Merry Christmas from Ghana!

I took this sweet vid of some school children practicing Christmas songs. I think it's such an appropriate image of Christmas: endearing little voices in Africa singing about the birth of the Savior of the world, asking us all to adore Him.

Merry Christmas!

News from Ghana

Lois and I went to Ghana for a couple weeks - it was AMAZING. We got so much accomplished and there has been so much growth and development at Luckyhill and the school since I was there last.

We didn't get to spend much time at the school - we had meetings and appointments in Accra nearly every day, and I regret not being able to spend more time with the children, but we made huge strides in their future well-being and the development of the community. After the first of the year, I will be busy writing proposals for various non-profit organizations at work in Ghana, hopefully persuading them to come out and work at the school and community. The next couple years are going to be very exciting for Luckyhill!

The school now provides regular, full-time employment to about 20 people in the community, and we had the opportunity to meet with many other members of the community who do periodic work or construction work there. It is such a blessing in my life to work for a cause that makes a difference to so many lives. The school is truly a blessing for the entire community.

Here are a couple projects in the works {because I know you are dying to know}:

Here's some land near the school we have picked out. We want to buy it and start a community garden. It's large enough we also plan to have space for some animals to be kept. The garden and animals will greatly improve the nutrition of many members of the community - decreasing disease and lowering the high death rate. Excess products from the garden and animals will be sold, creating more family income for many of the impoverished families in the area. We hope to start the project with 30-50 families from the community, and then eventually spread it across the entire area, including as many families as we can.


Before:


{Almost} After:

Thanks to the generous work of two amazing men, the toilet situation at the school has vastly improved. Previously, all the children would just potty on the ground {note the pee spots surrounding the model in the first picture}. This is pretty typical in Ghana, as in most third-world countries. For obvious reasons, this is highly unsanitary - especially since most children don't own {or wear} shoes. We had two wonderful men work together with a Ghanaian engineer and his firm in Ghana to install two biofil digesters. They are pretty amazing. After about 3 years, they just scoop out the toilet and can use the nutrient-rich sand to help fertilize. We didn't get to see them finished, but the firm was hard at work installing them while we were there.


We have a major goal this year to begin providing a free lunch to all the school children {about 300}. Nearly all the families that attend the school are destitute, and the only meal the children receive is at school. Currently, many of the children are able to eat for free {determined by the school on who is in the most need} but we'd like to make sure every child has the opportunity to eat and is not expected to pay. All the families could certainly use the lunch money for other things - like providing dinner for the child too. We have also begun a scholarship program for deserving students whose parents cannot afford tuition (less than $50 a year). The program has begun to take off, and we have been able to provide many students with education they would not otherwise receive.


We are having additional running-water showers and toilets built for the children's home that is adjacent to the school. This is a home for school children who are orphaned, abandoned, or their families are so destitute they can no longer support the children. We have about 20 children who stay here, and 6-7 adults who provide full-time care and supervision. It's an amazing opportunity that keeps these older children off the street and in school. They learn valuable skills and get lots of English-speaking practice. Our greatest desire is to aide and assist these children - the children who will never have any other home - so they can eventually go out into the world and work and provide for their own families in the future.


So. That's what we were working on during our two weeks in Ghana. There are more projects and ideas, of course, but that's just a taste of what is to come!

So here's my unabashed plug for financial assistance:

If you would like to be a part of the growth and development of a little school and community in Ghana, please visit the Luckyhill International Foundation, Inc. website

www.luckyhill.org

and donate today. Currently, we are taking donations for the scholarship program and the nutrition program. If you'd like to donate to one of the other projects mentioned above, or would like to donate a different amount than listed on the website, you can send a check to:

Luckyhill International Foundation, Inc.

PO Box 521896

Salt Lake City, UT 84152

Thank you to everyone who has assisted in the growth of Luckyhill and the school this past year! It has been amazing!

A Week of Thanksgiving

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Seattle with Robert's sibs. It was a blast! We had so much fun being around {a portion of} the family. Adjoa LOVED it. She had so many cousins to play with every day and she fit right in.

She took to all the people and attention and even chaos like a duck to water. It was amazing. She's amazing, really. I hope she always feels that natural and easy around people.

Anyway, the highlights were captured by Rus and Kristy, and feature in the slide show below.

Keep your eyes out for the very popular {for Adjoa, anyway} Cinderella dress {I'm pretty sure she wore it every day}, moments after Adjoa bit her tongue for the umpteenth time, the new{!} baby, hard core gamers, hard core rock banders, Adjoa's first Christmas Tree, the ever popular Olivia {or as Adjoa has taken to calling her - "the little one". As opposed to Eliana who is the big one I guess} and of course, a very yummy dinner!

