Our Holidays…

Christmas came a bit early for us this year since my parents were here during the Thanksgiving holiday.  We had our Christmas day with them the day after Thanksgiving.  Instead of wrapping gifts, my parents had “Door #1″ and “Door #2″.  I think the kids loved that even more!

Yes, we did add some more to our tree, in case you’re wondering as you watch this video.

Untitled from Justin Thompson on Vimeo.

It was a blast to see the kids have so much fun.  It’s such a blessing that our kids have such great grandparents!  If any of you reading ever knew my mom’s mom…this “Door #1/#2″ is SO something she would have done.  Mom, you’re for sure your mother’s daughter!  I’m also going to direct you to my mom’s post about our “Christmas Day” because I think my dad might have deleted our pictures (dad??) after he put them on his computer.

MOM’S BLOG POST.

**you’ll have to scroll through a few pics of Thanksgiving that she put up, but the Christmas ones are at the end.  Mostly they are of Corban dancing…hah.  He’s such a hoot!

Cailyn finished her year at the Nido (school) she attended this past year in the middle of December, and they had an end of the year show.  Please do not think “kids standing on bleachers singing cute Christmas songs”.  The show was FOR REAL.  On the one hand, it was a bit funny to see how insane they treated the show, but of course we had a blast watching our girl do her dance!  We did pay $42 for her costume to be CUSTOM made JUST for HER.  What?!  We also showed up on time, but apparently the Peruvian parents know to get there an hour early and begin the line to head into the auditorium.  We sat in the next to last row.  Don’t think I didn’t stand up on my chair at one point. hehe.  The teacher (once again) had to have our help in getting C to even participate at school in order to learn the show moves, but I have to say that she was the best little “Libélula” (dragonfly) on stage!  I mean, she knew her moves, and she executed!  No nerves with her!  Corban had a great time clapping for her the entire time.  I wish I had video of him clapping and yelling “YAY DISTER!”(sister).  It nearly made me cry…hah!  The first pics are of C, but I’ll add a couple of some of the other “ACTS”…because you just HAVE to see these costumes!  We WILL be a dragonfly for Halloween next year.  Cailyn doesn’t know that just yet.

C is the 2nd from the Right…

Now on to showing off the costumes and props…

After their show, the oldest classes graduated.  Cailyn just sat there mostly while the rest of the kids sang what we think was the Peruvian national anthem…haha.  She didn’t even try to learn that.   C is the 2nd from the Left side…

We had Christmas day just as a family of 4.  It was the first time we weren’t with family…ever…for me or Justin.  It wasn’t a bad day, but it did feel a bit odd.  The kids woke up and opened a few presents, we totally went out to eat for lunch (NOT our norm), and then we just relaxed the rest of the day.  Here are the kids on Christmas Eve.  Thanks to a sweet Christmas gift bag full of goodies from Kelly and Sara Davidson, our kids had a Gingerbread cookie mix and icing tubes for some cookie decorating.  These ended up being Santa’s cookies…

For the New Year, Justin and I rang it in by playing Peru Monopoly together (all of the properties are places in Peru, and the board/cards/money is all in spanish).  We had never played, but the kids and I gave it to him for Father’s Day this past year.  We had fun, and even though we didn’t finish, I’m pretty sure I would’ve won.   Then, around 11:30pm the fireworks started, so we headed up to the roof to watch them.  Yes, you can shoot legit fireworks from your roof here in Peru.  We might do that next year…haha.  We did some sparklers with the kids before they went to bed around 10pm, then we (me and j) ate our dinner together.  Peruvians eat a meal at midnight usually and then spend the entire night up with family and friends, so we were technically still too early even though we finished dinner at like 10:30pm.  It was a relaxing night to say the least.  Now, it’s on to 2012!

This is a catch up post if you haven’t noticed!  I’m hoping to keep up some more on our blog.  I’ve found myself completely wrapped up in just preparing for my day with the kids, especially since Cailyn is now home for summer break.  We’ve gone to the pool and the beach several times each, and the kids swim nearly every other day in our pool in the back yard (just a large blowup one).  We’re excited for this new year for many reasons.  God definitely just walked us through one of the hardest years we’ve had as of yet, but we see him providing for us in numerous ways and we know that we grew so much this past year.  We’re anticipating this next year to be the start of a new beginning in many ways here in Peru, and we’re super excited about it!  I hope to be sharing with you all more specifically as these next few months unfold and God is more clear with us where he is leading our family.  Thanks for all of the support you’ve all given this past year.  We certainly felt positively overwhelmed with love from each of you!

SEVEN YEARS!

How has it been that I’ve been married to this wonderful man for 7 years now?!  It seems like the time has gone by so fast sometimes, while also feeling like we’ve been together for an eternity at others (a good eternity!).  I could not say enough good about my husband.  He truly loves me and our family with all of his being, and we will forever be blessed by that.  He took me out on Saturday night (the 17th) for a bit of an early celebration…today, the 18th, is really our anniversary.  We had an amazing steak dinner, we had some really great conversations, we laughed, we dreamed, and we made goals for our next year.  I love that our anniversary falls at the end of each year, because as we look forward to another calendar year, it’s easy to also be inspired to make new goals for our marriage.  Justin, thank you for always being eager to work with me at making each year of our marriage better.  I love you!

