Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Brett!

You are a wonderful father! You are wise in your training of the boys. You are level headed. You treat all their illnesses. You are fun. You are a wonderful role model for them. I love you with all of me and am so incredibly thankful that I get to parent these sweet boys alongside of you.

I love this picture because it captures the silly times with the boys. The boys love being with you- getting "ready"for bed, playing tennis or soccer, or going on bike rides.

I love you and am so thankful for you!

My first (and hopefully last) wedding cake

Dawson's teacher asked me to make her wedding cake. Before I really thought about it, I said yes. Then I realized what a mess I had gotten myself into. Thankfully, I have good friends. I called up Alison and Carol and told them what I had done. Both offered to help. Carol had taken a cake decorating class years ago and was a HUGE help in knowing how to decorate it. Though I don't care to do this anytime soon, I must say it was a lot of fun and provided a lot of laughs.

Here is the final product

Here is why it provided laughs...our trial run. The cake didn't rise and the frosting was nowhere close to red.

Practicing writing. The one on the bottom was written by Carol, who actually knew how to write on cakes. :)

The day of making cakes (Thursday) I came down with a stomach bug. So I was in the kitchen baking all day while feeling terrible. Thankfully, all didn't start until after the baking was done. I did leave all the cakes on the counter, though, and Caroline took a bite out of the top. Oops. We just covered it with a lot of icing. :) (don't know why it is not horizontal, it uploaded funny)

At Carol's house finishing up decorating. Alison is on the left. Again, so thankful for friends!

The cake for the evening

All decorated

Right before taking it to the reception

With the beautiful bride

So happy for Louise and thankful for her love for my boys. She is a special lady. Glad she found a wonderful man and glad the cake decorating is over!

In their first wedding

Dawson and Kenan were in their first wedding yesterday. Dawson's teacher got married and she had all the kids in the preschool hold balloons as she walked in. They also sang a song as two of the kids brought the rings down the aisle. It was cute. Long, but cute. The wedding was supposed to start at 10. Kids were to be at the school at 8. I brought my kids to the church at 9:40, thinking we'd be late. We were the first ones there. Half the kids arrived after Tanti Louise did. Thankfully, the pastor was talking to the couple so they were late starting anyway. So it probably started around 10:20 and ended after 1 pm! Thankfully the class only had to sit in the wedding for the first hour, then they were outside and had a snack until they sang at the end.

Starting to line up

Silas got to have a balloon too and even stood in line with the preschool kids

The bride walking in. She sang and danced all the way down the aisle. It was awesome. Most people are stoic and never smile. They look like the whole ceremony is painful. She loved every moment. She worshiped and truly enjoyed herself. Fun to see.

This is all I could catch of them singing, as they were walking back.

I was matching the boys since there was extra cloth left over. Couldn't get a good picture of us together though.

Fun with the animals

The boys L.O.V.E. their pets. Most of the time, so do I, except for their crazy moments when they are into everything and chasing one another and taking the boys' food. I sometimes feel like I have another child but I remind myself that the boys love them and really enjoy having them. Even as I write Purr is sitting in my lap. Never would have thought I'd sit with a cat in my lap. She is a good cat. Actually, she isn't a she but a he. I tried not to notice the furry stub I saw because I thought we had gotten a girl. Someone came over and told me she was in fact a he. There was no denying it anymore. Poor thing still gets called she more than he, but at least now we know.

Caroline sitting in the boys blow up chair my sister gave them last year for Christmas.

Prevention

I am amazed at how certain things in our American culture are engrained in us even before we realize it. One is that of prevention. We have sidewalks, we wear helmets, our kids are in car seats, we have crossing areas, we teach our kids to stop, look and listen before they cross the road as infants, most (should be all, but that’s just my opinion after seeing the illness we are trying to prevent in children here in Mali) people get vaccines. We get gas before we are stalled on the side of the road, we have inspections so our cars shouldn’t break down, etc, etc. We use a lot of preventative measures in the US.

Here there is basically none. Vaccines are about it. No car seats, no helmets, no sidewalks, kids on motorcycles, even babies attached by only cloth to the mom’s back are on motorcycles.

One day as we drove through the market Dawson asked why there were no sidewalks like in America. I told him that sidewalks were for prevention of accidents and to keep people safe. However, this costs money. I told him Malians didn’t have money for that.

A few days later he asked why no one wore helmets. Told him the same thing.

A few days after that he said, “I wish there were sidewalks and everyone wore helmets so that they would be safe. I think they should have sidewalks for people, a road for just the motorcycles and then a road for the cars so there would be no accidents.” I was amazed at how he came up with these things all by himself.

Today made me laugh when even Kenan recognized potential danger as we dropped his friend off from playing. He said, “Oh, I can’t watch this”

- “Watch what?”

-“I don’t want to see Jean-Marc on a motorcycle. I don’t like my friends riding on them. That’s not safe.”

More paint pictures

The boys have really been into painting (themselves) lately. To me, it is worth it. Messy, sure. But 30 minutes free for me to do something is worth it. So here are a few more pictures of another paint day. This time it was yellow, though, which is not quite as impressive as blue.

He had some red and green mixed in. Representing Mali colors well!

They do at least clean up once they are done...

Season of Flies

The end of mango season brings the season of flies. They enjoy the overripe mangoes that fall on the ground. Flies are everywhere now.

In case you just wanted to see proof, here is a picture I took after I (stupidly) through a mango out on the ground because it was rotten. I took this picture within a couple of minutes when I realized the mistake I had made.