Service for Africa

As most of you know, Mike's parents are serving a mission in South Africa. They are in a poor little village, Empangeni, outside of Durban, where they spend the majority of their time doing service and teaching the members how to run church smoothly. They have taken on a creche {daycare center} as their main project right now. Here are a few pictures of the creche when they first arrived. There are about 90 kids {all under the age of 5} that come here each day. Most of them are orphans (many parents are lost to TB/AIDS} they go home to go-go's {adoptive grandparents} at night.



Here is the start of the rebuilding. The kids are so sweet - notice the gray, headless-one armed-one legged doll.

And here is the most recent pictures - no dirt floor!

Each time I see these pictures I want to send anything and everything I can! It is very expensive to mail things there and most things like toys and stuff are better bought there. But, it is getting to be winter time in Africa so my sis-in-law, Tanja, has headed up a little project that I was super excited about. The first part of this is making blankets. The goal is to have 100 ready to ship by the 15th, this way they should be there in time for the cold weather. We are just doing fleece, 1yard & 2yard blankets. I was really excited about this and finding a way to involve my kids - hands on. So, as I was cutting the fleece today, getting it ready for the kids to tie, I thought that I would share this on my blog for anyone who is interested. We found fleece for $7.84/yd at Walmart - I assume that is a decent price(its Walmart). So, if you are interested in making a couple blankets or donating some fleece - let me know! I know it is short notice, just 10 days, but felt like I should share this opportunity to serve. Leave me a comment, call or email me kaceebartholomew@yahoo.com if you are interested!

Grandma and the Gardens

Grandma got to come and play with us today, after a week spent at women's conference. The kids couldn't have been happier. We headed over to Thanksgiving Point to try out their Gardens. The kids all loved rolling/running down the hills {is this allowed?} and climbing all over the benches/bridges/steps. Adilynn was my picture planner helper - she did pretty good!

What a hottie!

Welcome to May!

I just have one word for this...CRUEL!