Buckeye or Disco House?

Brutus was here to welcome us to our new house

One of our two disco lights in our living room (unfortunately we don't have the disco music hooked up to come on with this awesome lighting yet;)

 We officially live in the Buckeye/ Disco house in the capital city (Antananarivo) in Mada!  Don’t knock it until you see it—it is pretty swank;) 

  

Our very buckeye kitchen (we even crated red canisters and red pots & pans!)

We have had some problems with the house since we have moved in, but we are so thankful to have a roof over our heads and a new place to call home!  We are also so thankful that we were able to bring our wonderful Malagasy day guard & his family from Antsirabe to live here & work for us!  This allows us to have a very trustworthy guard/ dog trainer and housekeeper that work for us during the week!  However, it will still take time for us to adjust to the heavy traffic and the change in the cost of living here in the capital. 

 

Oh, the Marvelous Mahoney Mayhem:  Eli is enjoying homeschooling in the mornings with Ruth.  We are glad that he is eager to learn & loves to read.

This is how I found Eli & Gee monkey after morning prayer before we started school one morning.  Gee was practicing his prayer position (a treasure I hope I will not soon forget!)

Zoey joins them for singing, science, some stories & other fun activities (below is a pic of our Roman Dinner Party).   

Eating with our hands while laying down at our Roman Dinner Party!  I am acting the part of the 'slave' like they had back then.

At the end of January, the kids started a new French school here in Tana, but this time they are only going in the afternoons for a few hours.  This allows them to have Malagasy friends as well as continue to learn French.  

            Alleluia is close to 7 months now & she always keeps us on our toes!  She surprised us when she became mobile at 5 months, but perhaps she shocked us even more when she began pulling up a little over a week after she learned how to crawl.  We were definitely not ready for her to grow up this quickly!  Boy, I am thankful that she has two little kids that adore her, and make sure that she does not get into any trouble:).  One of our greatest joys is to watch Eli make her laugh—no one can make her laugh like her Bubby!  

About a week after this pic was taken she fell head first into this basket-- bless her heart she is going to have a lot of bumps & bruises (maybe the most out of all our kids!)