A Moment Captured In My Brain. Forever.

On Sunday I was singing on the worship team and I looked out at the congregation and there was my C. singing her heart out to the Lord, eyes closed, swaying slightly. The image was made all the more precious by a very prominent missing front tooth.
Never going to forget it.

Girls On Tour

We didn't take our three older girls with us for the first half of the Gospel Tour, but they were there for the second - in full force. They had a great time. Still has not grown into the ears...

E. & C. even performed two dances. Everybody works!

*More pictures of the gospel tours on my facebook page.

C.'s 7th Birthday

Here's C. in her Birthday Dress. She was 7 years old on April 24th and gorgeous - obviously.
We went for a picnic with all our staff for C.'s birthday. We swam and swam.
Fun for big people too!!

Chackalai

E. and C. in one of their Christmas Dance costumes from our program on December 22nd.

They posed themselves.

C. At The Shore

We saw Cinderella at the Surflight Theater on LBI. My girls loved the live theater. Here's C. with the Evil Stepmother and the Stepsisters.
With Cinderella herself and cousin N.

Aye Aye Captain C.

Beach Beauty

The Happiest Day Of The Year!

Today was the first day of school for E. and C. Yippy!

Photos pending.

C.'s 6th

Beautiful C. on her 6th birthday (April 24th).
In the evening of that same day before Phoebe's wedding. (In another pink dress...) The girl loves to pose for a picture.
I also promised her that I would take her to the beauty parlor to get her hair straightened for her birthday. So after her "Kid Party" in the morning we went for straightening. As you can see in this photo from the evening, her very curly hair didn't get too straight and it just curled back up in the heat, but she was immeasurably happy about that "straight" hair all day long.

*When I told her she couldn't wash her hair after it was straightened because it would get curly again she said to me, "I'll never wash my hair again."

Samuel Weds Fibi

Friday, April 24th is C.'s birthday AND Phoebe's* wedding. Phoebe has lived with me for the last four years since her mother died and she's finally marrying her long time love, Samuel, on Friday.

It's been a busy week. It's why I've not been around.

* Phoebe always spells her name "Fibi" in English.

Girl Pictures - C

Superstar C
Looking out
O-Kay!
What a smile.

C. Works...When She Wants To

Since the House Opening is on Wednesday, we're all working. Even C. pitched in to help.

Hide And Seek

E. is almost 8
C. is 5
G. is 18 months

I like when E. & C. & G. play Hide and Seek together

I like when E. & C. make G. be "It"

I like when G. actually finds them

The Following Photos May Frighten You

E.'s Teeth

E. is 7 1/2 and her teeth are just now reluctantly coming out. She apparently, has no desire for the old to go and the new to come. You may remember an earlier post "Shark Shark Baby" where her 2 bottom teeth turned into 4 bottom teeth when her adult teeth came in and her baby teeth remained.

As you can see in the following frightening picture of E.'s mouth, her left front tooth remains and behind it her adult tooth has already come in. When E. was 1 1/2 years old she fell off a bike and landed on her mouth. That front baby tooth was knocked loose, shoved back inside by her mother and I think I may have cemented it in her gums for all eternity, 'cause it ain't comin' out.
I'm reluctant to take her to the dentist to have it pulled, seems kind of traumatic, but may be necessary. The tooth is actually loose, hence why I haven't taken the dentist step yet.
C., on the other hand, has gorgeous teeth; we just need to work on the hair in this picture...

E.'s front tooth on the right came out because she was drinking from a bottle of water in the car on the way to our Conference this month and we hit a bumb and the bottle hit the tooth and the tooth fell IN the water bottle...

Party Pix

The little monsters from C.'s birthday party last week. C. is in the blue top near the front. Don't let their angelic expressions fool you, they were only behaving for the photo becase they knew the cake was coming.
I made a pinata, at the end O. broke it open. You can see the little nightmares, I mean kids, kids, rushing for the candy on the floor.

