Heads-Ups

That is plural. :)

Before I give you an update on homeschooling, I wanted to spout off some randomness.

1. I wanted to tell you about a movie you should avoid like the plague. I wouldn't even admit that I watched it, but it was horrible enough that I thought I should be a good friend and warn you about it. It's called "Jude." If you've watched it already, I'm so, so sorry. You can pray that God will completely just cleanse your mind of it. If you haven't, thank God I reached you in time.

It starts out interesting. Set in the 1800s or so. Got Kate Winslet in it (I usually like her movies). There are some parts that you have to fast-forward through, but that's the norm with movies. We actually started watching it Friday night and I got so disgustingly sick (contents of my stomach deciding they wanted to make a u-turn) that I went to bed instead of watching the last half. I should've taken that as protection from the Almighty One and not ever gone back to watch the rest. Oh, but no...we watched the last half last night.

It went from bad to worse. You all know the feeling...you just keep watching thinking that surely it will get better. Most movies do, thank goodness. This one got WAY worse...worse than any movie I've ever seen before in my life. About 3/4 of the way through, it happened...the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in a film. We thought surely after that, it will end halfway decent (hope is a good thing, but that hope that is God-given can't always be trusted when dealing with a man-made thing like a movie). It never redeemed itself...not even close. I have no idea what these people were thinking in making this film. Seriously, STAY AWAY. We had to pray really hard and watch a comedy sitcom before we could go to bed...but were still heavy-hearted.

It goes against my constitution to give away a movie, even one like this that I'm begging you not to see. Please do not let curiosity drive you to get this movie...if you want to know what happened, feel free to ask me and I will tell you. But DON'T rent this movie.

2. Since we are now going to the states in 3 weeks (see last post if you didn't hear), instead of waiting until the 11th (when Joel is done with Asas for the semester) to move into our new house, we are actually moving this weekend (the occupants of the house vacate the premises on this Friday). That will give us more time to set up the house a bit and also pack for our trip (I need to find the cold weather clothing that we have...). :) I'm so excited to move on. We've enjoyed this little apartment, but we have so much to do before we travel...I'm so glad that I won't be forced to just sit around here in the apartment for another week and a half...we can go ahead and start all that work. So keep us in your prayers this week as we pack and this Saturday as we head over to the new house.

3. If you are a family who does the Santa Claus thing at your casa, just wanted to pass this on...super cute.

Now, off to start packing up...again.

Update on the Parents

Oh, where to begin. :)

(By the way, if you missed the update on Cass yesterday, scroll down. I don't usually post 2 days in a row these days, so I don't want you to miss her.)

Joel continues to plug away at the aviation dept of our mission. He is more and more focusing on the maintenance and avionics side of things. He is the maintenance coordinator at the school now, which basically just means that he is in charge of making sure the school airplanes are up and running and the students are gaining the most experience possible. He really loves it and finds satisfaction in it. He has done a little flight training but not as much as before. He is currently working on a WYCLIFFE Cessna 206. This project has been really interesting for him. One of the things he said was so neat was that at one time there were people from JAARS, SIL, New Tribes, and Asas all working there together. Mission aviation is really, in some ways, becoming more of a partnership at times and it's really neat to all pull together and share resources, working together for the good of the people we are reaching.

I continue to be in the process of language learning. I found the perfect teacher for me back in August. She lives very, very close to the seminary. I was going every Tuesday - Friday, but now (at least while we are living here in the apartment across town...a good drive) I am only going Tuesday - Thursday. This schedule works out great. It's a LOT of work for Joel. I leave when he gets home from Asas, so I'm basically gone from about 6:15 - 8:15 those three nights of the week. That means he has to shower, feed, and put the kids to bed all by himself. That is the 'high traffic' time in this house, but we both agreed it was the best time to do it, even though it's lots of work for him and I miss out on those family times too for those nights. But, of course it's worth those things for right now...it's only temporary.

Anyway, I just L-O-V-E this teacher. Her name is Kelma (if you want to pray for her by name with me as a student). :) It's really awesome because it's just more of a friendship than a teacher-student relationship. She's LOTS of fun and I really do enjoy it...that makes learning fun.

Homeschooling here in the Ebersole household is completely underway now. I'll post more later about what we are doing exactly, but needless to say, that is a daily time commitment for me also. So, that's some of what I do with my time each day.

