Backyard Adventures

Welcome outside! (Yes, I know that most people's welcome mats face the other way, but my husband has rarely been accused of being like "most people"...so ours welcomes us out into Ecuador.)

 The kids and I had fun clearing out a little garden spot on the hill below our house. Now, this hill is technically our "backyard", but it is rather wild; secluded, but not secure - meaning that since there is no fence and limited visibility from inside our house, the kids are not allowed to play out there without supervision. It is, however, a wonderful place for adventures.

These are what we call "the ruins". They are in reality, the reasonably stable remains of an old house - in imagination, they can be almost anything, depending on the book you've been reading. :) There are also limes to pick, snails to find, BIG ant nests to avoid, etc. Taylor is already plotting what kind of amazing bow shooting course he and Levi can make out there. (Like I said, it all depends on what kind of book you've been reading. :)

We're back on line!!!

As of this last week, we have internet at the house! (Which also means our internet-based home phone number is set up and working.) We are getting to know the neighbor kids; they like to come over to play with the swords/guns, or to draw on the sidewalk with chalk.

Our kids are getting more confident in using their Spanish... proof being that they bought snacks from the vendor walking down the sidewalk with their own money the other day. :P

Though we are close to "down town" walking one way, we are also only one block from the Rio Puyo and the end of town going the other; the kids tried to "plunk" all the rocks in the other day, but there are still quite a few left.

Between various sicknesses and getting unpacked, school has been a little hit and miss this month, but we are still plugging along. One really fun project has been to learn the dialog between the Lord Jesus and Nicodemus out of the Spanish Bible...the older two acted it out as a skit for Papa today with the "help??" of Dan and Nate, who introduced them. I was the Narrator; Levi was Nicodemus, and Glory said the Lord's answers. (BTW white board marker wipes off chins just fine...in fact, Levi's beard kept sweating off before he was done with it.)

Glory's haircut

 With the exception of having bangs as a pre-schooler, Glory had never had a hair cut - until today.

Granted, we left it really long; she wanted us to, and we were glad of it. Anyway, we had fun :)

Looking Better!

We are SO happy to see our Danielito smiling! :) He'll still be on antibiotics for a while, and gets tired quickly,but definitely seems to be on the mend. God is ever faithful.

Friends from Bible Conference

Easter week or "Semana Santa" is a REALLY big deal here. Many people have off work for the long weekend, which makes it a great time to get together for Bible Study and fellowship.

 Here are a few pics from the weekend. :D

Knights in shining armor...

These two make me laugh. :D We were making container pots out of the bottom half of these water jugs when Papa discovered they make the most wonderful helmets. I love it that our kids can see play value in almost anything...the only downside that our house is liberally sprinkled with "trash": bottle tops, toilet paper rolls, etc. ;)

Nate's masterpiece...

The three older kids paint with watercolors.
 Nate paints with Ketchup. He doesn't seem to mind.

Washing!

This kind of washing is cuter, but what I really want to tell you is that my amazing husband bought and repaired a washing machine for me!!! We have a "pila", or as they call them here, a "piedra de lavar" (washing stone) which we used in a pinch while the washer was being delivered and while Taylor dissected it to find out why it screamed like a dying thing when it tried to spin...but yeah!!! We have a washer! That WORKS!!!! :D Our God has been so faithful to supply our needs...and even our conveniences.

...hello, again!

This is an apologetic notice to all those who believed me when I said I would update this blog "frequently". I expect that you took that to mean more than every three months. :P I will try to do better. :) We had a wonderful, crazy December, which included traveling to Houston and back to see Taylor's family, meeting my new niece who came for Christmas, and all the Miller festivities here in Snyder. Today was our first day back to school, and we are excited for what God has planned for us in this new, fresh year. So, as the snowflakes fall outside my window, I thought I would send you this picture of our piece of the cast in the Sunday School Christmas Play. :D    So. Much. Fun.  (and yes, the sheep wandered through everything (what part of the Nativity is a sheep out of place anyway? ;)

Camping / Hunting trip

Sorry they are late, but here are a few pictures from the trip we took to my Grandparents' land in Mason, TX. It was so much fun hiking around! Glory's favorite was wading in Dog Branch Creek, which reminded me so much of MY childhood camping trips there! :)

 

The boys liked "hunting" around the cabin. 

A bit of natural science education. :)

 The kids are still asking when we can go back...it makes me happy that they love being out there so much. :D

it's a bird, it's a plane......

it's a flying pyramid???

While Taylor was off on his mighty bow-hunting adventure a couple weeks ago, we found directions to make this kite online. It is string, tissue paper, rubber cement and drinking straws, which was cool...though the rubber cement was a bit obnoxious (and noxious) to work with. If we do it again, I'll try a something else to glue it with.  But still! It flew!!!!  :D

For anybody interested, here is the link.
http://www.squidoo.com/pyramidkite

Growing...

Nate is weaned, walking, and sitting in the carseat face-forward...

Dan is a thinking, helping, learning-not-to-fuss, little individual...

Levi "is almost grown up to be five"...

Glory, she's my little lady...


Growing - everyday growing - by God's grace.