PLEASE PRAY!!!!

Someone put an offer on our house today!!!!!! Please pray for everything to work out smoothly! I am so excited and a bit impatient:)  YAY!!!

Also, I think our new blog/website should be ready to reveal tonight! Sorry that we are having to switch you over to something new but apparently Blogger doesnt work too well in Ethiopia.  We are pretty excited about this new site though because it caters to everything we need it to do!  So yeah....tonight hopefully!!  And prayer letters are coming! I am still waiting on SIM to send the brochures....hopefully soon.  You'll be able to download both the brochure and prayer letter through our new site if you are still working on being patient like me:)

We are Home!!

We are home but I am BUSY working on our new website, prayer letters, prayer cards, and everything else needed to start raising support!!! We are already in the "under one year time frame" so I better get to work! I know that the Lord will bring in what we need and I always pray like everything relies on Him but I work like it all relies on me! So stay tuned.......the new website should be up and running in the next 2 weeks and a prayer letter will be hitting a mailbox near you! If you know that I probably don't have your address and would like our letter you can send me an email at deedee.aarseth@sim.org I can send it to you through email as well:) I will also try and update here with a few kiddo pictures before the new site gets up!

Hello from Charlotte!

We are currently having missionary training in Charlotte, NC and having a fabulous time reconnecting with all of our friends here. It has been an amazing week and it is only half way over! We are so excited to be able to share all the things we have learned this week with you very soon! Be on the look out because we will soon be changing this blog over to our ministry blog to Ethiopia! (Anyone have any creative titles?) I can not believe this time next year we will be on our way!

Tour Guide Jackson

So part of getting ready for living in Ethiopia is selling our house! (Anyone need a house in a Dallas suburb? Seriously? Anyone?) We got this great rental house in the mean time and we are very blessed at how God has given to our family. Here is a tour of our first step in downsizing! (actually its a nice sized house and not really that much smaller than our other house but it doesn't have a dishwasher so I consider it downsizing:) Oh and sorry for the crazy camera work....I am no professional that is for sure.








And our favorite part of the house is this:


that is the side of our house and that is the PARK right next door!!!

and here is a zoomed in picture:



now if it wasn't so stinkin hot all the time.......

We are back!!!

Yes, we are all moved in and unpacked and well, I am exhausted! Moving is such hard work!!! We have a few more things to do to get completely done but we are finally able to let the kids roam without fear that they will be toppled by boxes never to be heard from again:) I hope to be able to post the pictures from livi's party this weekend. But I'll leave you with a few tidbits I learned about my family while moving:


1. My husband owns 16 ties. Only 3 of them I would ever allow him to leave the house in.

2. I have 4 different robes. I can't even remember the last time I had time to lounge around in a robe after my shower! It was probably roughly 3 years ago.

3. Jackson owns eleventy billion different types of balls. I should of taken a picture of the huge box of just balls.

4. Olivia is going to grow up to be a hoarder. I am sure of it. The entire week she has gone around looking through boxes and finding treasures and hiding them in her room.

I am still missing a milk cup.

Hopefully I'll find the time and energy tomorrow to post some pictures of the party for you:) You know, because it is exhausting to push the upload button.

MOVING!!!

We are almost all packed up and moving this weekend! God has blessed us with a very reasonably priced rental house to have while we make our transition over to Ethiopia! The best part for me is that it is so reasonable that we get to move in and then put our house on the market! Yep, no having to keep it spotless with my little ones running rampant! Please pray with us that our house sells quickly though! We are ready to be able to go wherever God calls us with no strings to hold us down! I may be without internet for a few days but I will be back soon with a tour of our new pad!

Tot School

Tot School was a little sporadic last week since we had lots of fun things to do like the Gladney Skittle. We decided to do a few baseball themed things since some friends of ours were taking us out to see the Rangers beat the White Sox (Daddy's favorite)!

Some people have wondered about how we "do" tot school and how much preparation it takes. I may try and do more of a post on this sometime soon since we are about to step it up in the tot school/preschooling here. We need to be ready to do all of our preschooling needs in Ethiopia and training them, and more importantly training me, to make this a daily and scheduled activity is important. Thankfully, Jackson will most likely attend Bingham Academy for Kindergarten where we will live and work, so we don't have to worry too much about homeschooling while in Ethiopia. But being a teacher, my kids will probably always have to suffer through some type of learning at home! Jackson goes to preschool two days a week now and still has to have fun home schooling with his mommy!

And I know a lot of people think it takes a lot of prep work, and to some degree yes. I do own a lot of stuff from being a preschool teacher for 5 years, but even still, I have made a majority of it since starting with Jackson. The key is to make things you can use over and over again and then put it away when it is not in use. This way, it always seems like a new activity. Once the prep work is done and you have a nice stash, you can do it pretty easily. Just add small things as you have the time. To learn ALL about how to home school your tot or preschooler you can click the link below.

Practicing putting capital letters in ABC order



These are mini colored clothespins (I just colored them with a sharpie) that they have to clip on to the matching pipe cleaner loop. Great for fine motor. Jackson is having a goldfish and raisin snack at the same time.....learning at an early age to multitask:)

We brought out our baseball lacing cards.



here she is trying to show it to the camera....I dont know why it isn't flipping!

