Louise only gave birth to him yesterday but apparently in a few weeks he turns 6 and he is already shedding his baby teeth. How on this earth did that happen?

He is so chuffed with himself and proud that he is now becoming a big boy.

Ain’t he cute handsome

Firstly, a big apology for not letting those who have not heard another way what happened when we went to court two weeks ago. Let’s just put it down to one of those fortnights

Long story short we had our day (25 minutes) in court all in one day, for which we praise God. After going through the process we now are a little more aware of how it is going to work. After our hearing our lawyer had 5 days to submit some papers and then the government lawyer 5 days to review those. At this point the judges ruling can be given. I think that there is a time limit from the court date of 60 days for the final ruling to be given though we hope it comes a lot quicker than this.

Unfortunately the courts closed here on Friday (Dec 16th) and won’t open again until January so unless God has some other amazing plan we will not now know anything until January. Our lawyer is estimating mid Jan for us to hear something.

Please continue to pray for us as we go through this journey and await the decision.

Thank you.

Wondering what the drama was about, we all ran over and seen this little guy, hanging out in our box of decorations

Mark swiftly caught him and transferred him to a more appropriate (and less creepy) home outside.

None of us were as keen to dig deep in the decoration box after this little guys appearance, but it did make a unique Christmas memory   

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that those in Northern Ireland are enjoying the snow!

This journey has been a little longer than we had planned but it has been a fun journey as Katie has been with us the whole way. 15 months ago we picked up a little girl who could only crawl and now we have a fun loving little lass who walks and speaks English with a cute accent.

For the last number of weeks we have been praying daily that God would bless our day in court. Please join us in praying that our papers would be in order and the judge would be gracious to us and grant final approval to our adoption. If that happens next Monday we can finally lift our eyes to visiting Northern Ireland and many of you again. We will need to get an adoption certificate, birth certificate, passport, visa and air tickets which should take a few months and then we can see the 40 shades again.

As you pray with us for our court date please also join us in praise to God that Katie is in our lives and thank him for such a bundle of joy that brightens up our days.

The kids now just expect that that is what we do at Christmas, but to be honest, I didn’t really want to do all the same crafts again this year (I’ve got a low tolerance for repetition, which is not good when you have young kids!). However, with homeschooling, I don’t have the time or energy to be looking for new ideas or thinking them up myself. Then last night I got a great ebook that I’m pretty excited about and wanted to share with you all.

It’s called Truth in the Tinsel and the website says:

“This ebook will lead you and your children on your own experience through the Christmas Story. You’ll take a few minutes each day in reading the Christmas Story directly from the Bible, making a fun ornament craft and talking about it together.”

That was exactly what I wanted. Something hands on, involving scripture and not overly time consuming. I printed the book and had a quick look at it with the kids today, and we are all pretty excited about getting started with it on the 1st. I’m not anticipating that we will make every ornament, but having it all laid out, with some templates and a supply list for each day, is going to make it more likely to happen!

You can buy it and download it here for $4.99.

Happy Advent everyone!

PS this is what she said when she was asked what the target age for the book is:

I wrote the book for my kids who are 3 and 5. But I began doing these advent ornaments when my daughter was only 1. And on the other hand, I think if your kids like to do crafts, they’ll enjoy the book no matter how old they are!

All I can say is that it’s been fun, demanding, challenging and so rewarding. I love spending structured time with the kids each morning and love to see Ewan and Lydia (and even Katie) learn new things. It’s also been stretching me, shaping my priorities, and revealing my impatience! But over all, it’s been an amazing blessing. I love these little people! What a privilege to be entrusted with them.

Here’s a few photos to give you a glimpse into our mornings. We do most of our homeschool in our bedroom, where we have air conditioning. This mummy is more patient when sweat is not running down her back. I know that is a gross thought, but it’s a reality when living in a tropical climate!!

Here’s my enthusiastic student This little guy always has some sort of plan, for some sort of adventure in his mind.

We’re blessed to be able to borrow books from the Library at the international school.

Here’s my angelic student writing and illustrating his first “book”.

And what do the girls do while I’m busy teaching Ewan? Lydia has her own “school work”. I’m using some great preschool materials that you can get on this site: Letter of the week. I don’t force Lydia to do this work. If she wants to play blocks, draw, play with play dough, “read” books, do puzzles, stick random bits of paper together, distract her brother … It’s fine with me. But generally most days she wants her own “school work” for at least the first wee while.

And Katie? She’s generally creating chaos or trying to do what her older siblings are doing.

Lydia is also great a teaching Katie how to do the puzzles that she has mastered.

But lest you think everyday is orderly, calm and serene, here’s what the floor sometimes looks like and yes Katie is still in her pyjamas. I guess getting everyone fed, dressed and school started “on time” didn’t happen this day!

Despite the fact that the kids do have their own beds, we sometimes find them like this.

It’s supper duper hot here, so I’m not sure why the all want to be so close! I guess they don’t get enough time together during the day, seeing all three of them are together all day, everyday?!

We LOVE this fruit (we being Lydia, Katie and I).

Ever since last years season of Rambotan (which last for a few months) Lydia has been eagerly awaiting seeing these red, hairy and supper yummy fruits for sale at the market.

We cut them open,

and enjoy their white, juicy and SWEET flesh.

I love that God is so creative and made so many different amazing fruits for us to enjoy. Thank you Lord! Rambotan are like natures natural sweets/candy’s and we love them.

It started with Katie not wanting to have her picture taken and the other two having a fit of the giggles

Combine the two and you get this!

Take two: We gave Katie a wee bit of space, but the other two still couldn’t stop giggling

and it only got worse when Katie decided to show me her nappy.

Eventually all three were in a fit of giggling

and I gave up on my hope of a beautiful picture when they started to pretend they were monkeys and swing off the security bars on our living room window.

So thank you Auntie Grace for the matching dresses for these wild children of ours! Maybe someday I’ll have a decent picture to send you