The Fey Family

South Africa has eleven official languages, and we figured the best way to show how thankful we are for the gifts we have been given was to express our thanks in each language! Dankie  * Ro Livhuwa  *  Ngiyathokoza  * Ke a leboha * Siyabonga  * Inkomu *  Ngiyabonga *  Enkosi *  Ndo livhuwa  *  Ke a leboga  *  Thank you We received the offering from Darin’s home church in Edgerton this week and this gift has been such a blessing to us. With these gifts, we have been able to get caught up on two months of back rent and utility bills and we will also be able to pay the registration fees for the 2013 school year. It feels so good to get these things taken care of and also know that we are set for a few more months of worry free living! We cannot thank each individual and family who gave as we don’t know who you are. We know that many checks were sent to Edgerton from Michigan and also from friends and family all ove...

Tyson is really into Ben 10, a US cartoon that is very popular out here. He has even made up a song that he usually sings in the shower, complete with motions. I often find this song running through my head, so I thought I’d share it with you all “It’s Ben Ten, in the house here. Singing Whoa-oh-oh, singing ma-ma-ma” and repeat. Jori informed me that they call periods “fool stops” in her class. I said “You mean full stop ”, but she insisted it was a “fool stop”. I finally convinced her that her teacher and classmates were saying “full” and it only sounded like “fool”. During dinner a few nights ago, both kids got up to show us how drunk people walk. We asked them how they had gathered this information and they said they learned it at school, during Tswana lessons. Neither of them was quite sure why their teacher had been walking like a drunk person, but as you probably figured out from the “fool stop/full stop” debate, a lot of stuff is lost in translation for our kids. W...

Yesterday we took Miss O to therapy. We hadn’t been in a few weeks due to school holidays and some scheduling issues, but we finally made it! This was the first time that O didn’t cry during her therapy session. Miss Bridget had a lot of new things for O to try and there was NO tummy time today, which definitely helped keep a smile on our girl’s face. Miss Bridget started off by having O go from standing to sitting and she was really impressed with how much stronger O seemed. O was able to get up from sitting on a little platform with some support from Miss Bridget, but she really used her legs and tummy and did the hard work herself. O also got to play with shaving cream. She seemed to really enjoy feeling the texture of the cream and the little beads Miss Bridget added and her clenched fists relaxed a lot as she moved them through the foamy mess. She sat on her knees and raised herself up a bit to reach for some animal cutouts that were in the foam. We were really...

I haven’t been sleeping well the past few weeks. I try to take captive the thoughts that roll through my head, but it’s like herding cats. I also feel like there are things crawling on me. Like all the time. This feeling increases while I lay in bed NOT sleeping and makes a slightly miserable sleepless night even more unpleasant. Maybe I’m going crazy. This would explain a lot of things, sleep issues and crawling skin being only 2 of the many. Tyson has been coming home with cursive handwriting homework every day. To say that this homework is making us all a bit on edge would be an understatement. He struggles so much, which makes me want to take his homework and rip it up, but that wouldn’t really be such a great example. Instead we just tell him over and over that we only want him to do his best, which is hard for a budding perfectionist to handle. We are taking Miss O to therapy tomorrow. Hooray. We have lots of questions, including “How do we motivate this child to roll a...

It is Saturday morning, a very quiet Saturday morning. Darin, Tyson and Jori are camping with a group of dads and kids from our church. They left yesterday afternoon and will be back sometime later today. Darin has sent me a few pictures and it looks like they are having lots of fun. I’ll see if I can get him and the kids to write up a post telling all about their camping adventure later this week! With the three of them gone, that left me and O at home alone. She took an extra long nap yesterday, which might have been why she was up twice during the night (not normal) for reasons unknown to me. She did sleep in til after 8 this morning though so I’m not feeling too tired from her nocturnal activity. I did two loads of laundry while she sat in her chair watching a pair of hornbills fly into a window. She seemed to enjoy the show they put on. Now she is sitting outside in her swing watching the birds and enjoying the cool breeze from under the lapa. It is HOT here, almost 100 yest...