2 sides to my "Kid" Coins :D :'(

Do you ever think about an event in your life or fond memory with mixed emotions?! Let me tell ya, as a mama, I sure do and I know that I am not alone in this. Here's a glimpse of the common, everyday, wonderful things that are going on in with my kids and my thoughts on them.

First, there's my sunshine, my precious, adorable, loving, sweeter than sugar, firstborn baby girl with the infectious smile and bubbly laughter-- 

Clara Grace

Love her more than I can say. She brightens my day, EVERYDAY and I can't imagine my life without my little helper.

Enjoying her spaghetti supper, can't you tell? {wink, wink}

I mean, come on, just look at her isn't she a beautiful princess and precious treasure?!!!!

Mouth full of food and all!!! :)

"Inside-Out Pony-Braid" Since when did my little girl, get so big?

She's growing up so much and so fast, hair included. She's turning into an amazing little girl and I am loving every stage.

Coloring pages from Sunday School do double-duty around here. :)

Here's the down side, SHE'S GROWING UP! and she sure seems to be in a hurry about it, too!

Sometimes, my brain screams at me as I watch her play, "Can't we just slow down this show a little!!!" It's flying by soooo fast, where's the pause button?!?!?"  She's sooo smart and sooo funny--I don't want to miss a moment.

Holding up "Jesus Loves the Little Children" song sheet at church

She's not just a big helper at home either, she's already learning to help at church. I pray she will always have a willing spirit to serve and be used by the Lord.

 

Mama, loves you, my sweet Clara.

I pray for you continually that you will grow 

to be the beautiful young lady 

that the Lord wants you to be 

and serve Him all the days of your life.

May he protect and keep you.

Then comes my o-so-handsome, squeezable, cuddly, grabby, ticklish, happy, healthy, husky, Baby-Man--

Ethan Matthew

What a face! Don't you just want to eat him up?!

What can I say? He's the best looking soon-to-be man I've ever laid eyes on. (Other than his daddy, of course ;) He's so roly-poly, tall and chunky. He's a big ball of sweetness that already makes this mama's heart melt. 

Look at those slobbery, chubby cheeks. 6 months old and the teething has begun.

He's 6 months old now. Part of me says, only 6 months? Surely, he has been with us always. Can't remember life without him. On the other hand, 6 whole months have flown by already? Can that really be possible. What happened to that tiny newborn I brought home from the hospital not so long ago? Surely he must be around here somewhere? Nope, I've looked everywhere and all I can find is this adorable little "BIG" pudge ball. Can't we just pull back on the reins a bit? Soon he will be a baby no longer.

"I see you back there with the camera again, mom!" hehehe

So healthy and happy and full of life!! Always reaching out and capturing my ♥.

Ethan, you will always be my little man 

and I will always love you.

 You bring to my ♥ and life so many wonderful things already 

and I look forward to watching you grow and change everyday

I will be there for you every step of the way

and only want the very best for you--God's Will.

Father-Son Moment "Sooo Big!"

My men--there's just something about them, so special and unexplainable. They do my ♥ a world of good, I know that.

♥♥♥ My sweet little family! ♥♥♥

My kiddos {BIG Contented Sigh} What would I do without them? I honestly don't have a clue. Guess I better focus on what I will do with them for as long as I have them.
 I WILL do my very best to:

• Cherish every moment with them, even the ones that make me go "Grrr!" or "Ugh!"

• Take time for them--time to spend with them playing, teaching, sharing, caring, laughing, crying, loving, nurturing, fixing boo-boos and mending broken hearts.

• Make memories--do I want a clean house? Yes. Will I remember what it looked like next month, next year, 5 years from now? NO! Will I remember forgetting the chores and taking time with my kids? Yes, for a lifetime and they will, too.

~a mama with an overflowing ♥ of love and gratitude~

He's Still Holding my Hand

My heart is full and heavy, 

but I have naught to fear,

I know my Lord is faithful,

that He is ever near.

So when the clouds are gray,

and I don't want to face the day,

I just look up and say,

"Lord, you're still here to stay?"

