Weekly Update

I know its been a week since I've written and lots has happened...
On Thursday, July 31 we celebrated 15 years of marriage. Evelyn cooked us a feast of a meal with roasted lamb, chicken and potatoes, green beans, butternut squash, pudding and Yolanda made curried chicken and the best chocolate cupcakes. We were eating left overs the rest of the weekend!

On Saturday we finally made it to Builder's Warehouse and we were not disappointed. It was like Home Depot and we loved it. We were so giddy it was stupid. But shopping in South Africa is very different from home. If you want something you have to go to a specialty store - electrical shop for supplies, hardware shop for hardware, plumbing store for plumbing, etc. So to find one store with everything gave us a small taste of normalcy (for us anyway). We didn't spend too much but we got things we needed for the AWANA and to decorate the girls' room.

On Sunday we made it to church and then off to the ever popular Speirs to run and play and enjoy the warmer, sunny weather. It's a good place for the girls to get outside, run around and have a bit of an adventure - there's rocks to climb and trails to walk and a horse ride (Katie's come close but changes her mind at the last minute. Emily just says no. So no horse rides yet.)

On Monday we started the AWANA program at the Frog Center and I have to say it's been a great success. I'll write more about it later.

That evening we had a big scare. Katie slammed her face against the tub and for a few minutes we didn't know if she hit her face, broke her nose or what. We heard a cracking sound which scared us both to death. Finally her teeth started to bleed and her lip grew about 2 sizes bigger. We were totally freaked. Kevin called Evelyn (we didn't know what else to do) and she came over to have a look. We figured with 5 kids she'd know what to do. So she came, had a look, said she was fine, but to give her medicine to help relieve the pain. She drank some cold water and the medicine fine. It wasn't until Tuesday morn when I got her out of bed that I realized her front tooth was chipped! But her lip and gums looked fine and she didn't have any problems eating. (Of course yesterday she fell and hit the same spot - thank the Lord it wasn't too hard and she just had a little bit of bleeding - injured the fresh wound). So we were very thankful to God that He protected her and that it could have been much worse, but He is good and she's fine.

You can read about our DSL drama on the other blog.

Random Everyday

Hello all. Well I thought while I had a few minutes I'd included just some random things. The first item I would like to dedicate to my Grandmother who will read this thanks to my cousin Frannie!! Thanks Fran for printing it out and mailing to her - means a lot to me!!!
Anyway, it has to do with the local paper. It's definitely done different here. First of note is the delivery. It comes about 5:30pm, not AM. So the paper is from all that has happened either later the previous day or early in the day. Secondly, it only comes Mon-Fri. Though Friday's has a nice Puzzle section that I use to relax, crosswords, sudoku and a few others. But we read every inch of it just to keep informed so we're getting our money's worth. Speaking of which, a young boy delivers the paper rain or shine and a few days ago it was raining fierce. We pay him each Friday and Kevin likes to give him a couple of Rand extra for his troubles.
A few weeks ago we went for what turned out to be a very long drive to see snow! (Told you it was cold here.) Though it doesn't snow in Mitchells Plain, it does on the mountains and was a rare occurrence in that the thing to do was go see it. So we drove into the town of Ceres, up into the mountain tops to see the white stuff. It was scarce, since it had been there a while and was beginning to melt. There was enough to enjoy a few snow balls and to build a very short snowman. The girls had a good time and that was the main reason we went.
Once last quick item - KATIE USED THE POTTY!!! Just yesterday (Sunday) she said, "I have to go pp on the potty" and ran for the bathroom. I helped her up and she did her business!! Look's like Emily's been instructing her well - LOL. Let's see if it continues or is a one off thing.
XO

Bathroom Talk

Good day all. I thought I'd share some new developments in regards to Emily. I've found that the statistic is the average 4 year-old asks 437 questions a day. Well despite the fact that Emily is just over a month away from that glorious age, she's begun to meet this quota.

The other day as we were grocery shopping, of course, she had to use the bathroom. Yea, public bathrooms (sarcasm I promise). Any how, just in the stall alone I got grilled, the toilet paper dispenser being the main subject. Here's how it went:

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: The toilet dispenser. Its holds the toilet paper.

