Homemade Christmas

This year we ended up having a type of homemade Christmas.  This was in part due to necessity (toys are so expensive in Brazil!) and partly because we wanted to do something memorable.  

The day began with homemade cinnamon rolls. Mike made the rolls and I made the frosting which meant that Mike was the one who got up early.

Two days before Christmas, Mike made a bunch of blocks for the girls.  What made them extra special was that they were made from some leftover wood from the former mission base.  

 He even whipped up a box for them from other scraps we had laying around:

 He also altered the girls' doll house that they had gotten last year in order to fit their Barbies (it had three floors instead of two).  This is how it looked after he varnished and painted it:  

I got inspired and decided to make the girls some Barbie clothes.  These took me way too long (mainly because my old sewing machine kept jamming), but I think the girls liked them.  

Shower robes

A dress, a skirt, and a top I made from some old material I had.

There may be more pictures to come.  Since Christmas I made Barbie a pair of jeans and we're working on making them some hammocks!  

I have to brag about two of Mike's other projects (in addition to the cabinets he fixed for me for Christmas).  It's great having a hubby who is handy!  Last Saturday he made me this cabinet for above our bathroom sink.  It still needs to be varnished and doors/mirrors, but I think it's going to be great!  Ones we saw in stores that weren't even very nice were over $200!

  

He also made this swing for the girls in about a half hour from some scraps he had.  The girls are always begging us to push them.  The only problem is that he might have to make another one!  

So, that was our homemade Christmas.  We'll see if we are this motivated (or frugal) next year!      

Emily is 4!

We now have a four-year-old.  How is that possible?  In case I forget that Emily is quickly growing up, she is always ready to remind me that she is a "big girl now."     

She really is quite a big girl already.  She is learning to read, helps me crack eggs when I'm cooking (with amazing success), and will be starting pre-school in a few weeks!  

December 5, we celebrated her big day with some friends and the traditional special birthday cake. 

My favorite picture of Emily with her cake.

I thought about doing this cake last year, but Emily wanted a Thomas cake instead.  So, this year, I talked up the castle cake for a while.  Little did I know that this cake would take me forever!  First I had to make the cake and buttercream frosting from scratch.  I did buy the fondant which saved some time.  However, I was still up until 5:00 in the morning making it and that was before I put on the cone towers!  


One thing that took so long was that the fondant kept melting because the humidity here is way up now that it's rainy season.  I ended up having to put the fondant back in the fridge every little bit so that I could actually work with it.The next day we stopped at four places around town looking for the ice cream cones.  One place wanted to charge $1.50 for each cone, then we found another place that sold them for about 8 cents.  I even colored the sugar to coat the cones, which was a first for me.  So, anyway, here is a close-up of the finished product!  

The cake!

Blowing out the candles.

Family picture.

Emily, our quiet girl that isn't a push-over.  We are proud of how far you've come this year.  We can't wait to see how you will grow as a person and in knowledge of Jesus this year.  We love you so much!  

Lydia is 2!

My baby girl is 2! I can't believe two years have already passed since Lydia was born. She's been through a lot, including surgery on her skull at 12 weeks, 15 months of helmet therapy, but she's doing great now! She's our social butterfly, always ready with a smile.

For Lydia's second birthday I made a flower bouquet cake. This was actually one of the easiest cakes I've made. It would have been even easier if I had just used a ceramic pot instead of making one of out of cake. Overall I think it came out pretty well, but I was glad that I assembled it right before we ate it as it was a heavy cake!

My favorite picture of Lydia and her cake got out of the 100+ I took!

Lydia blowing out her two candles.

Family picture.

Lydia with Emily and her friends

Thanks, Lydia, for a great year.  We're looking forward to what the next will bring.  Hopefully it won't go by too quickly! 

Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter this year. We woke up early and had a breakfast potluck at church. We brought cinnamon rolls (which aren't made here in Brazil, so those were a hit). After Sunday school, we had a potluck with friends in town. I attempted to make a stromboli. Mine didn't turn out very pretty, so Anna made another one since there was extra dough. Hers turned out beautiful. The only problem was that since we were up until midnight the night before making it, I was a little tired. After I pulled mine out of the oven I put Anna's in and dosed off. I woke up and remembered her stromboli in the oven. When I took it out, it was like charcoal. Anna claims that I was jealous. :-) Thankfully, our friends brought more than enough good food, including a Japanese lady who brought homemade sushi! I know that was the first time I've ever eaten sushi on Easter! Maybe we should make it a new tradition.

