JULIA and JELLY

These pictures of Julia and her first baby doll (named Jelly) were too cute not to post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR’S!

We had a wonderful New Year’s Day which started off by attending church, then lunch outside with Paraguayan friends. 

HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY, RYAN!

            Ryan always celebrates the New Year with a new year (I have always thought he had a very cool birth date).  This year he turned 12!  We spent the 31^st with 2 families (team mates) who live 1 ½ away, so once again I found myself transporting a cake over bumpy dirt roads.  Ryan had requested a Jupiter plus (some of) its moons cake (since Jupiter makes a revolution around the sun every 12 years).  

We had a great day full of relaxation, fellowship and food.  It was about 9:30 when we got home and about 10:30 when we set off our fireworks.  

CHRISTMAS DAY

We started Christmas Day at church which seems very appropriate.  I wish Christmas was always on a Sunday.

What an honor we felt it was to be invited by a family in Jataity (where we have been going weekly for mobile clinics) for Christmas lunch.  They cooked fried duck, pork and chicken for us along with rice salad, cabbage salad and, of course, mandioca.  I brought a Texas Sheet Cake for dessert. 

It was a nice time of fellowship as the kids played soccer and tag.  Jeff siesta-ed in the hammock.  We played volleyball just before heading back home.

Once home again, the kids opened stockings.

The kids played with their new things and swam until bedtime.  They were tuckered out!

CHRISTMAS EVE

This past week we have had temps soaring above 100.  The heat on the 23^rd was almost unbearable (it is practically the same temperature inside our house as outside) and it left us with little energy to clean, cook, and wrap gifts.  But Christmas Eve morning we woke up to rain!  Oh how we rejoiced in those cooler temperatures. 

Following a pancake breakfast, we finished our advent story and read the Christmas story.

We watched The Nativity.

We made Christmas cookies and dog treats (to give our animals as gifts).

I surprised the kids and made Kraft Mac and Cheese for lunch.  I actually found it (for the first time) in Asuncion.  Kaft Mac and Cheese is one of my kids’ American comfort foods.  They were thrilled.

We open gifts.  In an instant the living room was littered with a hamster cage and connecting tubes, light sabers, Nerf guns, a press-pot, DVDs, Wii games, art sets, books, a new dress, a science kit, LEGOS, games, watches, and stuffed animals.

One highlight for me was watching Julia with her first baby doll.  She loved it and immediately cuddled and “talked” to her. Then she sat down and “read” her one of her new books.

The kids played for hours.

They went swimming in our new plastic pool.

I asked the kids if they wanted turkey for Christmas Eve dinner and they looked at me like I was an alien.  They don’t associate turkey and Christmas.  Just as well, I probably couldn’t have found one anyway. They did, however, ask for fish and that I did find in Asuncion.   

Then we set off fireworks.  By “we” I mean Jeff and Ryan.  Each year as I see Ryan and Jeff side by side discussing what to blow up, I am again reminded that my husband hasn’t really ever grown up and perhaps in a decade Ryan’s wife will think the same thing about him.

When everything was blasted and blown up and our roof was still in tacked (one year they caught our thatched roof on fire), we watched Miracle till midnight.

At midnight we listened to the fireworks and rang in Christmas Day.

QUOTES

Mom: What did William Booth start?
J: Starvation Army. (Salvation Army)

Mom: What was the most important invention in the history of the World?
G: The microwave. (The printing press….we don’t even have a microwave)

Me during Language Arts: Give me two words that describe a house.

Joshua: Huge and Mungous

Micah: I can’t plug it out.  (He couldn’t unplug the drain.)


Tyler: Dad’s patient had a see-saw accident. (He had a chain saw accident.)    

The kids are memorizing the books of the bible. Tyler's favorite book is "Hagga-rias", Ginny's is "Golassians", and Joshua's is "Ethesians".

Ginny and her chicken cake pop. Cute.


Crafts with friends.

Ginny making Mars' Olympus Mons.

IN-SERVICE

December 14-17

We serve with an awesome SIM team that loves getting together.  In December, we met in Asuncion for a 3 day long (we’re talking 8am to 7pm) workshop on how to more effectively teach in a primarily oral culture.  The speaker (who came from the states) encouraged us/challenged us to use more stories to effectively communicate the gospel.  It definitely gave us all food for thought.  I am thankful to serve on a team that is very committed to doing whatever it takes to see Paraguayans serving God with their whole heart.  

Here’s our SIM team with all the babies through 2^ndgraders (there were another 20 kids not pictured).

On the 17^th we had our annual committee meeting day and in the evening, our Christmas party.

The NERDS (Never Ending Radical DudeS) played a song (Ryan is in a red shirt playing the guitar).

The girls sang a song they wrote.  Julia was so cute.  She saw the girls up there and she got off my lap and joined them.

This was Ginny’s first time playing in public.  She played Tres de Mayo and a lullaby she wrote for Julia.

Oh, I made my first pot of coffee this week.

We ended up staying in Asuncion several more days than expected due to meetings.  When we finally left the city we packed all 8 of us plus a guest into the car with a pool, big fireworks, a dog ,a hamster, a harp, a guitar, 6 weeks of groceries, our luggage and 25 mattresses on top.  Half way home Ginny announced that her hamster was running loose!