On the Up and Up

I thought I should write soon after my last post…a bit depressing.  I thought I could 1) share a link to pictures that Wes Yoakum (if you click the link, it’s the pictures, and if you click his name, you can see his post on our Thanksgiving time together) took of our Thanksgiving…they’re great!, and 2) share my own pictures of our last few days.

So, the day after Thanksgiving we did this:

this is what Corban did while we decorated…

Cailyn wore her black dress skirt to make things feel more Christmas-y… (we get the tongue these days when we ask her to smile, and check out that cute double {or is it a triple?!} chin…haha)

trying on the tree skirt…

1…2…3…action!

Oh…wait…we eventually had to unplug the lights because our transformer was burning up…oops.  Gotta buy a bigger one, because our tree is a pre-lit tree from the States…bummer.

Cailyn immediately said, “OH, pretty Torns!” haha…I realized she thought (at first) that the lights were pieces of “Corn”, and she thought they looked so pretty.  We explained that they were Christmas lights, and then she was so sad we couldn’t keep them on, because she kept saying, “please, turn on the trismas lights, please!”  {she uses 2 pleases when she thinks we aren’t doing something for her lack of using the word please}…so funny.

(sorry…no pictures of the finished product…guess I lost steam with the camera).

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I also just wanted to share something that any of you moms out there trying to find new things to do with your kids might like.  I bought these bilingual puzzle cards from Scholastic (this link is to another version of them – the “Seasons” version.  I think our version must be out of stock, but there are several newer versions) when Cailyn was just a newborn in anticipation of using them when she was old enough to talk.  So, we’ve pulled them out since being in Peru a few times, and she LOVES them!

I would totally recommend something like this for a child that enjoys puzzles (doesn’t get frustrated with “real” puzzle pieces – although, ours just have 3 pieces for each card) and a parent who is interested in the child learning some simple, familiar words in spanish.  Cailyn has a fairly good attention span for activities like this when it is just the two of us especially, but it’s an activity that can be cut in half (just sit down to do half the cards) or done all at one time.  Each card has something on the front and another picture on the back.  There is also a tiny pamphlet that comes with it with a few ideas of how to use the cards for the parents to use when you have them out.  The ideas that come with our set are geared toward kids that can read or know what the letters of the alphabet look like, but we use them for recognizing the photos for now.  I get her to put the puzzle together, and then we talk about what it is in both languages.  If she offers what the photo is in one language (because she knows enough spanish now that sometimes the first word she uses isn’t always english), then I praise her for knowing and ask what it is called in the other language that she hasn’t already used.  So, if you’re interested in something new in the way of “at-home-learning” resources go, check these, or something like them, out!

{the dominoes just served as our “hard surface” for doing the puzzles…not a part of the game…:) }

Thankful, and learning to be more Thankful

Well, I am sorry to say that all of the pictures taken of our Thanksgiving day were with everyone else’s cameras except ours. So, I’ll work on that.

Warning:  I am going to sort of complain/be vulnerable before I then share some more positive feelings…just so you know…haha.

I could not be more thankful for so many things, and yet, I did find myself having a complaining spirit in some moments of my Thanksgiving day. I don’t want to use the excuse that I was away from my normal holiday surroundings, and yet, I do feel like that is why some of my day was difficult. I recently read on a friend’s blog that her joy came (in the past) from cooking with family, and this year she found herself cooking alone…not as fun, obviously. Well, except for Justin that is sort of what I did. Our day started out a little stressful, but then we made our way to a park for our team’s first annual Turkey Trot. John Mark was our race coordinator, and he did a great job.  We ran/walked around a 2.5 mile (i think, at least) track, and it was honestly really fun.  You can check out a picture (of most of us…haha) on the Fletcher’s blog…I think we were too big of a group for the camera in that moment. Anyway, that was fun. Then, we came home, and I cooked. We did a pot-luck style dinner as a team, so I didn’t have to cook everything. Justin did our turkey (and he did a great job!), and I made stuffing and some desserts.

Sidenote: Justin bought our turkey at a local grocery store here, and he did everything to it himself. When he went to pull out the parts we didn’t need, he found himself thinking, “man, the neck is sorta hard to get out.” Come to find out, it was because this was attached at the other end…

can I just say…DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that was a bit traumatizing for a few moments, and I’m pretty sure that face is going to haunt me for some time…haha.  Needless to say, Justin was a bit grossed out, too.  But…he had enough guts to continue on with the process of preparing the turkey…something I honestly probably would not have been able to do!

