Jonathan's 5th Birthday

Jonathan turned 5 on December 14th, and he had quite a day!  Wes and I laugh, b/c somehow we always have birthdays the NIGHT BEFORE our final.  Nathan was May 4th, and it was the night before our last final.  This time, Jonathan's birthday fell just perfect... and AGAIN it was the night before our final!  How crazy!  We did our best to make the day special for Jonathan .... and then tried to squeeze in some studying too! :)  

I think the pictures below kinda tell the whole story...

The birthday boy always gets to choose his birthday dinner.  You can tell Jonahan's favorites. :)  He loves chicken nuggets!  He wanted "finger foods" for his birthday, so we had chicken nuggets, fresh bread, and all sorts of fresh sliced veggies.  It's one of Jonathan's favorite meals.  I really think it's b/c of the name... just the idea of being able to eat with your fingers, is so exciting to a boy!!!

I have no idea what Jonathan is doing, but I love his face!!!!

We had fun gifts from everyone!... Nana and Granddady AND Grandmommy and Papa!... and of course all of us.

He can hardly contain himself here... it's a "Land Before Time" movie from Nana and Grandaddy.

Jonathan has been wanting this Ben 10 watch for a while... his face says it all!!  Thank you, Grandmommy and Papa!!

They love each other!! :)  I always love seeing how sweet my boys are with Carolina!

This is Carolina's funny face that she makes when she is making silly voices.  It's hilarious... she is SOOO much like Wes! :)

Definitely a Daddy's girl!

The cake!!... what boy wouldn't like a dinosaur merry-go-round???  He picked the color of the frosting, too.

It was a fun day!! I still can't believe my Jonathan is FIVE!!! :)

Our "Spain" Christmas Tree

Ok, this was a little difficult for me.  I know, of all things, something as little as this was hard! haha... well, we have ALWAYS had a real tree.  Even when money was really tight, it was always a priority.  I remember cutting down our own trees, growing up!  Finding just the right tree... and the smell!!  You just can't beat it.  It's so much a part of Christmas, to me.

Well, we asked and asked and looked and looked.  We finally did find a place that had a "real tree", but it was potted!!!!!!! (How European, right??) It was tiny, and it didn't even smell like a Christmas tree.  I have no idea what that was all about, but that was almost more depressing than a fake one! ... so we gave in and decided to get our very first, fake Christmas tree.  Such huge sacrifices we make over here on the field! ... haha...

Wes and I did our best to find the biggest and fullest tree; but... well, you can see the results...

Our tree in a box!

Weston loves to build things, so this was such a great adventure for him!  I was so glad; b/c honestly, I was a little depressed. :)  There's nothing like the beautiful excitement of children!!

Step by step our tree grew!

EVERYONE helped!

Adding lights as you go is so much easier, according to Wes! :)

Jonathan was "creating" his own branch. haha...  The kids just loved it!

There!

I brought some of our ornaments from home (not all, b/c I didn't know if I would have a place to store them.  The special ones came with us...)  We just let the kids put all the ornaments wherever they wanted.  They were so thrilled, and Weston was tall enough that he could get the top of the tree! :)

Carolina was enthralled with all these "pretties!"

I think it exhausted her. haha... too much excitement!

So, that was the end result!

After the kids went to bed, I re-arranged some, but it still looked kinda sad.  So I decided to improvise.  I think I'm getting good at that here. :) I don't think I actually took a picture of the final product after I was finished, but the tree looked so small.  I decided to put it up on a "stand."  I found two empty diaper boxes (I knew they would come in handy sometime!!! haha....)  I put a blanket over the boxes and then wrapped a table runner around the stand. ( I also can't find tree skirts here.) It at least made it look a little taller. 

It still looked quite sparse, though, so I went to a nearby shop and bought a bunch of Christmas ribbon.  I added the ribbon in all the empty places, and that seemed to help alot!  Amazing what red ribbon and diaper boxes can do!

I forgot to get a full picture of the finished tree, but at least you can see it in the corner of this picture. :)

This was our first Christmas tree here in Spain!  Even though I was quite sad to begin with, I think we did pretty well in the end.  And the excitement from "building" the tree was definitely enough to replace the sadness!! :)  What memories we are making!

Thanksgiving 2010

Wow!  Time has flown by... and I need to catch y'all up on all the happenings here in Cáceres!  I'll start with Thanksgving, which now seems like ages ago.  One thing after another has occurred since I last wrote, and I feel like we've barely been able to catch our breath! 

We invited some of the single missionaries to join us for Thanksgiving, so we could all celebrate together.  I began cooking/baking a week ahead of time.  It was so FUN!

Meredith came from Madrid, and it was so fun to have help preparing the meal! ... of course the kid wanted to help with everything. :)

Of course Paul and Timon joined us, too!  It wouldn't quite be right without them! :)  Here, they are all playing "I spy" in Spanish.  My kids were LOVING it!

This is our treasure. haha... I finally found a whole turkey here in Spain.  I know many of have already heard that story, so I won't repeat it.  But, boy that was interesting!  This guy still has some feathers.  I tried to pluck as much as I could, but at least it didn't come with a head!!!!  Oh, and I didn't have a rack to put the turkey on so it wouldn't get soggy, so I decided to improvise with carrots.  Amazingly, it worked!

Working in tight quarters! :) (Although, I know that I am hugely blessed, b/c my kitchen is really huge for European standards!!!  No complaints here!! :) ) The kids LOVED helping too... maybe THAT'S why it felt like tight quarters. Haha.... :)

Another issue we had here was that I couldn't find a pan big enough for the turkey.  I had huge, long conversations with my friends about it, but they were all baffled.  I didn't bring my roaster from the states, b/c I didn't think I'd have the space.  I also wasn't sure it would even fit in my oven here.  I think it might have!  Anyway, I found a large pan in one of the stores here, but we didn't have a way to cover it.  These are pics of Meredith and I getting creative.

We wrapped the whole entire pan in foil! :)  It was a pan that literally slid onto the racks of the oven.  I wasn't sure if it would still slide in with the foil, but it did work.

I think it took us forever to get it right... we were hoping it would keep the moisture in.  Praise the Lord it worked!

The kids played all sorts of games all day... board games, "I Spy", I-pad games...

I couldn't resist putting this in of Weston.  He just looks so old... and it totally captures the kid he has become. :)

Helping again!!

All in all, it was a really great meal, I think!  It was about as American as I could get in Spain. Haha... no cranberries and no pecans, but we survived. :)  Homemade apple sauce, banana bread,  pretty paper plate, b/c I don't have a dishwasher, etc.  I think we did ok... :)

 

I think the guys were still in awe over their "American size" cups we gave them.

Family!! ... away from family. :)

Oh, and we can't forget dessert!  I made 5 pumpkin rolls one night.  I made one for us, and the rest I have away as gifts.  Wow, what a response I got from it!  It was very fun.  Cooking this big meal also made for great conversation starters with my friends.  They were all so intrigued by all of it.

Carolina had a blast with Meredith.  I think she really needs some girls around.  She just loved being with her.

 

We all had such a good time together.  Meredith came for a couple days and so it felt very "holidayish" with guests and all the special cooking.  I'm looking forward to doing it next year as an outreach! By then, we should definitely have the language skills to pull it off! :)  We loved our time together of thanking the Lord for all the MANY blessings He's given us this year!!!!