Our Ministry Overview Video

Last December/January a very talented couple from our home church in Wichita, KS came to Petén to put a ministry video together for us.

This was unexpected and such a beautiful gift! We are more than thrilled with how they told our story and what we believe God put in our hearts for the work here.

We were saving it to share with churches on our furlough back in March, but then I forgot to post it on here once we got back in April. So now it has its own page and you can watch it here if you would like!

 

We enjoyed having Jonah and Grace here and celebrating New Years with them! We had our traditional fondue/game night for New Years Eve, so they will forever be a part of our family memories. 

Heard Around the House #13

 The kids' 2 bedrooms are going to be finished in the next couple of twelve months. The boys sleep in what will be my parents room when they move here (Yay!) and Eden sleeps in our closet. We were discussing who would sleep in which room. Silas felt bad for Eden because she would be alone in her room. (I predict she will end up sleeping in the boys' room for the first couple of months.)

Dada - "Well Eden isn't a twin."

Jonah - "Yeah, me and Silas are twins, he takes care of me and I take care of him."

Beautiful definition of twins!

Eden is VERY independent. Much more than even the boys are now. It started with her pushing us away so she could do it herself and she would yell "Got it!" Now it has evolved into her saying, "I do it!!!" She gets so disgusted with me if I try to help her... with her shoes, getting into the car, filling up her water cup, anything really. She always wants to help ME though, so I don't feel completely rejected!

{We were trying to make cupcakes that looked like the ones in Eden's book.}

{"No Mama, I'm an angel I would never eat another cupcake if you told me not to!"}

Eden wouldn't let us help her potty train either. I explained it to her and she did not like the idea at all at first. She fussed at me when I put cute little pink panties on her. Then I said big girls use a potty and that only big girls could help me in the kitchen. (That is our thing. She sits on the counter and helps me with nearly every meal.) That rule broke my heart, but it only took a couple days. Soon she started asking for panties. The first time she used the potty (she wouldn't use it with either one of us in there helping her... HARD-HEADED!)

I was in the laundry room and I heard her start to cry, not a painful cry, but an angry one. Then she yelled, "Mama, bop!" Sure enough she had bopped in the potty and she was not happy about that being what she was expected to do now. Then she said, "Candy?!" Soon after that she started waking up, taking off her diaper and putting on panties herself. She goes on her own now and gets her own candy afterwards. She doesn't use diapers for naptime but I'm waiting till she gets her big girl bed until we try all night. Killin me! She is a year ahead of when the boys were finally potty trained. I'm grateful about how ridiculously easy this was compared to them, but I am SO sad that she is so big.

Jonah came up to me the other day very serious and kind of whispered - "Mama, I'm growing right now." I guess sometimes you can feel it, lol! 

{Like feeding a bunch of monkeys}

Silas doesn't have a lot of patience with Jonah in the mornings. He really wants to play, but his internal clock is about 2 hours ahead of Jonah. Even if Jonah wakes up with everyone else, that doesn't mean he is functional yet. Silas was just fussing at him for every little thing one morning.

Mama - "Silas, you worry about Silas."

Silas - "Mama, if I worry about Silas then that means that I don't believe in God."

{Silas' depiction of our family... I love Dada's big head! Silas and Dada are also carrying backpacks.}

The kids were squished in the back of the pickup the other day and Silas was stating that he didn't have room to sit. 
Jonah - "Just deal with it!"

MaG was thinking about flying here and picking up the grandkids to spend a week in the States with her and G. I was worried about Eden missing us. Very excited about the idea, Jonah and Silas immediately started reassuring me that they would all be ok and not miss us. Silas took it a little far and said -"Mama, I won't miss you AT ALL!" That got Mama really upset. Jonah caught on immediately and was very diplomatic about the whole thing. Finally he was tired of me and Silas going back and forth and said very frustratedly - "Come on Silas! Just say you will miss Mama!"

Jonah came into our room one morning to snuggle. His head was on my tummy and he must have heard something. He looked up at me and said, "Mama, God is talking to your heart. I don't know what He is saying, but He is saying something."

