Our Baby

A few days ago we had a sonogram that showed that we had lost our baby. Please pray for us during this time as we try to heal and move forward from this awful nightmare.

She's growing up too fast!

Camping!

We had to cut our camping trip a bit short due to the rain.....which was good since it then snowed after that. It is weird how it was 75 one day and snowing not even 36 hours later. So we just stayed one night instead of two and the kids still had a blast!

the big boys made a boat out of duct tape and a little wood.



Jackson and Livi had to ride in the boat too....although they stayed on land.

sibling love



the colors in this picture looks a lot better on my computer than on blogger for some reason.

snackin'

head flash light in the middle of the day.......

To view the rest of our fun camping adventure, just click the become a fan on facebook button on the right and go to the Raising 3 babes in the 3rd world's photo albums.

Bingham Academy

Bingham Academy from DC on Vimeo.

More Details on Ethiopia

So as we move forward, more details are getting firmed up. So I thought I would answer some of the common questions we are getting.

So what exactly will you be doing there?

Paul has accepted a position at Bingham Academy in Addis Ababa. He will teach computer to the jr. high and high school students there. We are really excited about this opportunity since Addis is home to the African Union and many embassies. Most of the diplomats send their kids to Bingham and over 55 different nationalities are represented at the school. We are excited to see the gospel impact these future leaders.

Will the school pay you?

No, the school is run by our mission agency SIM. We will have more details about how much support we need to raise in July when we return to SIM headquarters for orientation.

When will you leave?

We would like to leave for Ethiopia in August 2011, but that is just a target date as of now.

Will you be involved in orphan care?

We do plan on doing some sort of orphan care at some point while we are there. Right now we are focused on our role at Bingham and getting our family adjusted. We are trusting the Lord to work out the details and contacts for getting involved with orphan care once we are in country and adjusted. Please keep that in your prayers for us.

How long will you be gone?

Right now we have accepted a contract for two years. We are considered long term with SIM so anything beyond 2 years will be up to the Lord and how he leads us.

What will you be doing between now and then?

A LOT! We have so much training and support raising to do before we leave! We are currently listening to 115 hours of seminary training, the perspectives class in the fall, several trips to North Carolina and New York this summer and next summer for training in support raising, language acquisition, and teacher certification, and lots of reading. We also have to sell our house, move into a rental until we leave, buy a......minivan, then sell a minivan and our other cars, and downsize majorly. We really are looking forward to having a lot less stuff!

I received an email this week from a sweet family thinking about missions and they said, "God does not send the equipped, but equips who he sends!" That could not be more true. Paul and I had to laugh when SIM asked us to fill out a long set of paperwork that was supposed to detail all of our bible training.....I sent it back blank. While the Lord has taught us so much through our church, our pastor, and our ministries, we have NO professional training. But that isn't what God wants. He wants willing hearts to serve Him. We pray everyday that He will shape our hearts to be humble and ready to do what He calls for our family.


Ok any other questions you are dying to ask? I will try and do my best to answer them.

Welcome 2nd Day of Spring.......

that is as far as he got folks.....

and as he was going in, little missy decided to venture out








maybe they look so miserable because of their Texas snow gear.......pajama pants and rain boots:)

Thanks!

My comments have not been working right for the last few days so I just found all the advice you all sent for my strong willed baby today! Thank you for all your encouragement and suggestions! We will definitely be taking them to heart and working through.....but praise God, the last week has been so much easier than the week before. We still have a lot of work to do but I think she was definitely testing me for a few hard days. I'll try and post our camping pictures tomorrow...we had to cut the trip a bit short because of the rain but we had a lot of fun.

Amazing huh?

How your baby's growing:

Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic "tail" is completely gone. Your baby's organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won't be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks. Her eyes are fully formed, but her eyelids are fused shut and won't open until 27 weeks. She has tiny earlobes, and her mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. The placenta is developed enough now to take over most of the critical job of producing hormones. Now that your baby's basic physiology is in place, she's poised for rapid weight gain.



