So Much to Say

So much to say, so little time.

Spoke at that women's meeting. It was so fun and I loved it. I would love to do that more often.

I cooked for the pastor's prayer meeting at our house. That was fun, but I hate spending that time in the kitchen when my kids want to play. Especially when we all had to be in the kitchen and be quiet while the pastors prayed. Next time I will make a casserole or something the night before.

After reading "Snuggle Puppy" by Sandra Boynton several times to my kids, I made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon for them. So fun to bless them like that.

It is so great to be out of school for the semester. I have nap times and night times and early mornings to do things that I want/need to do. Laundry, workout, pray, nap, pay bills, bake cookies...

My ladies Bible Study is back on after a couple of weeks off. I say off, but really, the people that said that they were coming wouldn't show up. That's Guatemala. It's hard not to take it personally. I mean, maybe I should, but they showed up today! :)

We finally found sand for the BoyD's sandbox. It cost $40 to fill it. Yikes! At leaste we are getting to play outside.

Rainy season has started. It rains every day. Well, almost everyday. It hasn't rained so far today, but it will rain tomorrow. Usually it starts pretty soon after lunch.

We bought a new vacuum. That was a really hard decision, because we don't just have a ton of money laying around, yet our other vacuum had to pass over an area 2 or 3 times to pick up the obvious dirt. With a dog, a cat, and 2 little kiddos, I demand clean rugs!

We bought it, and after the rugs had been vacuumed with the old vac, I used the new one. The folllowing pictures are the results. I vacuumed two rugs that are this size:
These are two photos of the dirt that this vacuum picked up.

This is AFTER they had already been vacuumed! So, all that to say, I am ok with our purchase.

This last saturday morning, we took the kids to our little park in our condominium to play baseball. It was so fun and so cute.

Here are some pics. BoyD had a really hard time remember to run to all the bases and then run home. He just wanted to run. It was great. Too bad there is no little league here! We'll just have to have our own.


Ok - going to go eat a snack and go to bed. Hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than later. I actually have a ton that I want to write about.

Ok - I wanted to post some photos of BabyM's room. I realize that her name is on the wall, but it won't show up on any search engine or anything.

This first is a broad shot of the wall:On the left are two of BabyM's dresses from when she was really little. In the middle is her name spelled out in cloth letters hung on a length of twine with clothes pins. (I will be getting some smaller ones soon) Under that is a painting by my sister-in-law, Denise. She is an incredible artist. She also did the treasure map painting in BoyD's room. On the right is a picture of a paper doll set. Her crib bedding in doll dresses.

Another view of above:
This is a close up of Denise's painting:

Ok, below is a close up of the cloth letters. I bascially cut out letters that I printed from Word, glued them to a cereal box, cut those out, and hot glued the fabric to the cardboard. Then is a shot of the paper doll picture.

Both these dresses and the paper doll print above are hung on some wooden drawer pulls that I found in a hardware store and covered with fabric. The hangers are ugly pastic ones, so I covered them with ribbon until I could find some others. I actually found some metal ones today that Brandon is going to spraypaint either silver or white. I'll then tie a little bow around them.

The best part is that aside from the painting and the print (both were gifts), I spent like $6-$8 on the whole thing. When I get back from my trip, I will finish the other wall, and post some more pics.

Finally, here are my sweet babies! BabyM just woke up (look...she is looking fatter!) and sweet BoyD sleeping with Brandon's boyhood stuffed dog.

Well, I don't consider myself very good at decorating, but this was one of those rare occasions when it turns out even better than I had imagined it. Even BabyM likes to be in her room better now. Any ideas on what color we should paint that wall? I am thinking some shade of green. We'll see.

More later:

Just an update.

I am almost finished decorating BabyM's room. The walls were totally bare until today. We've been here a year, and she hasn't had one picture on her wall! Oh, well. I will post tomorrow the photos of her room. I am so excited. There is still more to do, but it will have to wait a week or so.

I leave to go spend some time with my mom this Sunday. Me and the kids. Without Brandon. That will be weird! I mean, he has been gone from the house for a day or two, but I've never traveled for 5 days without him.

When I get back, I will have a week to prepare for the women's meeting. I will be teaching. I have like 45 minutes or so to share. These are pastor's wives, and there were 100 or so invited. So we will have anywhere from 25 to 100+. I am told I am supposed to teach on how to be a pastor's wife. WHAT?? I mean, what do I know about that??? I am a little overwhelmed. I am not a pastor's wife. I am not guatemalan. I don't have any idea what these women deal with. I have the impression that the pastors want me to teach their wives this.

Anyway, more on that later. Moore photos of my kids as well. I think that those photos might be the reason that many of you read this blog! Well...that's why the grandparents read it.

I went to the orphanage today. That is going really well, except that they are totally disorganized. I was supposed to work with 11-13 year olds, but when I got there, they were not there. And the other groups were working on their homework. I will go back tomorrow. I wish I could spend more time with those kids.

Ok...going to bed.

Big drinks and guns.

Ok. It's time to post some pics. Really don't have any stories to tell today. Just that I finally finished a 17 page paper regarding the revelation of God in prophesy, dreams, and visions. Whew! So glad that is over. Now I can go back to being a house wife and get some stuff done. This is sweet BabyM (who is eating great, by the way!) drinking a monster tea from Burger King. I tried to give her a drink of carbonated orange drink, and she just makes this awful face. She loves iced tea, though.

Time to cut bangs. That cup is half her size!

The other day, the kids wanted to play in the rain, so we took off thier clothes, put on their rain coats, and let them play. It was a little too cold, so BabyM was suffering a little. She was torn, because when I was trying to bring her inside, she wanted to stay out, but she kept shivering and crying out. I finally did the parenting thing and brought the kids into a warm bath. BoyD was super disapointed. The cold didn't faze him and he wanted to keep playing.
This is babyM and Glady's grand-daughter hugging. Well, BabyM is trying to give her a kiss, but she wants none of it. That little girl is about a month older than BabyM and so much bigger.
BabyM got to eat...well...she got to disolve a guatemalan cookie which is basically hardened pink meringue thingy. What you can't see in the picture, is the little pink handprint on the couch beside me.

And this is my precious GQ son. I think he knows how handsome he is. This kid asks questions all the time. I mean, why is his favorite word. The cool thing is that he aks important questions. Like about God and faith and life and death.

I must tell one story. My son is a Scott boy. We were watcing the last part of Jurasic park 3 and there was one dinosaur attacking the group of people and BoyD asked "where is their gun?" I don't know if I am proud or a little sad that my son thought of guns when the dinosaurs attack.

Anyway, I will be travelling back to the states with the kids to spend some time with my mom on mother's day. After that, I will be speaking at a women's meeting of pastor's wives. I can't believe that I am going to be doing that. Please start praying for that now.