{Snuggling on the bed with a pile of books!}

One night after our night-night routine, Jonah got all worked up about something. He was crying and getting more worked up by the second. I went into their room and said very seriously - "You need to stop this Boobooing!" I meant to say boohooing, but once it left my mouth, Jonah immediately started cracking up laughing! Now whenever anyone is having a bad attitude, which we all suffer from once in a while, we say, "Stop your Boobooing" and it helps lighten the mood.

{We love board games in this house!}

Lucha, Jimmy's boxer keeps tearing up the rat screen on our back door trying to get inside the house whenever she hears fireworks. (Which happens multiple times a day here.) Jimmy has fixed it dozens of times. One night he was really upset with her and saying he was going to do anything from putting her down, to taking her out into a field and just letting her go. Silas was upset about it. It was his turn to pray that night as part of their night-night routine. He prayed, "God, please help Lucha be good and please help Dada fix his attitude!"

{Popsicle too!}

I was sitting in the living room having a very serious conversation with Silas. I was thinking, this is great, he is really getting what I am trying to explain to him. Then he leans over and whispers with a grin in my ear, "Mama, I just tooted on the couch two times."

{Silas' first sight word... thank you, Dada!}

Eden AND Silas were on the bed one morning with us and Silas said, "Shhhh, I hear something!" Eden looked at me and whispered, "Bad guys." I think she plays pretend with her brothers a lot! 

{Dada got us pop for movie night!}

Jimmy was sharing with the kids a verse from Proverbs. He was explaining was a hypocrite was. He gave them all superhero mask and then explained that who you are is what you are when you take your mask off.
Dada - "Silas, right now you look like iron man. Take your mask off. Now, who are you really?"
Silas - "Batman".

{How Jonah brushes his teeth!}

Out of nowhere one day.
Silas - "Mama, I love you more than catching... I don't really like catching at all." (Nice!)
Mama - "Catching what?"
Silas - "You know, catching balls, catching fish." 

{So thankful for these guys!}

Silas is very serious about pie... any type of pie. Dada promised Silas a piece of pumpkin pie after church one night, so he had been waiting a while only to find this:

Heard Around the House #11

Jimmy was in the car with the boys taking them to get haircuts. He was planning on finishing a sermon podcast on the way there, but his headphones died. The boys knew he was a little frustrated (they had just taken his headphones apart and we spent a while looking for all the pieces).
Silas - "Dada, everything dies. Somethings die and then other things die, but everything dies."
Jonah - "Yeah, Dada, don't be mad."
Silas - "It's just a toy, Dada."
(Whenever they get all worked up over something I make them repeat things like "It's just a game." So we get a bit of our own medicine sometimes!)

Every time my boys get a haircut, they look more and more grown up… it makes me sad.
Mama - "You guys need to stop growing!"
Jonah - "I can't help it, you keep making us food!"

{Grocery shopping with these 3 is a circus!}

Jonah - "What's that bottle on the counter?"
Mama - "Floor wax."
Jonah, "No, in English!"
(Now when they don't understand what I'm saying they tell me to speak in English!)

Mama - "Do you want to be a camel for the Christmas play?"

Silas - "No, I want to be Batman."

We were in the capital and bought a box of Frosted Mini Wheats. We ate them as a bedtime snack in the hotel.
Silas - "Mama, this cereal helps me bop!"

Jimmy leads the worship time at church and I play the guitar, so our kids sit without us during that time. Silas left during the worship time one Sunday to go potty (even though he's not allowed to.) Jonah often gets really into the worship and didn't notice until later and started to panic. He came up to me during one of the songs.
Jonah - "Mama... Mama, I lost my brother, named Silas!"

The boys really wanted to decorate the Christmas tree, but we all agreed to wait for daddy to get home.
Silas - It is 14 o'clock! Daddy should be home now.
Mama - "Clocks only go up to 12, you know that."
Silas - "Well you need to fix them and put a 13 and 14 on them."

After Silas' whole jumping off of the chair situation we were having a conversation about Superman and how he is pretend and not real. We've have these conversations a lot.
Jonah - "Yeah, Silas, Superman is pretend, Iron Man is pretend, the Hulk is pretend."
Silas - "No! Superman is real!"
Mama - "What you see on tv isn't real."
Silas - "Is Bolt real?"
Mama - "No"
Silas - (very disgusted) "Well!... Am I real? Is that light real? Is the window real?"