Wow, it is so exciting to know my baby is growing each week! It is weird....with Jackson we had tried for a long time and so I was so excited about him and thought about him every day. This time around if I don't have any morning sickness or my pants actually button the first time, I don't even think about being pregnant at all. I am just too busy! Maybe that will make the time fly by. I am so excited to meet this new little bundle of joy. We even gave it a nickname thanks to his big brother. I asked him what he would like to name the baby and he said, "SOUP!" So yeah, while Soup Aarseth is probably not going on his/her birth certificate, we affectionately refer to it as Baby Soup. :) never a dull moment here I tell ya.

Advice for a Mommy with a strong willed child

Ok, well this is funny and also super frustrating.....I try not to laugh and try not to get mad all at the same time. I normally don't blog about my parenting problems but in an attempt to make this blog more authentic and really show all the sides of parenting here I go.......

I have hit a wall. After 5 years of preschool teaching and 3 years of being a mommy I have finally hit my wall. I love my sweet spunky daughter so much and she is an incredible little person but she is driving me crazy! She is so strong willed that I don't even know how to discipline her. Let me begin with some background since I did not think that an almost 2 year old could even be this difficult when it comes to her will.

Olivia is 21 months old and is extremely smart. Everyone who knows her, including her pediatrician and international adoption specialist doctor, think that she is at least 6 months older. She speaks with hundreds of words, maybe even thousands, and in full complete sentences. I can tell her to go upstairs and find 3 different objects that are in three different rooms without telling her where anything is and she will come back down with all of them. She understands everything I say and can even hold a great conversation about it. She pretty much operates at almost the same level as her 3 year old brother for the most part.

So we have been battling it out. On Wednesday it started with her hitting Jackson. After a two minute time out (she sits in the same room that we are in but has to face the wall) she needed to say I am sorry to Jackson and say no hitting to me. This happens ALL THE TIME at our house and she knows the drill, say your sorry and say no hitting. Well, she flat out refused. She didn't speak for 3 1/2 hours. After several hours of many different discipline tactics (long time outs, isolation in her crib, some not-so-great yelling, etc.), I just decided to just put her down for her nap. The kid would rather sit at the wall staring for hours than just say I'm sorry. I don't even understand it.

So then at 7:30 that night we were at Half Priced Books and she wanted a book. I of course said no and then I caved and said if she could apologize and say no hitting she could have one. So as we checked out she caved, and promptly said what she needed to along with book please? So yeah, I bribed my kid.

And Parent of The Year goes to..........

So every day since she has been pulling this shenanigan. She has refused to say please, yes ma'am and all sorts of things once each day. I decided not to wait it out. She just gets a consequence and it is over. Yesterday she lost her privilege to wear her minnie mouse necklace and lost reading books before bed. Tonight she lost bath time and she is wearing her jacket to bed. Um yeah, she is refusing to say jacket off please. She will just say jacket off. She normally actually says and we usually require, "May I jacket off please," but I am just going for a please at this point. It's just a zip up hoodie over a t-shirt so she isn't going to get hot or anything.....although maybe getting hot would make her just say please......well who knows?

So I need your advice.....Am I doing this all wrong? She desperately wants to hold the power and I do give her a few choices throughout the day and she is normally a very happy kid. I just don't know where she went. Maybe I need to take away her choices until she can prove to me that she can handle the freedom. I dunno, I am at a loss.


I wrote this a few days ago and I can say that it is getting better.....I have also purchased the strong willed child by James Dobson:) Although getting around to reading it would involve having time to myself:)

We love this song.....

Jackson and Livi love watching this video so many times each day that the other day I heard it on the radio and started singing these lyrics instead.....gosh it is nice to be a mom:)

Jackson's Tractor Party

We had Jackson's party at a nearby farm and it was so much fun. My little man loves tractors so it was John Deere tractor themed. I will post my favorite pictures here but if you want to see how the whole event went down you can click on the Become a Fan on Facebook button to the right to view the picture album of Jackson's 3rd Birthday Party.

We started out with a fun petting zoo.



Then the tractor took us for a hay ride!











Then we all had a yummy BBQ lunch.



how sweet are these three boys?






all the kids loved whacking the tractor pinata


my friend Ashley made this amazing cake for him!



he also enjoyed the cake pops!

opening presents

he got a beemer car from his gigi. he is slightly obsessed with her BMW.

then we ended our time with a fun barrel train ride!