THANKSGIVING 2011

 

Mom and Dad got to spend Thanksgiving with us, and it was such a huge blessing to have them.  Not only was it just wonderful to celebrate with them, but we had 2 extra sets of hands to help us prepare!  Preparing the food was really the least of our preparations, because we hosted Thanksgiving this year, and our total number was 22 adults and 18 kids.  It was crazy, but tons of fun!  We had our team there, our 4 amazing interns, and 3 other families (2 that live here, and 1 that happened to be visiting one of those first 2 families).  We all decided to pitch in for a jump castle, because…well, let’s face it…we had 18 kids here.

Not only were we literally finding spots for all of our food to sit in places like…oh…our laundry room (we had TONS of food), but we had some amazing time of fellowship as well as a washers tournament.  The kids brought in the Christmas spirit with a viewing of the movie, The Polar Express, as well.  We could not have had a better time!  Here are all of the pictures!  Oh…and one last thing.  I can’t take all of the credit for the kids tables.  Just because we hosted, does not mean I did it all myself!  It was a group effort to say the least!

Prep work…making the kids’ mayflower candy boats…

the finished products…

daddyO and Cailyn making lemonade…

roasted veggies and homemade peanut butter cups…

Kid table…I found this adorable turkey idea, and Wes Y. took it on for me!  Thanks, Wes!  I think his looked better than the original.

THE entertainment…(with only 7 of the 18 kids pictured…i mean, duh…can you see why we got this thing!)

kitchen madness!

trampoline complimentary with the rental of the jump castle…thank God!! (and here’s 6 more of the little kiddies…)

our sweet pea girls at their table…

the rowdy boy table…

the AMAZING salad bar our 4 intern gals made…SOO good!

the turkey carver…

dessert table.  yes, my napkins were on top of the dessert plates due to having NO other spot for ANYTHING!

at the last minute we had to go and walk the intern’s dining table over to our house because we had no more kitchen counter space for food!

our little cutie, corbs…

what a blessing to have such wonderful food!!

Blake Goodfellow making the bracket for our washers tourney…he did all the prep work for it…including making our trophy (pictured below with the winners).  this is our TV room, and yes, it was looking like this within minutes of the start of our night…hah!

washers in action…

and the winners are…THE YOAKUMS!! (notice the awesome wolf trophy)

We could not have asked for a better day for our Thanksgiving Day of 2011.  We were truly blessed!  If any of you who were here read this…we want you all to know how blessed we feel by you and your families!

daddyO & Honey – our first few days

**I know I haven’t posted anything since the beginning of October!  I will just have to do some backtracking after I post about our fabulous time with my parents.  They are still here now (Monday, Nov. 28th), but they might be gone by the time I actually get this posted.  They have to leave tomorrow night after spending 2 weeks with us.  It’s been wonderful!!  Let me show you our proof!

C had grandparents day at her school about a month ago and saved her gifts she made to give to Honey and daddyO when they arrived.  She also got to go to the airport with Justin, and she was beyond excited!!  (they flew in at 10:30pm at night, so it was quite the treat!)

First morning…in bed together reading…of course.

We didn’t even make it past our entryway with the bags the first morning.  Corban got some of his belated birthday gifts, and Cailyn was super proud to receive a sweet dove charm necklace that belonged to my mom when she was young.

here she is showing her necklace off…look closely and you’ll find the dove.

Dad scrificed 2 Freebirds Burrito shirts to make capes for the kids.  Clearly…it was a success.

Park fun while mom was at the gym and daddy went for a run…can i say, SO NICE to have grandparents here as our means of care for the kids for a couple of weeks!  We miss that a ton!

The first night they were here, we celebrated Maribel’s birthday all together with some muffins.  It was nice to spend time with peruvian friends alongside our parents.  Please pray for Jose & Maribel…we are really beginning to have some great Bible study time with them…

Mom brought some awesome books about Thanksgiving, so of course we had a few pre-Thanksgiving activity days…

We had a fantastic and gorgeous day at the beach!

Cailyn is a pro at playing in the sand.  Justin dug her a hole to climb in…

Taking a nose dive.  He was LOVING the ocean!

She…was not.  She LOVES to be there, but has a pretty high level of fear when it comes to the waves.  She keeps her distance…hah…to say the least…

Corban, not so much.  He would have gone swimming alone had we let him…

NEXT UP – Our THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION with our wonderful Gringo friends here in Peru!

He turned 2…in August

I have literally meant to write something about our adorable little boy who turned TWO in August for…well…really since his birthday at the end of August.  So, tonight seems to be the night.  Here are all things Corban…

Here’s the little cheese ball hamming it up for a photo on the night we celebrated my birthday…eating ice cream!