{Eden loves showers so much she has a hard time waiting for us to help her}

After asking Jonah to apologize to his brother for snatching something from him I sent him to time out.
Jonah - "Sorry means no time out!"

We were playing a game where I sing the 12 disciples song and when I stop they can name the next disciple for a jelly bean. We had just started learning the song when...
Mommy - "Simon Peter,..."
Silas - (yells out in excitement) "Pan"
He didn't get a jelly bean.

Silas - "Mama, there is something under the couch that I am not allowed to touch. And it has eyes and a very long tail."
I stood way back when I bent over to look under that couch! Thankfully it was just a really big lizard… bigger than the normal ones that reside in our house.

{Silas, the great lizard hunter}

Here he is after he finally crawled our of our recliner. All the big lizards here run on their back 2 legs, so it's always fun to watch them get in a hurry! 

We asked the boys before Papa and Kiki got here at Christmas, who wanted to sit by Kiki and who wanted to sit by Papa at the table.
Jonah - "Ummm, I want to sit by Kiki, Papa is a little silly."
(Jonah takes eating very seriously!)

So from then on Silas says, "I'm silly like Papa", whenever we laugh at him.

On that theme, here are some pictures I never posted from my parents' visit back in December:

{Pollo Campero in the city}

{The little granddaughter Papa prayed for} 

{The coolest train track ever!} 

{Poor Eden is the only one in a carseat at this party}

On our last full day together in Petén we all went on a boat ride to a little zoo for poached animals.

Our favorite part was the monkeys!

Everyone shook their hands right away except for Silas. I think he was more milking the situation than actually being afraid of them, because before we left he made sure he didn't miss out on the opportunity. He's our little drama boy!

 

{Cookies with Kiki one last time!}

{Morning in the hotel in Guate}

{Riding the train at our favorite mall in the capital}

{And riding it ONE MORE TIME}

Wouldn't it be fun to be a twin!

Family Traditions #21: Happy 4th Birthday Jonah and Silas

Hype for the boys' 4th birthday started 3 months ahead of time. I drew some calendars on our chalkboard wall and we started crossing off days and counting down when there were still over a hundred days left till their birthday. I thought it might be a good way for them to understand days, weeks, and months, but with a week left before their birthday they were still telling each other "In 5 minutes it's going to be our birthday!" Oh well, maybe we'll conquer that concept next year. 

Both sets of Grandparents, their Great Grandparents and even Becca all got gifts down here in plenty of time. We are so blessed to have some many people who love and care about our children! I wrapped all the gifts and had them on the table a week ahead of time... because I love watching their anticipation! 

They decided months ahead of time that they wanted an Avenger themed birthday party. They picked out a Captain America piñata. 

I really thought I had them sold on Captain America Shields for their individual cakes, but a couple weeks before they landed on the Hulk and Iron Man... unfortunately. Then I made the mistake of showing them pictures of cakes on Pinterest!

{Taste testing the cake crumbs!}

Silas really wanted a 3D looking face of the Hulk and he was VERY specific about him having "mean teeth". 

I'm a lot more comfortable with fondant than I am with carving the cake... let alone building facial features. 

I made his cheek bones too sharp. If Silas had asked me for a green alien I would have nailed it! In the words of Becca, "If it taste good, who cares what it looks like... oh yeah, Pinterest does!" (That makes me laugh every time I think about it.) Thankfully I only had one critic, and that little boy loved it!

I finished his first and he and Jonah both kept asking me to pull it out of the fridge to show them over and over again. That made me very happy! Silas liked his mean teeth!

Well Jonah saw a picture of an Iron Man cake with eyes that lit up... what?! He told his Daddy about it and Jimmy made it happen!

I found gold dust at the bakery supply store, to make the mask look shiny. I still struggled with the carving part. All the angles confused my directionally challenged self, but it still looks like Iron Man and Jonah was stinking thrilled!

On their birthday morning Daddy measured them on our ruler. (Eden loves wearing the boys' PJ's... cracks me up.)

They have shot up since we measured them 4 months ago. They keep going back in forth as far as who's taller. I'm glad. Right now it is Silas, but Jonah eats about 3 times the amount Silas does, so probably not for long. 