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: Its the screw that holds the dispenser on the wall.

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: Its the window so you can see how much toilet paper is left.

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: It's where the toilet paper comes out.

(Okay, so maybe it's the same question 437 times!)

Now this was not the beginning of the inquiry. The first question was… 

Emily" "Is that the toilet?" 

Mommy: "Yes, that's the toilet." 

Now why would she ask that? Because here in SA, the public toilets for the most part are not your average looking toilet. For one thing they're completely round, not oval like we're use to. Secondly there's no toilet seat. The thickness of the rim is such that it's ample sitting space. 

Emily: "What's that button on the wall?"

Mommy" "It's how you flush the toilet."

We've seen these before. It's just a button on the wall. I usually flush these karate style - with my foot.

Once out of the stall we wash hands.

Emily: "How am I going to dry my hands?"

Mommy: "Use my jeans."

Now here in SA its hard to find a public bathroom that has a paper dispenser. It mostly the hot air dryer thingy, which is best I know, but Emily refuses to put her hands under something that is that noisy and blows hot air on her.

With that we were out of the bathroom to resume our shopping. There were more questions of course.

So now what? Well Katie's potty training has begun with the leadership coming from big sister Emily. Here's how it went one day.

Emily: "I have to go to the bathroom. Come on Katie."

Katie: "O-hey"

Emily: "This is the toilet. There are no monsters here. (as they both look inside the potty). Now you take your pants off like this. And sit on the potty and then the pee-pee comes out."

Katie watched like the good student. And then handed her big sister some toilet paper. Of course we were there to assist the clean up and redressing. And so the rest of the day, Emily would proclaim, "I have to go to the bathroom, come on Katie." To which Katie would reply, "O-hey." 

So we'll have to see how quickly the student learns from the master! LOL

How Cold Is It??

Okay, I know this is a subject of late. But hey I'm a born and raised Floridian and this is cold. Its so cold... now for the collective "how cold is it?" Its so cold that you can see your breathe INSIDE the buildings!!! That's right! So while you're experiencing the heat of the Sunshine State and getting cooled off by the breezes of your air conditioner we're breathing "smoke" inside! So enjoy! :P

Happy Birthday

Our little Katie turned 2 yesterday. To celebrate we ordered pizza - which she was happy to gobble down, a small cake that was finger-licking good and we watched Curious George. It was a nice evening, though Katie was quite the grump all day. Was she remembering her birth?? Nay, just having a day - and it was her birthday so her choice. You'll note the candles are not lit. It wasn't because we didn't want to, it's that we couldn't. We didn't have matches or anything. We attempted to set napkins and tissue aflame to use as a torch but no luck. All we got was small embers and lots of smoke. So that's the story with that

Fairies, Movie Stars & Water

Yes it was a busy Saturday for the Logans. We were graced by the presence of the beautiful fairy princess with her magic wand and all. She was there to share her fairy goodness and show off her sparkly wings. Then we were surprised by a special visit from the famous Katie - a star in her own right. She tried her best to disguise herself, but the paparazzi was not fooled! We snapped this shot as she attempted to hide away from the camera, but seeing it was futile, she struck a pose.
Lastly we went to our first swim met. As mentioned before one of Pastor's grandchildren, Bianca, is major into swimming with real olympic hopes, so we went to watch one of the mets. It was a little slow and we actually missed her two races (the first we didn't know it was her, the second I was in the ladies with my little lady). So we left un-rewarded, but we'll be at the next one. The best part was Emily got real excited and we were able to get the number for swim lessons. Yes, its an indoor- heated pool! So it was an eventful, yet somewhat quiet weekend. Very cold and wet - what else!

Where There's A Will...

... there is a way! Let's just say Emily loves chocolate. And since we wouldn't get it for her, she found a way to get herself! (That's the chocolate on the second shelf - brown with white strip.)
We knew something was up when she came out of the kitchen with the chocolate bar in hand, we just didn't know what, until we peeked around the corner.
We just had to laugh, and no, she didn't get the chocolate, though we should have just for the engineering and problem solving accomplished!