Evie turns 5!!

My baby is not a baby anymore! She is a little girl now. She can shower by herself, do her hair all by herself, she has her own fashion style and likes to pour her own drinks, make her own eggs and cut her own veggies. She is all grown up!  In many ways, we are enjoying this new stage of independence (sleeping in on a Saturday!) but I catch myself sometimes wishing it would just all slow down a bit. I have a feeling that that is the way it is always going to be…

Evie's request...a Barbie Cake (Phil's 3rd one he's made!)
It's been a hit with all 3 girls!

Evie loves her friends and doing anything with anyone…just not being by herself. Although she has improved in her ability to stay put during her quiet time hour, she still pokes her head in to my room and asks ‘Mom, can’t I just sit on your bed with you? I won’t make any noise!’….and the times I have let her come in, it ends up as us hanging out…which is lovely, but defeats the purpose of quiet time! She loves our ‘room dates’ where I bring a candle and a nice drink and snack into my room and she brings something to do together like a puzzle or game or coloring. 

I like those times too…special to just be with her and put the list of ‘to do’s’ aside and enjoy hanging out, 4 year old style. 

Evie loves to be fancy. She is like the fancy Nancy books only…fancy Evie. :) Most evenings she will rinse off the day’s dirt in the shower and then spend a good amount of time getting herself ready for dinner. She usually shows up with fancy hair, a nice dress and some clip on earrings or jewellery she has found. So cute. 

She doesn’t need her blankie anymore…she still likes to have one if I ask her, but she could easily go to sleep without one. She likes to be tickled while I pray and sing to her as she falls asleep. Heaven forbid I leave the room before she is asleep!

The bday crew...all of Evie's friends. 

When Evie wakes up, she gets dressed and runs out the door, ready to play with her friends. I have to keep reminding her NOT to knock on our neighbours door but wait til the kids come out to play. A while ago, I found her in her friends house across the compound, having breakfast with the family! She just loves her friends and can’t wait to play ALL DAY with them. Most of the time, they have fun but there are some days when the girls are just more sensitive and need some time and space apart. We are very thankful for the two little girls who live on the compound as well…they are Evie’s best friends. One of them is leaving very soon for another country and Evie will miss her terribly. She will always be remembered as Evie’s very first best friend. There have been some bedtime tears about being lonely and not having any friends anymore and we’ve talked a lot about that and prayed about that too. I wish I could say that this hardly ever happens, but it actually happens a lot to our kids and us too. The life of a missionary, or someone who lives and works overseas is fraught with many hellos and many goodbyes. We go deeper faster than we would back home in our relationships, partly because over here, we are eachother’s family, and partly because time is short and many do not stay very long. 

Evie loves the colour pink and her favourite game to play is house with her being the mom or the big sister. She loves to swing, swim and jump on the trampoline (flips are her speciality). She loves to bake (lick out the bowl) and recently she has been into ‘making her own thing’ where I put out the same ingredients I use to make a cake and she just puts a little of this and a little of that into a bowl and we bake it and see what comes out. She’s had a couple of success and lots of hockey puck cupcakes and loaves. Haha. She’ll get the hang of it one day. 

Evie enjoys reading books at bedtime and if I can steal her away from her friends during the day, we can spend a while reading through a stack of books. She likes the Berenstain bears books, Franklin, Curious George and the Frog and Toad books. I am looking forward to this coming school year where Evie will begin Kindergarten with me at home. Brings back so many memories of homeschooling Lily and reading a ton to her. Stacks of books. 

Evie has an ice obsession and will often request a bowl of ice cubes for a snack! 

She can ride a two wheeler (for a while now) and loves to have me watch her race around the compound. Her new trick is to lift her feet off of the pedals and wing them out to the side while riding. 

She is desperate to climb our big tree out front, so she has been practising on some smaller trees…wonder when she’ll get the courage to try the big one. 

Evie HAS to sit beside me at dinner time…we have to prep her before dinner if that is not going to be the case. Same with bedtime…she LOVES her daddy, but when it comes to bedtime, she prefers to have me do it. (Phil doesn’t mind that much as he then takes that time to hang out with Kaitlyn and Lily, doing ‘older’ things likes games and movies).

Evie loves to play with her older sisters and despite the challenges that come with a 5 and 7 year gap, they make it work (most of the time). She loves playing barbies and lego and play mobil and I will catch her just watching Lily and Kaitlyn act out a scene…kind of like a real live movie! She’s getting there but still takes her cues from the girls when she plays with them. I know their play interaction will only get better…for now, we embrace those character building moments for Kaitlyn and Lily (patience, grace, kindness) and for Evie too (putting others first, patience, kindness). 

I love that Evie has two older sisters…just this past week, Kaitlyn and Lily ran a day camp for the younger kids on the compound…Evie gets to enjoy those kind of fun things that her sisters plan. 

We love Evie, and are appreciating her independent personality and her strong family ties. She is one of a kind and we are so thankful that God blessed our family with her. 

Happy 5th Birthday Evelinne Rose! We love you!

Stuffie on the head relay race!

Obsessed with Kaitlyn's old purple belt!

New book to read before bed!

Classic 'pass the parcel' game.

She requested sweet and sour chicken, mashed potatoes and nana's salad for dinner. 

Evie wanted all of us to dress up for dinner...so Phil sweated it out in a suit! :)

Happy 12th Birthday Kaitlyn!

Can it be that Kaitlyn is almost a teenager? She is so grown up now. Babysitting all on her own! On a day to day basis, we don’t really notice how grown up she is, but when we look back at pictures and videos of her cute little self, we realize that Kaitlyn is rapidly entering adolescence!

What happened? :)

Birthday Breakfast in bed...a tradition.

Kaitlyn is the queen of crafting (and anything that requires the use of a glue gun! Haha) and has the amazing ability to take any resource (cardboard, scraps of material, bottle caps, old socks, old t-shirts) and create new and cool things for herself, barbies, decor, others. Seriously, the creativity on this kid is off the charts. Especially living in Chad where there is no dollar store to resupply craft materials, she manages to find what she needs to make her newest idea. We are constantly in awe of her inventions.

Kaitlyn still loves to be tucked in (complete with tickles and talk time) and has really enjoyed having her own room (she keeps it surprisingly neat for a 12 year old!)…her own space to be by herself, and also to decorate in a way that reflects her style and tastes. She does well despite the fact that we also use that room as storage and our deep freezer happens to be in there too. (Poor girl….but our house isn’t that big, we gotta put it somewhere!)

A while back, Phil took Kaitlyn out on a special date to a fancy restaurant and Kaitlyn just thought that was the best. She got all dressed up and Phil gave her a little gift of a Swiss army knife. She will never forget that night.

We do ‘room dates’ together as well where I bring a candle and a special drink or snack into my room and we play a game or colour or chat. An inexpensive way to have a date! Kaitlyn is much more into talking these days, entering those teenage years where late night chats are a daily occurrence. I don’t mind, I appreciate that she wants to talk to me! :)

Kaitlyn loves little kids and is desperate to babysit other people’s kids (she already babysits Evie) and she plans on taking a Babysitting course when we are back in Canada next summer.

Enjoying her tea

One of the constant challenges for Kaitlyn is finding a good friend her age. She spent the last school year in a classroom of all boys. She held her own and most days was ok with that…but every once in a while she would share her heart and how she was lonely for a best girl friend. Lily has been a constant friend for Kaitlyn and they are super close, but Kaitlyn desires a friends outside of the family too and so we continue to pray for a girl her age to come to N’Djamena to fill that void. Kaitlyn is really good at keeping in touch with her friends back in Canada and a good friend who now lives in Australia. Two hour FaceTime calls are a monthly occurrence here with her friends and cousins back in Canada. We are so thankful for things like WhatsApp and FaceTime which help us stay in touch better.

One of the highlights this past summer was being a part of a youth group here in N’Djamena. It only ran a couple of weeks while some short term single girls were here and willing to organize some meet ups at the local Patisserie for some ice cream and at the Hilton for a swim. Despite being outnumbered by boys, Kaitlyn was really excited to do some social things on her own. We are hoping to start something like that up again in the fall.

Kaitlyn did well in Grade 6 last school year. She didn't’ give up in the face of having to read an hour a day plus homework on top of that (for not being a lover of books…an hour of reading a day was KILLER!) and we were proud to see her rise to new challenges in Jr. High.

Kaitlyn is up and coming in the kitchen, baking her first cake without any assistance and she is also into making meringues. I’m excited to teach her some more things so I can take a night off from cooking dinner and leave that in her capable hands! We just need to work on the cleaning up side of things! :)

Kaitlyn is a loving, fun, happy, friendly, creative and fun to be around girl and we are so proud of who she is becoming. We are so thankful that God blessed us with her…she’s grown and learned so much in her 12 years and we are excited to see what else God has in store for her life. Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!!

Traditional day at the Hilton for Evie and Kaitlyn's bdays!

Pretty gifts

She loved her gifts! 

Cherishing each bite of the $17 tub of raspberry Sorbet (CHAD!!!!$$)