Then it was time to open up a present before breakfast! (We usually try to space their presents out all day so that they have time to really play with them.)

I love how they always include Eden. They are really good big brothers!

Jimmy's Grandparents attached a photo to their presents so the boys would know who it was from. I think that is a wonderful idea!

Here is our birthday wreath and banner! You can see our half finished front porch. 

The boys had picked out talking Iron Man helmets that light up and shoot bullets that we brought back with us from furlough. I think they had kind of forgotten about them though. 

They quickly remembered!

Then we skyped with MaG and G and they opened those presents. 

They had gotten them Kindles. Jimmy loaded them with books and educational apps (which means no Angry Birds) and put timers on them. Hopefully we will be able to get most of their textbooks on them when we start homeschool. Silas did figure out how to bypass the timer problem though. He always wakes up before Jonah, so he just plays with Jonah's Kindle first... naughty. 

After breakfast we started setting things up for the party!

Here is Jonah checking out the spread!

The day before the boys helped me make Iron Man laser hand cookies!

Jimmy made some Green Hulk's Punch!

{Love the little boy holding his helmet in the corner!}

Here is our Captain America Fruit Platter! Jimmy was the biggest sweetheart and cut everything on this tray and even made the dip for me. 

 We made popcorn ball Thor Hammers 

and served Iron Man salsa (only because it is red!)

 Here is our Superhero Recharging Station! And after all of our guests went home, a couple of vegetables were the only leftovers, haha!

I didn't get a good shot of these last two things, but we also had Hulk Pudding and Hawk's Arrows which were BBQ chicken shish kabobs that Jimmy grilled. (Now the boys think Hawkeye only shoots at chickens!)

We got everything set up just in time before our first guests arrived! 

We are so blessed to have so many Christian friends around us now. We really did not have much fellowship until recently. Before we would go 6 months at a time maybe without seeing anyone outside our work, now we have fellowship on a weekly basis. I didn't feel lonely before, but I do regularly thank God for the great friends that He has brought into our lives now. I am so thankful for all who came this day and made our boys feel so special! All of their friendships are a blessing to our family. 

Hugo (sitting on the couch in front of Jimmy) is the boys' closest friend right now. Silas introduced him to our last team as "This is Hugo, my other brother". He's so funny! Jimmy tries to talk to the boys sometime in Spanish to get them to respond in Spanish. They just laugh and say, "That's how Hugo talks!" They have started telling me things people say to them in Spanish, in English, but they don't speak much Spanish yet... at least not to their parents. 

Cake Time!

 Here are Silas and Jonah sticking their "4" candles in!

I didn't even realize that my friend Holly captured this video until I was posting these picture. Yay!

 They opened up a present or two after cake time, but then they were all ready for the piñata!

I thought these wooden spears that Jimmy's friend Stephen made for them were so cool! The boys are always going on some imaginary adventure with these spears in hand now.

 Notice Jonah very wisely getting out of the way!

Eden liked putting her candy in the little baggies! 

We all relaxed on the patio and in the backyard for a little while. 

 I was very thankful that God held back the rain that day and in it's place put this beautiful rainbow in the sky!

We opened one more present...

 and then went back outside to do the little party poppers that MaG sent. That was a tradition from Jimmy's childhood!

 I think the adults had as much fun as the kids or at least I did! 

After everyone went home we skyped with Papa and Kiki. They had sent them some Superman PJ's and muscles with capes and a basketball goal that we hung on our back porch! The boys love playing basketball now that Daddy has taught them how!

Notice the Superman shirt Papa has on. My dad never owned a single t-shirt until he had grandsons. Now he has 3 - a Superman one, an "Uncle Silas with a beard"one, and an Iron Man one that he wears every Wednesday night when he skypes with his grandkids!

Their Great Grandparents sent them books and a Veggietale movie, so we popped popcorn and watched it before bedtime... well it was a little past bedtime by that point!

We thought that we were ahead of the game this year by getting their footprints in the the pavers before their birthday, but do you notice anything wrong with them?! 

Here is their end of the day birthday interview. They were very sleepy!

I am so thankful for these 2 "Big" boys! So thankful that God chose to bless our lives with them. I thank Him every single day.