Christmas Program at Church

Since Christmas was on a Sunday this year, things were a little different. Most Brazilians celebrate on the night of Christmas Eve, so we had our normal services on Sunday with some special activities added in. 

For a little over a year I have been teaching a Sunday school class for 2-6 year olds. We have four little girls who are there every Sunday, and I have really enjoyed teaching them. They are still sort of small to do a Christmas program with any speaking parts, and they all tend to freeze up in front of people, so I decided to have them just dress up to illustrate parts of the Christmas story as Jeremy read the passage from Luke 2. By the way, that's Josiah playing the piano in the background!

I think they had a good time doing it, and they sure looked cute. It's in Portuguese, of course, but if you want to watch it, here it is. We had the camera on a tripod, and it took Jonathan a few minutes to realize that Jeremy's head was cut off! 😀

Part 1

 

Part 2

Here are a few snapshots from when they did it for the morning service as a practice.

Merry Christmas!

Just a few pictures of our day on Christmas. We actually celebrated on Christmas Eve since we had church events on Sunday. It was a nice day together with no schedules or deadlines, just enjoying the time together. We missed our families that are spread all over the world, but we enjoyed video Skyping with grandparents which made them seem not quite as far away. 

No, he didn't really get a blender...but looks like he would have been happy with one!

Actually, the only thing he asked for was a globe, so he was happy to get this one.

When Your Spelling Memory Tricks Go Wrong

This TYRANT could be the next villain on "Veggie Tales"

A Little Bit of Pink

For obvious reasons (three of them), we don't have a lot of pink around our house.  This is reflected in many areas, one of which is my cake decorating hobby.  All of the cakes I make have definite boys themes. 

Recently, however, I had the opportunity to make a girly cake for a little girl from our church. I enjoyed it, and I think she liked it too.

God has given us a bunch of little girls in our church group, and it has been fun to be "aunt" to them.

Christmas Calories

Yesterday we did our annual Christmas cookie decorating.  It's a bit of a mess, but the boys have a lot of fun with this. We all got involved this year, and it really was fun. The boys improve every year! Maybe someday we can go into business! 😄

Orchestra Debut

We had the opportunity recently to join the city orchestra here in Vilhena.  It has been great experience for the boys, and we hope that through it we can make new contacts and become involved in some community events.

Saturday was the first presentation we were able to participate in. It was a casual event, playing some Christmas music in a park downtown. We enjoyed it and the boys were excited about it.

Josiah and Jonathan ready to go!

(Next time I need to get them to pose with their instruments...oops!)

Judson is the photographer, since he is not yet playing in the orchestra.  He is learning clarinet and doing great, but is still a beginner.  He goes with us to practice though to watch and listen. His favorite thing is to watch the first violin player, because when she plays, her hair falls in her face and he thinks that is just great!  He always tries to sit where he can see her.  She doesn't even know she has such an admirer!

We didn't get many pictures of the actual event, since we were playing,

but Jeremy snapped this one from the back while warming up.

Out for ice cream and açai afterwards

Blurry No More

In the last several months, Judson has commented off and on about his vision being blurry.  But it's hard to tell with kids when they are serious, and with this kid, it's even harder!  He tends to be dramatic, and he we couldn't tell if he really had trouble, or just thought it would be cool to have glasses.

Anyway, we kept it in our minds and kept an eye on him. He didn't have any trouble with reading or with his schoolwork, but we began to notice that if he was watching TV or playing the Wii, he could read the words on the screen unless he got right up to the screen.

We decided it was time to have him checked out.  I had a "mom fail" moment when the nurse had him look at the huge letter on the other side of the room, and he couldn't tell what it was. We had no idea that it was quite that bad. 

Later, after the doctor examined him and got him all fixed up with a prescription, we left and Judson remarked that the appointment was neat because he hadn't seen anything clear in a long time.(Wow!)

We picked out some glasses for him, and he's doing great at taking care of them and enjoying looking at the birds and the stars with new appreciation.

And to top it all off, he's as cute as can be!

A Teenager in the House!!!

Josiah has officially made us parents of a teenager!  I thought I might wake up completely gray-headed today, but so far so good!

Josiah is a huge help to me around the house. He is always offering to help out, and I never have to wonder if he has done his chores. He is very organized and methodical {I have no idea where that came from ;-) }  We pray he will always keep a sweet spirit.

We are very proud of him, and thankful to have him as a part of our family!

Happy Birthday Josiah!

It's not a great picture, but it was fun to watch them playing and laughing together.  That doesn't always happen...believe it or not...and so I wanted to capture the moment.

