dogs, fish, and walking.... or trying to.

AnDee out of the blue asked if she could have fish. So I let her call Andrew who agreed that we would get her some pet fish if she promised to feed them everyday. So far so good. The kid is a fish feeding fool she also likes to try to catch them... with her oh so clean hands. Pep too likes to splash in the fish bowl. Which creates many fish bowl cleaning opportunities for mom. Yay? I don't think they will last real long but seeing as the going price for baby guppies is 5 for a dollar... I can't complain too much.
And so I present to you, our five fish!

What are their names, you ask? Well AnDee, AnDee, AnDee, AnDee and AnDee of course? What other name is there?... I mean besides Bonny.

 Pep doesn't have his very own fish... he has however taken a real liking to the dogs. We recently had them groomed and they have been reincorporated into the family. Poor things have been shut outside for most of the last year but we decided it was time to repent and bring them back in. Im pretty sure Pep thinks this is the best idea. He LOVES hunter (like most kids do) and he thinks Betty is pretty neat too.

The boy is starting to think he can walk.

(my children don't like to wear pants. Its odd really)

He just recently started to get brave enough to let go and walk on his own. He usually makes it 4 or 5 steps and then crashes but he's getting it!

(blurry I know but you get the idea)

I LOVE the stage he is in. He is totally becoming his own person and he is hilarious. 

The little tykes were sick last week. It started with AnDee (as seen in previous post) and of course spread to the Pep boy. SO. NOT. FUN. Im glad we are at the end of it. We still have some lingering coughs and stuffy noses but they are no longer total zombies so thats refreshing. AnDee was going absolutely crazy being stuck in the house all week so we tried to keep her busy without letting her get too worked up. We pulled out the ABC stencils and they were a huge hit. She painted and colored and helped me cook. She teased Pep an awful lot and got some fish and she got a tattoo... and so did Pep. Monkey tattoos on their cute little feet.

Id be ok with it if they NEVER got sick again. 

Something a little more fun

When AnDee put her valentines cards together I handed her the little cards and told her to sign them... thinking Id get a bunch of scribbles. Instead I got this...

She makes me smile.

Last night I left the kids with Andrew while I went to play soccer. A few minutes after I left Andrew oh so kindly texted me a video of Pep. He was sitting, staring at the door and crying. Apparently  when I left he crawled to the door and banged on it a few times. When he realized I wasn't coming back he just sat and stared... and cried. I feel like this act of kindness from Andrew was SO NOT FAIR. I don't leave my kids very often but I may never leave them again after that. ;)

Pep has taken up t.v. watching lately...

I know... Im a bad mom... but its Signing Time... its educational... right??

Sick Sick Sicko

I dont do well with sick kids. I especially don't do well with fevers. I turn into a nervous wreck. Luckily Pep hasn't gotten the sickness.... yet (please bless he doesn't) The Bug on the other hand hasn't been doing so hot. She is super lethargic and sleepy. Her cough sounds like death and her face is like a leaky faucet. Her fever has been getting up to 103 and 103 is way too high for me. She has been the sweetest most cuddly, lovey girl in the whole world. Im really praying that it just runs its course and goes away. We don't want RSV...

As I mentioned Pep hasn't got it yet. While I remain hopeful, I know that chances are that he will get it too. One thing that siblings are really good at sharing is sickness. I just hope we can keep it under wraps.

Update on the Kiddos

Pep's tooth had its neighbor come in! Wahoo! Now he officially has two teeth with which to chew delicious foods. He has learned a couple new tricks in the last few days. He is a clapper now and he loves to give bonks (head butts). He loves to tease his sister but he puts up with a lot from her so I don't blame him. He hates being fed by anyone but himself so this is what I have resorted to..

I take his baby food and freeze it in little dots. That way he can feed himself.

AnDee is growing like a crazy lady. She has grown a half an inch in the last 3 weeks which makes her officially over 3 feet tall... 3 feet and a half an inch to be exact. She is loving her gymnastics class twice a week and has really gotten in to the reading thing lately. Her Dad spoiled her on Valentines and got her a balance bike. (for you moms with little ones out there that haven't heard of them, you need to look in to them. they really work) She is as funny and sassy as always. Last night we were all in the car and Andrew and I were arguing (It was honestly a very playful argue... I promise) but she was having none of it. "Guys! you need to be nice to each other!" She said. She is really good at keeping EVERYONE in line.... even strangers.

Big head??

