As I typed in the title beginning with "Crazy," I realize that I've used that word in more than one title throughout this journey. I love my 4 kids, but with twin 2 year olds the terrible two's are EXTRA TERRIBLE and CRAZY!!!
I haven't updated here in over 3 months and I'm sorry!!! For starters in May we learned finally that we would not be returning to the US for our missionary furlough. This was due to the fact that after entertaining the girls with my pulled out hair, (see the last post) that we could not get visas for the girls to enter the US for more than 6 months. This would have made furlough virtually impossible and separated the family for a long time. It also would have cost us over $13000 in airfare for only 6 months and all the separation. Therefore, along with our pastor and regional administrator we have decided to stay here in Chile for another year and a half before heading back to the US for an extended time of reraising support.
Since we weren't moving to the states, I stopped packing up the house in May, only to find out June 4th that by July 4th we would be moving across town into the home of fellow missionaries to care for their home and our new church plant. Then the month of July was spent readying the old house for the new renters and storing all of our furniture and non daily use items in storage.
Now that we've entered August, I might have a bit more time to update you all on the girls. First of all, we've learned through contact with the embassy that the girls won't be able to have immigration visas until they have been in our custody for 2 years. Therefore, when we go back to the states in January of 2013, they will land on US soil and be citizens. We'll still have to readopt them in the states, but they'll have dual citizenship!!
As for right now, since April, they are growing like WEEDS!! They are talking in Spanish and English, but now that they spend most of their time with me here at home, mostly in English, but they FULLY understand everything spoken in Spanish too. Here are a few pictures from the past few months.
Eliana (left) and Esther (right) ready for preschool. They attended preschool 2 mornings a week so that I could pack a bit. They loved their school and look forward to going back once we move back to that side of the city. This was great for their Spanish and good for mommy to get a little break two mornings a week.
Eliana playing at an activity center for her friend's birthday. Eliana is constantly smiling, but has become more and more bossy as the older sister. One day her bigger yet younger and more easy going sister is going to really give it back to her.
Esther playing in the ball pit at the activity center for her friend's birthday. I think she played in this pit the whole 2 hours we were there. She is the hardest to catch smiling on camera although when she does her whole face lights up and she glows. She is SO BEAUTIFUL when she smiles!! Esther is my quiet curious one who will look right at you after you say, "NO!," and do it anyway.
When the girls first got home we had hours upon hours of listening to Esther's screams. Well we finally figured out what would calm her down. This position. She seems to have some MAJOR issues to digestive gas. At least that's what it started with. Now, whenever she can't communicate what she wants or needs she throws a temper tantrum and usually ends up in this position. We are working more and more with her on communicating her needs to us and we are gradually eliminating these temper tantrums.
The girls are learning how to pray too. For meals now they will repeat our prayer and sometimes they will even pray on their own. 