Other than that, it's just the normal everyday living. Taking care of a baby, a toddler, and 2 small children. Cooking. Cleaning/organizing. Nursing. Feeding. Laundry. Showering. :) Thank goodness. Playing. And, of course in our case these days, packing and more packing.

We are all settled in to a routine here in this apartment after 3 1/2 weeks of being here. Now we are starting to look ahead to when we move again in 2 1/2 weeks.

December is going to be a WHIRLWIND!! It always is for everyone I guess, isn't it? :) Some have very different reasons though.

We will be moving to the seminary house starting Dec. 11th. We will have our end-of-semester meeting with the Asas leadership sometime around then. We will start unpacking and organizing. We have to do some Christmas shopping and attend at least 1 Christmas party here (remember, Christmas isn't quite the huge celebration it is there in the states). So, LOTS to do in the first 3 weeks of December. Including...

We will be traveling to the US Embassy on the 5th to apply for Cass' (I'm going to try out the possessive spelling this way for a while...then I'll decide at a later date which I like better...Cass' or Cass's) passport. We also have to get her Brazilian passport taken care of. We will be headed back to the US Embassy to pick up her passport on the 19th. We also have to get Joel's Brazilian passport renewed. Why is this so important? Because...

WE ARE COMING TO THE STATES!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right...you read this right. My mom is completely and totally done with not seeing her grandchildren, so she bought us tickets to come home. We will be arriving in America the Beautiful on Dec. 23rd. We will be leaving Feb. 24th.

You have no idea how excited I am...to be somewhere familiar and eat my most favorite foods and be able to understand even the smallest details of what EVERYone around me says. :) I know that I will also miss the things that I adore here, but it's only for 2 months...I won't have a chance to start missing those things that much.

Anyway...SUCH a great gift from my mom (not that we asked...she insisted that we come home...those grannies!). :) In my head, I'm ready to go NOW (!!), but logistically we have SO MUCH to do. It's going to be crazy, but so much fun too. Can't wait.

So, maybe we'll see you there? Can't wait! But for today...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

The Kiddos Update - Part 4

Sweet, sweet Cass. She is now 8 months old (as of yesterday). I've said it before, but there really is no better adjective to describe this little girl. Just perfect. I continue to be astounded by her.

She is all over the place these days and into everything. She is not interested at all in sitting up. In fact, when we sit her up (she still doesn't sit up on her own and even when we put her in that position, she doesn't stay that way), she fusses and cries because she wants to get down and scoot around and explore. She still isn't crawling either, but gets up on all fours and looks as though she's halfway interested in the crawl. But, don't think that stops her. No, she's got the scooting/army crawl thing down pat. Like I said...all over the place now.

She is SO VERY easygoing. Seriously, if every baby was like this little girl, everyone on the whole planet would want at least 25. :)

With Cass, I'll just SHOW you all about her. Unfortunately, my captions still aren't lining up with my pics. Is anyone else having this problem these days? So annoying. Seriously, if anyone has any suggestions on how to maybe fix this, please let me know.

Now for the pictures...and video.

#1-Laughing and playing with a neighbor friend.
#2 - "Hmm...how do I get out of here?"
#3 - Her sibling lounge chair.

#5 - Cass sneaking some popcorn that was dropped. She had some in her hand and had already touched it to her mouth.
#6 - Cass, the reader. She seems to take after Grady with books. Hadley and Eissa (but esp. Hadley) were like little puppies. Our little board books were in perfect condition after Grady. Hadley got ahold of them and they were chewed to bits. :) Eissa wasn't much better. So far Cass is very gentle.
#7- Cass was trying to get Hadley's popcorn.
#8 - Hadley thought it was so funny.
#9 - Hadley moved it behind her.
#10 - So, Cass slung her arm around Hadley's body and was still trying to get to it.
#11 - She was determined to get some popcorn. :)
#12 - A cute little rubbing of the nose.
#13 - Her position for jumping out of an airplane...she also likes to do this often.
#14 - Getting up on all fours.
#15 - One of her favorite things...the nose squench.
#16 - Again with the squench.
#17 - And the head throw-back. :) Too cute.

#19 - Doing a little upper body workout. :) Her tricks are just endless.
#20 - I went to get her after her nap (she had been playing in there a while) and her little toy was all the way up on her leg. Funny.
#21 - "Thanks for my rattle, Enna!"



