At Home in the Mountains

Happy Leap Day! I guess I've been reading Jenna and Brittany's blogs too much. :) I decided to leap on the bang-wagon (that pun's for you Brittany) and cut myself some bangs. I think they look pretty good. Last time I had bangs I was doing the 90's curl, spray, and poof so I was a little nervous to jump on board with the bang fad, but I'm pretty satisfied with the overall result. Maddy got her bangs trimmed the other night and now she keeps asking me to cut her hair. Yikes! Not sure I'm ready for that. Maybe for her birthday I will take her to the salon (does Family Cuts in Wal-Mart qualify as a salon?) for a very small trim. Though the bangs were quite a stretch for me, that is not the real leap that I wanted to let everyone know about. Aaron and I have been praying and talking a lot, and we have come to the decision that we want to pursue an adoption over the next couple of years. We are both really, really excited about this decision but also really overwhe...

It has been busy as usual in the Fletcher household. We have some friends who joke that their family motto is "It's not done until it's over done" meaning that they like to explore every aspect of a project or activity and can't leave it alone until they've exhausted all possible options associated with said project or activity. I'd have to say that the Fletcher motto might be "If we're going to do it, why not do it all at once!" I mean, look at January as an example: drove 1,000 miles, took mission trip to Kenya,  had surgery, started school semester---who does all that in the same month? Who even does that all in the same year? Oh, that would be us. Today was an example of typical Fletcher mentality. Maddy was scheduled to see the developmental pediatrician in May, but they called yesterday and said that they had a cancellation and we could come on Wednesday if we wanted. I said "sure!" then hung up the phone and realized that...

We are officially half way there!!! (barring some unforeseen event)!!!!  Here are a few great things from halfway day. 1. It was Saturday so Aaron and Tammy were around all day to entertain Maddy. 2. It was cold so we built a fire in the fire place. 3. A roly poly snuck inside on some of the wood and made Maddy's day. She would have played with it all day if we would have let her I think. 4. Maddy played with the dogs a little bit before supper. At one point she piped up and said, "Abbey is cute. Houdini is not cute." Aaron asked her if Houdini wasn't cute, what was he? Maddy said, "Houdini is...Houdini is very sweet." We'd beg to differ, but, hey, whatever. 5. We had the most incredible stuffed peppers for supper. Wish I could say they were all my creation, but Martha told me how to make them. Email me if you want the recipe. Even Tam, who doesn't really like stuffed peppers, said they were very good.

 (times and sequence of events may not be exact as the relation of the facts is solely dependent on my memory) 8:00 a.m., Fletcher household, Saturday February 4 After a leisurely breakfast of french toast or "french toes" as Maddy likes to call it, Aaron calls the mechanic and arranges to take our car in so they can replace the thermostat 9:00 a.m. We take the car over the mechanics and go do some errands. This includes a lengthy trip to Wal-Mart because Maddy cannot make up her mind about which stickers she wants to buy with her money from Grams. 11:00 a.m. Get home and spend and hour and a half cutting the dogs hair and giving them a bath. (During the week we had spent several evenings shaving on the dogs as well. We cut about 5 dogs worth of hair off two dogs over the course of the week). 1:00p.m. Leftovers for lunch and a call from the mechanic. Better not replace the thermostat. Looks like it is the transmission. 3:00 p.m. Car has been picked up. A...

I can't believe it's only been two weeks since Maddy's surgery. The weeks have seemed long since we've had to keep her from putting weight on her left foot. She is finally starting to default to crawling when she wants to move. This is very helpful because I feel more comfortable taking my eyes off her for a few seconds. We still have to watch her like a hawk though. Surgery went very well and very long. They told us two hours and it ended up being three. They moved several bones around and pinned them together to hold everything in place. They also had to cut several tendons and move those around to hold different things together. The doctor felt like the surgery went exactly as expected so that was good to hear because that was not the case with her hamstring release last April.She did much better coming out of anesthesia this time too. She did not have the oxygen stablization issues she had last time. By Friday afternoon we were all definitely ready to get home...

Well, Maddy is just getting to that age where she is getting pretty challenging behavior wise. I'm not saying she is a bad kid, but most of the time she is a nightmare to discipline. Her number one strategy to get out of trouble is to make you start laughing while she is getting in trouble, and, unfortunately, she is excellent at this. Her other strategy that she has recently developed is explaining she is not really doing what she is getting in trouble for doing. Example: " Maddy stop fussing." "No. I not fussing. I just gotta cry." Hmmmmm. For awhile we were using time outs when she wasn't listening or obeying. I'd put her in our room for about two minutes to think about what she did. She hated being in there by herself--until she discovered Mommy's underwear drawer. Sigh....... I've also been trying consequences that are a direct result of her behavior. The difficult part about this is that I'm not sure her memory is q...

I made it back from Kenya all in one piece and without Malaria, in part to the mosquito net you see above, but probably more to do with the fact that I only saw about 10 mosquitoes the entire time I was there and not a single bite :-)    The trip was truly amazing!!!!   God blessed our team in both breadth and depth.  This was my 3rd time to Kenya, but the first time I lead a team.  I was a bit nervous, but we didn't leave anybody at a terminal, nobody got sick, and everybody grew in Christ so I have chalked it up as a success.  We got into Nairobi late Friday night and stayed the night at a hotel there.  The next morning we got up and went straight to our village.  The camera battery was dead the first day so no pics of us driving down the rift valley or of the wonderful welcome the ladies of Kwambekenya gave us as we pulled up.  On Saturday we spent most of the afternoon singing with the community and then introducing the tea...