Maja 9 month pictures

Maja turned temporarily deaf during this part of the pictures. We were screaming her name, making loud noises, whistling, hooting... she would NOT look up, and definitely would not smile. He got some cute ones anyway, but she was being a stinker!!

Molli's Word

PKU petition

Sorry to get political on here... but of course this is something that is personal to our family. Even though Maja does not require the lifelong diet required for patients with more severe cases of PKU, I had the unfortunate experience of finding out first hand how tragic it is to be diagnosed with a disease, for which there is a known treatment, and finding our insurance company denying coverage for that treatment simply because the treatment happens to be a special diet; not a pill. Luckily, Maja ended up not needing to be on diet, but if she was, she could have been in for a lifetime of struggles... either with the financial burden of covering the formula and low protein foods herself, or constant battles with insurance companies to get them to pay for the treatment. 

There is currently an initiative called 21st Century Cures Initiative that is trying to ensure that healthcare laws keep pace with research for treatments of certain diseases. PKU is not currently included in this initiative, but it would be great if PKU was added so that patients with this disease would be assured coverage for the treatment. More information on the initiative can be found at http://energycommerce.house.gov/cures  If you would take a minute to sign the petition below, that would be great! The deadline is June 13th!

Mary's Third Grade Concert

Mary's concert was last week and she had a speaking part.


I blew it, though, and stopped recording before the song was over. :( Next they sang "Goodnight, Sweetheart" and then there was a round of "Pick a Little" and "Goodnight" together.

This was the finale.

Mom's word

Vittoria scores a goal

Video courtesy Vittoria
Coaching courtesy Mary Kay
UPDATE:  video should be accessible now

Vittoria's favorite pastime

Waiting. 

In this case, for Katie's birthday guests to arrive. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter. Now dance.

Winning

We were determined. We persevered. We did it! How shall we celebrate?

Getting ready for Peter Cottontail

Greetings From Africa!

Hi All-
We arrived in Mutengene, Cameroon on March 24.  We had a few hours in the Charles DeGaulle Airport.  Man is it nice!  They had the snazziest bathrooms I've ever seen!

Anyway, back to the African reality....  We were met by Dad's friend, Henry, and he helped get us through the MANY hustlers who wanted to take our luggage.  Mutengene is a couple of hours from Douala, where the airport is.  We had a room in the Rest House...

Henry and his wife Olivia had us over to dinner the night after we arrived.  She fixed a huge meal, and it was really tasty.  They eat LOTS of fish there.  Henry is an Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Cameroon Baptist Convention Hospital, which has a drawing area of about  600,000 folks.

This is the Doctors' Lounge.....

Here we have the IT room for the hospital.  They do have WiFi, but it is SSSSLLLLLOOOOW!!

We went with Henry, his wife and three little boys to the beach.  It was bathtub warm, and the sand was black.  

Our driver took us to his church with him.....

I didn't even make this sign for them!

This is the construction of a new part of the hospital...

One of the waiting rooms...

We overnighted in Nairobi on our way here to Kisumu.  It's on Lake Victoria, but you can't get into the water, as it has Schistosomiasis.  Tobias took us to a lovely restaurant on the side of the lake.  You can eat the fish, since they are cooked.  It is talapia, and it was yummy!

There is a Water Lizard out in the middle of the picture.

Dad and Tobias.

On Sunday, Tobias took us to see his family home.  His Dad has two wives, and Tobias has certainly not been a fan of him since he married again.  That was probably 25-30 years ago.  It is very similar to Berkina Faso.  His mother cooked almost the entire time we were there, but we were told that it is rude to ask to help her.  It implies that she can't do it herself....  It was a lovely meal of chicken as well as fish plus several side dishes.  They have no electricity or running water, so they share all of the left overs with their neighbors and relatives.  

Lots of neices and nephews, as well as neighbors...

Yesterday, we went to visit another hospital ia a village about two and a half hours away.  The driver was two hours late because he had a flat tire, then the alternator went out.....  Anyway, we were a few hours late, then about 10 minutes before we got there, we had another blow out....  The ambulance from the hospital came to get us....

We sat by the side of the road doing Sudoku puzzles till the Ambulance arrived....  Never have done that before....

This is the inside of the Ambulance.....

This lady is 121 years old!  Her grown grandchildren are in their 50's and 60's.  Her youngest child is in his 80's!

And one last picture....  A glue sniffer on the streets....

Hope all is well at home!

Catching up

I haven't posted in a while! I tried to upload a bunch of pictures all at once, and after I took a lot of time carefully selecting a bunch of pictures, it said I could only do one at a time. Not sure what I did wrong, but then I had to go back through and get one at a time. So in no particular order...

Ania lost her other front tooth! Not sure if having a root canal makes your teeth fall out sooner and the teeth behind them grow faster? Derek? Because she still hasn't lost her bottom teeth, but I can feel one of the top ones coming in! Anyway, she is thrilled...

Alina and Ania both got their ears pierced! Very exciting.

Maja at 7 months

Eating applesauce. Not really a fan of applesauce so far!

And jumping back in time... Alina and her friend got first place in the science fair for first grade! So that was exciting!!

Science fair poster, with the first place medals!

Thanks, Kuba! 

The famous cake that was supposed to convince Uncle Josh not to move to Seattle. Guess it didn't work. :( We tried.

One night while I was getting Maja ready for a bath, she peed all over my leg. The big girls thought that was pretty funny.

Alina's Frozen birthday cake!

And let's just say good riddance to this awful man! 

This was Maja playing outside this weekend, she had a lot of fun

And Ania. She is getting too big!

Maja's hair is pretty reddish!

These are the videos I tried to post. Apparently they aren't pictures, so it does this fun thing. Since I'm at work now, I can't correct it. First, Alina's fun Destination Imagination thing. Maybe it's a good thing we can't see this one in regular time. :)

And the waiters singing to Alina for her bday at Chili's