Day 42. Still waiting for a referral. We are trying to be patient, but we really want our referral!  Every night we included “and be with R’s sister in Zambia” in our prayers. Tonight R asked “When is my sister coming home?”. We told her we don’t know, and she broke into tears, crying “when is she coming home??”. It breaks my heart. Hope for a referral soon!
Category: Current Family Life
Waiting…it’s no fun
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
Skating
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
Hey, check out that picture!  My daughter back on skates!! I guess we didn’t traumatize her in October afterall! I didn’t make it, but daddy says there were still lots of tears.  However, she did say she had a good time doing it!
Black eye…
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
This picture shows the wonderful ginger bread house we decorated at Grandma and Grandpa’s.  It also shows the lovely shiner that my darling daughter has.  Apparently (this happened on daddy’s watch) she yanked down a stocking that was hanging on the top of our bookshelf from one of those cast-iron stocking holder thingys. Well you get the picture. Clunk.
Happy New Year
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
Well it’s time to start getting used to a new year again.  We had quite the snowfall overnight/this morning. We headed over to grandma & grandpa’s to put together a ginger bread house.  We first had to snowblow our way out of the driveway. The ginger bread house had some structural integrity problems, aka. it didn’t stay together.  We abandoned it quite quickly in favour of playing in the snow.  It was still snowing, and all of us adults and kids had a great time.  Grandpa built a ‘snowman’, really more of a snow-blob. Daddy built a lovely snowman with extremely round and precise snowballs.  I helped give him a nice face.  The kids had a good time playing in Grandpa’s snow covered trailer, and rolling in the snow. M loved using his shovel, and D just loved eating snow, by hand, or with his yellow shovel. A great time was had by all. Gallery to be posted soon!
New Year’s Eve
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
We had a lovely New Year’s Eve with our dear friends.  Their girls are getting older every year (yes, I know that happens). Anyways. R had a delightful time playing with them, as we adults prepared a nice cheese fondue.  After that yummy dinner we played games together in the basement. We must be getting old, as we decided to call it quits at 11pm!!! We and our guests are either getting over colds or just getting colds.  R has a black bruise under her eye from a stocking mis-hap this morning.  She saw a stocking hanging up high, thought something was in it, and yanked it down. The cast iron stocking holder came crashing down…ouch!  Â
Baking
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
We had a lovely day today.  R and i went to church as usual, and we met our R’s cousins for lunch. After a nap, daddy started baking.  He made Fleisch Perschki. (Meat buns for those non German Mennonites reading).  R had a great time playing with the dough as you can see.  Our home smells delightful now, I wish you could bottle that smell!
Trees are not for eating…
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
I never thought those words would come out of my mouth…Here’s what happened.
Grandpa thought it would be a good idea to go tobogganing with allo his grandkids. So R, and boy cousins M and D went off to the hill.  There was a small hill where we warmed up. R is still a little nervous about tobogganing, so we had to start small. D, age 2 and 3/4 loved the little hill and was sliding on his stomach or back, whatever the brave little soul.  M, the little daredevil was over at the big hill.  We wandered over to the big hill. R decided that she was in no way going down that “mountain”. She finally did go down the hill with daddy. We encouraged her to hang on tight and close her eyes.  She loved it.  Maybe next year she’ll go on her own.  After a bunch of sliding we went back to the little hill.  D went down the hill, then R did too, and they met at the bottom.  They had a little conversation, then they were distracted by a conifer branch. R picked it up and switshed it around for a while, then passed it to D.  D proceeds to knaw on the branch….which is when I used my line “Trees are not for eating Dylan”…. Wow, he tries everything.   He also loves the novelty of eating snow. I have to keep reminding him, “Only white snow, only the white snow”….
I suppose I should have mentioned that these guys are from California, so this is pretty much the first time they’ve seen and played in the snow. It is a bit hit. I think they’ll be a little sad when they have to leave.
Christmas Day
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
Merry Christmas everyone! We had a lovely day at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The kids were so very excited to open presents.  It was an exciting morning.  We gathered again for dinner and enjoyed having Oma and Opa there as well.  The picture is of R blowing her new horn.
Twas the night before Christmas
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
Well, Christmas is upon us. Where did all that time go? R went to Grandma and Grandpa’s this morning and got to spend the morning playing with her cousins.  M & D love playing in the snow, as they never see it where they are from!  After a nap, we got everything together and headed out to Oma and Opa’s.  On the way there R pipes up from the back seat “Good driving daddy”.  Daddy replied “thank you” and then she says “That’s a compliment Daddy”. In case we didn’t know! Â
After a yummy supper we opened some presents.  R was just delighted with her gifts from Oma and Opa (game called Lucky sock dip, and a book of sing-along poems).  All too soon we had to head home to bed. Before bed, R wanted to leave milk and cookies for Santa. (Despite the fact that she isn’t keen on someone being in our house when we are not aware of them).  We wrote a note to santa, saying “These milk and cookies are for you”. She signed the note and drew a nice picture. I’m not sure how keen I am on this whole Santa thing, but it seems to make sense to her.
We sorely missed having other family members around, especially the newest cousin, only 4 days old. We love you all, and hope you are warm and well this Christmas.
Christmas Mischief
Posted by ahechtenns On F j, Y
We spent a nice evening decorating the tree at my parent’s house.  The cousins had a ball.  R asked if she could sleep over. I said she could, and she stood up in her chair at the dinner table and announced “my mom said I could stay for a sleepover!” She is so very excited.   Well see how the night goes!Â
