Happy Birthday, Juan David

Happy 9th birthday, Juan David. You seriously can't know this little guy and not love him.

Happy Birthday Ibet and Delia

We have celebrated two birthdays at NLCH in the last week. First was Ibet, who turned 18. For each of our kids' birthdays, we take them out to lunch and they get to invite one friend to come with them. Normally it's someone near their own age or a sibling. But Ibet chose to invite Juan David, so we had fun with them at lunch on Sunday.

The other birthday was Delia, who turned 19. She chose to attend a youth retreat from our church over the weekend, and came back after dinner on her birthday, so we had to postpone her singing and cake until the next night. All of the kids were out waiting for her to get back from the retreat, though, so she drove up to a cheering crowd, got lots of hugs, and of course, firecrackers.

20 weeks!

I have now reached the halfway point to our little guy's arrival! Hooray!! Daniel took some pictures yesterday to mark the occasion. While I feel pretty silly posting pictures of my stomach on here, I did want to share a few with you so you can see the baby's progress. The last picture makes me laugh. Daniel is so much taller than me that it created a funny angle.

A good hideout

I found three of our girls the other day inside one of the concrete planters that doesn't yet have a tree or flowers inside. They were having a great time.

Mishell vs. Michelle

We have had a few people ask questions about the spelling of Michelle's name. So, if anyone else has wondered about why the spelling has changed over the course of our posts, here is the explanation:

On our first post about her after she and her siblings arrived at NLCH, we spelled her name Mishell. We did this because it was how Kendon (the director of NLCH) spelled her name in an email that he sent out announcing the children's arrival. He later started spelling her name Michelle, so we followed suit. I asked him about the change and he said that he was given the spelling of "Mishell" over the phone prior to her arrival. When they received the official paperwork for her, the correct spelling is Michelle.

I was surprised by how observant some of our readers are to have noticed the different spelling when we first wrote about Michelle. Thank you for writing and asking about the difference. I wanted to clarify the reasoning on here so that no one will think we changed the spelling of her name in some effort to "Americanize" her or something to that effect. It was just a matter of a telephone error that was cleared up by receiving her correct paperwork.

Please feel free to send along any other questions that come up!

What could be better?

Michelle fell asleep at our apartment the other day -- one hand holding a toy, the other hand holding a cookie. What a life!

A Tasty Reward

As an incentive for doing well in school, when grade cards and progress reports come out (4 times a school year) Kendon and Wendy take the children who are passing all of their classes out for breakfast at McDonald's. Sadly, there were only 11 of them this time (plus Cesar, one of the homeparents' children) but it was a pretty excited group.

Sammy, not lacking at all in confidence but perhaps a bit in humility, told me on the way to McDonald's that he has never failed a class and never will. Good for him! Josue, who I guess was a little confused, talked about going to McDonald's on Friday and was already planning what he wanted to order. I found out on Saturday that he had not passed all of his classes and would not be in the group going for breakfast.

Kevin with his Traditional Big Breakfast -- this would probably not be too popular in the States. It has eggs, sausage, refried beans, cheese, plantains, and two tortillas. I think I will stick with the regular Big Breakfast that has pancakes!

Jorge enjoying his hash brown. He had a hard time getting his little mouth around the Egg McMuffin.

Juan David with Sammy and Jans in the background.

Surprisingly Fast

The internet and phones are working again at NLCH! When we were told that it could take up to three months for the repairs, we fully expected that it would be at least three months. Things never seem to work quickly around here. So, we were very pleasantly surprised when internet and our phone came back, with just a week for repairs. Now, we just hope someone else doesn't steal the wiring!

Happy Birthday Jorge

Yesterday, Jorge celebrated his first birthday since coming to NLCH, turning 5. You can see evidence in the picture that he got to have a special birthday lunch at Burger King with his buddy, Randy. He was so excited at dinnertime that he decided to wear the crown again, and as soon as we turned out the lights to sing and bring out his cake, he started pumping his fists in the air with a huge, toothless smile on his face.

Watch Your Phone Lines

Our phone and internet have been out for several days, and the phone company finally told us yesterday that it's because someone stole their cables, and it will take somewhere between 5 days and 3 months to fix it. So right now we are at the local chicken restaurant since they have wireless internet, but we just wanted to let you know the reason for our absence from the blog and email. And if you don't hear from us for three months, well, you can blame it all on those phone cable thieves.