AnDee was telling me all about how little Pep is the other day. "little tiny hands" she said as she patted them. "Little tiny feet" she said as she patted them. "Little belly"" she said as she patted his tummy. "Lit.... Big head" she said as she patted on the top of his big mellon.
In other news.... We went to the circus a few weeks ago. And in true Chantal fashion I am just now getting to blogging about it.
It was.... Entertaining? There were elephants and tigers and dogs that jumped over things. There were tiny little foreigners that soared through the air with the greatest of ease and they even had a fat lady that could keep a beach ball spinning with her feet. It was intense to say the least.
In the middle of the greatest show on earth, they had an intermission where they let the kids come down on the floor and ride the elephants or ponies and you could get your face painted or even have your picture taken with a bear! The bear was extremely keen on Raisin Bran. I watched him down the entire box in a matter of minutes. We unfortunately didn't have any cash with us so there were no elephant rides for the Naugles which AnDee was very disappointed about. She kept asking why we couldn't ride and I would tell her we didn't have any money to pay for it. "Mom! I know! Just ask someone!" she said. The girl has got a solution for everything. It was more than a little frustrating to her that I wasn't willing to ask all the strangers around us for money.
My opinion of the circus? Would I go back? ... Absolutely. While I wouldn't say it was "high quality" entertainment, there was absolutely no question that it was entertaining and I enjoyed it immensely... maybe not in the way they had intended but I was entertained none the less.
The only pictures we got were from our phones... and are extremely poor quality. Sorry??

Its hard to see but she is standing in front of the white tigers (in the cage back there) WHILE wearing her white tiger shirt that Uncle Dave gave her for Christmas. She is the definition of cool.

Every Day Life in Dar

Now remember... this is every day life the way we saw it. I can't actually tell you what every day life is like for a native, cause Im not one :)

Please keep in mind that our camera was well... far less than amazing and that a lot of these pictures were taken while in the car and on the move. They are blurry and you can see the reflection of the window in most of them but you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Right? (I know... Im a dork)

This picture was taken on our very first day there. My parents had taken us on a drive to see the Changombe Chapel (which is the branch we eventually ended up attending and when I say "chapel" I actually mean run down apartment building that we met in for church) On our way back we came across this young man. He had been pulling a very heavy cart, much like the ones I will show pics of later, it was very hot and he passed out. There were quite a few people down the road watching him but no one seemed concerned. We stopped and my mom and Andrew got out to help. My mom splashed some water on his face and when he woke up to a white women hovering over him his eyes about popped out of his head. They moved him to the shade, gave him a bottle of water and we carried on.

This is the main part of the city

  

and this is the fish market. This place was so funny. We would go in there and we wouldn't even have to barter for ourselves. We would have so many people fighting over us they would barter with each other and the prices would get unbelievably low. I hated bartering so this was perfect for me.

this is what the main roads look like. (When the traffic was good. If we are being honest this is a very unrealistic picture. The roads were rarely this empty. Usually it was bumper to bumper and hours to travel more then a couple of miles. Ridiculous, thats what it was)

This is what the roads through the neighborhoods looked like. Imagine some of the roughest mountain roads you have ever been on... although this road doesn't seem too bad.. again, unrealistic for the most part.

Girls going to school...

A big sister playing mom with baby brother or sister...

We saw this EVERYWHERE. These guys would go around and pick up all the empty water bottles that everyone else would throw on the ground, stuff them in a huge bag and carry them on their heads to be recycled. I can't imagine this brought in loads of cash but at least it was something I suppose.

One of the ridiculously heavy carts I mentioned earlier

More recyclable stuff. I can't believe the loads these people would carry on bikes

This is what a lot of the houses in the city looked like

And this is what a lot of the more rural homes looked like

So when the traffic was bad (aka always) guys would walk up and down between the cars and try to sale you anything and everything under the sun.

Please pretend not to see my face in this one...  So this ditch was right outside our compound and it had about an inch of scummy water running down it. I mean... it was really really gross water. These little boys made some nets and they would spend all day trying to catch the little minnows that were in the water. I like to tell myself that they didn't take them home to eat.... it was just something fun to do.

 Some Maasi Mamas sitting on the side of the road making jewelry to sale

Yes, they really do carry just about everything on their heads. Seems painful.

Duka La Dawa... a drug addicts paradise. This is what we would call a pharmacy. Except there are no laws for any drugs there so... have a headache? How about some Lortab? 

This picture is specifically for Brett. And yes... the ONLY reason we took it is because of his marvelous shirt.

 This is the Happiness House of Cake. Need I say more?

Every where you look there are little shops like this selling all the crap that we americans like to send over there, thinking we are being so charitable. We even saw BYU and Jazz shirts quite a few times.

These are our primary kids 

This was our baptismal font. (it may or may not be a dumpster they cleaned out and painted) It was quite humorous watching them try to get in and out of that thing, especially the chick that was trying to be modest.

These pics are more blurry than usual. This is because they are taken on a very old phone while trying to be extra sneaky. No pictures were allowed in the orphanage but we had to get a couple of these babies. This is were we spent a lot of our time. 

 Andrew and Agnus. We fell in love with this little lady. If there was any way in this world that we could have brought her home with us... we would have in a heart beat.

Im thinking the orphanage deserves its very own post, so be looking for these pics again with more details.