Christmas celebration!

Here are some photos taken on Christmas day:

Justy's first Christmas!

They really enjoyed the present opening.

Chris made Ben an awesome red Indian dress-up set with a tomahawk, bow, arrows & quiver and a headdress. He loved it and has worn it every day.

Showing off her MP3 player.

After the gift opening we had an awesome brunch with omelets, bacon, hash-browns, biscuits, muffins, cinnamon rolls, crepes and all the trimmings.

Then we were off to visit Danny & Irene in Mexico city who made an incredible Christmas dinner for us. We had Arrachera steak, ham & cheese empanadas and clerico. It was SO delicious! The kids really enjoyed playing with their cousins and we all had a great time!

2 different kinds of clerico.

Chris made the 'tapas' (empanada dough) from scratch and they were SO good!

Cristian, such a smiley baby!

Crashed out after so much good food, fun a fellowship!

We hope you enjoyed a good Christmas too! We love you!

Cute kids

Mom to kids: "What would you like to be when you grow up?"

Lily: "I want to be a professional painter and a missionary."

Ben: "I'm going to be a scientist that studies animals because I just LOVE animals. Then I could feed chocolate magnets to the crocodiles; they would like them because they're chocolate and the magnets would draw them to me."

Huh?

*****

Mom, reading the story of David Livingstone: "Then David Livingstone said to the chief 'I have a message from God for you'. (To the kids:) Do you know what that message was?"

Lily: "Yes! It was: Do not lie, do not cheat! Wash your hands before you eat!"

Go Veggie Tales!

*****

Ben: "Mom, you know what I would do if the Antichrist threw me into the lions den? Well, if the lions were tame I'd just take a big stick and feed them steak so they don't eat me. And if they're NOT tame I'd quickly go, dress up like a cave-man, grab my club and my pet mammoth and tell my mammoth to trample the lions. That way I'd be safe."

Sounds like a great plan!

*****

Ben to Mom: "Mom, you are so beautiful! Even on those days when you try to look beautiful but it doesn't really work out... I still think you're beautiful!"

No comment.

Christmas parties

On the 15th and the 17th we held our Christmas parties for friends and supporters. Thank you so much for your prayers, they were a success! About 40 people showed up to each one and enjoyed the snacks, kids' Christmas show, piñatas, a gift exchange and fun fellowship.

God bless the kitchen crew (Maria, Olympia, Linda, Cristina and Chris) who made over 600 flautas (fried tacos) and different snacks. Chris made his delicious spinach dip which I think everyone should try at some point in their lives.

One of our snack tables.

The gift exchange was also a lot of fun as apparently it's pretty common here in Mexico. We attached the name of an animal on 2 gifts, so you first had to find the other person in the room whose gift had the same animal tag as you. Of course the way to find that person was by making the sound your animal made (i.e. if you had dog, then you barked your way around the room, etc.) With 40 people doing it all at the same time, it made for quite a few laughs.

Here are some pics:

Taking a shot at the piñata.

The next 2 pics are only included cuz they made me laugh. I think they show Ben's true colors, heh.

The turtle!

He has a cough and a cold. Please pray he gets better soon! (Thank you Agnes for the cute outfit!)

On a side note, our Christmas event at the youth jail went very well! Thank you for your prayers for it! The Lord did so many miracles to help it flow smoothly and supplied a gift package of toiletries for each of the 95 inmates and a nice chicken meal with dessert. We organized sports and gave away soccer balls, and the kids performed their Christmas show for them. God bless Chris and Daniel who organized it all.

Chris & Lily after the kids' show.

Daniel, Chris, Leo & Nadia with some of the gift packages.

Lily's birthday celebration

We had Lily and Sheila's birthday party 2 weeks after their birthdays so that her cousins could come. Daddy made a beautiful 3 tiered cake (in Lily's present favorite color) and her cousins gave her a bunny as a present!!! Lily is SO happy with Fluffy and she's been taking good care of her. I wanted to post pics of it but Irene made a beautiful post on her blog so if you want to take a peek, head on over there.

I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season!

Indian night!

Sleeping in their cozy teepee.

Halloween/Pirate Party!!

Daddy was away at the Cervantino Festival but we had a great time anyway. Everyone dressed up as pirates, we had a treasure hunt and Julie baked a wonderful treasure chest cake.

One of the kids even made a hook for Ben's hand.

PS. Our laptop crashed with a bunch of pics on it so please pray we can get that fixed soon!

Happy Birthday Lily!

Instead of putting together a long post for Lil we decided to take her out and spend more time with her.

She's such a smart, wonderful little girl! We love you Lily! Happy 7th Birthday!

Pumpkin carving

Ben has been wanting to carve pumpkins and make jack o' lanterns since the first day of Fall, so for Family Day, Daddy got two cute little pumpkins to carve with the kids. (He got a really good deal too which was nice 'cuz they're SO FREAKING EXPENSIVE!!)

This was a first for the kids and me, so Daddy showed us how to carve them. Lily got really into it and was surprisingly good with the knife. (I was a little worried that she'd cut herself and mess up the pumpkin pretty bad too.) Ben thought that scooping the inside out was too gross so he handed his over to Daddy to make for him. Here are some pics:

Happy with their pumpkins.

Daddy put lights inside and I think they turned out pretty good! We have them in the bathroom as a nightlight. At first I was concerned that they would scare Ben but he loves them!

It was fun! I'd like to do this every year.

Of sea cows and such...

Ben to Dad: "Daddy, did you know that there are trees that grow in water? They are called Houdini trees. There are also sea cows that live in the sea and give sea milk.......but humans don't like to drink that kind of milk, because the seam milk tastes like 'bluah!' Very Yucky!"

He's so perfectly handsome!

The other day we were reviewing spelling words and I asked Ben to spell the word 'brown'. When I came back to check on him, I found this:

"Mr. Brown man had u TV."

I thought it was so cute! He's such a smart boy!

Updates on Justin

Thank you so much for keeping Justy in your prayers. He had a fever for 3 days but seems to be all better now. I'm pretty sure that he's teething and that's why he had the fever as he hasn't had any symptoms of anything else. I still don't see any teeth coming through though.

Thankfully he's sleeping well again and is pretty happy, he just hasn't regained his appetite and only wants to nurse. Anyhow, here are some pics:

I think he almost looks like he's dancing here.

He loves the top bunk and goes to play with Lily when she first wakes up.

His favorite parent time activity: dancing and clapping to songs that Daddy plays for him. (His absolute favorite is "I'm yours" by Jason Mraz.)

I love the way he sleeps just like Chris, with his arms up.

Goodnight to all!

Here's another beautiful piece Chris made for the baby...

It's so perfect!

God bless him for working so hard on it. He doesn't have much time so he'd stay up late at night or use little free slots here and there to make it and I love how it's turned out.