Molly at 18 months!

Today is Molly's year and 1/2 birthday. 18 months has gone by so fast and in just 7 1/2 weeks we will have little Daniel here with us as well. Anyways, I thought you might be interested in an overview of Molly so here ya go!

Mobility- She started walking at 10 months but now she runs and even runs on her toes. She is in Tumble Tots which is basically a kids gymnastics/balance class. This has really helped her alot. She is able to walk on balance beams, climb towers, climb up monkey bars (not totally coordinating moving her hands and feet together but getting very close). She jumps on trampolines, climbs up on any chair by herself.

Eating- She is a great eater. Her favorites are pizza, yo baby yogurt, eggs, grapes, oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and anything that we are eating. We have started introducing her to lots of different raw veggies lately which she has taken to pretty well, especially raw broccoli, she loves that. And she likes red peppers surprsingly well. I will probably do olives next. She likes almost any and all fruit. Everyday on the way to playgroup she eats an apple by herself. I don't even peel it, just give it to her and she goes to town. She is able to use her fork and spoon all by herself! She ate oatmeal squares cereal with milk this morning for breakfast and only spilled minimally on her bib. She eats her own yogurt cup each morning and an applesauce cup for snack. She doesn't like us to help her unless she is so hungry she can't get the food in fast enough. She even holds the sppon properly and sometimes sticks her pinky up like a little prissy thing.

Play- She is involved in two 'mum and tot' playgroups, a total of three days a week. One is on base(tuesday and thursday) and the other is at our church(monday). She is getting to know all of the children and moms really well and starting to explore. She was doing especially great my second trimester but has started to get really clingy to me again. I think she senses something is different and it makes her a little anxious. Her favorite things are books (especially the elmo ones from Becca), her little tikes car and balls. We have been working with her on flash cards and she can almost identify any animal you show her and lots of other stuff (clothing articles, transportation, etc). Cows and dogs are her favorite and we see them almost every day since so many of them live in our neighborhood :)

Verbal- She talks NONSTOP, however, most of it I cannot understand. She does have quite a good vocabulary though. Her favorite words are daddy, dog, duck, sticker, chip, cookie, dirty, bath, and NO!!!

Sleep- She sleeps 10-12 hours a night depending on when we get her down. Since Bryon's car went kaput last week, we have been taking him to work at 8am every day. So now we put her down around 7:30-8pm and she gets up around 6:30-8am. She takes about an hour nap during the day, on most days. It is usually in the car driving home from our daily activities. The newest sleeping development is her new cribmate. She now sleeps with a stuffed puppy dog. Mom and dad, this is the dog we accidently took from Scotland (and later paid for once we realized it was packed in our bag). She takes a bath, brushes her teeth, gets lotioned up and dressed, reads two books and goes to sleep snuggling her puppy. It is really cute. We see her chatting with the puppy and nuzzling him in our video monitor.

Physical- She has all but two teeth in. Horrah! Her hair is getting really curley and growing fast (finally). Poor little thing was bald for so long and now she has a good bit of cute curls. She even lets me put pony tails in and hairbows. She is a size 5 shoe, size 18month clothes and size 4 diaper.

Personality- She is a complete prissy girl. She hates being dirty, likes to carry around a purse, likes to wear my jewerly and my shoes, and eats with her pinky stuck out. I was planing seedlings the other day and she saw my hands, pointed at me and said "dada, dirty!!!" She wouldn't touch me until I washed my hands. She is a very affectionate and loving child. She would sit on my lap, give me wet kisses, and snuggle with me all day if I would let her. She is also empathetic and caring, if another child around her cries, she will cry too. She will usually go over to them and pat them on the back or give them a hug/kiss. If someone takes her toy away or is mean to her she just looks at them and blows them a kiss. If she is really tired or sick, she may scream "NO" and take it back but that is very rare. She usually will go find another toy or just come sit on my lap.

That's all I can think of for now! Have a great weekend everyone!

Hmmm

I just realized a scary thought today. If Bryon was born around 33 weeks (right Gram?), and weighed 5-ish pounds. Then playing that out, my son could weigh like 9 pounds if he takes after his daddyand makes it to 40 weeks! Please make it not so! Scheduling a c-section is starting to sound really nice..

First family walk of the year!

The crocus is in bloom, Spring is coming!

Bryon, Molly and I took advantage of this first sunny day to go on a walk and play on our village playground. There aren't a lot of sunny days in England without rain and you have to take advantage of them because you never know when you'll see another.

In case there were any doubts that I'm pregnant.. here ya go

Molly's favorite animal, cows.. We have lots of cows across the street from out house and on this path we frequently walk down.

The village playground. This is a block or so walking distance from our house and is free to use anytime. Molly is quite the slide daredevil. She will go up, down, face first, sideways, any way possible. The other day she even tried to dive down the slide in our backyard. Fortunately, Bryon caught her, whew!

I think she's enjoying being outside. Cabin fever has definitely set in and as great as Elmo is, even he can get old.

Unfair weight advantage here..

Molly has become so much more adventurous since joining Tumble Tots. She will do things such as walking this obstacle course that she would never have considered doing two months ago.