After church at night, Emily colored eggs. She is to the age now where she can really enjoy it.

After that we did a video chat with my parents so that they could watch Emily and Lydia look for Easter eggs.

Emily found all (eight) of the eggs and then promptly put them all back. Once she found out there was chocolate inside, she gathered them back up pretty quickly!

The best part of our Easter was sharing the Easter story with some Curto friends that were in town. Below is a picture of a Curto girl with Emily. It was so fun to watch the girls play together even though they didn't share a common language. Let's pray that one day that will have a share common faith in Jesus!

~Kelli

Lydia is helmet-free!

Congratulations Lydia! She is officially helmet-free! She was such a trooper going through 15 months of helmet therapy without so much as a complaint. Even when the temperature reached over 100 degrees and her poor little head was drenched in sweat, she just took it all in stride.

I have to say that when I first heard that Lydia would need to wear a helmet, I was pretty disappointed. I didn't want all her baby pictures to have a helmet, but the more she wore it, the cuter it got, so much so, that I think I'll miss it now that she's done!

Although the helmet did have some disadvantages such as making it hotter for her, making her head stinky, and it wasn't the softest thing to cuddle with, there were also some nice things about it. It protected her head and she didn't get a single black and blue on her head the whole time! Now just a week after she finished wearing the helmet, she has a little bruise on her forehead. I don't think there was a week that went by that I didn't say, "Good thing she has a helmet!" However, the best thing about the helmet was that it made her head beautiful!

We celebrated her helmet graduation with a homemade cake, fireworks, and friends. Here are a few pictures from her party.

Lydia with her cake.

I had to show off the cake I made for her. This was my first time working with fondant and it was so easy!

Lydia's happy dance.

Although I'm not glad Lydia had craniosynostosis there has been a lot of good that has come from it. We were able to see my parents four times more than we would have, and my grandma was able to meet Lydia and see Emily again before she died. Mike was able to take classes on literacy development, and I've been able to help other parents who have babies who have the same condition as Lydia. I've even been contacted by parents of children with craniosynostosis who live in Germany, Brazil, and Pakistan! We praise the Lord for the advancements in medicine that enabled Lydia to be a beautiful and healthy little girl!

~Kelli

Another Eventful Trip to "Rubbertown"

It seems that every time we travel to "Rubbertown", where we used to live, something inevitably happens. I guess that's to be expected when you travel three or more hours on a bumpy dirt road.

We've broken down or had car trouble at least five times. This wouldn't be so bad except that this road is in the middle of NOWHERE! Many people think that "Soytown" is the end of the world, well imagine traveling hours beyond that. Now when you have car trouble, there's no phones (forget about cell phones working) and you'll be lucky to have more than 30 vehicles pass you the rest of the day. I can't tell you how glad I am that Mike used to work as a mechanic! Fortunately, this time, we didn't have trouble with the truck.

The girls ready for yet another trip

You may remember from an email update that our dog, Mali had ten puppies. On this trip we were transporting two puppies. One to sell and one to give to the village chief.

Mike put the puppies in boxes so that they wouldn't have an accident in the truck and put them behind his seat.

About an hour into our trip, Emily said, "Mommy!" in a concerned voice. We turned and saw that one of the puppies had thrown up all over our stuff. As we started cleaning that up, the other puppy threw up. We cleaned that up with the few baby wipes we had taken along and we were on our way again. About 30 minutes later, Emily said, "Mommy!" We turned and saw that the puppy next to her had thrown up onto her legs and car seat. At that moment, the other puppy threw up down the front of Mike's chair and over the back of his shirt.

That was it! Mike put the puppies into the very back of the truck. Five minutes later we checked on the puppies and they seemed to be doing okay, so we traveled about 30 minutes down the road. At our turnoff Mike checked the back and saw that instead of two puppies, there was only one!

Now what?! We turned around and prayed. We found out that the puppy that was missing was the one we intended to sell for $200 reais ($120 U.S.). We didn't know if the puppy had survived the fall, and if so, whether someone had grabbed it, and if not, where in the world it could be.

We had covered about twenty miles of road since we last checked on the puppies. We started the trip back, intently searching the thick brush on the side of the road.

We stopped every car we passed and asked if they had seen a puppy. Nobody had.

Finally about twenty miles back we found a truck that was stopped on the side of the road. He said that he had seen the puppy walking along the left side of the road -- about 15 miles back the way we had come. So we started back. About 13 miles from where we had seen the truck, we slowed way down and started calling out for the puppy. Nothing.

After we had traveled about three miles we stopped again. This was our last chance. Probably someone had picked up the puppy or it had gone too far off the road.

Suddenly something caught my eye. Could it be? Yes -- there was the puppy! We could not believe it. About two yards off the road sitting in the brush was the puppy.

About the area where we found the puppy

How in the world did we spot a black puppy sitting in the shade who was barely moving? What a miracle. The puppy had a slight limp and a couple tiny scratches but otherwise it was fine!

The puppy with her new owner

I feel as though God wanted to show me that if He cares even about this small puppy, then why should I think that He doesn't care about me and the Indigenous people here in Brazil? Even when things seem like they aren't working out the way I would like them to, God still cares.

~Kelli

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." -- Matthew 10:29-31

Living in a Sauna

I feel like I'm drowning! Why do I feel like I can't get anything done?! Why am I so tired?! Many days I find that I am more than ready to go to bed by 8:00 at night. This was a great mystery until I started to take into account the heat here. Most mornings it's already over 90 degrees and by mid-afternoon it's approaching 100. Unfortunately, since electricity is quite expensive, most Brazilian houses only have one window air conditioner in their whole house. Actually, I don't know of a single house in Brazil that has central air. We try to run our air conditioner as little as possible since every hour really adds up on our electric bill at the end of the month. Some days it really does feel like we're living in a sauna.

I found online that NASA did a study on the effects of heat on productivity. This is what they found:

Effective Temp.	75	80	85	90	95	100	105
Loss in Output	3%	8%	18%	29%	45%	62%	79%

http://truefog.com/Heat%20Stress/Heat%20Stress.htm

No wonder I feel like I'm not getting as much done as I would expect. Add to this that cooking takes longer here because we have to make things from scratch. Then since we don't have a dishwasher or could afford the electricity to run it, we wash all the dishes by hand. A good hour or two of my day is sucked up by washing dishes! Then since it's so hot, we go through more clothes, and since we don't use a clothes dryer, each piece is hung on the line to dry.

Then there's the cleaning. My house gets so much dirtier than in the States. Seriously, where does all this dirt come from! It's a fine dust, so we end up needing to mop just about everyday. I feel like I clean all the time and my house looks dirtier after one day than if I hadn't cleaned for a month in the States. Although I must say, there is something rewarding about seeing a definite change when you dust or mop something.

Here is my mop rag after mopping just the dining room. This is after I mopped it the day before and already swept it right before moping it.

Now you can imagine how nice it was to have Anna, a friend from Michigan, come down to Brazil for three weeks in October to help us. I met Anna "by chance" at a store in Michigan in June. She happened to hear that we live in Brazil and since she was interested in missions, she asked if we ever had internships. I said that we sometimes do, but our biggest need was to have someone help with watching the kids, and I added that I was sure she probably wasn't too interested in that. Turns out, she loves kids and is the oldest of nine children! About a week later she was buying her ticket to come down to Brazil!

Anna in Brazil

Anna was such a huge help to us. She watched the kids, helped keep the house clean, helped with meals, and washed dishes. This allowed me to finally spend a good amount of focused time working on the language. Mike and I were able to write a rough draft of a linguistic paper that really helped us understand the "Curto" language better.

It was hard to see her go, but she's planning to come back in February to help us for nearly four months! What a blessing!

If anyone else would like to come down for an extended period to watch kids and help with household tasks -- let me know!

~Kelli