Big girl in the bath!!

We've graduated from the bath sling to the big girl bath chair!  She loved looking and playing with the little toys on the chair; I can't believe she's getting so big!!

Sophia & Sofia again a few months later

Here are the 2 little Sophia/Sofias!! This picture was a couple months after the first one was taken, you can see that Sofia is getting bigger than our Sophia!!  Once again, they were born just 6 weeks apart in the German hospital in Curahuasi--Diospi Suyana.

Movin' out!

Well we moved Sophia to her own room...now she seems SO far away!! She's upstairs with the boys, while we remain downstairs.  It has been nice to have our room back, to not have to whisper each time we go into the room--and Jeff can now sneeze without waking up his daughter!  You can see her little playmat, we fashioned her name out of the foam letters...and don't worry, that white cord in the background is now nicely buried under the foam pieces so it won't be a choking hazard! :o)

Go Vikings!

Vikes are doing great this season, and our sweet Sophia just wants to show her support to her Daddy's favorite team!!

September means 6 months old & other fun

Our sweet girl is 6 months old, she is a joy to watch and is such a good baby!! Her brothers ADORE her and are always wanting to keep her company--during the diaper changes and feeding times even! I am madly in love with my kids!!!

5 months old

Yes, I'm posting Sophia's 5 month pictures in November!! I really am trying to get caught up and I'm determined to stay caught up once I actually get caught up.

Road trip to Arequipa!

In August we buckled the 4 kids up and headed south...to Arequipa. It takes us about 13 hours to drive and I have to say that our kids are the best travelers on the planet!!! We listen to books on CD, listen to music (the boys LOVE the Star Wars, Narnia, & Prince Caspian soundtracks), and they just play and look out the window. Sophia did so well, she slept a lot of the time and then just watched her brothers. She only really fussed a couple times!

We enjoyed lots of fun times with friends, and I got to celebrate my birthday with our good friends, Eric & Tina VanPelt, at my favorite restaurant, Zig Zag.

We also enjoyed time with the kids at our favorite coffee house...you can see they enjoyed it as well!

Sophia & Sofia!!

These two are quite the pair...they were both born in Curahuasi, Peru within 6 weeks of each other! My Sophia was born first, but you can see that her little friend has nearly outgrown her! The other Sofia is the daughter of Alex & Laura, they are doctors that are working in the hospital where Sophia was born. We have enjoyed having these 2 girls "meet" each other, but we are bummed that we don't get together more often!

Traveling to Lima for Priscilla's wedding

I'm so behind on blogging..."wow, with 4 kids how is that possible?", you are saying. :o)

Last month while Jeff was in Chicago, I left the boys with some good missionary friends and took Sophia to Lima for Priscilla's wedding. Priscilla is one of my closest friends here, she is also a missionary and like a sister to me. I hated leaving the boys, but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to celebrate with her and Luke! I didn't take my camera, so I'll have to get some pictures from others who took them. It was a grand time, even as hard as it is to travel to get there, it was wonderful.

Sophia & I left early on a Thursday morning, I walked a few blocks to find a taxi to take me with Sophia, my suitcase and my stroller to the taxi stop. The "colectivos" are bigger taxis that can fit up to 4 people in them (well, we've seen them fit up to 15 in them) safely. When I got to the colectivo stop, I had to wait about 1/2 an hour for the taxi to fill up with 4 people so we could leave for Curahuasi.

Curahuasi is about 1 1/2 hrs away, at that point you have to get out and switch taxis and wait until the new taxi is full before leaving for Cusco. I had to wait about 1/2 an hour there for it to fill up and then we were off to Cusco. Once arriving in Cusco, the taxi leaves you at the "taxi stop" and I had to take out Sophia, my suitcase and the stroller and find another taxi to take me to the airport.

Once at the airport, I was able to check in and only waited about 1/2 hour until we boarded. Once in Lima, I took yet another taxi to the Guest House where I stayed for the rest of my time. It's a HUGE hassle to travel here, especially since we live in the middle of the Andes mountains--I'll have to find some good pictures of the roads to get out of our town!

In any case, I stayed for 4 days, was able to get Sophia in to the Pediatrician for her 4 month shots and check up, pick up a passport for some friends from the American Embassy, and spend a lot of time with friends. The boys did phenomonal with our friends and I was very thankful for the short time away!! The wedding was fantastic, Priscilla was gorgeous and I ended up feeding Sophia all through the ceremony so she wouldn't cry!! Thankfully it was a nice, short ceremony! lol

4 months old!!

The months are flying by, and our family is getting closer and closer to leaving Peru for a time. Where we are going--we have yet to figure that out, but at the very least we'll be returning to the States for a few months while we decide.

Sophia is now 4 1/2 months old, and what a carefree life she lives! She gets so much love and attention not only from our family, but also from anyone who we pass on the street! They LOVE her big, blue eyes--they always tell me her eyes take up her whole face! ha ha I still enjoy my princess, I love dressing her up in girlie clothes, and I love the fact that the boys "need" to know where she is and what she's doing at all times! From the time they wake up, they are inquiring as to her whereabouts. When I arrive at the boys' school to pick them up, all the kids rush out shouting, "La Sophie ha llegado" (Sophie has arrived!!)...then they remember me and greet me--sometimes.