#25 - And this new trick she did this morning. Grady said, "Look Mama!" :) She's almost pulled up to her knees before, but this time she really did it and stayed that way for at least 5 minutues.
#26 - I thought she'd probably fall trying to get back down, but she didn't...just eased herself down like a pro. Will she be one of those babies that pulls up and walks across the room without ever really crawling? :)

Video 1: 11-17-08 Cass making her way across the floor. Her scoot/army crawl in full display.

Video 2: 11-15-08 Daddy helping Cass see life from a different perspective.

The Kiddos Update - Part 3

Eissa, Eissa, Eissa!! What a fun girl. And what a challenge right now. ;) What can I say...she's 2. She's learning and shaping into the little person God wants her to be with each day. Makes my heart happy. It's fun to see.

Eissa stuff:

*She's talking ALL THE TIME now and says all kinds of things all the time that we didn't even know she knew the meaning of.

*Her favorite show on TV is Hi-5. When I turn the TV on for it (we now know what times our favorite shows come on), she jumps around and says "fi, Mama...fi!!!!!" all while holding up her hand (her five fingers). She loves all the dancing and joins in wholeheartedly.

*She's super squishy and great to squeeze and snuggle with.

*She's got such a great belly laugh.

*She loves to do her special jobs and feels very important and proud doing them. For instance, she always remembers to ask for their vitamins every morning after breakfast. Me and her walk to the cabinet...she, all the while, saying, "Grady, Hadley, Mama...Grady, Hadley." Every time I give her something, she asks for more of whatever it is to give to Grady and Hadley. She very big-like finishes up her vitamin job by dispersing them to her older siblings. She gets VERY excited about it.

*Speaking of excited, she says 'wow' about everything. The whole world is just such an exciting place. :) So cute.

*We went to the grand opening of our new mall type place last night. We were walking along and I asked her to hold my hand. She said, very diplomatically, "No thank you." :) She's very polite...always says her pleases, thank yous, sorrys, excuse mes, and is very sweet and also says her I love yous, even just out of the blue, when we haven't even said it to her. Really cute.

*She is basically in love with all her siblings. She gets REALLY excited about Cass though...when Cass wakes up from a nap and Eissa hears her in there playing, she says, "Cass, Mama...Cass" as in, let's go get her so I can play with her...now. :) She adores Cass.

I wish you all could actually be here to see her in person. It's really hard to explain on a blog post all that she says, how she says it in her cute little 2 year old pronunciations, and all the fun and funny things she does. I wish you could experience it all for yourself (with all the kids actually). But, unfortunately this will have to do for now.

Alright, now some pics. (Is it just my computer or is it Blogger that isn't lining up the captions with the pictures? Even the old posts that I did long ago are no longer lining up. I'm thinking it might be our computer since this only happened after we had a big computer crash last week. Let me know what it looks like on your computer, k?) And just a little video of Eissa being Eissa.


Daddy is so much fun.










With her first braids (and a sunburn).
Laughing. She's got a GREAT laugh!

The Kiddos Update - Part 2

Hadley's turn.

Oh, Hadley. This chic is growing up and it's so much fun. She is now 3 years and 9 months old. She's pretty cool, just like her older brother.

She is definitely more carefree than her brother. Is it that she's a girl, is it that she's the second-born, is it her age, is it just her personality, or a combo of all of the above? Not sure, but she is what she is and it's fun discovering all of her.

Hadley happenings:

*While Grady compliments me by telling me that I'm soft, Hadley always looks at me and gasps and says, "Wow, Mama...you're pretty like a princess." Cuteness. By the way, the word 'pretty' is never said without the phrase 'like a princess' following right behind. :)

*Anything that happened in the past (yesterday and beyond) was "uh uddah day" (the other day).

*She is obsessed with "lips" (anything of the chapstick/lip gloss nature).

*She says 'what' and 'God' like she's British or an old Southern black preacher..."wawt" and "Gawd." It's really funny. She also says 'Mama' like that sometimes..."Mawmaw" (but not pronounced like the grandmother Mawmaw...remember, British).

*She is super obedient and easy these days. I tell her something and she says 'O.K.' Even if she really, really wants to do something else, she says, "O.K. Mama." Ahh, so nice.