Jackson has sensitive hearing and we normally have headphones for him to wear if it is too loud for him but Mommy forgot them. Actually there were no fireworks that night so I thought he would be fine but the speaker was bothering him. Thankfully though Geico was giving out these sweat bands so it became ear muffs:)



They looked so cute in their matching Texas shirts!

We also practiced tossing and catching soft squishy baseballs but I guess I forgot to take a picture! Sorry!

So hopefully in the next few weeks you will see a bit of a difference in our Tot School time. We sold some furniture (ahh it is actually refreshing to get rid of stuff) and we are making a little school room/playroom so we have some more space for our fun!

oh please don't laugh.......

Yep, for those of you who guessed minivan, you are correct! Who knew I would be 26 and driving this bad boy around?? Oh, and I don't laugh at you other moms that drive minivans, I just, well, have to get used to the idea......I'm sure you understand.

Finances are crazy and a hard point for lots of families and couples. It sure was for us for a long time.....well it is still is hard but we have learned a lot! Dave Ramsey got us completely debt free allowing us to start the adoption process for Olivia. His plan changed our thinking, our spending, and our family! The end of the adoption put us back into some debt but after being 9 months home, we are finally back on the other side. Well, once we sell Paul's car on craigslist next week! Not having a car payment will be great!

And we are blessed to have found this car. It was a great deal and we only need it for about 15 months. Oh yes, that's right, only 15 more months until Ethiopia! It feels like time is flying by! We are just praying that God will continue to fill the seats of this little minivan before we have to sell it!

Huge Garage Sale benefitting our youth ministry!

Some of you may know that we work with the Junior High youth ministry at our church. They are a great group of kids and Paul and I really enjoy ministering to them. Well, this Saturday we are having a HUGE church-wide garage sale to benefit our youth program. If you are in the area, you may want to stop by for some great deals!

Huge Garage Sale
Saturday, April 24
Trinity Bible Church
400 W. Campbell Road
Richardson, TX



It comes at a great time as we try and simplify our life so that we only have the things we absolutely need for Ethiopia. I started taking pictures after Paul had already loaded half of it up but you get the drift. I didn't really realize we had so much stuff. This doesn't even show any of the stuff from the garage! It was several carloads!

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.

Amazing

Wow....you have to read this blog post @ It's Almost Nap Time. This is how I feel from deep within my heart for my sweet children......I pray the Lord will help me to live out this spirit and desire and pass it along to my little lovebugs.

Are we crazy?

Welcome to my brand new blog! I am so excited about all the changes coming up in our lives and how God is moving and guiding us. We are thrilled to be able to share with you as we embark on this new journey.....so what's all the big news?


Well, I am sure by the title you can tell we are now expecting our third little babe! Baby #3 is expected to make his or her arrival sometime in October and we are beyond thrilled. Jackson and Olivia are very confused and excited about the baby in mommy's tummy.

The other big news is that we have decided to become full time missionaries with SIM in Ethiopia. We have felt God calling us towards missions for a while now and we have spent the last year praying and preparing for how this will look for our family. We are so happy about SIM and being apart of such a great organization. Our time frame for leaving is fall of 2011.

What are we doing in Ethiopia? Well we are still waiting for that to be finalized and it should be very soon, but you know how things run when you are on Africa time....if things go as planned right now, it is a great fit for our family and we are excited to share it with you all soon, so stay tuned!

So, are we crazy? This was the question that I asked my sweet husband as we were laying in bed one night after coming home from a week spent at our mission agency in North Carolina. Without skipping a beat, he said uh yeah, I think we are. So there you have it....the question I am sure you were just asking yourself! We are crazy! We are crazy for God and his people. We are crazy for our sweet kiddos, and we are crazy for each other. And we are happy to be on this crazy adventure that God has called us to.

As for this blog, I would absolutely love to be able to keep our family, friends, and supporters up to date with what is going on with us. The next 18 months will be filled with baby growing, studying, training, support raising, and lots of praying!

To kick off this new blog I am going to do a fun giveaway to support one of my favorite organizations, Compassion International. If you want to be the proud owner of one of these cool t-shirts that support orphans and people living in poverty all over the world just leave a comment to enter! Giveaway ends on March 8th. For extra entries:

1. Become a follower of Raising 3 Babes in the 3rd world and leave me a comment telling me you did so.
2. Blog or post to Facebook, or even Twitter about our new blog and the giveaway and leave a comment telling me you did so. One entry for each one!
3. If you sponsor a child with Compassion International, leave me a comment with the country from where your child is from (this is on your honor of course!).

If you win, you can choose from:

The Child Survival T-Shirt
Compassion's Child Survival Program means the difference between life and death for vulnerable babies. Translated in Hindi, survival means "protect life". Join the fight for life, a portion of the proceeds will go directly to the Child Survival Program.

The Global Food Crisis T-shirt- Creole
Eco navy heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Creole on front and back and Compassion International logo

The Global Food Crisis T-shirt- Spanish
Eco red heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Portuguese on front and back and Compassion International logo


The Global Food Crisis T-shirt -Bengali
Eco green heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Bengali on front and back and Compassion International logo

or my personal favorite......

Global Food Crisis T-shirt- Amharic (Ethiopia's national language)
Eco black heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Amharic on front and back and Compassion International logo (It looks like the others but for some reason I could only get the zoomed in view!)

We hope that you join us in prayer as we prepare to raise 3 babes in the 3rd world!