Sophia is now rolling over from tummy to back--mostly because she hates tummy time and has figured out that that is the surefire way to keep from being stuck on her tummy! She is eating rice cereal a couple times a week, and she has stopped sleeping through the night (grrrr), but is still going 6-7 hrs at a time. She smiles and giggles and "talks" nonstop and we can't stop kissing the top of her very bald head!

In the trenches...

So we've lived in this house since 2002, each year during the rainy season the heavy rains flood the dirt roads and make my kitchen look like it's been carpeted....with mud. About 2 years ago the city finally built some sidewalks and so at least now we don't have to walk in the mud to get to the bus or wherever we happen to be going. But you can see from the picture above that our street at the present moment is completely impassable! Finally, after all these years, the city is going to pave our street!



The key to paving is in the people who live on the street that is going to be paved. First of all, a lady came around collecting money, we had to "donate" a certain percentage depending on the size of our lot. Those with corner lots obviously have to pay more, but we have a pretty big lot, so we had to pay a whopping $45 to the pot. The next step is that every person who lives on the street has to dig a trench in front of their house (or in our case across the street) where they are going to put the tubes underground. Our trench is approx. 30 feet long and 4 feet deep. We're supposed to have it done by today, but well...I think the boys actually put more dirt back in the holes by walking on the dirt piles! Needless to say we won't get our trench dug today...maybe tomorrow....or maybe we'll hire some youth to come with their pick-axes and help out!

What do you see on the way to school?

On a typical school day, here's what's shakin':
7am: wake the boys up if they aren't already up
7:15am: eat breakfast--this is anything from pancakes or waffles to cold cereal or yogurt
7:25am: Devotionals with Dad
7:35am: send them upstairs to get dressed and brush their teeth
7:50am: leave for school

If I take the boys, I will usually try to catch a taxi with them. We walk down about 2 blocks and wait on the corner for one to come by. When we catch a taxi, it's 2 soles (70 cents) and takes us about 5 minutes to get there. If there isn't one coming by, we will walk on the road into town and try to find one closer.

On the way, here is what we usually see: horses & donkeys with packs of wood on their backs, a minimum of 15 stray dogs (usually roaming in mutant packs), Quechua women with their bundles of alfalfa on their backs, chickens, an occasional pig (not often), an occasional cow, many kids also on their way to school, and other random people on their way to work, the market, school or wherever they may be going.

What do you see on the way to school or work?

3 months old!!

I looked back at my posts and had to laugh that I could hardly wait "3 more days" for Sophia to arrive....and now she's 3 months old already! We are just loving her so much, she brings constant sunshine to our family & others. When I arrive at school to pick up the boys, all the kids rush out of their classroom shouting, "Sophie" and gather around her petting her bald head! It's pretty funny, though I don't get any greetings until the boys realize they haven't even said "hello" to me.

She now smiles all the time, it's a gigantic "gummy" smile that shows her bottom gums...her little nose wrinkles up and there it is, a Sophia smile. She is also talking up a storm, cooing like crazy and even making "B" sounds as she blows bubbles at us. She is, for the most part, a very happy baby...though her colic time is between 5:30-7:30pm each night. She goes to bed around 8pm and sleeps until 8am...except for the past week when she has started getting up a couple times a night. I thought it might be her 3-month growth spurt, but it's been lasting a week. UGH. Hopefully she'll return to some normal sleep habits soon.

I can't believe how much we love this little princess...she for sure completes our family!

My kids

My kids are amazing, they can make me want to hug them and spank them all in a matter of a couple minutes! ha ha Jeff is leaving in a couple weeks and will be gone for a month. The kids and I will stay here in Abancay and try not to count down the days until Jeff returns. We'll try to enjoy our special time together and I'll try to be patient with the boys knowing that I don't have anyone to hand them off to during the day.

Typically when Jeff travels, he is gone for a week. During the week we get into a routine that works for us, the boys have to step up to the plate and help me a lot--especially now that Sophia is here. When I'm feeding her or she's fussy my hands are pretty much tied and the boys are on their own. They've learned to get their own breakfast and of course they dress themselves and brush their own teeth, but I do feel like it's sometimes hard for them to not have me free to do things with them like when Jeff is here.

But we'll trudge on and survive and pray for safety while Jeff is gone. It is my fault, after all, because I was the one who suggested he take this course...rats! lol

What's ahead??

I am a worry-er by nature...well, maybe not so much a worry-er, as a planner. I love to plan. I love to organize. I'm the typical type-A personality. I have to laugh at my friend, Denisha, who calls herself an "OCO"--Obsessive-Compulsive Organizer!! That is me, to a "T". The reason I bring this up, is because we now have more or less of an idea of when we are leaving Abancay and leaving Peru. If you don't know, which most of you do, we are leaving the field for a few years while Jeff pursues more studies to get his Ph.D. Once he finishes that, we will return to Peru, but will live in the capital so Jeff can teach at the Seminary there and our boys can go to a good school.

