Toddler Olympics

Saturday we had a fantastic activity at the home of my friend: The Toddler Olympics! It was so much fun!! This will be a mostly picture post, so enjoy! :)

First, we have:

What's a Welly, you might ask? Well, that's how they call rain boots in the UK! :)

Josh had a powerful throw!


Andrew wasn't sure what to do...


And the wind up...


Yea, Louis!


Next:


Josh picked up on this one quickly...


Claire looks like a frog...


Andrew and Louis took a few minutes... :)


Here are two events:


Getting ready for the Egg & Spoon race! All lined up!


Josh and Sanders are off! Why are they both looking back and down you might ask? Well, apparently, Claire and Cecelia misunderstood and thought it was an Egg TOSS, not an Egg RACE, so on the word GO, they simultaneously tossed their eggs into the air! What a riot! :)


Our Fearless Face Painter, Jaime! :)


A few shots of me getting my face painted...


She had the coolest face painting kit: Complete with pencils, paints, glitter paint and even stencils for perfect stars and hearts! :)



The finished product! :)


Devin got one too! Very patriotic!


Claire got a pretty pink butterfly! (Josh got a dinosaur head, but he was always running so fast I don't think I got a shot of it...)


Next Event: (This one is running in a straight line across the lawn with a yummy chocolate cookie in hand to give to mom at the end! Of course, I didn't actually eat the cookie, I had to give it back to the kids. Claire ran so fast across the grass that we didn't get her picture. She just wanted to get to me as fast as possible so she could eat her cookie!!)


Josh is running in a very straight line! Go Josh!


Almost there!


Come here, Andrew!!


Andrew made it! :) yea!


Another fun Event:


Jump!! Pop those bubbles!!


The Last Event was a whole family participation one! :)


Here's Josh after going through the obstacle course a few times...There were tunnels and bridges and water pouring down and flags and even a giant parachute (which was actually a mosquito net, and I found that to be very appropriate! :))


Through the Marathon!


Awards!!


Andrew wins!


So does Josh!


Even Claire wins!

(And the best thing about these 'medals': They were edible! Mmmm! Lollipops for everyone! And the guy giving out the awards: The British High Commissioner! Cool, eh??)

Yea, UK! :)


Andrew is enjoying his Award!


Our fearless Leaders! :) Thanks SO MUCH, Leonora (and Jaime and Giles and Louis)! It was SOOOOO MUCH FUN!!


Fantastic Food! (And it was here that I found that there is CHEDDAR CHEESE FOUND IN YAOUNDE!! HEAVEN!!)

Good News

I would like to announce that I have some very good news! For the past week, I've struggled with some horrible headaches and a constant low-grade fever. Last night, while contemplating this, I cried myself to sleep thinking that I either finally caught the life threatening brain malaria, dengue fever, a brain fever of some sort, or I had a brain tumor. I knew that this morning, I would go in to the Dr and would find out that I only had a month left to live and they'd send me home and I'd have operations and I wouldn't be able to be with my kids...I still feel sad when I think about it!! Well, I don't have malaria, or dengue fever...no brain fever...and, well, we're pretty sure there are no tumors. The good news: I suffer from 'mild' migraines! How wonderful! And what's even better, since I'm in the first trimester of pregnancy, I can't take anything except TYLENOL and if anyone out there suffers from migraines, you will know that Tylenol doesn't do a thing. Oh well.


Another sad thing for today...we received a bunch of packages of cereal from Amazon (where we always buy cereal) and I was so excited that Devin got me a yummy treat: Chips Deluxe cookies!! AND Cocoa Krispies! Oh, yummy!! I was eating the cookies with ice cream for our FHE treat and it gave me goose bumps (and Devin laughed at me). Oh, the heaven of processed foods in my first trimester! Ha!! But, that is not the sad part. The sad part was, that in every box we received from Amazon (we got about 4 of them) there was an insert for a free chicken sandwich from McDonalds. Oh, I almost cried! I carried them around with me and looked at the picture and drooled and wished so much that I could get a chicken sandwich! Ah, processed goodness! How am I managing to live without it??? I'm thinking of having the little pictures of the chicken sandwiches framed...or at least put them on the fridge so I can dream. I know I probably shouldn't do that to myself, but, well, I guess it's just a silly pregnancy hormone thing. I have no idea why I am addicted to nasty fast food when I'm pregnant, but, there it is!!