He's still holding my hand

walking close beside me

carrying me through

when I cannot see

He's still holding my hand

I am not forsaken

no matter how I feel

though my whole world has been shaken

It's still in HIS Control....

and He's still holding my hand.

Just waiting for a cookie?!

Bible story time with a 3 year old. Like most things with a 3 year old, can easily turn into much more than just "Bible story time" with many wonderful memories and laughs included.
Right now we are working on a little booklet from "Mercy & Truth Ministries" on the attributes of God. Each night we start with a little review and I usually try to give a few clues to help jog her little "sponge" memory.
According to Clara:
1. God is "Strengthful"
2. God is "Perfet"
3. God is Peace
4. God is "Waiting....for a cookie" :)
I was trying to help her remember "Longsuffering" (pretty rough one for a young 'un to grasp) so I held my hands out in front of me to signal "wait". She does get 1/2 credit--after all, she got the waiting part right ;) I think after that her little tummy must have rumbled, reminding her of what she was waiting for. LOL

Another Clara funny (there are ever so many, I try to capture a few here :)
Went something like this:
Clara--I have to go potty.
Me--Ok, go ahead.
Clara--I want to take my Bible.
(As we were about to go on a little outing I asked--On our trip?
Clara--No, to the bathroom, I need to read a couple verses in there.
{Super big mommy grin}

What can I say? Everyday, every moment with my kiddos = Priceless!




P.S. So, if I gave God a cookie, do you think He would ask for a glass of milk? {Wink, wink, teehee}

Goofy Girl "Glamor" Shots

He's in the Stain Removal Business!

Don't you just love church?! I sure do! The fellowship, the singing, the preaching--I love ALL of it! Last Sunday night, our family was in church as usual. However, my at-times-rather-pukey baby, was even more pukey than usual. Uck! Right before church he chose to puke on the floor (thankfully, we don't have carpet) at the front of the auditorium and of course, down the front of my dress, too. In the process of trying to clean that off a bit, his diaper decided that it was just to full to hold another drop. Needless to say, I added another "spot" to my already hurting outfit, a nice big wet one on the side of my sweater (good thing I was wearing my black one). After changing his clothes and really wishing I had an extra outfit for myself, we went back to the auditorium, where the service had already begun. I heard on approaching that people were sharing blessings just then, and as I entered the room Pastor asked for my blessing, too. (Nothing like being put on the spot, esp. in another language, Yikes!) So, I said the first thing that came to mind, "I am glad that I am here, I am rather dirty, thanks to Ethan, but I am here at church!" Everyone got a good chuckle out of that! Next, Baby-Man decided that he was not quite finished with his "job" yet, and puked a bit more on the floor, my sleeve, and his clean-til-then sleeve, too. Talk about feeling super gross and disgusting, much as I wanted to be at church, at that moment, my desire to go home and take a nice, hot shower was definitely greater! I felt so icky, ucky, yucky, covered in nastiness! So, what did I do? I handed off my baby, making sure a burp rag was in the very near vicinity, and went up front to sing in the choir. All I could think was, "Unbelieveable! This always has to happen to me, especially when I am in public and have to get up in front of people. How embarrassing!" Not exactly the best attitude to have while getting up to glorify the Lord in song. In fact, it was a rather awful attitude! Not a lot of praising the Lord happening with that going on in my heart. BUT, the Lord's still working on me, and as we began to sing, he used the words of an old, familiar hymn to break my ♥.

You see, we were singing the song "At the Cross". The words in Spanish are a bit different, but equally amazing. The chorus says something like this (rough translation from the Spanish version to English):

At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light,

and the stains of my soul were washed away,

It was there by faith, Jesus gave me sight,

and with Him, I will be forever happy.