Celebrating Judson's 9th

 

Wintery Weather

It has been rather warm the last few weeks, but yesterday the wind started blowing a cool breeze and then the rains came and the temperature plummeted.

This was yesterday evening when it was 66 degrees outside...we were all freezing!

Unsolved Mysteries

Last week, we had some unexplained events happening around here.

I went outside to start the laundry in the morning, and saw a red Lego man lying on the ground near our side wall.  I thought that it must have come from the neighbor boy who lives on that side of us, and I was surprised that Trixie hadn't found it and chewed it up. She loves hard plastic things! He even still had his two ninja swords on his back.

The boys took it later over to the neighbor's house to return it, but he said that it wasn't his. He didn't know where it came from either. Since we had no idea where it came from, we just let the boys keep it and they were thrilled to add it to their Lego collection.

The next morning I went outside for my normal morning routine of laundry and noticed Trixie busily chewing on something. Upon investigation, it was another Lego man!  This one, however, wasn't as lucky as the first, and he lost his legs in the incident.  Another man to add to the collection...well, half a man!

The boys came up with all kinds of theories as to where these Lego men came from. Everything from the tooth fairly to birds picking them up and dropping them off. It was amusing to hear them come up with explanations.  One idea was that someone was walking by with them and dropped them, but since we have a wall and gate around our house, that seemed unlikely. 

We never solved the mystery, and they were slightly disappointed when on the third morning I didn't find any more!

Judson's Clarinet

Judson is learning to play the clarinet.

(And the rest of us are learning patience! )

Actually, he is doing really well, and we are already seeing improvement.  He started playing with two top teeth missing!  And if you think it's easy to get a good sound out of a clarinet (even with two front teeth), then you've never tried!

Our Relentless Guard

One morning recently we were awoken to Trixie's barking...very early, and on a Saturday, no less!   She wouldn't quit, so Jeremy went out to see what had her so excited.  She was barking at the car.  Yes, you read that right. She was barking at the car...sitting in the driveway.

He managed to quiet her a little, but it wasn't long before she was barking again, and wouldn't leave the car alone.  We decided there must be something in there. Jeremy opened the hood, and saw a mouse duck down in the motor. 

The mouse wasn't going to be shooed out of there with Trixie right there ready to pounce.  Jeremy even set a mousetrap on top of the engine, but the creature stayed hidden away in there. 

Good and faithful Trixie stayed right in this position all day.  She would not give up! 

Unfortunately, she was so relentless that she tried to get up under the car and go after it. In the process she managed to pull out and break some wires that had to be repaired.

Finally around 3:00 in the afternoon we had to go somewhere, so we took the car and hoped the mouse would fall out somewhere along the way.  I guess it did, because when we got back, Trixie didn't sniff anything out.  I hope the word has spread that mice are not welcome around here!

Super Sized

Can you see the beetle in this picture? 

(hint...it's under the water spout)

Here is a close up with a size comparison for you.

More Mouth Metal

Jonathan has some new hardware in his mouth.  He now has braces on the bottom teeth also, and rubber bands from the front top to the bottom in the back.  This has made things a little more uncomfortable for him, and he didn't eat much the first few days, but I think he is getting used to them now, and they haven't been bothering him as much.  Except for the fact that he has had three brackets come loose at three separate times and he has to go back to the dentist for them to be glued back on!  The dentist said that his molars are still small, which makes it harder to glue to the pieces on. If we keep having this problem, they may have to try something different.

It's a little tricky to get a picture of someone's teeth without them looking goofy, but we tried!

Isn't he cute?!?!

How Boys Apply Knowledge

Isn't it great when kids have knowledge...and also know how to apply it?!

In Honor of Super Tuesday

It is possible that we have been talking politics and elections a lot around here lately. This is what Judson was playing with this morning.

From left to right...Ted Cruz, Ben 'Cowson,' Marco 'Dogio,' Donald Trump, and Carly 'Catarino.'
(Those are Judson's original names, by the way.)  And then there are the moderators on the other side.

According to Judson, Carly 'Catarino' spoke out of turn and was kicked out. That's why she doesn't have a microphone. I've been listening to their speeches. This boy has quite an imagination, and he sure soaks in everything he hears!

We have a big responsibility with these bright boys!  Josiah and Jonathan have had a lot of questions about how the election process works, and some things we are learning right along with them.

We are praying for the outcome of the elections, but know that we cannot put our hope or trust in any politician. Only the Lord can truly "heal our land."