Jardin Zoologique

Yesterday, we went to the zoo with some friends. What a fun day! It was...interesting...to say the least. Gotta love those somewhat backwards thirdworldy zoos. I think it's pretty funny to have a zoo in Africa, though, honestly. I mean, really. You have to ask yourself: Why? If you travel in any direction for a few hours, you can see this stuff out in the wild. But, well, I suppose this is more suburban for those of us who just want to take the kids out for a morning outing without the danger of having the lions actually attack you. :) Most of the animals didn't actually move very much. There was a little tiny cheetah looking animal that hissed at us, and an eagle that would 'talk' on cue, and that was pretty cool. Mostly, they just sat there, though, which I think was kind of nice for the little kids. Of course, it was a pretty hot morning! It sort of reminded me of the Idaho Falls zoo. Very tiny, with an abundance of things that are already found in the area. For IF, I know there were LOTS and LOADS of ducks! Here, there was every single kind of monkey imaginable! There was even a monkey mommy with her less than one month old baby hanging onto her tummy! But, as always, I will let the pictures tell some of their own story:

Here are the babies, Andrew and Louis, in their fun stroller:



The very first thing we saw as we went into the zoo itself: A giant Ostrich! The kids were so excited! Especially because it was NOT in a cage or enclosure of any kind. It was roaming free with the peacocks and the ducks!! :)



Here is a deer. Not overly exciting for someone from Idaho, but cool for Africans! :)



We got to see a Crocodile all the way from the Nile! It just sat there. Poor thing was bored, I think.



The kids were really excited about this one! There were probably 15 turtles all wandering around in this little cage! They loved watching them walk around! :)



We saw two lions, the mommy and the daddy! :)



They even have 4 babies! I wondered why they were in a different place than their parents, but the guide was kind of in a hurry and basically just wanted to show us the animals, tell us what they ate, and how dangerous they were, and head over to the next cage! :) Oh well. These little guys were 7 months old!



Here is the 'little kitty' that hissed at us. I forget the name of it.



Here is a shot of the whole group...from the back...sorry everyone! :) What are we looking at?



This is a Hyena, and perhaps the only animal in this whole place (well, other than the monkeys) that was moving or doing anything that would catch your attention.



Here is a little crocodile-y thing and a sea turtle! (Aye, Sea Turtles!)--and, of course, the back of Josh's head...



The snake house! No zoo would be complete without one, eh? Here they have the Black Mambo, python, boa, viper, and some other stuff. Josh thought it was cool.



Here's the Monkey Mommy with her little tiny baby hanging onto her tummy! So cute!



And now, in Josh's mind, On to the Main Event!! This was the kids' favorite part of the zoo trip: Playing in the little park area! They had a ball in the dirty rusted over playground! ha!



Andrew on the slide! He went down all by himself!



Claire's turn!



And here is Josh waiting patiently for the babies to move away from the bottom of the slide so he can go down...



And here is Louis, our little buddy from around the corner:



There were a couple of interesting signs at the entrance of the zoo, and I didn't notice them until we were going out. One is in English and one in French. They say basically the same thing, but I'll post them anyway, because it was very interesting to me!
French:

English:


It was a nice outing, and the kids all really enjoyed themselves! Thanks for the great idea and for leading the way, Leonora!! :) (And I hope you don't mind your cameos! :))

Cravings and Ebay

So, as is normal, this pregnancy is SO different from the others! I think I am more sick than even I was with Joshua. With Josh, the only things I could eat were apples and tuna. Weird. This time, there really isn’t any one thing that stands out. I am either sick or not. Certain foods don’t usually make me (or not make me, as the case may be) sick…but if I let my stomach get empty, I can barely walk! I am really enjoying pancakes, though. Nice white, unwholesome, empty of all protein IHOP style pancakes. With absolutely nothing on them! The very thought of butter makes my stomach churn, and I’ve never been a real fan of syrup anyway, so plain pancakes are really making my day lately! J We had oatmeal for lunch the other day. We’ve eaten lots of breakfasty things for lunch and dinner, and cereal or sandwiches for breakfast. Actually, I believe that the thing that has really helped me the most: Vitamin C!! I have to take one every single morning! And it settles my stomach almost instantly. So, there’s something different.

I admit that I am sad that many of my favorite cravings aren’t even here in Cameroon…like good old fashioned fast food! J I remember with Claire, I really needed to have some KFC biscuits. That was it. Just a couple of biscuits. Oh, that was heavenly! With Andrew, I think I ate at Golden Corral probably 2 times a week…maybe more! And just enjoyed all the steak and popcorn shrimp! Mmmmm… Oh, how I miss tender cuts of meat! Here in Cameroon, they like their meat SUPER tough. Yuck! I can’t really eat meat here. The chicken is pretty good, and the ground beef is passable, but the cuts of meat are just…well…different. I miss mozzarella sticks (mozzarella here is $7-18 a pound!! So, we don’t eat it often…), greasy Arctic Circle, McDonalds or Wendy’s french fries…I miss Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers and Big Macs. I would give anything for a Sonic Lemon Berry Cream Slush!! I would love some chicken nuggets! Oh, all these wonderful morsels of artery clogging goodness that I am missing at this moment! I wonder if I will gain ANY weight at all this pregnancy? Maybe I’ll gain it all after week 34 once they ship me off back to America and the wholesome fare of fast food… J It does make it a little harder to not be sick when everything that I really crave is over 5000 miles away. *Sigh*

Another nice thing has been my exercise time. This time around, it’s SO much better… Before, any time I would try to exercise, I’d get about halfway through with my video or routine or whatever, and one or more of the kids would have a tizzy fit and start hanging on my legs while I was trying to work out, or start throwing tantrums on the floor, or all of a sudden be overwhelmingly needy and they just can’t wait! But this time, I have the added bonus of my wonderful housekeeper who helps me out with them while I’m trying to get in my movement for the day! What a nice hour of exercise it is when I don’t have to battle against the wills of 2, 3, 4 or 5 year olds! J That’s been so very nice! J

