Trip to El Salvador

This post is way overdue, but I wanted to share a little about the amazing trip I took to El Salvador at the end of July. I actually shared my testimony at church Sunday when we returned, so in an effort not to repeat myself I will just link the video below. We did one of our ministry dances first, then my testimony is next.

El Salvador

They aren't in chronological order, but here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip!

This girl attended a school that Castillo del Rey hadn't been able to enter in their 19 years in ministry. We were the first team allowed in.

Bubble blowing on the streets

The first day of ministry I was one of the clowns. I think I had a little too much fun.

Our team ready to leave on the first day

These girls were not quite sure what to make of me

About to trapeze into a volcano lake!

Hanging out during one of our many gas station bathroom breaks

Missy and I slept out in the lobby one night to keep cool

Some sweet girls!

We spent our free day at the beach and I had some great naptime in this hammock!

My view from the hammock

Pupusas!

Brando was one of our Master's Commission students. He was amazing! 

Lily Grace is 2!

Dear Lily,

Last year your birthday was bittersweet. We were halfway around the world, missing you and wishing that we could celebrate with you. But we were thankful that it was the only birthday we would be missing out on. We sent you a cake and some gifts, and received this picture that still makes me smile. 

Last year when I saw it I thought that maybe you were upset because you were shy and didn't like the attention or maybe the massive amounts of flames scared you. Now that I know you, I am pretty sure that the reason you are crying is because someone told you that you couldn't have the cake yet. 

Now this year on your second birthday you seem a world away from that girl. And I suppose you are. It has been so much fun watching you grow and change over the last seven months. Not only do you have a lot more hair that hangs in your eyes unless I put it on a pony on top of your head, but you have an even more beautiful smile, a twinkle in your eyes, and a cute little tan. 

The tan can be partly attributed to all the swimming you have been doing lately. You LOVE the water! You have absolutely no fear and will literally walk right in. At least you have learned to wait until I put your floaties on and ask permission before taking a dive now. Most of the time you just float around the pool, but you also love to jump in (especially with your big brother), be thrown in the air, and stick your face in. And you don't just love water in the pool, you love it in any form! The first thing you do when you get in the bathtub is fill up a cup with water and dump it on your head. Then you splash like crazy, lie down like you are floating, and flip over and pretend to swim. Recently you even stuck your head in a bucket of water repeatedly!

As much as you love the water, I think that your absolute favorite thing is food. I'm pretty sure that you would eat all day long if I let you! While you have yet to meet a food that you didn't like, your favorite foods are rice, raisins, graham crackers, mandarin oranges, and yogurt. You actually feed yourself with utensils remarkably well, although you prefer to use your hands. It is pretty difficult to eat around you though. No matter what food you have in front of you, you want what everyone else has. Even if it's exactly the same, you seem to think that the grass is always greener on someone else's plate! 

I definitely think that you have a gift for and love of music. Any time you hear music you start dancing, which is super cute! My favorite is when you are eating and do your little happy dance moving back and forth in your seat because you like your food. Most of your dancing is swaying back and forth, but sometimes when you really get into it you move your arms up and down. The ice song from Frozen gets you dancing like that every time! You also enjoy singing along to the entire Frozen soundtrack. Not with words, but with a cute little humming sound that may not be in tune but definitely changes pitch. And you have started singing along with the little lullaby that I've been singing to you ever since we came back from China. Songs with motions of course hold a special place in your heart as well. Row Your Boat, The Wheels on the Bus, and Itsy Bitsy Spider are the most popular with you. Now you even ask for Row Row by name!

Ever since your palate surgery you have been saying new words every day! You say "na" for snack, "wa wa" for water, hot, out, off, help, up, Mama, Daddy, ball, bowl, bow, boat, bath, woof woof, meow, car, and I think there are more but I can't remember what they are right now. This is of course in addition to all of the signs you learned from watching Baby Signing Time. 

You are inquisitive, adventurous, brave, determined, independent, mischevious, and busy! I feel like I turn around for one second and there you are on top of the table with scissors, or removing the back off the remote taking out the batteries, or trying to balance on top of something. You also try to do everything that your brother and sister do, and you don't realize that you are much smaller and younger than they are! When you see something you want you go after it. You definitely have no qualms about leaving my side, and I have to work hard to keep tabs on you! I've been amazed at how brave you've been through all of your hospital visits and surgeries. I was most impressed when you had to have an entire vial of blood taken and you didn't even flinch. You just watched the nurses with this look of "what's the big deal?".