C.'s Birthday Party

The Kid party we had for C. was a Night Mare. Over 40 children came, many of whom I had never seen before in my life.

They were all little animals. I'm never doing this again, or at least not until I forget sufficiently enough to consider another "Kid Party."

5 Years Old Today

Sweet C. (a.k.a. "Barbie") is 5 years old today.
I woke up this morning and thought I'd make her pancakes, her favorite. After brushing my teeth I went right to the kitchen. C. came in and said, "You didn't wish me Happy Birthday!" and she was right, and that's just like me and my Martha tendencies. I was so focused on making her the pancakes for her birthday I didn't even remember to seek her out to say "Happy Birthday."

Poor kid with a lousy mom.

She forgave me. As it happened, I didn't have any eggs for the pancakes but they turned out ok. C. didn't much like them and asked if I could go to the store and get her a Pepsi instead.

Himalaya School

I went to get C.'s Report Card from school today and on her last exams (she's in Lower Kindergarten) she got perfect grades in every subject except for Hindi. She lost 2 points for something. I told her to blame it on her mother.

However, her mother's lack of school-learned Hindi skills may not be such a problem in the future. A somewhat new friend of mine, Shelly, who is an American woman working among Muslims in our state, recently returned from a 6 week intensive Hindi course at Landour Language School in Mussoorie. (In the Himalayan mountains, it's a Hill Station. See photo above of the view from the school.)

Shelly told me that what she really wanted to learn was conversational Hindi but that all they teach at the school is Hindi Grammar. Since having that conversation I had been thinking and dreaming and praying and thinking some more. I've got the Hindi conversation skills, but no formal grammar. I picked up all my Hindi by ear.

I, of course, googled the school and stared at it for a while on the computer. The course is 3 months long, or a 6 weeks intensive course or you can take the classes by week - two being minimum.

Two weeks. In the Himalayan mountains. All alone. Improving my Hindi, perhaps significantly. It just sounded too good. I brought it up with O. a couple days ago and he said... "Yeah, sounds good - Go."

So, I'm preparing to go in September, probably over my birthday. Whoo hoo!

We'll See At the End

I'm not sure where this post is going to be perfectly honest.

We're at the end of the school year over here. E. and C. will finish this week. Then it is (the dreaded) summer vacation... I'm actually going to attempt to teach them to read over vacation. Ask me how this is going, maybe that will make me actually do it.

I'm kind of in a limbo these days. I'm blaming it on the end of the school year. I feel like I'm not deeply involved in anything. I've got stuff that I do, my time is full, but I guess it's just that I'm the kind of person who loves to be heart and soul involved in something. Having ten things going on that I'm partially involved in, is just not doing it for me.

Why I Love Barbie

Our daughter, C., loves Barbie. Here she is below in a Barbie Fairytopia dress. She is a gorgeous child and with her curly blond hair she gets a lot of attention, especially in India.
However, with all that beauty she is also the child that I struggle with the most. Yet, here is why I Love Barbie. - C. Loves Barbie. She even prefers to be called "Barbie Charlotte"

I've learned to use this to my advantage, see following example:

Me: "C. you've got a black booger hanging out of your nose, let me get it."

C: "No."

Me: "Oh, Barbie doesn't have black boogers hanging out of her nose."

C: Obediently leans nose toward me to have the offending booger removed. Doesn't say a word. Doesn't complain. Doesn't shout, scream, pull away or otherwise misbehave. After booger is removed she asks to see it.

I realize this is manipulation and I sincerely hope to someday be the kind of mother who has children who obey her immediately and at all times. Until then - man, I love Barbie.

* Yes, I know I revealed it.

ESL

I took this while waiting for the car to come. This is C. introducing E. who is going to dance. (I already deleted that one.)

Needless to say, English is not C.'s native language, but she's mighty cute.

C. And Angel

Cute Pictures of My Kids Day.

This is C. with her best friend, Angel. I love how they are holding hands.
E. (my 6 year old) took this picture.