Dachau Concentration Camp

I debated whether to post on our visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp during our trip to Germany but felt that I could do so tactfully and let you see a glimpse into one of the camps.

I felt sick almost the entire day at the brutal carelessness and disregard for the sanctity of human life. I pray that we have learned our lesson and I am thankful to the American soldiers who so bravely fight to free enslaved people like the prisoners at this and other concentration camps. It was amazing reading all of the tributes to the American soldiers and military throughout the museum. I apologize if any of this is offensive to you, please don't view this post if you think you will be unable to handle it. There are no graphic pictures but some descriptions.

The writing on this poster says, "Prisoners welcome the American soldiers, April 29th, 1945". If you are able to zoom in, the faces on these prisoners will bring you to tears.

The famous Hitler saying, "Work will set you free" on the door entering Dachau. Hitler used to tell his prisonrs that if they worked hard enough they would be set free. Rarely did this occur but it gave them some hope.


Walking alongside the special prisoner cells and the museum. The museum had a 20 minute video that we weren't allowed to see because of Molly. Children under 12 are not allowed to view the graphic images. The museum was great because it showed the history leading up to Hitler taking over and on how any human being could possibly follow such a ruthless man and do the things that were done in these camps. I also learned a lot about the horrible medical experiments carried out on the prisoners and just how much they contributed to modern medicine.

We were also able to go into the barracks and see the disguisting conditions there. These are the bunk beds. Initially, there was 1 person per bed but by the end, they were cramming 3 and 4 into each bunk.


As you can see, the beds are about the width of two-three benches. Hardly room for 3 people.

This picture is of the doorway leading into the gas chamber. For those of us who don't speak German, it says 'shower'. The Nazi's told the prisoners that they were going to be sent to bathe and then they sealed them in and executed them. The room beyond that is the incinerator where they burned the bodies and the last room in the building was where they stacked the bodies once they had been killed. This building was absolutely the most appalling thing I have ever been in. I won't show any other pictures but I felt you couldn't truly understand how horrific the whole place was without a glimpse into this building.

This is the famous memorial that you've probably seen in text books portraying the days of the Nazi regime and concentration camps.

This memorial was positioned in the center of Dachau and powerfully states, "Never Again". I pray that nothing this horrendous never happens again.

Germany and Austria, part two

The children's movie corner at the lodge. They had movies playing 24/7 and there were always kids watching, well except maybe in the middle of the night. This was Molly's favorite hotel activity. We had to drag her away to eat meals.

Molly joining me in my favorite hotel activity, rocking in the wooden rocking chairs in front of the huge fireplace! They had these little chairs for the kids that they could pull up right next the adult chairs.

Having tea at a Bavarian Bakery. The last day we were going to take a chair lift up one of the mountains but the snow and fog were so heavy you couldn't see anything. So, we decided to opt for deserts and a heater :)

Bryon had an apple pie and I had cheesecake, plus hot chocolate and coffee. Sooo good!

Molly fell asleep on Bryon during our walk back to the hotel after our bakery trip. A comfy and warm place to sleep in the cold snowy weather.

Daniel at 22 weeks

I finally scanned the pictures from Daniel's 22 week ultrasound, sorry it took so long! Who does he look like? Bryon says it is hard to tell but I think he looks more like Bryon than Molly did in her ultrasound pictures. I guess we will soon see! 30 weeks down and 10 or less to go!

Germany and Austria, part one

We arrived at Munich Airport and were informed that because there are so few automatic cars, we would be upgraded to a Mercedes! This car was totally awesome, as you can see. So, if you go to Europe request an automatic :)

We drove from Munich Airport to Edelweiss Lodge which is near Garmisch, Germany smack dab in the middle of the beautiful Bavarian Alps. It was an hour of driving through this scenery. Can't beat that!

God's greatness displayed. How can you see beauty such as this and doubt there is a God or that God loves us so much that he chose to give us such beauty to behold...

The view from our room. We had a little patio but it was too cold to really enjoy it.

We visited the "Disney Castle" on Friday. This is the castle that the castle in Disney World was built based on. It was a beautiful 1 hour drive from our hotel, most of which was driving through Austria. Then out of the blue we saw this magnificent castle on the mountain.

In the nature of magical castles, Bryon took Molly and I on a horse and carriage ride up to the castle, so that we wouldn't have to do the 45 minute hike up the hill. Molly adores horses so this was the highlight of the trip for her.

As we took off, Molly got a little anxious and came with me in the back of the carriage but by the end she was up front with Bryon leading the way.

Family shot in front of the castle

Princess and her castle.

We stayed so long in the castle the horses were put up for the night so we hiked down. It was a nice walk though, especially for Molly. Bryon's neck still hurts from her excited bouncing but it was well worth it :)

Germany here we come!

Edelweiss Lodge and Bavarian Alps here we come!!! We are leaving VERY early in the morning and will be back Sunday evening from our vacation to Germany and maybe Austria (depending on the weather). Hope everyone has a great weekend. I will post pictures when we get back!