(It's much prettier in Spanish as it rhymes :) ) 

What I want you to notice, is that second line as it jumped out at me on Sunday night. "The stains of my soul were washed away" I said, "THE STAINS OF MY SOUL WERE WASHED AWAY!!!!!" I think I might have to run a few laps around my house right now, shouting, "Glory! Hallelujah!" Let me tell you, that line hit me like a ton of bricks. I was so busy thinking of how dirty and stained I was on the outside, and the Lord so sweetly, so convictingly reminded me of what is really important. He seemed to bend down and quietly say into my ear:

"Remember those stains of sin that covered your heart, I washed them all away for you. Every single one! They will never come back. They are all gone! Isn't that a much better thought than worrying about these little spots on your clothes that will come right out in the wash?! Though they might return, your sin stains won't. I don't remember your sins anymore, they have been washed by the blood of my precious Son."

 WOW!!! I just about lost it right then and there. To think that God did all of that for ME! Somehow, I managed to keep it together for the rest of the song and took a moment or two in the bathroom afterward to let the tears of thankfulness come. As always, God gave me just what I needed when I needed it. He did a work in my heart and gave me an attitude change. He got my eyes off of myself and my petty problems and onto His Son and what He did for me on Calvary (which is what I should have been focusing on the whole time!). Who needed a sermon after that?! Just give me an old-fashioned altar, so I can do business with my Lord.

Time Out at the Tea House

Wow, I guess I have some catching up to do. The ladies of our church went to a tea house for our July ladies mtg. a couple weeks ago. Even though time has quickly passed me by and I am just now sitting down to write about it, I just can't pass up sharing with you what a nice time we had.

We had 9 ladies who ventured out on a rather dreary, rainy Friday afternoon to be warmed through and through by the companionship of sweet friends and hands wrapped around warm, soothing cups of tea in any flavor imaginable. I, not being much of a tea fan myself, had some nice mint tea with plenty of sugar and that suited me just right :)

Reading my devotion

 I had the privilege (and job, boy was I nervous and it takes a lot of prep. work to speak in another language) to give a very brief devotion on the subject of friendship. I must admit I am a big chicken {bawk, bawk} and because I wanted to enjoy the rest of our time instead of suffering from a giant "brain-overload" headache, I had the whole thing written out. I took a few ideas from the life of Ruth (my favorite lady in the Bible) and tied it in with being a good friend. Needless to say, it was short, sweet, and to the point. (For me, the normal chatty-Cathy, it's hard to do much more than that at this point :( :) But, like most things in my life, I am working on it and God's still working on me, remember?!!!

Tasty treats 

Doesn't it look nice?!

Later, we all enjoyed these simply delicious little sandwiches and desserts, along with scones and pastries and an assortment of spreads to put on them. Of course, the best part was that we didn't have to make them or share them with our kids; just sit back, relax, and Enjoy!

Exchanging secret pal gifts

Me and my secret pal, Norma
We had each other as secret pals :)

We also had a lot of fun and laughs revealing our secret pals of the past few months. I think my secret pal was rather stunned to find out that I was her secret pal, too. (I am just so clever that I had it figured out--haha!)

I also thought that this would be a great time to introduce you to some of the sweet ladies at our church. They are all unique and they are all a blessing to me in their own unique way. I love each of them and am so glad that the Lord has given me this time to learn from, love, and work with these special ladies.

Me and my hard-working Pastor's wife, Angela
She is such a help and blessing to me in countless ways!
She gives of her time, talents, and treasures to the Lord, to our church, and to me.

Our Sunday School teachers:
Flavia (left) teaches the 4-7 yr. olds
Yanel (right) co-teaches the 0-3 yr. olds with me
Love these ladies and their sweet spirits!

Yanel and Claudia
Claudia joined our church a few months ago and is jumping in with both feet!
She wants to be involved and soak up God's Word. Such an encouragement to me!

My dear friends from church
Back (left to right): Angela, Claudia, Yanel, Me
Front: Flavia, Carmen, Marta, Esmeralda, & Norma

I am so blessed to count these ladies among my friends, especially since it takes them an extra special amount of patience to put up with me--Both in language skills and personality! It was so nice to have this little outing together with Christian friends!

