Today Sydaleigh is seven.

My oldest turned seven. She woke up and stood tall by her bed so I could examine her closely to see if she had grown during the night into a seven year old. Sure enough...she did. She grew into a seven year old over night.

She's grown a lot this year. We came to Burkina with new school clothes and long skirts that brushed the tops of her feet. And now those skirts sit brushing the tops of her ankles. Her head is slowly and all too quickly inching higher up to my shoulder. It won't be long until we stand eye to eye. Before I know it she'll be looking down at me from above. She's destined to be taller than me I'm sure.

So she is seven.

Doesn't seem like it's been seven years.

I hate that about time. How even when you are savoring the moments and living and breathing and taking advantage of the minutes and making great efforts not to waste your fleeting seconds worth of life here...it all still passes by in a blur. You look back and somehow it's been a year already. Or five years. Or seven years. I wonder where all the time went. Has it really been that long? I look back and remember where all those years took us, and yes, somehow, it has really been that long. It seems impossible. But yet she is seven. She is standing in front of me as proof that time has not deceived me. It has been moving forward all along.

She stands before me slightly taller. More full of knowledge. And wisdom. And wonderful seven year old insights. Time is subtle. It moves and creeps forward a little a time. I lay down to sleep at night and everything stops. Or so it seems. Time does not move forward when I lay to rest. We lay down and give into the slumber that our body demands and wake up knowing it's the dawn of a new day but not feeling that time has been robbed of us while our minds drifted to dreams. But it has. We go to sleep each night and each night time keeps moving. Minute by minute another hour is gone. Hour by hour another day is gone.

I wake up in the morning and look at my children and wonder how they could look bigger. I just saw you yesterday, when did you grow?

In the night. While they slept.

The clock keeps ticking and robs me of having more of her. We are subject to time here. God structured us to live within its confines. And it's on birthdays especially that I am confronted with just how much I miss. I am confronted with just how out of control I am. God set time in motion and it is one of those mysteriously abstract yet seemingly tangible things. We think we've got a grasp on it. I plan my days. I mark my calendar. I try to structure my time just as God has structured His time. Time that He created. I try to suck it for all it's worth. But even in the structure and the wringing it out like a sponge for more minutes....I will only have the same amount everyday. And of that time much of it will be lost. It will be lost to the living and in the living we forget about the time. It's a conflict. We want to slow down and savor it. We want to stop time to live in the moment. But the only way to stop time and savor it is to keep living in it. I seize hold and try to be a good steward of my days and live to make a difference...but it's in the living that makes time seem so fleeting.

So here I am. Looking at my seven year old. Remembering all the years that brought her to this point. Knowing that in but a blink she will be eight and I'll be replaying this song yet again. I will not waste my limited time daydreaming about a future that's not here. I lose enough of my time to dreams that come at night. I will live in this day. And I will live in tomorrow's. And I hope somewhere along the way to teach my kids to do the same. To impress upon their hearts the briefness of their lives. To encourage them to live. To take hold of the fleeting gift that God has given them. To not waste it. To remember the past but not live in it.

Today I have a seven year old. We celebrate her today. We remember all the joys and times we've had the honor of sharing with her so far. And we thank God for another year. Another year to see her live. And grow. And wake up taller. To see her smile. To hear her laugh when she's tickled. To watch her create. To learn. To fall. To stand again. To encourage her to keep pressing forward. To praise Jesus. To seek Him.

Today I have a seven year old. And we gave her breakfast cereal in bed. A poster with balloons to see as soon as she woke up. Some special gifts. A cake to decorate any way she wanted. And a day to simply celebrate her life and the joy that she is. Happy birthday moonchkie.

Best.gift.EVER!!

WHAT UP!!!! Hunger Games Snuggie!!! Doing an awesome dance over here!

Isaak forgot he ordered me this gift which surprisingly showed up yesterday. I think he has made a Snuggie fan out of me yet! I mean, try not to be jealous...it's a sin. :~)

I'm totally wearing this every night for forever. It's so awesome. Snuggie's rule. Well, this Snuggie rules. All other Snuggies are not cool. Only this one is awesome. Even though the one size fits all makes the pockets hang down past my crotch...it's still awesome. It can be a blanket, a coat, a dress if I put on a waist belt with it, a towel...dude, I may never need to wear anything else!

I'm gonna totally rock this Hunger Games Snuggie! Best.gift.EVER!!!

The 12 Days of Christmas

This has been one crazy busy month leading up to Christmas day. The festivities started the second weekend of the month, so it's really more like The 19 Days of Christmas, but there's no song for that, so we'll just say twelve and move along. :~)

There has been school performances, church services, parties, parties and more parties, listening to Christmas music, baking, sewing, getting sick and sick some more, wrapping, Christmas movie watching...and just, a general soaking up of the joy of this holiday.

It has been a very full time celebrating the day that Jesus was born for us....

And it all started earlier this month with Sydaleigh's lower school Christmas performance.

They sang the funniest Christmas songs! Stuff we never heard while living in the States!


We then had a Christmas party at the Rec Center where Isaak played Santa. :~) Good man.

Actually, the same day as the above Rec Center party, our church had their Christmas service and potluck, and Syd's school graciously let us use their auditorium for the event. They nominated me to be in charge of decorations. It makes me giggle that they asked me, the girl who brought zero decorations to Africa, so I had to sweet talk the Embassy into letting me borrow their extras. And then I had food poisoning the night before thanks to some bad watermelon. Well, it was either food poisoning or some other violent rejection of everything inside me. But the show must go on, so I crawled out of bed, brushed my teeth, and showed up in what I slept in to set up the gym for over a hundred people and managed to decently decorate with a mish-mash of borrowed decorations. That's one thing I just love about living here. You make do with what you have. Period. So we had some green garland strung along the walls next to the purple garland and pink garland, a wreath from here, a Christmas tree from there, mismatched table cloths.....and, it worked. I kept thinking about churches back in the States and how the church has it's own supply of everything to decorate for a variety of different holidays. It's not like that here. There's no church budget for decorations. The congregation rallies and brings stuff from home, buys what's needed with their own money, or goes without. It's pretty cool. I really love our church here.

Sydaleigh was the star in the sky that led the Wise Men to Jesus in the kids play. And Marvelly's class all held up stars for their solo song. I've thought a lot about the star this year. Stars were the only decorations on our cardboard tree and every time I looked at them I would think about how God literally moved the heavens to get our attention and beckon us to Him. I mean, He didn't just tell the Wise Men, "So uhh, good luck with that. Hope ya find Him." No! He didn't abandon them to stumble through life trying to figure out where to go and how to get there on their own. He showed them the way.

He's still showing us the way....the question is whether we're paying enough attention to notice His stars. I never want to be too distracted to notice the "stars" God sends my way. That's a little of what my heart rested on this holiday....

We wrapped the evening by singing Silent Night in seven different languages, representing some of the native tongues in our interdenominational church....English, French, Polish, Dutch, Moore, Afrikaan, and German. It was way awesome. People who can speak more than one language blow my mind. I hope, that maybe in ten more years to be able to hold a decent conversation in French. But then I hear that the older you get the harder it is to learn another language...so, it may be more like twenty. I will get there, maybe.

A couple days later we had the Women's Bible Study Christmas party at my house that nearly forty gals came to. We all managed to stuff ourselves into every pocket of my living room and had a great time eating, fellowshipping, playing a new take on the White Elephant game, and sharing some significant God moments we've had during this study. This is such an eclectic group of ladies, with women from all walks of life and different corners of the earth converging here in Burkina for a whole range of different reasons. God's done good filling my life already with some wonderfully inspiring women. What a blessing to know them...

The next day was Sydaleigh's class Christmas party.

Two nights later was a gathering at Josh and Kelly's house.

The following night was the Ambassador's Christmas party at his home.

There was plenty of food, friends, singing of carols, a chocolate fountain that my girls managed not to spill all over them but somehow Isaak did (??),

an appearance of Santa played by Josh and not Isaak this time...my girls humored him in order to get the candy he was handing out...