Anyway, the day was not extremely eventful except for the fact that we were in the kitchen making food for our meal for most of the day.  By 5:30pm, all of our teammates were at our house, including Kelly Davidson, John Mark’s dad.  From then on, our evening was great.  The food was wonderful, we all got stuffed, we had the treat of each (almost) getting to drink a Dr.Pepper, the kids played well, good old slingbox provided us with the A&M football game, and we had some great conversation.  We were also blessed to receive a TON of wonderful notes of encouragement and holiday greetings from members at the A&M Church of Christ that had been sent with Kelly D.  If you go there, are reading this, and sent us a not…THANK YOU!  I LOVED reading all of them, and it was honestly so encouraging.  Honestly.  So…then we got in bed late that night, and our day for sure ended well.

Then…we woke up Friday morning.  It for sure didn’t feel like it was still the holiday.  Nobody here takes the day off, traffic was normal, I actually went to the gym (who does that during Thanksgiving?!), and we honestly only had like 1 plate full of leftovers from the night before.  Sad, I know.  Justin admitted to me late Friday that he had been sort of sulking all day because he was sad we didn’t have leftovers.  I had to agree I was in the same boat.  By the way, I completely know that this sounds so incredibly snobby, but it’s just how it was.  It was sort of hard that Thanksgiving had passed and it had been about 4 hours of goodness…and that was it.  You know…we just missed the feeling of having your whole week…or at least half of it…feel like you were getting a break from work to see family, stuff your face, play games, go to the movies, etc.  So…lesson learned.  Make next year feel more like a holiday – however that’s possible.

So, we’re on to Christmas now, I guess.  We do have family coming to see us, and we are so blessed to be able to look forward to that.  Please, please pray, though, for our teammates who will be missing their family members this Christmas.  It’s just so easy to let Satan steal your joy when you begin to think of the things you miss, want, can’t do…etc.  Please pray that we can learn to be joyful despite missing some of the things we are used to.  Please pray that we can have fun making new traditions, and that we can help one another feel loved around the holidays the way our families would.  Despite the time we’ve spent together as a team, it doesn’t always feel the same as being with family.  Just different.  Thanks.

Ok, so now I want to (well, need to for my own sanity…haha) list some of the things I am thankful for.  Here it goes:

THINGS I AM SO THANKFUL FOR:

1. A husband that would volunteer to cook our turkey!

2. My two adorable, loveable, kissable children.

3. Teammates who can cook!

4. People who think of us and show their support by sending cards and packages, saying prayers, and keeping in touch with us.

5. Our amazing supporting church, Fairlane Church of Christ.

6. Wonderful, wonderful family.

7. The ability to get a good manicure and pedicure together for $15 JUST around the corner from my house!

8. My team sisters…Stacy, Tara, and Stephanie…oh, how I could not get by without them (oh…we got manis and pedis today!)

9. A husband who loves me and desires to be with me.

10. Skype…for calling family and friends through our computer.

11. Our house…we just love it.

12. Our peruvian friends…as well as those we hope to become better friends with.

13. The fact that there are small stores only the next street over from my house.  Makes grabbing those things you forgot you needed until the last minute more feasible!

14. Reality that Christmas is nearly here!

15. Jesus’ love and saving grace in my life!

Not believing how fast time flies…

Corban will be 3 months tomorrow.  Almost every day I think to myself, he isn’t far from…and I fill in the blank with some new thing babies do in the first year of their life.  Hard to believe. We are loving the stage he is in now.  He is just so darn adorable!  One night (about 3 weeks ago or so…yeah, i know it’s taken me forever to post this!) I got him laughing, and we caught some on video.  He does a lot of this these days.

We haven’t gone yet for his 3 month appointment, although we did have to go to the Dr. this past week due to a bit of a fever and a few other things.  He’s good now it seems.  He weighs right around 14lbs, and I have no clue how that measures up to most 3 month olds.  One thing I do miss a little bit is going to the Dr. and having all of his stats be in pounds and inches instead of kilos and centimeters.  I feel like I’ve never know in these past 3 months just exactly how big or how long he is.  Oh well…not the end of the world…just something I miss a little from the States.

Corban sleeps really well, he generally eats ok, although there are times when I think he needs more (he doesn’t seem to think so…hah), and he just loves his big sister.  Cailyn continues to be great with him.  She has become quite the helper and distraction in critical moments.  I like that.