A Friday Family Outing of Blessings

I ♥ Fridays!!! "Why?", you may ask. Well, for a lot of very good reasons, many that you may use, too. Such as the end of the week including work and/or school (aka for me Spanish homework), the beginning of fun things to come on the weekend, the approaching day of Sunday to go to church and serve and worship the Lord in His house among His people, etc. etc. However, my main reason (being the 'spiritually-minded' gal that I am {insert big barrell of laughter here}) I L♥VE Fridays, because that is our "family day". At least on Friday nights, we try to take some special time to spend together with the kiddos and just focus on having fun and enjoying our family. It may be something as simple as pizza, Pepsi, and playing Go Fish (too bad Clara usually wins ;) or, now that we have wheels, we sometimes get to have an outing and maybe even make a day of it!!! That's what we did this past Friday, and let me tell you after being "cooped up" in the house all week. It felt wonderful to escape into the sunshine for a bit!

We decided to head out to the town where the best hospital in Argentina is located (seriously, recent stats say that it is rated #1 in Argentina, and #4 in all of South America) and that is where I was so very blessed to give birth to our thriving, chunky-monkey {big grin}, Baby-Man, Ethan.

Hospital Austral

Just born and not happy about it!

Ethan's first bath at the hospital

 Matt wanted to stop by the hospital and talk to someone about signing up for a family healthcare plan (as we are "crazy" missionaries, who up until now, do not have any type of insurance). When we arrived, the guy that handles that good stuff had just left for lunch, so we thought that sounded like a good idea, too, and headed to the mall. This mall has a small food court with an indoor little play area, including 2 baby swings and 2 slides. Clara had a great time burning off some energy there, and Baby-Man got in on the action, too, with his first time to swing. (Too bad, I left my camera at home, huh?! Grrrr!) Next, we made our way to Burger King to eat (big splurge, but hubby says we are just making up for lost time when we didn't have a car and couldn't go anywhere or do anything--he's a good analytical justifier, isn't he?!). They had a play place upstairs, so after eating, Clara was again able to play her little heart out. Good thing nobody else was up there though, since the tunnel was missing some of its grippers and Matt and I had to climb up there a bit and give Clara a boost each time. What a funny sight we made, I am sure! lol
Eventually, we made our way back to the hospital and I waited in the car with my tired-out kiddos while Matt went in to see what he could see. I was even a good little student and attempted to listen to the radio and improve my Spanish vocab. (Every little bit helps, right?) Well, believe it or not, Matt came back to the car and the first words out of his mouth were, "We have insurance now." Really? I was flabbergasted. You see, it is virtually impossible to go anywhere and get anything done in just one trip down here. There always seems to be a catch or hassle, hang-up, missing paperwork, multiple trips needed--something to make things more difficult and take longer. But no, Matt signed us up for a family plan, and get this, it covers everything, that's right I said, everything!!! The more he explained the more I wanted to jump up and down with excitement. This plan covers all 4 of us for dental, eye, emergencies, check-ups, whatever we need and with NO co-pays either. WOW!!! On top of that, it isn't costing us an arm and a leg to pay for. Such a tremendous blessing!

Actually, I received so many blessings both big and small on this little outing of ours. Spending time together with my happy and healthy family, enjoying a sunshiny day and 'riding in style' in our own car, watching my kids laugh and play, having God's protection from the crazy drivers all around us, and watching the Lord provide a wonderful insurance plan for us that will go into effect next month (no big waiting period--WooHoo!)
What can I say? God is good--ALL THE TIME, and extra special good to ME! {big, satisfied smile}

Kid's Day with My Precious "Little Stars"

Our Class of Adorable "Little Stars"

This past Sunday was Kid's Day here in Argentina. Basically, it's another day/excuse to spoil your kids rotten and for stores that carry children's clothes and toys to make a BIG profit. However, the benefit is that it makes for an automatic BIG day in Sunday School, too. :) I got such a blessing out of seeing our little church building stuffed to capacity with shining, smiling little faces. Whether they came to see the video (a cartoon about Missionary Jim Elliott), or for the gifts (more than likely) or for the candy, etc. All of that doesn't really matter. What matters is that they came and heard that Jesus loves each and every one of them, enough to die for them. Amazing!!