Our plan is to leave Abancay on January 1st and go to Lima. The January 4-8 we will have our annual Spiritual Life Conference at the beach with the other SIM missionaries who serve in Peru. The last 3 weeks of January will be spent in Arequipa while Jeff teaches 3 week-long classes. The boys and I will hang out with friends, maybe I'll put them in a soccer camp again, but mostly it will be just enjoying friends. We will fly to Lima around the 30th of January, and hopefully leave the country on February 2nd. We don't have our tickets yet, but that is the tentative plan. We will spend that first week of February at the SIM offices in Charlotte, NC and then fly to Minneapolis. Unless we buy a car, then we'll drive to MN. But of course that still needs to be planned out. Maybe I'll plan that out next week. ha ha

Am I excited to be going home? Yes. Will I miss Abancay? Yes. I will miss our friends, our church, and the teachers at the boys' school. I'll miss hanging laundry in the warm sunshine. I'll miss the sound of roosters at 4am (I really will miss this sound). I'll miss the smell of our neighbors burning wood to cook their food. I'll miss the sound of chopping wood. I'll miss having a maid (vain, I know)--not only because of her help but because she is a good friend to me. I'll miss the ministry opportunities of telling taxi driver why we are here. I'll miss people "petting" my kids' heads because they love seeing the gringos on the street. I'll miss eating out for cheap.

The thing is, now that I have Sophia, I'm finding it hard to be "here"...meaning to focus on the things here and now. I find my mind wandering at planning and I know I need to just stop and enjoy life here for these last 6-7 months and stop making a list of the things we are going to sell. I need to call the girls in my mom's group and invite them over, instead of packing a suitcase for Jeff to take with him to the States. I need to call my friend, Silvia, or go to her house to visit her instead of packing up some of the boys' books. My prayer is that I will enjoy these last months and finish well. I feel completely blessed to have served here and to have been touched by the many people we have come to know and love. God has been so good to us. Please pray that we can stay focused!

2 months old

It's a beautiful thing to see Sophia's smile. She started smiling around 7 weeks and now freely gives out smiles to her brothers, her daddy and of course I see them all the time. She has brought so much joy to our family, not just because she's our sweet princess, but because having a baby does that. The sweetest thing that I will remember forever, was the first night (she was about 2 weeks old) that we really heard her cry. Brandon was upstairs in bed and he came downstairs crying, and so, so sad that Sophia was crying so hard!! It was such a tender moment to see him so sensitive to his sister's needs.

I love dressing miss Sophia up in her little pink clothes, I've found that dark pink suits her more than light pink, and I'm already starting to plan some shopping trips. lol Not really, but I do love playing dress up with her. She loves having her diaper changed, she can be crying up a storm, but the minute we "free" her up, she is happy as a clam. Once those clothes are back on and she's in a clean diaper, she resumes her crying.

One month old today!!

Our big girl is one month old today!! She must have been so excited to be one month old that she didn't want to sleep last night! UGH. I feel like I'm still in the "newborn fog" stage of life--meaning I can't get anything done or feel like I just can't get on top of things! The boys started school a couple weeks ago and I still haven't bought all their school supplies. My house is pretty much a disaster, even with our maid coming 2 days a week. Meals are sketchy at best--at least I'm trying to get a meat and veggie put together each day. Anyhow, you get the point.
But regardless of how much I'm NOT getting done, we sure are blessed by this little peanut! She is such a good baby, of course she has her fussy moments, but really, they are not that many. I was worried about her as she wasn't gaining much weight, in fact her pediatrician called me as she was also concerned that after 20 days of life Sophia had only gained 3 ounces. So we spent this past Monday in the missionary hospital getting some lab work done and talking things through with the pediatrician. It ended up being a fantastic day, I LOVE her pediatrician (a wonderful woman from Germany--her and her husband founded the hospital)--she is so sweet, sensitive and caring. Sophia had ended up gaining weight at the appt., but the pediatrician worked through some possibilities of why she isn't gaining much weight, and then took the lab samples herself. It's quite challenging to find a vein big enough to get blood when you are just 30 days old! :o) Anyhow, the lab results came back fine, and Sophia has gone from 7.05 lbs at birth to 7.7 lbs now! Yay Sophia!!

She's here!!

On March 3, 2009 at 9:36am, Sophia Noelle Krohn entered our world!! If you remember, we didn't know if she was going to be a boy or a girl. God blessed us by giving us the desires of our hearts--a baby girl! She's beautiful, of course, and the boys are so in love with her...so is her daddy!


I was the one who named her, Jeff had asked not to be told the name until he/she came out...it was so fun to finally get to tell him what her name was. Sophia comes from Greek origins and means "wisdom". She is so lovely and even after 2 weeks, I can't stop staring at her and kissing her! Our family is now complete!



Another huge blessing has been having my mom here! Not only did she come to help, but she brought a boat load of PINK clothes!!! I'm talking a full TWO suitcases of clothes! Sophia has enough for the first 6 months and I feel totally blessed! It's like playing dress up actually. :o) My mom arrived the Friday after Sophia was born and left yesterday...I will miss her!! Thanks Mom!!!