The Hatfield Family LiFE in the horn of Africa . . .

POSTED: November 25, 2008

It’s hard to believe, but Nathan turned 3 months old today. He is such a sweetheart !

Koleta took a bunch of pictures for his 3 month birthday. Nathan seemed to enjoy the photo shoot.

Abby wanted in on the action

This is a picture of Desta with the kids. Desta comes and plays with Abby

in the mornings to help her with the local language.

Abby loves to play with her dollhouse

Before Andy left on his trip, he gave Abby this fun little Princess headband as a gift. Andy came home last night & we were all super excited to have him back home again. His goat buying trip wasn’t too successful (only 18 goats), but he seemed to have a good time on the trip !

POSTED: November 20, 2008

We’ve had a busy week this week. We went into the Capital for the night on Monday night to take care of some work & to get some immunizations for Abby. We left the Capital and then our family had to split up and go separate ways. Andy left with some friends to go on a trip to buy goats down near the Kenya border. The kids and I came back home. Andy will visit his first market tomorrow. We are hoping that they will be able to buy a lot of goats at that market. They have another market they will visit on Saturday.

The kids have been great these past two days. Abby cracked me up last night. We always pray with her and read a Bible Story before she goes to bed. We ask her who she wants to pray for and she usually names one or two people to pray for and then several objects to thank God for. We’ve thanked God for Barney, our silverware, our couch, etc. It’s always interesting the things she comes up with. Last night she wanted to pray for something that I never ever dreamed I’d pray for . . . Molly’s (our dog) poop. So, we started our prayer out, “Dear God, we want to pray for Daddy . . . “ and we ended our prayer with, “And thank you Lord for Molly’s poop. We’re thankful she’s able to poop. Amen. “ I must say, I never thought I’d be thanking God for dog poop. I guess we are to be thankful for everything, right ?

This past week twenty four new women entered our goat project. We had a good time handing goats out to them. The school where we handed out the goats was really remote. Our whole family got to go to the goat handout, so that was a lot of fun. Andy rode the motorcycle out to the school. We stopped for a few minutes in town & 20 of his new best friends crowded around him.

The goats had to walk to the school. They left our project site at 6AM and arrived at the school around 10AM. Here are the goats arriving at the distribution site.

Abby had a great time mixing with the crowd.

The ladies drew numbers to see in what order they would receive their goats

The ladies received their goats and then they gave us their thumbprint as their

signature that they had their goats.

Each woman received two female goats and one male goat. They were so happy to get their goats !

Andy spent them morning looking at the goats ear tags to make sure we handed out the right goats to the right ladies.

Nathan drew a crowd

Abby loved the goats

She also had a great time playing with the kids

I always think pictures like this are funny. Instead of playing Where’s

Waldo lets play Where’s Abby ? Do you see her in the middle of this picture? The people are all crowed around just to watch her.

These are a few of the cute little children that were at the goat distribution

POSTED: November 11, 2008

Yesterday was Andy’s 32^nd Birthday. We celebrated his Birthday last night with Patty Melts, Potato Wedges, Apple Pie & Dr. Pepper ! It was a lot of fun ! It was neat to hear Abby sing Happy Birthday to her Daddy

Andy wanted an Apple Pie instead of a Birthday Cake. We happily obliged !

Abby & Daddy eating Apple Pie and Ice Cream

Abby helped Daddy open his present

Andy got a Top Gear Magazine. He really got two seasons of the Office, but he already opened those and watched them, so this was his little present so he could have something to open on his Birthday.

Abby loves to party !

Abby sure is a Ham. This morning, Abby came into the living room and starting singing, “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Staying Alive, Staying Alive.” It just cracked me up. She heard Andy and I sing that a couple of weeks ago at a Karaoke Party. I couldn’t believe that she remembered some of the words ! It was funny.

Here she is enjoying “laying down” in the bathtub. She just started doing this.

She used to be afraid to put her head in the water.

Abby, Daddy and Nathan playing on Nathan’s Play mat

Nathan is such a happy boy. Here are a few of the smiles he graced us with this morning !

POSTED: November 8, 2008

Nathan sporting his new overalls

Abby loves to tell stories and sing songs. Here she is entertaining Nathan with one of her songs.

He really seems to like anything Abby does.

We got a package in the mail today from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa

They definitely know the way to Abby’s heart. In fact, she calls

them Grandma and Grandpa Cheeseballs

We got out the little play mat this week and let Nathan play on it.

I’m not sure who enjoys the play mat more – Abby or Nathan

Nathan likes to help Mommy fold the laundry

Abby really is an “African” little girl

Who’s that handsome little man

Abby helping Daddy read his book

Andy and Abby took two little goats out to the project site this week to let them join the herd. Both of their mothers died when they were young, so one of our teammates raised them until they were old enough to join the rest of the herd.

No Rocky, the rest of the herd is back there

The two little goats stuck together, but we think they will do just fine with the rest of the herd.

I’ve had a lot of people ask us what our house is like here in Africa, so I decided to do a picture tour of our home. If you’d like a tour of our house, click HERE.

POSTED: October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween

Abby and I had a great time carving the pumpkin

Abby and her pumpkin

What’s inside ?

Here’s our latest family picture. We found out that it’s really hard to get a family picture that is good of all of us. The picture is either blurry because one of us is moving, or one of is looking away, or picking our nose (I’ll let you guess who was doing that), etc. This was the best picture that we got. It’s in front of the poinsettia tree in our front yard.

Abby dressed up earlier today as Mother Goose.

Here she is singing “Jesus Loves Me” to me in her Mother Goose outfit.

Nathan is such a smiley guy

Abby loves to entertain Nathan

Abby hanging out on Mommy & Daddy’s bed

POSTED: October 26, 2008

Nathan turned two months old on October 25^th. Here are a couple of his 2 month old pictures.

We went bowling on Saturday for a friends going away party. It was the first time Abby’s really been old enough to enjoy the bowling alley !

We stay at a guesthouse when we’re in the Capital. Here are Abby

and Nathan enjoying a lazy morning at the guest house.

The other day Andy took Nathan down to his office so I could rest.

This is how I found them when I woke up. It was cute !

Nathan doesn’t like to have his fingernails cut.

My handsome guys !

Abby loves to help give Nathan a bath

Mommy and two of her favorite people in the whole wide world

He’s a cutie

Aren’t they cute ?

Abby absolutely loves her little brother. I think she gives him a thousand kisses a day.

Our little Dubai girl

Nathan can make his eyes so big. He loves to watch everything that is going on.

POSTED: October 11, 2008

CONGRATULATIONS LUKE & LINDSEY !!

My brother married Lindsey Clowers today. I’m so sad I couldn’t make it to the wedding, but I’m so happy for Luke and Lindsey !! Congratulations you guys !!

If you’d like to see more pictures from their wedding click HERE.

POSTED: October 13, 2008

We made it back home safe and sound. It took us several days to get unpacked and settled into our home. We sure are enjoying being home again !! Nathan started smiling the day we left Dubai. He sure knows how to melt our hearts with his precious smile.

We brought a lazy boy back with us on the airplane. Dubai is the shopping capital of the world, so they give you a really big luggage allowance to take home all the things you buy while you are there. We could bring back 88 pounds each and there was no size limit on each piece. So, Andy was able to check his lazy boy as a two pieces of luggage. Once we got home, Nathan really enjoyed his vibrating chair. Here are my boys enjoying their recliners !

Abby sure has enjoyed playing with all her toys since we’ve been back.

Here she is in her dress up clothes.