something to smile at

Check out this wicked birthday card, made by Kurt's sister and brother-in-law, Rebecca and Matt Van Otterloo.

Aaron is lucky - he has his OWN birthday - June 4th.

Then...July 25th is Kurt. August 1 is my turn. And poor Ben comes along August 2nd.

This year we both turned the big three o. Now we are wise and learned. :)

Anyway, this card was awesome. Thanks guys.

curls

ryan and kristen

we love you

ryan and kristen are two of Ben's favorite people.

ryan is kurt's younger brother, married to kristen, who I've known

since I was a 3rd grader and she a kindergartener with my sister.

they've been living in nairobi for the last 3 years, and we

were lucky to be able to see them every time we went up there.

now, good for them but unfortunately for us, they have

moved to Juba, Sudan to continue their work with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF).

So we will miss them.

Juba might just need to be our next vacation spot. :)

Any playgrounds there??

We love and miss you already.

papa

my dad came to mugumu for a couple of days about 2 weeks ago. He took an all night bus from Nairobi to Musoma, then hopped on three different buses to get from Musoma to Mugumu. We were impressed.

Again he impressed Ben with his golf skills. And got lots of time to hold Aaron. I just loved these pictures...


we've been trying to figure out who Aaron looks like, but this picture gave me an idea:

mzungu

my babies

birthday boy

we just had a low key celebration for aaron's birthday last week, june 4th to be exact. i had worked all week so I took the day off to be with the boys all day. made a peanut butter pie, which I've never made before, but the recipe looked too easy and delicious - and it was pretty good! But then I remembered that you're actually not supposed to give babies peanuts...hmmph...so I made a banana bread cake as well. Aaron has the nickname "Kobe" which means "turtle," not too many people use it, but it's sort of fitting since he was born with wide eyes and looked like a turtle coming out of its shell. So thus the reason why the cake is decorated as such.

With all the focus on dessert, I neglected to think about supper - so Kurt went to town and picked up samosas, and just before it started getting dark the power went out, so we took some blankets outside and had a samosa picnic in our yard and came back in when the mosquitoes started coming out. Had some birthday cake with a neighbor to the ambience of a kerosene lantern, and aaron licked up all the frosting he could, but by then he was exhausted and couldn't even bother to stay up for more.

All in all, a special day.

happy birthday little buddy.