*She says really grown-up things these days like, when I ask her a question, "Not really" or "I don't think so." :)

*Although she loves to play and get dirty, she also is very, very girly. Not disgustingly, annoyingly girly, but just cute girly. She loves her sparkly shoes. She loves to brush her hair and have her hair fixed. It doesn't have to be perfect (thank goodness), but she likes the process of picking out what she wants (braids, ponytails, barrettes, etc.). But, she's not a primper, so it's nothing obsessive. She looks in the mirror maybe once a day...she says "pretty" (she's got good self-esteem), and then she's done. :)

*She loves to play with her babies and take care of them. She also loves her real babies here (Eissa still to some extent and Cass) and is really calm and sweet in taking care of them.

*She will eat most anything, although recently has developed a distaste for one particular food. The first 3 years of her life she loved raisins. Now...not so much. She says they hurt her mouth. Joel told her that was silly...they don't hurt her mouth. But, I can relate...they probably hurt the taste buds part of her mouth. :)

*She's really, really affectionate. Every time we are reading books, for instance, she hooks her arms through mine and smashes her whole body up against my side. Every time I sit down by her, she rubs my shoulder and we have to nuzzle. It's sweet.

*She's very creative. For instance, when doing school, she always has to add a certain 'flair.' :) Like yesterday...she was supposed to be putting a circle around something. I looked over and she had started making the circle frilly (not just a straight-lined circle). I asked her why she was doing it that way. She said, "Because I want to make it pretty." She thinks outside the box...literally (ha ha ha...let me explain). "Uh uddah day" we were doing school and she was supposed to draw a line from the rabbit to the carrot. Both items were inside a box with lines sticking up randomly inside the box. She couldn't pick up the pencil and she couldn't touch the random lines on her way from the rabbit to the carrot. Hmmm...I told her those two rules (like the book said), but didn't think to tell her that she couldn't go outside the box to get from the rabbit to the carrot. She nodded her head and smiled letting me know she understood the instructions, then promptly moved her pencil from the rabbit to the carrot, without picking up the pencil and without touching the lines...very easily since she had gone around all the obstacles by just going outside the box. She looked at me like, O.K., that was easy...what's next? Cracked me up.

*Grady can get really excited about things, but overall he is pretty low key. Hadley is not. She is very expressive. I think Grady loves that about her. They're liked a married couple...balancing each other out. :) Ha ha ha.

*She has recently started sitting with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap...shaking her foot ever so slightly. :) Not because she is trying to act grown-up or prissy, but just because it has come naturally for her. It's not one of those things where she's said, "Look how I'm sitting Mama" and made a deal out of it. No, it's just one of those things I noticed one day...she sits like that sometimes...and then I look back over and she's stretching her foot up to her head or putting her foot in her lap, playing with her shoes. :) Funny.

*We might have to find a way to get this chic in a dance class. She's quite the dancer.

*She is a very loyal friend and loves to hang out with her friends (she doesn't call them by name usually...just 'my friends')...Sara, Audrey, Maira, etc. It's really cute. She is super social and remains a leader (whereas Grady is more of a follower...although all of his friends are way older which I'm sure has something to do with it...that little factor has never stopped Hadley, but does Grady).

It's so fun to watch Grady and Hadley together, how they interact, how they are different and how they are the same. It's such an honor to see the little adult female (I'm not sure why, but I don't really like the terms 'woman' or 'lady'...they both conjur up images in my head of not cool things) she is becoming, day by day. So, so fun. Can't wait to watch it all.

Now pictures and a little live action. By the way, had a major computer crash last Friday. Joel spent all weekend recovering our computer...thankfully we have it again. But, all the pictures/videos that we'd taken since we moved here to the apartment were lost. Sadness!! Anyway, here are some that we do have. (I have no idea why the captions aren't lining up with the pictures...I've been doing this blog thing a long time and know what I'm doing in that area, but today for some reason it isn't working...sorry.)



Hadley and Eissa taking care of their babies.
Loves Cass.
Hadley's swimsuit the other day. Eissa did have on a swim diaper...don't worry...not totally nude the whole time.
See what I mean about the legs? :)

We went over to some friends' house last night. Hadley's little friend put make-up on her. Too funny (also seen in that first picture at the beginning of this post...taken today). Hadley apparently doesn't even know the term 'make-up'...she just said that her friend drew on her with a marker. Oh dear...we take Christmas card pictures in a few days. :) Hilarious.


11-16-08 Hadley dancing around...Hi 5 style.

11-18-08 Hadley's eyes.