James

We've never had a spotlight on James, since he was a newborn last time around.  Now, he's almost two!  He will turn two next week.

James has now lived 1/3 of his life in the Philippines, 1/3 in the US and 1/3 in El Salvador.

James loves his pajamas.  If he sees Sheralie folding them on his laundry day, he will not be pleased until he has changed into them.  Here he is in one of his one-piece outfits.

James is a big football fan.  Whenever we are throwing the ball, he has to join in.  He even has a routine where he pats the football a couple times before he throws, just like a real quarterback.

James is very interested in shoes.  He has to put them on first thing in the morning and he takes his naps still wearing them.  He also shows a lot of concern if he finds someone in the house who is not wearing shoes.  It just isn't right!

James has a playmate named Simon in our neighborhood.  They are really cute together.  They recognize each other and kind of play together.  They hang out in the nursery at church too.  Here they are at the beach:

Speaking of nursery, James is not a big fan.  This is probably my fault, since Sheralie teaches music in the primary for both hours.  My job is in the Sunday School, so after my initial responsibilities, I usually accompany James to nursery.  He is fine as long as I am there.  If I so much as lean out the door though, he falls apart.  I have tried leaving him in there, but he never stops crying.  So generally he just hangs out with me.  I will spend some time in nursery, some time in other classes.  I kind of like it, since generally he prefers his mother, but on Sundays, he really wants to be with me (as opposed to left in nursery!).

James is a typical boy - he loves vehicles.  He is constantly trying to ride his brothers' scooters, even though it is pretty much impossible for him.  He now has his own 3-wheeled scooter, but he still likes to ride his brothers'.  He will also ride his green car (pictured above) or Lucy's bike and he really loves real car rides.

James still has a limited vocabulary.  Probably because Sheralie speaks Spanish to him, and so do the kids (most of the time).  I speak English to him, but I have a full-time job to attend to.  He knows "agua" (very well!), boca (mouth), uh-huh, no, oops, wow, papa, mama (another stand-by), volar (to fly), Lucy and Laird (as far as we can tell).

James is a great eater.  Not since Jeffrey have we had a boy pack food away like this one.  When he gets on a roll, there is no stopping him.  He particularly loves oatmeal, refried beans, chocolate, cheese, meatballs, eggs, lollipops, candy and bread.  When I make orchata (a local flavor) milkshakes in the blender, he runs to get his cup so he can have some.

James is a great copycat.  Whatever he sees his siblings doing, he wants a part of.  He loves to sit at the piano, open the lesson book, and bang out some tunes.  He loves to open up the hymn book and belt out some tunes.  He is a great jumper on the trampoline for only being two.  He follows his siblings around with books under his arm.

At the San Diego Zoo - Gorilla exhibit

James has a love affair with monkeys and gorillas.  He loves to make the sign for monkey (he knows about 20 signs) when he sees one in a book or on TV.  He particularly likes the book "Good Night Gorilla" and we have it in both English and Spanish.  It was a fun experience to take him to the San Diego Zoo and spend some quality time at the gorilla exhibit there.

James just gets cuter every day.  He is a handful, but we love him.

Laird

For previous highlights for Laird, look here and here

Laird is now 6 - this is him on his first day of school this year.

School has been a big adjustment, especially since their bus comes at 6:15 am!  Laird goes down at 6:30 pm (if he can make it that long) to get enough rest.  He is so high energy, he needs all the sleep he can get.  He is doing very well at school.  His handwriting has shown tremendous improvement, and he says all his classmates names with a great Spanish accent.

Laird continues to do piano lessons.  School has helped him improve his length of concentration.

Laird really likes weapons.  He likes reading about weapons and war.  I recently read a book called "Latin America's Cold War" and he loved it because it had some revolutionaries on the cover brandishing weapons. I'm sure this phase will wear off, but here is a weapons collage from the last year:

Laird is still a big fan of blankie.  I suppose blankie has helped him through our many moves.  We do now generally restrict blankie to his bed, or at the very least, to the house.

Laird has really taken to playing board games this year.  We have found great success with Ticket to Ride, Power Grid and especially Puerto Rico.  Even though he is well below the recommended ages for these games, he loves them, especially since he can play them with Jeffrey and Dad.

Laird celebrates turning 6 in San Diego with the Monroes

Laird really loves animals and is our resident expert.  While we were in Virginia, a wonderful woman gave us her collection of Wildlife Fact-Files (you know, the animal pages advertised in National Geographic that you coveted as a youth).  So instead of going to kindergarten, he devoured these books.

Reading the books in Virginia with Lucy (and Green Blankie)

Feeding a bird at San Antonio Zoo

At San Diego Zoo

Washington DC Temple Nativity Scene

In a lot of places we have lived, Laird tags along with Jeffrey and Jeffrey's friends.  But in Virginia, he was very lucky to have a very good friend his own age, Anderson.  They shared a love of legos, weapons and playing.  We were very sad to leave such a good friend in Virginia.