The first thing I think of when I see his adorable face here is that he looks just like what I remember my younger cousin, Cami, looking like when she was little.  Cami – you were cute!

• The biggest thing he does these days is talk.  I really cannot emphasize how much he talks.  It amazes me, really.  He will repeat ANY word he hears in spanish or english. We often hear him saying things like…”Sister, you help me put my shoes on, please?!” or “Mommy, I uhn (want) hehp (help) you make a moothie (smoothie)!  I uhn sit on da (the) towner (counter) and hehp you?!?”  Seriously…sometimes I just laugh at how easily he tells us what he needs.  I’m not biased or anything about how smart he is, by the way.
• He sleeps in a pack-n-play.  I know…odd.  But, he does, and he can totally climb out of it.  He has only climbed out a couple of times when Cailyn was in his room talking to him after he’s woken up for the day or from a nap, and we’ve been very clear that that is not an option.  We don’t plan to move him to a big boy bed soon necessarily.  I’m not ready for that.
• He totally still uses his paci, and there are not big plans and talk yet between his daddy and mommy about when we’ll get rid of it…I know it’s time…ugh.  For about a little bit now we’ve told him he can only have his paci when he’s in bed sleeping, and he does ok with that.
• He still GREATLY adores his sister!

• He loves, loves, loves playing outside.  He is always entertained WAY longer when he’s outside.
• He has begun to take an interest in watching videos that we have.  Mostly Elmo and Barney.  He never sits for an entire video unless he’s strapped into his high chair while I’m in the shower/getting ready for the day.  Which really means he happily watches most of it and then spends the other half asking me to “det down” from his high chair. 
• He is still OBSESSED with soccer balls…which is what he calls any type of sports ball mostly.
• He is still talking about his soccer ball birthday party, and he sings “Happy Birthday” to himself often.
• He has to do E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. just like Cailyn.  Like, if she has cereal in a baggie on the way to school, he wants a baggie full of cereal too.  If she’s eating yogurt for breakfast, he wants that too.  If she is screaming out of pure joy and excitement, he screams too…even if he has no clue why he’s screaming!
• His biggest punishment these days for disobeying is time out.  This always does him good, because he needs a good breather every now and again.  Whether he’s indifferent to the fact that he’s being put into time out or very, very sad about it, he ALWAYS gets up from time out with a HUGE smile and literally RUNS to us for his little “post time out” talk as if it’s the biggest event of his day.  It always makes me sort of laugh inside…even in the midst of working up a good “do you understand why you were in time out” speech.
• He probably loves his play guitar the most out of every toy he has.  He can really jam with it!  He loves to sing, and he can remember words to songs pretty well.  He has led us in family worship the last couple of nights, and it makes me smile to think of him praising God and loving it!
• He really loves to read now, and he’s gotten really cute about sitting and making up the stories/reading on his own these days.

• Yes, we did begin to potty train him a couple of weeks ago.  No, we are not still potty training.  Yes, it was mostly because of me.  He was BEGGING me one morning to use the potty, so I did…and…he went.  What?  So, I just went ahead and declared it day 1 of potty training.  He did really well until day 3 and decided he was really not interested in the time it took sitting on the potty.  He began to get upset and whine and cry when I would say it was time to sit there.  Because of our experience with Cailyn, I decided that I would stop and wait a few more months until he could understand a bit more about why he needed to sit there for longer than 5 seconds.  The thing is, though…he learned just enough that he still asks to go and tells me EVERY time he is about to go #2 in his diaper.  So, at least I know he is very aware of the process of all of that…not sure when I’ll pick it back up again.  For now we continue to let him sit on the potty when he asks, but we’re not pushing it much.
• He just decided that using the pedals on his tricycle is better than moving it with his feet on the ground.  He could really go super fast with his feet, but I guess he’s realized that’s not the best way.
• He eats nearly anything we want him to.  He drinks a green smoothie with me nearly every morning.
• He runs to get anywhere.  Rarely is there ever walking involved.  He falls numerous times a day due to the fact that his little feet can’t run as fast as his upper body wants to go.  It’s really pretty funny.
• He rarely cries from falling down.  He’s tougher than I expect him to be most of the time.
• He loves to make people laugh, and he is really silly.  When he knows he’s done something funny…he keeps on…and keeps on…and keeps on…
• We usually hear him singing, “Na Na Na Na BATMAAAAAN!” early in the morning through the monitor we still have in his room.  Super cute, and it makes the fact that it’s time to get out of bed less draining.
• He ADORES getting to help out in the yard.  In addition to this, he never gives up the chance to wash the car!  Part of the money we pay our guard (and great friend!) on our street each month includes having our car washed a couple of times a month.  Jose is so great with our kids.  He has a 2 year old as well, and he is so sweet to basically let Corban undo what he’s already done to the car-hah!

• He loves to paint, and many days he asks, “Mommy, I tan (can) paint today?”  So, while we don’t paint like this often, I probably should a bit more…he loved this!

We continue to fall in love more and more with this little rascal every day.  He brings us a lot of joy, smiles, and laughter!