An interesting thing happened to me this past week. Ebay froze my account! Ok, honestly, I did buy a LOT more than I normally do, and I did buy different things than I normally do. I decided it was time for a new maternity wardrobe. So, I got one! I ordered khaki’s, black slacks, jeans, capri’s, skirts, shirts, even swimsuits! And I got some amazing deals off of eBay. I got a swim diaper for Andrew, some kids books because I’m doing story time for the kids in the area in July, and even Devin jumped in and ordered some things! So, sufficeth to say, we did have a LOT of things in our list. So, I suppose what happened (I still don’t know, as I have yet to be able to get into my account yet!!! >:( Super frustrating!!) is eBay looked over my account and saw all these weird things and thought, “OH! That must not be this person because they’ve never done something like this before!” Well, really, DUH! I don’t buy maternity clothes every month. Obviously. And I would have thought that the telltale sign of someone hacking into another’s account would be that there would be a lot of things bid on and won, but nothing paid for. I pay for everything immediately and I always contact the people I buy from to let them know it’s me. So, why would they think it was someone else if everything was paid for and I even had lots of positive feedback? Well, eBay took matters into their own hands. They didn’t even have the courtesy to ASK if it really was me or not, they just froze my account, and wrote emails to all the people I had won items from and told them that it wasn’t me and that the transaction was void. They gave everyone back the fees that eBay had charged, so I guess that’s a nice thing of them to have done… But it was such a pain to have to contact every single person I had won something from and explain what was up. Luckily, they were all very nice people and very understanding…especially since I had already gotten everything and paid for it. Really retarded. THEN, when Dev and I got onto eBay’s live help, we tried to figure out what the problem was and they said they couldn’t discuss it until we were positively identified as the person to whom the account really belonged. And to do that, we had to send in a fax with our driver’s lisence and some mail that was recently sent to our current address. I felt like I was on trial!!!! Holy cow!! Talk about being violated! I suppose they are trying to protect people, but good grief!! Couldn’t they ASK BEFOREHAND???? I would have appreciated it. So, we sent in the dumb fax, and they wrote us an email saying thanks, we’ll send you a new password. Well, they’ve never sent us a new password yet. So I wrote them some more hate mail asking for the new password, and they said they had already done it, but if we didn’t get it, they’re going to give us a call. Oh, that’s a fantastic idea, since they’ll probably call at like 3am or some ridiculous hour since they’re based out of Utah. Seven hour time difference is not fun when they don’t know it exists!! And besides, they have to go through Post One to even get to us, so I wonder if that would throw them off a bit?? What a MESS! I am super frustrated and ready to leave eBay forever after this. If they go berzerk over me buying a few more things than normal, I don’t know that I want to be a part of a bunch of over anxious psychopaths. (Yah, I’m a little mad.) There are lots of good things about eBay, obviously, but I feel like they have questioned our integrity and that kind of gets my back up a bit. Oh well. I’m sure it will all work out just fine….

Story Time Missionaries

We had the missionaries over for our bi-weekly dinner and Family Home Evening. Before our actual lesson, one of the Elders was reading a story to the kids! Even Andrew sat and listened! It was so cute! :)

Here they are with Andrew:


This one is after Andrew left...


I think it's funny...when we lived in Pennsylvania, we had the missionaries over at least once a week, mostly because we enjoyed it, and also because Devin was the branch mission leader, so it just worked. I remember always worrying about making enough. I also remember stressing out one time, because there was going to be an extra Elder! So now I had THREE big hungry guys! Ha! Now, I feed SIX big hungry guys plus the senior couple AND my hubby and three kids! :P YES! I feel that's quite the accomplishment! :)

This past weekend, I had to do three different 'classes' for church...the first one was on Saturday. I did a fireside for the single adults on honesty...and I did almost the entire thing in FRENCH! WHEW! I still feel retarded, but I am feeling a little more comfortable. Then, the next day (Sunday) I did Sharing time! Now, not only have I NEVER IN MY LIFE done sharing time before, I had to do it in French! Sheesh! AND the Primary president left halfway through my lesson/activity time...and she's the one who translates for me if I get stuck! Either she thought I could do it alright, or she had an emergency...I think it was the latter! :P But, well, I suppose I did ok. The kids didn't get too out of hand and they paid attention for the most part which is all you can ask of a big group of kids listening to someone shattering their language to shreds and throwing out Spanish and English to boot! :P What fun, eh? AND THEN, of course, I teach the English primary class...and I totally spaced preparing for it. Well, I thought I did pretty well, considering I had to prepare three lessons while trying to keep all my food down and stay awake... But, well, I admit I let that one slide. So, I pulled out the old stand-by: We read stories and did activities from the Friend! Yea!! Gotta love the Friend! I highly recommend that magazine for anyone who has kids!! :)