diaper and putting on panties herself. She goes on her own now and gets her own candy afterwards. She doesn't use diapers for naptime but I'm waiting till she gets her big girl bed until we try all night. Killin me! She is a year ahead of when the boys were finally potty trained. I'm grateful about how ridiculously easy this was compared to them, but I am SO sad that she is so big.

Jonah came up to me the other day very serious and kind of whispered - "Mama, I'm growing right now." I guess sometimes you can feel it, lol! 

{Like feeding a bunch of monkeys}

Silas doesn't have a lot of patience with Jonah in the mornings. He really wants to play, but his internal clock is about 2 hours ahead of Jonah. Even if Jonah wakes up with everyone else, that doesn't mean he is functional yet. Silas was just fussing at him for every little thing one morning.

Mama - "Silas, you worry about Silas."

Silas - "Mama, if I worry about Silas then that means that I don't believe in God."

{Silas' depiction of our family... I love Dada's big head! Silas and Dada are also carrying backpacks.}

The kids were squished in the back of the pickup the other day and Silas was stating that he didn't have room to sit. 
Jonah - "Just deal with it!"

MaG was thinking about flying here and picking up the grandkids to spend a week in the States with her and G. I was worried about Eden missing us. Very excited about the idea, Jonah and Silas immediately started reassuring me that they would all be ok and not miss us. Silas took it a little far and said -"Mama, I won't miss you AT ALL!" That got Mama really upset. Jonah caught on immediately and was very diplomatic about the whole thing. Finally he was tired of me and Silas going back and forth and said very frustratedly - "Come on Silas! Just say you will miss Mama!"

Jonah came into our room one morning to snuggle. His head was on my tummy and he must have heard something. He looked up at me and said, "Mama, God is talking to your heart. I don't know what He is saying, but He is saying something."

{Snuggling on the bed with a pile of books!}

One night after our night-night routine, Jonah got all worked up about something. He was crying and getting more worked up by the second. I went into their room and said very seriously - "You need to stop this Boobooing!" I meant to say boohooing, but once it left my mouth, Jonah immediately started cracking up laughing! Now whenever anyone is having a bad attitude, which we all suffer from once in a while, we say, "Stop your Boobooing" and it helps lighten the mood.

{We love board games in this house!}

Lucha, Jimmy's boxer keeps tearing up the rat screen on our back door trying to get inside the house whenever she hears fireworks. (Which happens multiple times a day here.) Jimmy has fixed it dozens of times. One night he was really upset with her and saying he was going to do anything from putting her down, to taking her out into a field and just letting her go. Silas was upset about it. It was his turn to pray that night as part of their night-night routine. He prayed, "God, please help Lucha be good and please help Dada fix his attitude!"

{Popsicle too!}

I was sitting in the living room having a very serious conversation with Silas. I was thinking, this is great, he is really getting what I am trying to explain to him. Then he leans over and whispers with a grin in my ear, "Mama, I just tooted on the couch two times."

{Silas' first sight word... thank you, Dada!}

Eden AND Silas were on the bed one morning with us and Silas said, "Shhhh, I hear something!" Eden looked at me and whispered, "Bad guys." I think she plays pretend with her brothers a lot! 

{Dada got us pop for movie night!}

Jimmy was sharing with the kids a verse from Proverbs. He was explaining was a hypocrite was. He gave them all superhero mask and then explained that who you are is what you are when you take your mask off.
Dada - "Silas, right now you look like iron man. Take your mask off. Now, who are you really?"
Silas - "Batman".

{How Jonah brushes his teeth!}

Out of nowhere one day.
Silas - "Mama, I love you more than catching... I don't really like catching at all." (Nice!)
Mama - "Catching what?"
Silas - "You know, catching balls, catching fish." 

{So thankful for these guys!}

Silas is very serious about pie... any type of pie. Dada promised Silas a piece of pumpkin pie after church one night, so he had been waiting a while only to find this: