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As Adeline has gotten older there are new activities to discover. The DR doesn't have libraries, but we found a neat book store instead. We went with Anastasia and Hartleigh.

We went to Las Galeras with two other families and had a blast!

The house we rented.

Darton falls asleep on his Daddy pretty easily. It's a trick Scotty learned a few months back.

We didn't have internet for the past week, but we're back now. I really didn't miss all the computer time, and appreciated getting to be away from it. Now I just have to remember to stay away when I do have internet access.

Sick Family

Adeline enjoyed treating Nikita like a baby. You can guess where she was about to 'TRY' to put her next. We had children's praise music on and A was swaying Nikita in her arms like a mother would do a baby. So priceless! I bought a papaya (lechoza), 2 mangos, 1 pineapple (pina), 5 bananas (gineo), and 1 avacado (aquacate) for $300pesos (about $9US) at the beginning of the week and here the kids are enjoying snack time.

To save on diaper costs and because he's been asking to teetee, I sat D on the training potty at the table and we enjoyed playing play-doh.

I came down with a cold midweek and continued to want to chalk it up to allergies. I'm one who underestimates or thinks it's not as bad as it really is. I really only had one day that was yucky yucky, but not so bad that I couldn't function as a mommy.

Scotty came home Friday with yuckness contantly running from his nose and sneezing every 5 minutes. I thought surely today is your worst day, but he's red-eyed today and stopped up. We are going to stay home from church tomorrow.

Adeline spent last night throwing up and having dry-heaves. It was her first experience with this and she was a trooper. As long as she had mommy she did great, all things considered. She threwup one last time this morning after having milk and has kept everything else down. My first reaction was fear b/c we had a friend who had ameobas and threw up for 10 days. Praise God it's not that! The only thing new to her diet last night was organic soy milk from the powdered state. This morning the milk had floaties of particles that weren't soy, so I'm wondering....

Scott thinks she and he have a virus and are reacting differently to it. I've been getting into the more natural ways to prevent sickness and came across a blogger who uses hydrogen peroxide in her ears when signs of colds are coming on. I'm not kdding when I had to force Scotty to do it...when it's not his idea, then it must not be a good one. Well I'll give him more credit than that...he just questions the idea to death and you have to come up with a very good reason to defend yourself. I'm getting better at this after 5 years of marriage, but he still makes me stumble across my words in frustration. I'm actually very thankful for the opportunity to have to think through by belief or idea.

Back to the hydrogen peroxide... He cried his way through it! But let's not tell him to read this post, shall we? :)

I made chicken soup with veggies, lots of pepper, and Sea Veg Mix to boost our systems. We are taking our echinacea and vitamin C and I'm minimizing sugar intake.

The irony in the situation is before going to bed last night I read the chapter "When Kids are Sick" in from Praise Her in the Gates: The Calling of Christian Motherhood by Nancy Wilson.

A quote from her book that I assume I will be needing to practice in the weeks ahead as I have begun a study of The Power of a Praying Woman with English speaking Christians here (most are missionaries).

We want to be women of integrity and humility,

exercising wisdom, and characterized by kindness,

giving way to those who disagree with us.

This applies directly to a concept a Christian girlfriend brought to my attention this week. Why as Christian women are we not picking each other up off of the ground, but rather wanting to push each other down onto our knees? I really do believe I am more of an encourager than a discourager, but there is a sense in me with some women that I'm out to prove myself...and more so with Christian women. I've never faced this battle before moving here to the DR. But it's one that I'm trying to get to the root of....

Another quote I enjoyed from Wilson's book

We can not entrust the care of our children into those who do not fear God.

Darton update

Darton's cuts are healing very well and he can now open his hand completely without being in pain. At 17mths his vocabulary is growing by the week and he is now saying

nigh nigh

cracker

shoe

ball

"sur" - basura (trash)

down

gato - cat

dog

poo poo

tee tee (I actually have him in training pants today because he wants to go so often)

diaper

I want bie (bite)

I want that

Not that

I own see (I want to see)

I am very thankful that he is using sign language as well. The one he uses most often so that he doesn't get frustrated is "help." Instead of screaming at the toy, he comes and gets me and signs "help." He signs and says "eat." I'm very proud of him!

Making snickerdoodles on Monday. We've started house hunting...yes I know what you are thinking about the color

Having a boy...

D man turned 17mths this past weekend. Over the past 2 months or less I'm finding that having a boy means lots of falls. Poor thing always has a bruise on his forehead. He rarely gets knocked down, but rather trips over his own two feet...I'm actually wondering if one of his feet is turned in a little bit. He does a great job of falling and getting right back up without skipping a beat.

His sister on the other hand...whenever she falls she must cry like it's the end of the world and go screaming off away from people. She usually returns after a few yells and screams in a pleasant mood. It's quite nice that she's learned how to deal with her anger/embarrasment. Onlookers are always quite worried when she goes screaming off like a wild banchee, but I reassure them she'll be back in a few after some time alone :).......she is ALL FEMALE.

Back to my boy...

While Scott and I were getting ready for church on Sunday Darton had a bad accident....Adeline came to inform us of the accident and through stuttering words was able to spit out "Darton" and "beer." As you can see it's not beer, and the most amusing thing of it all was that she associates glass bottles with beer. That reminds me of a memory when she was younger than Darton. We used to sit oversized trash by our back door in Elko, including wine bottles. Adeline picked one up and brought it to me and said "Daddy." Quite humorous coming out of a 1yr old's mouth. Darton's spilled drink is a malt drink.

This picture is sideways, but you can see the blood D was sitting in when Scotty found him. We eventually discovered that all the blood was mainly coming from the cut you see below on his head. It's healing very nicely, but I'm sure will leave a scar. The worst cut is in the crease of his hand where his thumb connects to his palm. He protects it pretty well though and it's begun healing nicely as well. Praise God all his wounds can be taken care of in the home!

Our first "owie" for the weekend though was on Sarah. We put her int he back of the pickup while in the country and she jumped out. She ahs a nasty wound about the size of a nickle. I think it's healing well too. I'm keeping her indoors though until I see the wound has closed up.

Diapers and Dishes are Encouraging

The kids, Sarah, and I headed to Bonao on Thursday afternoon to spend a couple of days in the country. We dropped off our car for maintenance and then headed to Rancho Wendy, pictured below. Thankfully the day was uneventful since I was solo with the 3 of them. Scott got to us around 7p and then we all headed out the next morning for a finca (farm) near the mine owned by a co-worker of Scott's. Here is the O'Kelly's finca along with Darton screaming at me. I've gotten used to it over the last 1 1/2yrs ;). AFter living in a city for the past year, I've come to the conclusion that heaven MUST be filled with lots of grass and NO noise!

The farm is only 15minutes or so from the mine. Scott and the OKelly's joined us on Friday night and we left the OKelly's on Saturday to head back to the city.

We've started the house hunting process. After a year in the apartment I'm ready to have green out my front door...or rather the kids are more ready than I am.

A girlfriend passed on this very encouraging article. I hope all you moms enjoy it as much as I did!

Kids' Diet

I'm continually trying to remember to work on my children getting the nutrients and vitamins they nee din their food. I highly recommend What Really Works for Kids by Susan Clark and Simply Natural Baby Food by Cathe Olson. Olson's book requires shopping outside your normal grocery store, so it's taken me a while to cook more of her recipes. However, the bonus to living in such a large city is that we have an Asian store with lots of algae products, and they are right down the street from me! I went in yesterday and found the following ingredients to make the following mix to put in different recipes.

Sea Veg Mix
2 Tbsp kelp
1/3 c crushed hiziki
1/3c crushed arame
1/4 c crushed wakame
1 strip kombu

Crush the sea vegetables with your hands and place them in a blender. Gind to a coarse powder and store in covered jar.

Sea vegetables are exceptional sources of mineral, vitamins, and protein (strengthen bones & teeth and improve nerve transmission and digestion). You can add them to your current recipes to give your food an extra boost for your immune system.

Aunt Jana you will be happy to know that we painted A's toenails for the first time today :). I've been funny about fingernail paint, but she hasn't asked until today to have it. I think I let her have lipstick over paint b/c lipstick comes off within the first 5 minutes after putting it on. However, I read in Clark's book that women ingest up to nearly 60lbs of lipstick in a lifetime, and most of those on sale contain toxic metals such as aluminium and lead...so maybe i shoudl be looking into an alternative without additives or synthetic dyes.

Pool and Bday

On Friday we enjoyed a sunny day at the water park. We are the first of our friends to try it out. It was great until people showed up ;) Mostly b/c the people that showed up were ones that tried to have "relations" in the kiddie pool! Notice the attitude Little Bit is giving up at the top...The music was at Domincan level of "beyond loud" and here Adeline is dancing. Tiffany, also in the picture, went with us. Today I celebrated my 28th bday with girlfriends and a chinola margarita. I don't remember a birthday since I've been an adult where people outside of family lavished me with so many gifts. I received 2 houseplants out of the deal!! My first mind you. They were all very sweet to celebrate with me and it was a great reminder that I do have good friends here.
The orchidsAnd the other...

That's my neice Ella in the photo frame. We'll get to meet her in December when she come to the DR.

Friends

It's been a week of hit or miss with the electricity, but at this very moment I have it and hopefully won't lose it before I finish the post. The worst part about no electricity is not having water...our pump/cistern/whatever system we have needs electricity to work. Adeline has picked up the phrase "No hay luz" (there isn't any electricity).

Tuesday I went to the Santo Dominican Country Club and joined the International Woman's Club. I was purposely trying to stay away from it last year for fear of being sucked "into the world" but am going to give it a try this year.
Late Tuesday afternoon I was aching for an activity, so I invited a couple of girlfriends over with their kids for frozen margaritas, and as you can see below, dancing. (Grammar moment: I really needed a pause in breath when you read the last sentence before the word "dancing" but can't decide if putting a comma there is a comma splice or not...nerdy I know) We played music statue and it didn't take Darton any time to learn that when the music stops you stop dancing...he was hysterical...he will be able to groove and move much better than his father ;)

Today I took Jonathan for the day to help Kathryn. Kathryn is due with #3 in 2 wks and Jonathan, her oldest, turns 3 in December. You can do the math on that one! Whew! She is super woman.

We went to the Botanical Gardens and suffered through the heat. It is currently the hottest it has ever been in the year we've been here.

Darton saying "cheese." He is quite the little ham, and when he's not crying is making us laugh at him!

Playing a game together.

Enjoying ice cream after the hot sun

Darton REFUSED to eat the ice cream while I was holding it, so I chowed down the majority of it while he was screaming his head off and then gave the last bit to him. The Dominicans were quite impressed he could "shut of" that quickly. Adeline's will has NOTHING on D-man's.

No hay luz about 30 minutes after we got home, so we hit the pool at the nearby hotel.

We're off to the waterpark tomorrow.