The Chadwick Chronicles

We have been pretty busy this past week! We have been switching a couple of Kids Alive’s apartments around to better suit work teams, attending meetings and working on the next sponsorship project with the kids. We also navigated the very confusing, somewhat difficult process of getting Lilia’s Peruvian passport. Now, she has both and can travel freely between the USA and Peru. Mommy and daddy might get a little hassle, but she’ll get the green flag and can go on ahead without us!

Jon’s parents arrived last Friday and we have enjoyed spending time with them and introducing them to their 14th grandchild (15 has already come as well!). It has been nice to share time with them and also have two more pairs of arms to carry around the little girl.

A gift sent from Aunt Roni. I think it’s just her size.

Mother’s Day was very special and we were able to reflect back on how we didn’t even know if we were able to have kids one year ago. What a difference a year can make. God is so good. We thank him everyday for Lilia and pray that she will know his goodness one day too.

The mothers on their day.

In other news, it appears we have a thumb sucker on our hands. Argh. Every chance we get, we pull that thumb out and stick the binky in. However, it appears we have an organic little girl on our hands. She likes the all natural version much better, spits out the binky and goes for the real deal. It is winter here and getting pretty cold at night. When I get her in the morning her hands are freezing cold. I decided to put little mittens on her hands to keep them warm….two birds with one stone? Any suggestions on how to prevent thumb sucking from experienced mommies and daddies? I always thought it would be easier…like, well, you just don’t let them do it. Wow, I have a lot to learn!

Lilia continues to be a cutie pie but also a little bit of a fussy pants. Jon has been going to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) every Monday night that he is able since we got here. Without fail, Monday nights when he is gone proves to be the worst fussy night of the week. I don’t think this is a coincidence as it makes it hard for all of us to be really excited for Monday nights. In an effort to soften the blow to come, Jon took Lilia for an hour before he left. He decided to change her into her PJs and a few minutes later I hear, ‘Elise, you better come in here!’ I started to make my way to her room expecting a two-person diaper clean-up job. Instead I see that Jon just discovered what I discovered last week; our little Lilia isn’t so little anymore. He had tried to put on her ‘coming-home’ outfit only to discover it didn’t quite fit her like it used to. In fact, there was no way we could squeeze her into it even if we wanted to.

Jon decided he was going to make it work nonetheless….

….and blessing of all blessings….the little pumpkin fell asleep as soon as he left!

Elise and I have become a bit too Lilia-centric since her birth. After looking back at our old posts we’ve realized that we completely neglected to talk about the teams that we had since her birth. The first team that we haven’t talked about yet is from the Forest City Fire Protection company based out of London, Ontario. Technically, they arrived before Lilia’s birth and were the first team to meet her, but also, technically, we already talked about them and posted a photo of them in the post from Wednesday, February 18th, 2009.

We were expecting to meet a rough and tumble group of burly fire fighters to come off of the plane, but instead realized that Forest City Fire Protection is a company that designs and sells fire prevention supplies. This small, six-person team did tons of finishing work on the tiles in the first two housing units in Pachacamac and was the last team before the older boys moved into that first housing unit.