Anderson and Laird

We just finished college football season and this was Laird's first season in which he really knew what was going on.  He was a lot of fun to watch games with, even though he always wanted to be cheering for the team that was winning, which often meant changing his allegiance several times a game.  He would often announce during the games, "I'm going to play wide receiver for Georgia Tech" or "I'm going to play cornerback for Miami".

Laird at Colonial Williamsburg

Laird is looking forward to turning 7 in a few months and watching more of the Star Wars movies (he has now watched #4).  He is a bundle of energy, but he has really matured this year, and he is a great kid.

Spotlight on Lucy

It's time once again to take a snapshot of our children so we remember what they were like.  Today I will start with Lucy.  Previous spotlights of Lucy can be found here and here.

Lucy is now 4!  Holy Cow.  She is now reading, as she recently finished her "Learn to Read in 100 Lessons" book:

For her efforts, she got to go to "Jungle Snow", which is one of the better ice cream places in town.

Lucy is a very doting big sister and is always looking out for James and interpreting his grunts and whining.  She loves to talk to him in Spanish, and they are very good playmates.

Note: James will soon pass Lucy up in size.  Lucy still has several inches on him, but James is just about even on weight.  

Lucy is also a great helper in the kitchen, and is very good at helping with making meals, doing dishes and cleaning.

Lucy loves princesses and everything to do with princesses.  She loves playing the "Princess Memory Game" and dressing up like the gal from Tangled.

Lucy loves headbands, and you will not often find her without hers. She usually wears it to bed too.

Lucy and James sleep in the same room, and James sometimes has trouble getting to sleep.  Lucy will take it on herself to sing him songs and say "Shhh, James, shhh" from her bed.  She is very sweet.

Lucy loves riding scooters and has inherited one of her brother's older models.  

Lucy is one of the most warm-blooded little girls you will ever meet.  Probably because she is so petite and has spent so much time in the tropics (more than half her life), she gets cold very easily.  When we were in Virginia over last winter, she always had to bundle up to go to the grocery store, and is always looking for a blanket to cuddle under in the morning.

Lucy loves Dr. Seuss books.  We went through a phase where we read "Green Eggs and Ham" every night for a month.  It could be that I really like reading Dr. Seuss books too.

Lucy has recently taken to ballet, and for Christmas she received new ballet videos, shoes and a leotard.  She loves showing off her new moves to me.  She watches her ballet movies and dances along to them every day.

Lucy started Primary this year and is a big singer.  She enthusiastically sings all the songs, even though they are 95% in Spanish.  

Lucy still gives me very warm send-offs to work, always looking for a hug and a kiss.  She enjoys staying home with Mom while Laird and Jeffrey go off to school.  She is Mama's little helper.

Lucy has a little kitchen that she loves to play with and pretend she is making dinner and serving it to everybody.  

Lucy's 4th birthday, celebrated at Costa del Sol, where we rented a house for the week.

Lucy continues to be Daddy's little girl.  But she plays really well with her brothers too and they have lots of fun.  Thanks Lucy for being in our family.

Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas from the Broadbents!  It is very sad to see the Christmas season go, but writing about it will extend it just a bit further.

This is our first Christmas in El Salvador.  One of our first challenges was finding a real tree.  Apparently it is the custom here to use fake trees.  We were informed by the Community Liaison Office at the Embassy that no one gets real trees.  Undeterred, Sheralie asked around, and got a name and a location.  So one Saturday I ventured out with only a Km marking and a road name.  I found the road (which was long) but was not seeing any Km markings.  The only Km marker I saw after many miles was #6, which is where the farm was.  All the trees were still in the ground and on a steep hillside.  And they look bigger out in the wild.  Anyway, mission accomplished.

We were blessed to receive some custom stocking from Grandma Walker (Sheralie's grandmother) in San Diego.  These are awesome stockings!  Many thanks Grandma Walker!

Lucy also got a new dress from Grandma Broadbent (my mom) in Houston.  She loves it!  

Some of the customs are a bit different here.  For one thing, people here love fireworks for both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.  I think the volume was actually greater for Christmas Eve.  Getting to kids to bed on Christmas Eve is tough anyway with the anticipation, but with military-grade explosives happening in your backyard, it was especially tough.  And Sheralie and I both woke up early listening for kids lurking about, but the late night caused everyone to sleep in until about 6:30 am.  

Another interesting feature is that the whole Salvadoran government shuts down for about two weeks.  They really should have made most of the US Embassy take mandatory leave for two weeks too, because most of my job involves talking to Salvadoran government folks.  All the business folks were on vacation too, so it was pretty quiet in the office.

Another tradition that I had never heard of was January 6, el Dia de los Reyes (literally, Day of the Kings, or 3 Wisemen Day).  Apparently this is the day people take their Christmas decorations down.  Going to a government office building on that day (Central Bank) in the lobby were three guys dressed as wise men giving out cookies.  The cookies were delicious.  In Spain and Mexico this is apparently an even bigger deal - on par with Christmas in the US.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who sent presents and who we were able to Skype with on Christmas Day and the next day.  We enjoyed a great Christmas Eve dinner with our friends the McKays, and Church the next morning we had some tremendous musical numbers (all of which Sheralie was involved in).  We feel very blessed to have so many great family and friends.  Merry Christmas!