18 Months

Time for a Molly update! Here's what new with our girl:

Molly is a great eater. She usually eats three meals a day and two snacks. She eats anything I put on her plate.

I stopped nursing Molly when she was 15 months old. She now drinks chocolate milk like Graham does (the milk here tastes funny).

She successfully uses a fork and spoon.

She takes a short afternoon nap, usually 45-60 minutes. She sleeps great at night, usually 13 hours.

She is wearing size 2T clothes, size 5 shoes, and size 5 diapers. 

She says a few words: mom (that's right- mom, not mama), da (for dad), night night, uh oh, yeah, and baby. She signs please, more, and finished.

She can follow simple commands like "sit down" or "go get your shoes."

Molly is a great climber. Too great. People are always amazed at the things she can get up on.

She loves to be outside. If it were up to her she'd spend all day there!

She loves animals. When she sees a cat or dog, she starts squealing with delight. She spends a lot of time chasing our cat around.

Molly is pretty independent. She loves to explore and likes playing by herself.

She likes looking at books. I love reading to her, but she has a short attention span and usually gets down after a few pages.

Molly loves playing with her brother. They like to chase each other, wrestle, play with cars together, jump on the trampoline together, swing together, and look at books together. She doesn't like it when he tries to boss her, which has been happening lately. :(

She is a TOTAL paci-holic! I try to only let her have it when she's sleeping, but she has a tendency to find them. I'm going to tackle getting rid of the paci after our big trip this summer. 

Molly has kind of grown up out of her no-one-hold-me-but-mommy phase. Thank goodness! 

Dear Lord, thank you for sending us a baby girl. She lights up our lives. She is so precious to us! We treasure her every day. Please give us wisdom in parenting her. I pray that she would grow up to love you and follow you all her life.

I'll Miss Uganda

I have this great friend named Kayla who I go walking with twice a week. Recently we were walking and talking about how excited we are to get to the United States for a visit this summer. We both have trips coming up. I was telling her that with our trip now only a few weeks away, it’s been hard to think about anything else. At this point it becomes easy to feel really unhappy. She said something that really struck me. She said, “I’ve been trying to think about all of the things I’m going to miss about Uganda.” What a positive outlook! Yes, the US is our homeland and there are people and things there that we miss terribly, but Uganda is now our home, and we have been very happy here. So here are my top ten things I will miss about Uganda while we’re away:

1. The people. Our friends, teammates, workers, co-workers, church members, students, and neighbors have all worked their way into our hearts. We look forward to being with them again.

2. The lush, vivid green plants, trees, and beautiful flowers. They are always pointing my mind to our Lord in thankfulness.

3. The daily rains which always seem to cool down the day just it is gets uncomfortably warm.

4. Our home. We’ve worked really hard on our home! It has become a very comfortable safe haven for our family.

5. Entertaining visitors. We do A LOT of entertaining here in Uganda, and we love it! It gives me so much joy to share homemade goodies and coffee, popcorn, or a delicious homemade meal.

6. Betty. I could never entertain like I do without Betty. And she allows me to give our children my undivided attention. But aside from all of this, she is quiet, pleasing presence in our home and I really enjoy her company.

7. Living in community. We had (and still have) lots of friends in Fort Worth that we enjoyed seeing often. But here in Uganda, none of us have family nearby, so we become like family to each other. We see each other and help each other much more often, out of necessity. But I love it!

8. Our dogs and cat. We have two beautiful German Shepherds (a boy and girl) that we have always planned on breeding. And two days ago Zoe delivered a beautiful litter of 7 puppies!

9. Livingstone International University. We love being a part of the vision and the community at LIU. God has really assembled a special group of faculty and students there!! It is so much fun to be part of it.

10. Being able to play outside almost every day of the year. The weather here really is amazing.

And just for fun, here are a few things I won’t miss:

1. The creatures. The rainy season has brought out a plethora of them. I’ve seen things that I never want to see again. Let’s just say we’ve kept our exterminator busy.
2. The roads. Seriously. You really have to see it to believe it!
3. The lack of variety in food choices. I sure have learned to be creative though!
4. Being away from my family. 11 months away from my mom was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
5. Trying so hard every day to communicate. It’s exhausting. And everyone here speaks English! I can’t imagine how hard it would be in a country where we were also expected to learn a new language.