Blog setting changes

Morning blog world,

I have had several comments to change the settings on my blog so that anyone can post comments and not just registered users. I didn't even realize I had those settings, sorry!! So, as of now anyone can post but I will have to review the postings first (in case someone I don't know post something inappropriate). Sorry it took me so long to catch on and make the setting changes.

Happy Lord's Day everyone!
Haley

NC Baptist Men in Haiti

My brother in law, Chris, sent me this email and I was so touched I had to post it here. The NC Baptist Men are a fantastic group who serve the Lord so eagerly and passionately. Reading this makes me proud to be a Baptist!! :)

Dear Family and Friends,

You may not know but here in Haiti we are wearing new shirts that are red. They say Rescue 24 which represents our rapid response search and rescue teams from NCBM (North Carolina Baptist Men). I have just come in from hanging the clothesline full of red Rescue 24 shirts. They are quite a sight flapping in the breeze. Scott has told the story of being mistaken for an angel when our disaster volunteers wearing yellow shirts arrived on a site in Gulfport after Hurricane Katrina. Here in Haiti our red shirts are our badge to travel and enter into any area we need. They are so respected that our handymen can walk into the operating room freely. Our Haitian drivers wear one to have access thru the gates of the compound and clear passage on the roads thru roadblocks. This morning our newest interpreter was given one to wear to the clinic and to gain entrance to the compound. He beamed from ear to ear...."NOW I am a member of the team!" he said.

Team 8 arrived two days ago..after a 10 hr. road trip from the DR....all "green" and full of questions and energy. Team 7 left this morning to return to Santo Domingo and home. They are now veterans and well-bonded from their shared experiences in the hospitals, long drives on hot, dusty, congested roads, scenes of Haitian peoples and tent cities, sights of piles of rubble with people digging to find anything of value and of sharing our only 2 bathrooms and close living quarters. The medical staff have experienced medicine in different conditions, lack of facilities, lack of their customary equipment, working in tents and in courtyards under tarps, seeing diseases that are rare at home...TB, malaria, scabies, thypoid. ...falling in love with orphan children.

Two days ago our doctors retrieved 19 children from an orphanage run by an 86 yr old lady.

These 19 were sick, starving and malnurished. They were taken to Community Hospital were a tent was set up for them to receive treatment for the next four days. Our feeding people prepared special "rice soup" for them to eat. Some were not able to eat it yet and are on Pedialite. They were all clean and cared for.....they simply didn't have any food.

Arrangements are made for them to go to another orphanage upon release. But I am sure that they will never forget the "angels" in red shirts.

Our feeding team has been feeding 300-400 patients and staff at the hospital ...delivering meals to each room and trying to manage the many people who line up wanting a meal but perhaps are not staff. ....cooking with Haitian volunteers in a basement kitchen on small gas burners in gigantic pots. Our handymen have installed 3 sinks with running water and some lighting down there. They have also built shelving to try and organize the mountain of donated supplies and food that come in and have been stacked in hallways. And they have began constructing a small shower house for the male team members here at the team house. That will relieve some of our "necessary" needs.

Our medical director here for NCBM ... Dr. Eric has started two clinics here in nearby villages. In the clinic in Cite Soleil he and other med staff saw 280 patients last week and had 3 salvations. The new clinic in Cabaret will open tomorrow. I was excited to accompany Dr. Eric and 3 team guys to scout out the location. It will be in a classroom at a church and school. The church and school both are heavily damaged but one room is save and secure for use. I will have to tell you that both sites have some toilets that I have never seen before. They are pit toilets built of concrete with square holes for the openings. Outside the gates of the church yard, there is a sight that I can not get used to seeing.

People are living in shipping containers. They have them set up on metal tire rims for cornerstones. On the open door end, they have built a thatch covered "porch". I have seen them also in other areas. I cannot imagine how hot and dark they are inside. But I also cannot imagine living in the open with rice bags stretched on sticks for walls. Rainy season is approaching. It has rained a little for 2-3 nights. The UN and US Army has switched their priority from food to shelter and waste management. The once bare mountainsides near our compound are now dotted with make shift shanties. The number grows daily. There are an estimated 1.2 million displaced people here.

Please pray for our volunteers who are giving so much of their selves. Please pray that others will say "Yes, send me." Please pray that people at home will continue to care for "the least of these" and not forget. Please pray for the more than 400,000 orphans here. For they are truly the "least of these". Please pray for our military who are not only helping the Haitian people but providing needed security for us. Please pray for the volunteers who are coming with Samaritan's Purse. They are doing much good here.

Please pray that our witness will be bold. Please pray for our continued strength and wisdom in carrying out this mission. Please pray that I never tire of hanging out Red shirts!

In Christ's love and service, Janet and Scott

http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/disasterrelief/2010Response/Haiti.aspx

Jim Burchette

Special Projects Coordinator

North Carolina Baptist Men

jburchette@ncbaptist.org

800.395.5102 x 5612

919.459.5612 Direct Line

919.467.5100 Fax

www.ncmissions.org

Your generous giving to the North Carolina Missions Offering and contributions through the Cooperative Program make the ministries of NCBM possible. Thank you!

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