APRIL FOOLS

April 1, 2011

Joshua making fake wounds on Tyler’s arm and then on Ginny’s foot. We may have a Hollywood make-up artist in the making....

YOU KNOW.....

You know you have a big family when..............the kids are so use to setting the table “in bulk”. Recently when Jeff, Ryan and Tyler went to Asuncion, Ginny and Joshua were setting the table for us remaining 4 McKissicks plus an intern. They were laughing so hard and saying, “Look at what a small stack the cups make.” “I can hold all the forks we need in one hand.” “And we all fit around this one table.”



You know you’ve moved around a lot when................ your kids don’t even refer to your house as your house. Ever since we’ve been back from furlough, Micah calls our house “Lady’s house” (our dog). For example, Micah will say, “Are we coming back to Lady’s house after church today?”


(Since December or maybe before Micah ONLY wears a bathing suit. Luckily he has two of the which he rotates each day. When we go out he carries his shirt with him and puts in on when we get to the place. once we are back in the car, he takes the shirt off.)

You know you live in a hot climate when...........tonight at Bible study the temperature had dropped 15 degrees from the afternoon. At 80 degrees, all our Paraguayan friends had on sweaters and jackets and were shivering from the “cold”.

You know you should call the exterminator when....... Last night Jeff woke up 3 times in order to kill the crickets that were being incredibly loud. This morning I assessed the damage - 25 dead crickets!!! Not to mention the 15 we killed before bed and the many I have killed since waking up (at least 20). Too bad we can’t call an exterminator.

KIDS SAY.....

RYAN
Ryan asked if Jeff and I were bored the first year we were married. “No,” I replied. “Why?” “well.” He said. “I just can’t imagine what you did before you had kids.” Come to think of it, I can barely remember what my life looked like before kids.



TYLER
Mom (after noticing the Tyler had the same clothes on as yesterday): Tyler, how often are you supposed to change your clothes?

Tyler (after a few seconds of thinking hard): Every Monday.

I was super scared when I went to get Tyler out of the shower and found him lying on the shower floor asleep. The hot water had long run out and streams of cold water hot his body making him shiver and his lips blue. Somewhat panicky I shook him awake and called his name. When he finally woke up he looked at confused. I explained that my first thought was that he was dead. Tyler replied, “Oh, you thought someone shot me.”


GINNY
Can I wear long sleeved shorts? (she meant pants)





JOSHUA
Mom: What punctuation do you need at the end of that sentence?
Joshua (not remembering the word exclamation point): A say-it-yelling sign.


(that is a dead fish on his forehead....I have no idea why)

CAKE, CAKE and more CAKE

Florentina asked if I could make the cake to serve 30 people for her birthday celebration and I agreed. Her daughter came over to help and insisted that making 2 9x13 pans was not enough. She wasn’t going to be happy until we made a cake to serve 100 people. It took from 9:30 to 3:30 to get everything mixed, cooked, cooled, frosted and decorated. At the party that evening, guess how many people were there.....exactly 30. They will be eating left-overs for a really long time!

SECOND MOVIE NIGHT

Saturday, March 5, 2011

We showed Narina to more kids than last month....which means I made even more popcorn.

MARCH VISITORS

Jeff’s second cousin, Patricia is a biology professor at ACU (Abilene Christian University). This semester she is teaching at ACU’s study abroad in Uruguay and during spring break she decided to come visit us. It was a blessing to have her here. She sat in with Jeff in the mornings as he saw patients, she went visiting with me in the afternoons, and she played with the kids and helped with the new baby pig. One the day of her departure, Jeff walked her to the bus stop at 6:45AM. At 6 she called saying that the bridge had collapsed under the bus and now the bus was stuck. Thankfully everyone was safe. Jeff transported her and 9 others to the next town an hour away. There he checked the bus schedule. No luck. They went to the next town another 1 ½ hours away. No luck. Jeff ended up driving her all the way to Asuncion.





Just a reminder of what our bridges look like.



Our second guest was Matt, a missionary in a different city in Paraguay. He has some big decisions to make as his mission organization is pulling out of Paraguay. He wanted to come visit, meet us and see what SIM is doing in the rural area of Paraguay.

PIG CASTRATION

March 31, 2011

I have to admit, I had zero confidence in my hubby when he announced that he was going to castrate our pig (apparently you have to do this a month before eating the pig or the meat will taste sour). He had seen it done once and wanted to give it a try. In case you didn’t know (and wanted to), a male pig’s “parts” are INSIDE his body and have to be cut out. It took a little help from the family (and our guest) to hold the pig still, but Jeff managed to do the procedure with such ease that I wonder why he didn’t become a veterinarian.


Jeff capturing the pig...love their faces!


Tyler washing the underbelly of the pig


Even Julia joined us outside for the action.


Apparently this is all you need for the job - a kitchen knife, gloves, sanitizer and spray to keep the flies off.


I love Micah in his photo - holding his ears shut!

It took all of us to hold him down.


The pig was screaming pretty loudly.


Dinner? In some places I am sure these are delicacies....thankfully that is not the case here.


After the big event was over, Jeff took the opportunity to have an educational talk with the kids.

Quote of the day -

Ginny: I can’t wait to see his balls up close.

ADVENTURES WITH VERN – and this is just the first week

Day #1

Ginny was given an 8 day old piggy that needs to be bottle fed because its mom died after childbirth. She is adorable. The kids were fascinated with the little thing yesterday evening (ok, even the adults were pretty fascinated with it).





Day #2

At 5:30AM as I left my bedroom, I saw Ginny sitting on the sofa with tears in her eyes. She said, “I’ve been up all night feeding this pig or it cries…can you feed it now?”

Discovered the pig is a girl. Her name is Vern.

Made Vern a home between a bed and the wall, however she’d rather be right next to (or on) Ginny

Day #3
Fashioned a leash for her, so let the pig potty training begin! The problem is that our dog is way too interested in the little thing, so she needs to be tied up first. By the time we tie her up and put Vern’s leash on, she’s already wet on the floor.


Before bedtime, as Vern was nestling up to Ginny, I heard her say,”Oh, you are just like a daughter to me.”

She loves Ginny and follows her around like a puppy

I told Jeff that he is a good daddy, I don’t think just any dad would allow a pig to run around the house.

Give Vern a bath



Day #4

Ginny’s a trooper and has been getting up 3 and 4 times during the night to give Vern a bottle

At night, Vern starts out in his cubby, but after the first feeding Ginny’s too tired to put him back so they fall back asleep together.





She weighs almost 3lbs

She has found a new favorite place to sleep during the day – the small of Julia’s back. Julia is usually on her tummy sliding around the floor. The pig lies on her back and “travels” with her.





Day #5

Yeah, Vern is drinking out of a saucer! Now she can get food anytime she’s hungry. No more getting up in the middle of the night for a pig!



Day #6

I think Vern feels at home.







Day #7

Ginny was given two rabbits today. Their names are Flip-Flop and Charcoal. The kids promptly introduced them to their roommates.