While you definitely love your Daddy and run to him when he gets home, you are still a Mommy's girl, especially when you are in unfamiliar settings. You love to sit on my lap and snuggle with me. And you definitely still get jealous when I hold or snuggle with Caroline. I love listening to you laugh and seeing your scrunchy nosed smile. I love watching you entertain us. I love watching you copy and play with your older brother and sister. I love watching you learn and grow into our family more every day. And I love that I got to spend your second birthday celebrating the precious gift that you are. I love you Lily Grace!

Love,
Mommy

Happy Birthday Matthew!

Well buddy, it finally happened. You turned 5! I told you and told that you weren't allowed to get any older or grow any bigger, and you did it anyway. Every time I tell you that I don't want you to turn 5 and I want you to stay little forever, you tell me that even when you're big you'll still love me and you'll still want to snuggle with me. I love how sweet you are. You have such a loving and sensitive heart. You will often tell me that you're worried about something and I can see that your little mind is always thinking about things that are often bigger than you are. You are also a great problem solver. A lot of times you say "I have a great idea" and then tell me how you are going to do something. Usually there is lots of detail involved in your explanation, which I love. I can already tell that you are going to be a lot like me! Sorry about that ;o) You are a perfectionist, very detail-oriented, and a slight control-freak. While these characteristics may not sound like the best, I see them as some of your strongest attributes. And since I share them, I hope to teach you how to use them to your advantage as you grow up.

It has been so amazing watching you grow in your relationship with your sisters this year. I know it must be hard to have two little sisters at your heels, but you have definitely grown to be best buddies. You and Caroline love playing puppies together where you both pretend to be puppies and bark and chase each other around. Your new favorite game is to play baby. I think you like this one because one of you pretends that you need a diaper change and you get to say words like "stinky" and "disgusting". You love to teach Lily how to do things, and it's so cute to watch you get excited when she finally learns it. You have done a really great job of playing with her even though I know you don't like your toys to be messed up. When I told to keep your door closed when you have something set up that really helped, and you even told me that you like your new little sister now ;o)

You still love anything with wheels. Trains, cars, planes, trucks, even skateboards. Speaking of wheels, we got you your first real bike for your 5th birthday and you learned how to ride it in 10 minutes! Now you are whizzing all over the place, and ask to ride your bike all the time. You are usually pretty cautious, so Daddy and I were so proud of you for being brave and trying it right away with no training wheels. Now you are proud of yourself too. I know because you told me :o)

This year you went to school five mornings a week. I was a little nervous when the school year started because you didn't really like school last year. Thankfully this year was great! You loved your teacher Ms. Lynda and made some really sweet friends. I am impressed with everything you learned too. In fact, I'm still discovering things you already know! I'll try to teach you something and you quickly let me know that you already know that from school. In addition to learning lots of things, your work ethic and fine motor skills have greatly improved. You will sit and work on something for a long time until you think it's right. Sometimes I have to remind you that only God is perfect so it's ok if your coloring goes a little outside the lines or if your circle isn't perfectly round. You've also become quite the artist. You enjoy drawing cars, trucks, buses, trains, houses, rainbows, and flowers.

One of my favorite times of the day is when we get to snuggle together in your bed. You are still pretty much a mommy's boy, although you have recently realized how much fun it is to do "boy stuff" with Daddy. When we snuggle I get to hear about your day, pray with you, and rub your back while you very sweetly rub mine. You always ask for one more hug and one more kiss when I leave, which I love. There are so many things that I love about you and I am so proud of the big boy you are becoming. Happy birthday little buddy!

6 months of love

What does 6 months look like?

It looks like 12 visits to four different doctors. Five visits to the hospital. Three major surgeries.

It looks like five pounds and two inches. Growing two sizes in clothes. A few more inches of hair.

It looks like trips to the playground. A vacation to Disney World. Music and movement classes.

It looks like hugs and kisses. Giggles and squeals. Tears and tantrums.

It looks like a baby growing into a toddler. A child learning to love her siblings. An orphan becoming a daughter.

It looks like the gospel.

6 months ago there was a baby who had no idea we were coming for her. She had no idea what it meant to have a family or to know the love of a mom and dad. She didn't know what she was missing. She did nothing special to deserve a family's love, and there is nothing she can do to lose it.

We love you Lily!