We were dressed a little dressier than the rest of the people who came because right after this party we headed to another Christmas party at Fred and Nathanja's house and the attire was as formal as you got. Well, I wasn't gonna wear a ball gown to the ambassador's shin dig so we figured this was a good medium. The majority at the Ambassador's party was Embassy staff and the majority at Fred and Nathanja's are missionaries. I love that God has blessed us with such a wonderful mix of people to enjoy life with here.

Such a fun group of people. We had a ball playing hilarious games, trash talkin', watching the men freak out when a bottle of Vagisil got picked in the White Elephant game.

I think the color of the night was red.

Red. Red. Red. Red. Red.

What can I say, great minds think alike.

Sunday was church and more time spent with friends. Christmas Eve Isaak had the day off so we went to the artisnal village to let the girls pick out a gift for each of us and then we parked it at home, watched Christmas movies, wrapped gifts, let the girls open one present from Mimi,
and baked our Happy Birthday Jesus cake.

Baking a cake is the one tradition that we do every year no.matter.what. We celebrate Christmas in recognition and remembrance of Jesus' birth...so what the heck kind of a birthday celebration is it without cake?! We're all about the cake. Every birthday has to have a cake. It's the rule. We say so. So we bake one every year for Jesus.

Christmas day started early with Sydaleigh waking at 6:40am. We had only placed the gifts my mom sent around the tree the night before, so when she woke up in the morning she couldn't believe that there was more to open. What a funny girl. I love to see their expressions and share in their joy.

Marvelly got the Lion King beanie animals and Flynn and Aurora "squishies" she has been talking about all year. And Sydaleigh got a wooden doll bed and bedding for her Kirsten doll that she has been talking about almost all year too.

Isaak got a little metal man holding a tool box from Sydaleigh because she thinks her Daddy is the best fixer ever. I can't argue that point, the man has skills. I got a new local dress that I helped steer them towards.

After we opened gifts we headed to the orphanage to celebrate Christmas with the kiddos and staff. We brought along bushels of bananas, cartons of milk, cookies, and cheese and crackers to help fill their tummies with a little extra besides potatoes. And we stayed and played and Isaak and Sydaleigh got to meet all of mine and Marvelly's little friends. And we planted seeds of worth and value and importance a little at a time in their young lives. Just a few hours to whisper with our hands that they are not forgotten.

One of the best parts of our Christmas day was getting to serve there together as a family. And hopefully this will also plant seeds in our girl's hearts of sacrifice, and service, and love and selflessness and what it means to share Jesus' love and spread His light. *side note...shortly after I took that picture of Isaak feeding that sweet baby girl...she threw up that entire bottle all over him, her and the floor. It's a rule that you never leave the orphanage without getting covered in someones bodily fluids. :~)

Later that evening we headed over to Justin and Tara's and relaxed with friends.

Whew. What a month. It was full. And full and full. We had a lot of great times, and now we're looking forward to a slower paced January.

Great first Christmas here in Burkina.

A Christmas song.

I heard this song at church this morning. It's been out for few years, but I hadn't heard it until today. It's powerful. I love that it not only talks about Jesus' birth...but sings about the day He will return. A day we are to look forward to with eager anticipation. This is my new favorite Christmas song....

In the First Light.

Santa comes to Africa!

Jolly ole Saint Nick arrived in Burkina last Saturday to the delight of a whole bunch of kids!

Apparently Santa Clause is a Christmas staple everywhere in the world....even in far off little countries like this one. Everybody knows the Santa Clause....now if we could just get everyone to know Jesus we'd be on to somethin'. :~)

My girls, however, were a little less impressed with Santa than the others....seen as how they see their daddy everyday. :~) Ah yes. Isaak got duped into playing Santa. Ha ha! He was the only one willing to don that red suit and beard. What a good sport my husband is!

There was talk at the party of acquiring a Mrs. Clause outfit for next year. I have no clue who they think they're gonna find to dress up as her......