We had a blast Seattle!

I want to move.

Adjoa's School Work

I've been saving up a few of Adjoa's school pictures. They always draw pictures of what they talked about at school that day. It's a great way for me to get information out of her. Without the pictures I'm left with conversations that go something like this:

M: What did you do at school today?
A: We took a nap. We ate lunch. We played outside all the time. And we sang songs. {She says this as she counts each item on her fingers. Like she made a point to remember her list and she's making sure she gets them all. Such dedication for so little information.}

So the pictures help a great deal.

Here's what she's been learning about lately:

Snow!



I got a lot of info on this one. Adjoa demonstrated how penguins walk. She went into great detail about how they slide around and how they catch goldfish to eat. She talked about their eggs and babies. And she was so excited to educate me on the fact that they live in the snow. She thought they were so lucky - playing in the snow all day. What a treat!



Mayflower. I particularly love the waves.


This one cracks me up. The brown and black arches are the bear's cave. The green is the grass. So what is the black circle around the bear???? I assumed it was the cave. Nope. Adjoa informed me that is a blanket for the bear to sleep on! Of course. What was I thinking?


A very fat chipmunk. With a very tiny head and lots of colorful splotches surrounding him.

On Account of it Being National Adoption Month

I scanned these pictures a while ago and just realized I never posted them. Shame on me. Oh well, it makes for a great November post. November is National Adoption Month, so to commemorate adoption and Adjoa's family, I'll share these pictures.

Adjoa wanted to draw a picture for her uncle (birth-father's brother) and her aunt (birth-mother's sister) and send them to "Ah-free-cuh" Once they were drawn, it also became necessary to paint them in a really colorful manner. Because when something is really super colorful, it's always better.

Here's the picture she drew for her aunt.

Her aunt in making fu-fu. It was very important to make sure her aunt had shoes - critical, actually. She also wrote {with a little help from me} I LOVE YOU! It was also necessary to draw "lots of houses on the street". "Lots" turned into just two. There is also a chicken - can you see it? It's in the red blob area.

Anyway. the chicken is also very important. Adjoa told me a story about the chicken as she was drawing it. Once, it bit her finger and she cried and cried. But her uncle was there and he held her and gave her hugs and it was all better. That's pretty much exactly how the story went. lol. Sometimes it amazes me that she remembers some things. I hope she always remembers, even though I know it's not really possible. I just hope one day, when she returns to Ghana, she will feel at home there and love it the way I do.

Here's her uncle's picture. She drew herself in this one. His house was there and she felt it was necessary to make sure there was a door so he could go inside. She also wanted to include the big truck that he drives - complete with the exhaust pipe that she assured me is where the beep-beep noise comes from. She insisted that it wouldn't be able to make the noise if she didn't draw it. Funny girl. This on says I LIKE TO GIVE YOU HUGS. I'm pretty sure she wanted to say that because of the chicken story.


They are pretty cute pictures and I was so proud of her for what she remembered and that she was thinking of them. She is so sweet and she really loves her family still in Ghana.

So You Think You Can Dance? Shoot. Adjoa KNOWS She Can

One of my fav shows is SYTYCD I've watched it religiously for years. And I have to admit sometimes I miss the days when people messed up, or fell, or forgot the dance. The dancer's caliber is so much higher now than in years passed, a major screw up hasn't happened forever.

Of course, it's also getting harder to wow everyone when all the routines are great.

Even though it's one of my favorites, I haven't blogged about it recently like I used to. Mostly because we have Adjoa now, so it cuts into my blogging, but also because instead of blogging about the routines, I have to watch them a second time. I get too caught up in watching Adjoa.

I had some terrific vids from Season 5, but they were lost in the great Memory Card Erasure at the end of the Hawaii trip this summer.

I'll post a few vids from the fall season so far.

Warning, this might only be cute and adorable and funny to mommy and grandparents.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary!

I get a kick out of this picture every time I see it. lol.

I think it's pretty clear who gets in trouble all the time. Not that he cares. I'm pretty sure he loves to rile me up.

It's a Good Thing Kids are so Cute... and that they know when you've reached your limit and they turn on the charm and melt your heart

After just over 2 hours of trying to get Adjoa to go to bed - I was at the end of my rope.

There had been lots of crying and lots of insisting "But I'm not tired!" and lots of ignoring, cajoling, begging, promising, bribing, threatening, etc. on our part. lol.

So. just over 2 hours into it, I'm in her room gritting my teeth, asking her to pretty please go to sleep.

"I'm not tired." She insists simply.