 

 

Party on the Farm

Every year when it comes time to plan my kids' birthday celebrations, I think "what can I do that will be the least amount of work for me and lots of fun for them." While that sounds rather lazy, I have found that everyone enjoys themselves more when no one is stressed. And by no one I mean me! If I can avoid a cooking, cleaning, decorating frenzy that causes me to spend less time with my kids and to snap at my husband then I go for it. I have also found that combining my kids' parties has been great. Matthew and Caroline's birthdays are a month apart, and they basically have the same friends. I don't know how this will work next year when Lily is old enough to have a party, but for this year it was great.

So back in December we bought our Christmas tree from a local farm in town. When I was talking to the family selling the trees, they mentioned that they use the farm for field trips and birthday parties. I filed this in the "less work more fun party" section of my brain, and a few months ago I emailed the wonderful Callie from Parker's Porkers and asked her for some more details. She invited me out to the farm to have a look around (during the day this time) and tell me how the party would go. I was sold!

We planned the party for Saturday afternoon, late enough that little ones could nap first and hopefully getting a little less sun than a morning or lunchtime party would bring. The weather on Saturday was absolutely gorgeous! The high was only in the low 80's and there was a nice breeze to keep us cool. We showed up at the farm at 2:00 to set up. The Parkers had already set out all the tables and chairs for us and had the place looking amazing. All I had to do was decorate and put out the food. For some reason every time I try to have a party outside I have serious issues with wind. The nice breeze that I was enjoying earlier in the day quickly became an annoyance when it kept blowing all the tablecloths off the tables! Thankfully I had remembered the same thing happening last year at the park so I brought a roll of packing tape and started taping those suckers to the tables. It took a few tries, but finally they were all secured. My parents arrived and helped set up the last few decorations and put out the food. Then our guests started arriving!

The kids spent the first bit of the party just running around, playing, swinging, and enjoying the space. We thought that it would be smart to go ahead and eat before we got into the dirt and animals section of the party, so once most people had arrived we ate some farm treats.

Then it was time to feed the animals! Callie reminded the kids of a few safety issues, then took them over to the cow pasture. There were only three cows that I could see, way far off. Callie told the kids that to get the cows to come over they start yelling "Come on girls". Soon there were 20-something kids lined up along the fence calling "Come on girls, come on girls" over and over. At first it didn't seem like anything was happening. Then all of sudden one cow starts moving, then another, and another, and soon there are cows appearing out of nowhere and running across the pasture to the kids. One of the funniest things I've seen! There were probably about 20 cows and a few calves all lined up along the fence, and the kids were throwing their cow food to them.

When the cow food was gone we headed over to the pigs. Caroline had been talking about the pigs ever since we visited the farm to see if we wanted to have their party there. They have several very large pigs, and two different litters of piglets. One litter was only a week old so they stayed penned up, but the four month old pigs got to come out and run around with the kids. They loved it! Some of the kids ran away from the pigs, and some ran after them trying to catch them. Not so shockingly, Matthew was one of the kids running away and Caroline and Lily went right for them.

Next on the agenda was a hayride, with a stop to climb on the tractor on the way over. Matthew of course loved sitting on the tractor and pretending to drive it. We piled all the kids into the hay and the adults sat along the edges of the trailer as we ventured to a farm on the other side of the street. We drove around in the fields and then stopped to feed some chickens! The kids all got a bag of chicken feed, complete with dried worms! Matthew didn't like them, and wouldn't touch them until I assured him that they were dead and weren't going to move. I still think he dumped all the worms on the ground when I wasn't looking.

We rode the hayride back to the farm and all the kids gathered around a giant wooden table to plant seeds! Callie had different types of vegetable and flower seeds for them to choose. Each kid got a small pot and learned how to stick their finger in to the first knuckle, drop in their seeds, and then cover them up. Matthew chose to plant corn and Caroline planted zinnias. We now have about 10 plants in our "table garden" that we actually need to transfer over to our yard. That is one of our summer projects. But, back to the party - now that the dirt and animals section of the party was complete, we had all the kids wash their hands and head into the porch for cake!

Everyone sang to Matthew and Caroline, and then enjoyed some delicious cupcakes with red icing. Most kids looked like they were bleeding from the mouth and their clothes weren't much better. You're welcome parents :) By the time cake was finished, so was the party. Even though we were there until almost seven talking with the Parkers and cleaning up! Our kids had a great time, and we hope that our guests did too!