Happy New Years AND it's a ..............

BOY!

That's right. It's a boy. We had an ultrasound done last Friday, and the technician immediately knew that our baby was a boy. Apparently, Malawian women don't want to find out, so Louis, the tech. kept saying "You want to know? Are you sure?" to which we replied "YES!! TELL US!!". And it's a boy! We even have a little picture to prove it. It will definitely be one to bring out to show the ladies when he starts dating (a long time from now).


So, we spent this weekend painting the second bedroom green (which desperately needed to be painted!!!!). It will be our little boys' room. When we first went to look at paint, we chose a color that actually wasn't what we wanted. In our defense, there weren't too many choices! Anyways, we worked with the mixer to fix the color and change it, and finally we just headed home with our paint, tired and irritated. When we got home, we put some on the wall and AHHHH! It was way too crayon/classroom green. We worried about it for some time, and then decided to go back the next day to try to fix it for good.

When we got there, the same mixer guy was there and he was happy to help us. We came home happy, and although the color still turned out much darker than we had liked, it was probably the best we could do given our circumstances. Imagine trying to explain a color to a Malawian with the words avocado, gray-green, not too limey, sage, etc. He had NO idea what we were talking about, so we were pleased to meet in the middle and get started painting.

The color on the left is the first color. The one on the right is the color we went with. Much better!



Here I am beginning to cut into the trim. I did most of the detail work.

Here is Dan starting the rolling process. He did most of the rolling.

Here I am cutting in some more...just finishing the first coat.


Here we are at the end. It is finished, and only took a day and a half, which is pretty good considering I took a snack break about every 45 minutes!
So, we started the new year off with projects. Of course there is the painting. I am also working on a slide show that I will use at the end of this term. I am having a "goodbye" party with my parents and students. The goal is to be able to make CD's for each student, filled with pictures of their year in Reception. Another project we are both working on is Dan's application to Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He hopes to be able to complete some courses online over the next year and a half. Hopefully, this will shed off some time or maybe just make the load lighter when we are actually in St. Louis and Dan attends Covenant full time. I really can't believe we are already working towards the next stage of our life, but it has to get done. There are plenty of other little projects here and there, so we are quite busy. School begins next Wednesday, so we also have a lot of planning to do. To be honest, it will be good to be back in school. I miss my kids!!!

Anyways, happy new year! I hope y'all are doing well! God bless!