Church, full of kids

Singing "His Banner Over Me is Love"

Clara, being distracted by mama and the camera ;)

As I mentioned a few posts back, I am so blessed to work in the 0-3 year old class of Estrellitas (Little Stars). I often {not so jokingly} comment that I am in that class because that is the level of my Spanish communication. {Wink, wink} Some days that's about right, too. It is so wonderful to share a Bible story with these sweet little kids, teach them Bible verses and songs, show them how to pray and give their coins to Jesus, and just sit back and watch them interact, too. They are always exploring and learning something new. So neat to see things through their eyes as the whole world opens up before them. And to give them a Godly, Biblical perspective on life, beginning at such a young age, is incredible!
So, for Kid's Day we gave each of our "little stars" a little box of colored pencils with a colorful clown face on the front. The original idea was to buy boxes of crayons or colored pencils that have an oval shaped hole in the front so that you can see all the colors. Then you are supposed to cut out a hole for the mouth of the clown and put it over the hole in the color box, so that the colors show and look like the clown's teeth. Pretty nifty, huh?! Unfortunately, we did not find color boxes with a hole, but the clowns were super-cute, nevertheless. :) If you could have seen the kids' faces light up when we revealed the "Surprise!!". PRICELESS!!

Clara loves to color in class

Snack Time!

Ethan, happy in his walker

Playing "Train"

I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of our church and to influence these kids for the Lord. It is truly amazing to see what they soak up. A couple weeks ago, I taught a lesson on Joseph. I shared with the kids how Potiphar's wife wanted Joseph to do something bad, but he said, "NO!!!" and ran away. I went on to explain that if a friend tries to get you to do something bad, you need to say, "NO! NO! NO!" and run far away, too!!! Well, evidently at least one of my little students was paying attention. That same night at supper time, his older brother told his mom that it is hard to do right sometimes, because he had really wanted to hit his sister, but didn't do it. His little 2 1/2 yr. old brother piped up, "Bad things--NO, NO, NO; good things--YES, YES, YES!" and when questioned about it, he said that he had learned that in class from Heather and Yanel. I cannot begin to tell you how it thrilled me to hear this! 

Friends and Funny Faces

Working in our Sunday School class is such a joy and I think I get the most out of it! I love, LoVe, LOVE it and I LOVE these kids!  :)

"Lucy, Bread, & Echo"

"We ♥ Lucy!"

Kids truly do say the most comical things, don't you think?!? Earlier today, Clara and I were happily watching the "I Love Lucy Show". This is one of our favorite things to do while multi-tasking a myriad of other things such as folding laundry, feeding Baby-Man, playing with ponies and cars, coloring, working on homework and Sunday school lessons, etc. etc. It really is a very multi-purpose tool {Wink, wink ;)} Anywho, in the midst of watching a wonderful and humorous episode involving Lucy, Fred, and Ethel dressing up multiple times as different people to show Ricky's old boss that he really must have Ricky perform because the people were only coming to see him, Clara ever so politely interrupted with this ? : "Mama, is that Lucy, or 'Bread & Echo'?" To which I replied, "Yes, it's Lucy, now what did you say their names were again?" {Chuckle, chuckle} So, she very nicely repeated their names for me: "Lucy, Bread & Echo." Needless to say, it certainly caught my attention and gave me reason for a giggle and smile.

"Lucy, Bread & Echo" :)

Ricky asking for a raise

At the same time, this priceless moment with my daughter (of course, EVERY moment is a treasure), got me to thinking. It made me think about what a blessing of a good, (and I hope) godly heritage I am passing down to my sweet little 3-going-on-13-year old girl. To share special moments watching "Lucy" rather than the violence and garbage that is out there today. To teach her Bible stories and songs and watch her little brain soak them up like a sponge, too. To show her that there are still good, clean, wholesome things out there and that you don't need alcohol, drugs, dancing and partying, to have a good time. To show her that it is SO worth it to dress modestly and stay pure and be separated from the world. That giving your life to the Lord truly is the BEST path and that in return He will give you an amazing life that is above and beyond your wildest dreams! That being a Christian is a 24/7, not a Sunday-only, job. That being a missionary isn't a sacrifice, but a privilege.

Ricky Ricardo isn't here anymore?!?!?"