3 months

So, we press on in hopes of being the kind of parents we need to be to this sweet little one and his sister.  We feel so blessed that God chose us as their parents!

Thanksgiving this week…unbelievable!  We are looking forward to having our team over for some good ‘ol American food!!!  Then, just a few weeks till family visits for Christmas!

Theme Parks, 12 weeks (almost), and our Team…

Last Sunday we went with our street guard, Jose, and his family to a small theme park near his home.  It had merry-go-rounds, ball pits, a mini zoo, paddle boats, cotton candy, caramel apples, playgrounds, and a ton more that we didn’t even get to see.  We met Jose, Maribel, and their baby, Josias, at their house, and then we walked to his family’s house to meet up with Jose’s sister, her 2 yr. old daughter, Patricia, a friend of Jose’s sister, and Jose’s mom.  Then, we took another bus to the park.  We really enjoyed our time, and Cailyn had a great time.  We are very happy to be getting to know this family more.  Here are some pictures of our time together.

Cailyn and Patricia…we don’t really have any pictures of both of them looking

this next picture is all of us (minus justin, mark c., and jose’s mom) on the see-saws in the playground areas

These pictures aren’t the best, but I still wanted to put a

picture on here so you would know their faces…

<—–  Jose and Josias (he’s in the baby carrier under the blanket)

Maribel, Josias’s mom ——>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, we had a great time.  Please continue to pray for this couple and their baby.  Josias is 2 months old tomorrow, and Jose has come to Justin recently to ask for advice on what to do when it comes to teaching Josias about God.  Jose claims to be a Christian, but he does not attend any church as of now, and Maribel is a Buddhist.  Justin had a good conversation with Jose today, and we are praying that it might lead to some Bible study between the two of them as well as a chance for Jose to begin conversations with Maribel about his desires to teach Josias the Truth.

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12 WEEKS!

Wow.  How can it be.  Corban will be 12 weeks old this Sunday.  I feel like the last couple of weeks have brought about a more active Corban.  He is just the cutest thing, and he continues to be such a Joy!  He has started to suck on his hands a TON, he still loves, loves, loves his paci, although we haven’t had any issues with him waking up because it falls out (praise God!), and he is laughing often these days.  He pretty much goes to bed between 8 and 9pm, and I generally have to feed him once in the night still.  He wakes up smiling…so fun.

This was a Christmas gift to Cailyn for her first Christmas from her Grandpa Luke and Grandma Shannon,

so Corban can use it now…so nice, because he loves to be checking everything out these days…

i love this next picture, because it captures a typical face we see these days when Corban is cooing and “talking” to us…

sidenote about Cailyn:

We did some Thanksgiving-type crafts today, and I was impressed to see that she could cut out the fruit I drew on some foam paper for her cornucopia with great precision (at least for a 2.5  yr. old).  I guess all of that cutting has proven to be good practice after all.

here she is with the final product…the only thing i cut for her was the actual cornucopia…impressive, right?

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The Fletchers are Here!

On November 10th, the Fletchers flew in from Houston to Lima, and we are all so glad to have them here.  This is the first time in a while that our team has lived all in the same town.  So, we’re glad to be sharing the same general zip code these days.  There are definitely some things that we have done when it comes to meeting Peruvians and sharing our faith, but with the Fletchers here, our team can begin to truly work on moving forward with our goals for our time in Peru.  Praise God!  Here is a link to some recent family pictures the Fletchers had taken by Hannah Vickers, a friend and wonderful photographer of theirs in Abilene, Texas.  I just thought I would share them since they include sweet baby Liam.

Happy Halloween!

They do it the same here in Peru.  It was fun.  The only difference is you yell “HALLOWEEN!!!” instead of “Trick-or-Treat!”.  The kids loved it. Well…ok, another HUGE difference is that we got NO snickers, NO m&ms, NO skittles, NO hersheys kisses, NO starbursts, and NO reeses WHILE Trick or Treating.  We were very excited to receive a bag of all of that candy I just mentioned from a team of families who came through Lima this past week on their way to move to Cuzco, Peru from the States.  So, despite not getting any of that tonight (we mainly got hard candy tonight…like the kind you see in the candy bowls at the Dr.s office), we still had a great time.  Plus, I don’t have to worry much about wanting to raid Cailyn’s candy bag.  Thank goodness.

Hope everyone enjoyed their night!  And, we’re on to November…can you believe it?!