Sunday, December 14, 2008

More Advent Activities

Here are a few more pics of our Christmas activities...

Dec 11- Hang Christmas Stockings (forgot to get a picture of this)

Dec 12- Botanical Garden Lights




Dec 13- Shop for Mommy's stocking stuffers (it's a surprise so I don't have pictures...)

Dec 14- Make a Gingerbread House














Saturday, December 13, 2008

Please Pray!




Our friend Amanda has been waiting for her daughter Flor to come home for over a year now. Please join us in praying that the Guatemalan government would let her out of PGN NOW! Flor's b'day is coming soon and I know Amanda would have loved to celebrate her 4th b'day at home, in Alabama. When you think of it, please say a little prayer that she will be home soon!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

December 10th

Today we made cookies for our church staff.













Fern really enjoyed helping make the cookies and then eating them when we took them out of the oven.

BUT this is what happened when she realized we were leaving the cookies at church and we weren't staying. I'm not sure if it was leaving the cookies or leaving church that made her cry, but she did just that for about 15 minutes.
I guess she doens't quite understand the giving part...

Advent Conspiracy



Our church has been doing a sermon series called Advent Conspiracy. The goal is to Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All. The Brook, as a church is collecting a special offering for Living Water International. Our small group collected money to send to Amor del Nino. This is the home Fern lived in before she came home to us. We wanted to do something special as a family. One thing we decided is that we want to teach our children the reason we celebrate Christmas, Jesus' birth, and not just about getting presents. We started out with an advent calendar that contains different activities for us to do as a family. Here are the first 9 days of December...



12/1- Color a picture for Nana & Pa




12/2- Color a picture for Abby & Bob


12/3- Color a picture for Papa Joe & Gran









12/4- Taken canned food to the WAFF Can-A-Thon,


12/5-Toys for Tots

12/6- Christmas Parade-it wasn't that great so no pics...

12/7- Visit to Santa-Have to scan it in...

12/8- Set out our nativity
















12/9- Watched a Christmas movie together

I'll post more pictures when I upload them from the camera. Fern is so excited to open the boxes each day.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Trying to catch up...

I can't believe how fast time is flying! Let's see, we went to Nashville a couple of weeks ago, because I had the bright idea that we should go see the ICE display at Opry. While it was really cool, it was really COLD and a really stupid idea to take the kids. Here's a few pics of that adventure...


























As you can see, Bill was the only one having fun.









The girls were only happy when we were in the warmth of the mall.

Friday, November 21, 2008

growing girls...

I know I haven't posted much recently, we have been busy, busy...
The girls are getting so big.

Rosa is trying to walk. She can take a couple of steps but loses her confidence and falls. She loves to do anything Fern is doing. She has started trying to feed herself with a spoon/fork and does a pretty good job at it. She isn't talking a lot but her vocabulary contains the words: dada, kitty, boo, and she is trying really hard to say Fern. No mama yet, but that'll come soon and NEVER stop! We are working on giving up the bottle. She does OK until bedtime and then she wants it. She is growing out of 12 mo clothes and into 18mo, the same size Fern wears, and a 3.5 shoe. She has been very healthy since I have had her, but did end up with a double ear infection last week. After a round of antibiotics, she is feeling much better. I think she is getting more teeth, she keeps her finger in her mouth all the time. Overall she is a very happy baby, definitely a mama's girl. She loves to eat, anything and is adjusting to regular milk. We are so blessed to have her.

Fern is so smart! She has almost stopped speaking Spanish, which makes me sad. We are working on learning her colors, she knows rojo (that's red to us English speakers), but everything is rojo... She can count to 10 in both English and Spanish. She LOVES books! She has potty books-that's the books she reads while sitting on the potty- and she also sleeps with books. I am excited that she loves books so much. I am not a bog reader but Bill is so hopefully she will be too. She also loves to color and play with stickers. Her baby occupies a lot of her time, putting the diaper on, taking it off and scolding the baby that she should have gone pee-pee potty. And speaking of potty, she is basically potty trained. We still have accidents, but most days she ends up with dry pants at the end of the day. I actually put real underwear on her today, just to see how it goes. I will probably put the pull-up (do you know how expensive those are?)back on before we go out tonight, but she is doing great. Fern keeps us laughing. We love her so much and are so happy that God gave her to us!



Fern got bit in the nursery at church last week, here's her battle scar...




Rosa really gets into eating her cheerios...

Friday, November 14, 2008

Picture Time!

A few weeks ago we had some pics taken of the girls and a few of the four of us. Here's a few of my favorites...
















These were taken by Mary Ellen Pollard, Lighthouse Photography

Go check out her site!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Auri's coming home!!!


Our last roomie has finally gotten good news. Auri is out of PGN! Now we are praying she makes it home before Christmas!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Trick-or-Treating was a HIT!!!

Although it got a bot cold, Fernanada LOVED "treating"... She caught on real quick to holding out her bucket and being cute so she could get more "dulce" (that's Spanish for candy/sweet). She liked all the decorations, except the talking skeleton and the hairy hand that opened the door at one house. She did such a good job walking around the neighborhood and then helping daddy/papi hand out candy. Rosa was just along for the ride but looked cute as ever.





Here's a shot of Rosa in her birthday outfit our sweet friend Carla made for her.



I can't believe she is already 1. We had a great day celebrating today and I promise to post pics soon.