"Adjoa, it's WAY passed your bed time. It's soooo late. You need to go to sleep."

"I'm not tired."

"Ok. Just lay there then. You don't have to sleep, just lay there and relax."

"I don't want to relax."

"Fine. But no playing. No singing. No talking. Everyone else is tired and trying to sleep. You need to be quiet."

"I will sit. I'm not tired. I don't want to lay. I don't want to relax."

"Sit. Just don't make any noise."

About 5 minutes later, I'm amazed that she is actually being quiet finally. I peek in her room to see this:


I think she fell asleep sitting up - probably seconds after I left her room. Her bum was sticking up in the air so far I started laughing out loud. I couldn't really get a good angle to show the height - but you get the idea.

I straightened her body out, covered her up, tucked her in, kissed her, and by then I had forgotten all about how frustrated I had been with this stubborn child who 'was not tired'.

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too!

Or just tiger.

Adjoa looked really cute in her Halloween costume and she had a blast. She's at such a fun age to be experiencing all these things for the first time. S he's old enough to get what's going on, and young enough to be ridiculously excited about it. And of course, it's all new to her - her absolute first time for everything.

I loved how excited she got about pumpkins - and then when she discovered that we get to cut them all up and make funny faces with them, she about died from excitement.

We went costume shopping and she insisted on the tiger, because "tigers are scary! Rrraar!!!" Even though she was way more cute than scary, we let her think she was absolutely terrifying.

The week was full of fun for her - she got to wear her costume to school and participated in a Halloween party there. Costumes were encouraged for her music class the next day, and she got to go Trick-or-Treating at Robert's work. She had a pumpkin-bucket full of candy before Halloween even got here!

Robert took her out to some neighbor's houses while I stayed home to hand out treats. She had a blast! They took Eden as they walked around, and Eden was very worried every time Adjoa went up to knock on someone's door. Cute how concerned she was for her little buddy.

All in all, it was a fun holiday and it's making me really excited for all the upcoming celebrations!

Here's a picture of our adorable -

uh, I mean scary - tiger!


After a long, fun week of Halloween Adjoa was still all smiles! {Probably because mommy had LOTS of candy left over}

Food Issues Update

Ok. So I spent 4 days allowing Adjoa to eat however much she desired. Just to see.

I wrote down everything she ate - to make my list easier for blogging purposes, instead of stating 1/2 an apple in the morning, and then 1/2 an apple in the evening, I'll just write 1 apple. So, the list won't be in order and exact quantities as eaten, but a daily total. Does that make sense? {If I have to explain it, I should probably just write it out as eaten! But alas, 'tis too late for that}

She also had water, milk, soy milk, and a bit of juice throughout the day that I didn't really track.

Day 1

• 6 pieces of french toast {as in 6 slices of bread made up to be french toast}
• 4 carrots
• 1 cup soup
• 1 slice of wheat bread w/cheese
• 1 cup peaches
• Baked potato with vegetarian chili and cheese
• 4-5 bites of apple pie

Day 2

• 3 whole wheat, blueberry pancakes with applesauce. {She doesn't like it when I put blueberries in the pancakes. This even resulted in a tantrum. That said, she still ate 3. I had 2 and Robert had 3}
• Apple
• Whole turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread
• 5 baby carrots
• 1 apple
• 1 cup soup
• 2 cups peaches

Day 3

• 6 or 7 pancakes {I lost track at one point}
• 6 crackers with peanut butter
• 1 whole tuna sandwich on whole wheat bread
• 5 carrots
• 1 apple
• 1 cup vegetarian chili
• 1 hard boiled egg

Day 4

• 1 bowl Cheerios
• 1/2 apple
• Crackers with hummus
• Quesadilla with salsa
  
• Whole tuna sandwich and whole wheat bread
• 1 tomato
• 1 brownie
• 2 cups of applesauce

That being said, there were many times throughout the day she would come and tell me she was hungry and I would give her a drink and send her away. Often, I was sure she stopped eating only because the food was gone. Especially if she really likes the food.

So you see, back when I cut her off at three pancakes, I was really cutting her off from 6 or 7, not just 4.

Thoughts?

That's a lot of food, right? And this is pretty normal for her if I don't cut her off. She doesn't really go in waves or anything that correlates with growth spurts. Actually, she probably eats even more and begs for food more often and cries and throws fits {in relation to food} more frequently when she's about ready to grow a bunch.

When I took her to her pediatrician a while back - when school was starting - she wasn't overweight or anything and the Dr said she was healthy. When she wakes up in the morning her stomach is flat and normal looking. As she starts eating, it balloons out.

It's weird. I went back to controlling her portions for her.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts!