JULIA at 4 MONTHS OLD!

4 MONTHS OLD
December 5, 2010 (this post is way late....sorry)

Look at all the things that I can do now that I'm 4 months old:

I can go on picnics.


I can read books.


I can play the game boy with Joshua.


I can help Ginny with her harp lesson.


I can do my exercises.


Best of all though, I can just lay around and be cute!




THUMB SUCKER?

During the 1 ½ hours at bible study, you were passed to 9 different people....and you made not one peep! When you finally made your way back to my lap Micah said, “Welcome back Julia. I missed you.”

Micah still loves to get right in your face and talk to you. You are the first thing he does in the morning....he greets you and lies next to you in the crib. If you begin to cry, he offers you his thumb which you like to suck on.

HAPPY 9th BIRTHDAY, GINNY!

Wednesday, December 14, 2010

After a busy day of church till 2:00 (which I still am processing and need to get something posted), we piled in the car and headed to Villarrica (1 ½ hours away) to celebrate 2 birthdays. One of Ginny’s best little missionary friends turned 8 that day and Ginny was turning 9 the following day (Monday). The girls wanted to celebrate together with a penguin theme. It actually got pretty cool at night (a nice break from the upper 90 degree weather we were having) which added a nice touch to the arctic animal theme. The decorations (thanks, Rene) and cake/cookie turned out quite cute. It was a bit stressful trying to keep the igloo shaped cake and penguin shaped cookies stable while we traveled for an hour over really rough, dirt roads. I’m thankful that it all arrived (mostly) in one piece.

The girls enjoyed the cookout that night, the cake, treat bags and tons of candy, and crepes the following morning. The highlight for the kids was just being able to be together. We stayed the night which gave them even more time together (oh how we love our mission family). Monday morning as we were getting ready to leave, we received the call that our car (that was shipped from the US) was ready to be picked up in Asuncion. Jeff and I drove back to San Francisco, packed more clothes, secured our house better, got the trailer and headed back to Villarrica – a 4 hour round trip. We stayed Tuesday night in Villarrica (so thankful for team mates who allow for spur-of-the-moment-guests) and today (Wednesday) we headed to Asuncion. Shortly after arriving Jeff drove to the port and came back in our big black car! We all had fun seeing all the things we had packed inside.


This is what the roads looked like as we drove to the party 1 1/2 hours away. I felt a little ridiculous praying so hard for a cake to stay together. I kept thinking...well, God cares about the sparrows, surely he cares about my penguins.


Celebrating with friends


The birthday girls


The igloo cake and penguin cookies I made


Girls! Karis, Ginny and Cora

CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER

Click on the picture below to read our Christmas newsletter. God is sure doing a lot in our little neck of the woods!



PS. We've already received an answered prayer....our car has been released! It should be another month before the needed paperwork is done, making it legal to drive. As for now, it sits at our mission's guest house in Asuncion. Thanks for the prayers!

CHRISTMAS TIME in PARAGUAY

December 1, 2010

Christmas time in Paraguay is....HOT! Nobody is wearing coats or gloves or scarves; we wear tank tops and flip-flops. There are no turkeys or cranberry sauce for sale; instead you see tons of watermelon. In our town, you’d be pretty hard pressed to find evidence of Christmas as we are use to in North America...no lights, few (small) trees, no ads galore displaying children’s toys, no Christmas music. It is different and it took a couple years to get use to.


The same weekend we put up our tree, we put up the pool.

We had some helpers...in fact; I think there are more non-McKissick kids in this photo.




It’s hard to want to cook bunches of Christmas cookies when my indoor thermometer read 97 degrees in the kitchen (BEFORE turning the oven on!). But we did them anyways. (please ignore Micah's incredibly dirty face....he washed his hands though).






Ginny and some friends making Christmas ornaments out of wire and beads. They turned out cute.

STORIES FROM PEDRO FROM THE (not too distant) PAST

Pedro, one of our church’s elders, remembers the day his home town (not too far from San Francisco) saw their first airplane. The year was 1967 and the skies were clear. A big “thing” flew across the sky and the people were terrified. People began running into the nearest shelter, hiding under tables and beds. They seriously though that the world was coming to an end since this “thing” looked like a white cross with smoke coming out of one end. One man in the community had actually seen a picture of a plane before and reassured everyone that it was OK to leave their houses.

The first radio bought in his town cost 3 cows.

Pedro remembers the novelty of the first flashlight he ever saw. A friend of his went to Buenos Aires to work and brought one back. Everyone lined up to see this new kind of light. One day while the man was at his field working, his wife got the flashlight down and began playing with it. She accidentally turned it on and then couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. She was so worried that her husband would be mad at her for touching his prized possession that she just had to find a way to turn it off. So she grabbed a chicken (for payment) and went to a local handy-man and asked for help. He looked at the end where the light was shining and he began blowing on it. That didn’t work. Next, he began shaking it violently, but that didn’t work either. Finally he decided that the only way to turn the thing off was to submerge it in water, which he did until it turned off....forever.

Pedro remembers his first pair of shoes. He was 18 years old.


Pedro


Pedro with his grandson

Aren't these children precious!

Jesus said, "Let the little chidren come unto me....." Matt 19:14

MEET

OUR PIGS
After a couple days, much discussion and a family vote our pigs now have names – Pork Chop and Bacon. Lady, our dog, is pretty interested in them too....too interested. She actually deserves her own post with all her shenanigans!





OUR CHICKS
Bird (Ginny’s pet chicken) you already know – she’s the one who watches TV with her. Well, she had 8 babies last week. Ginny only had to nurse of them back to health. It is always amazing to watch these tiny things work at pecking out of their egg, then lay helpless, tired and wet once they’ve popped out. It takes just a bit for them to dry off, find that they can stand and begin to hunt for food. They are cute, cuddly, and fluffy. Goldie, Chipmunk, yellow beak, Blackie, Lucky and Penguin are some of the names already given. Just now as I posted this picture, I realized that I sometimes feel the way this mama looks....living in a little bitty space with lots of children under toe. However, (unlike me) this mother was not a very good mother and started to pick at her babies, so she had to go out. The chicks had a couple lonely nights until the ducks moved in.





No baby nor chick was harmed in the taking of this photo


OUR DUCKS

A friend had 52 ducks hatch and there was no way she was going to be able to feed all of them. She offered to sell them to us. We should have just said no but instead we decided to invest in our future dinners. We bought 20 ducklings and 1 mother. Can you spot the baby chick in the second picture?