April Little Things

Belén dances her way through just about every day. 

She especially loves this "stage" in our room. 

Belén was in charge of FHE activity a few weeks back and decided to teach us a "Jesus lesson" for the activity. For part of it she asked us to draw Jesus and Santa holding hands. 

We were invited to a baptism birthday party.

The kids thought the bouncy house on the stage was the coolest thing.

Belén has become quite the little artist over the past month. Her people are no longer potato people with some random limbs, they have evolved in to full on detailed people, along with their entire families. She loves cutting them out and playing paper dolls with them. I love how she adds so much detail (hats, crowns, purses, lunch boxes, kites, etc.)

Her pregnant lady drawings are some of my favorites. 

We took the bus for the first time to go visit our friends who live downtown. We have since taken the bus many places. They are bumpy and drive a bit crazy. We have no idea when they will come and often times have to cross our fingers that they will actually take us where we hope they will. It's been an adventure but we are figuring it out little by little. 

Our friend taught us how to make Chipa during Holy Week. It is a very traditional Paraguayan food that they eat a lot, well, always, but especially during festive times like Holy Week which is when we made it.

The kids played and colored while we prepped the dough.

They later jumped in on the action.

Easter

We brought some Easter egg dye with us, but I wasn't sure if we would be able to use it since all the eggs here are brown. We went ahead and tried it out anyway. And it worked!

 We did an Easter egg hunt out in our little pool area the Saturday before Easter.

 I had brought a small set of new Legos to fill some of the eggs with. It was really fun to pull out all the Legos after the hunt and play on the floor together as a family for a good chunk of the afternoon.

 Easter Sunday was our first Sunday with our ward. Everyone was so kind a welcoming. We were excited to meet a couple other American families that are in our ward. One of the families invited us over for an Easter asado that afternoon, which was amazing.

So thankful for these guys and for this beautiful holiday. I loved talking as a family each day of the Holy Week about what Jesus was doing that day so long ago. It was really special to share that together.

First Week in Asuncion

And just like that, we were off again. 

 Coming in for our layover in Panama. I couldn't get over how mountainous and tree filled it was!

 Signs of being in South America. I give you: The mayo aisle. 

 Along with: Grill full of meat right in the middle of the mall food court.

   Lots of at-home play. These kids have been playing SO well together since being here. Night and day difference from Jakarta where it felt like they were constantly fighting. Not sure what has changed, if it's the bigger apartment (amazing what a little extra space can do for a person--me!), bigger table (with no rolly chairs!), kids attitude/behavioral changes overnight, lots of prayer and fasting (thanks for all the prayers from family!) We'll take it. Most days they spend at least an hour, if not more, playing with play dough and these little Pokemon together (those Pokemon that a sweet girl at church gave us in Jakarta but that became one of the biggest sources of contention in our home there. To think I almost didn't even bring them here!)

   Burnt 3 loaves of bread that first week, and haven't tried again since. Our oven temperature is clearly not the temperature it says it is. I've tried lowering it little by little. On the last loaf, when it started to get brown on top, I took it right out but the bottom was still completely soft! Maybe I'll try again someday. Maybe I won't. I did make a Cinnamon Roll Cake for Easter which turned out (still cooked super fast and was more done on top than the bottom, but it worked!), and lemon bars this last week. Making anything edible come out of the oven feels like a huge accomplishment. 

 Walking around the neighborhood and the kids saw this house and immediately started talking about who would be the big bad wolf to blow down the "straw" house.

The pool is much smaller than the one in Jakarta, and insanely chlorinated (like, the smell is so strong it's kind of hard for me to get in). It is also really cold compared to the water there so Belen barely gets in, but it's a pool nonetheless! We're grateful we have it, although I doubt we will use it too much as it has been rainy and as temps lower into the 70s in the next week (I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to cold water). 

Love Shae's big happy smile so much. (Belen is becoming quite the photographer).

 Making herself a little imaginary picnic on the towel sounded better than swimming.

We have a really great park that is closeish to our apartment. So grateful for this! This is something we can do in those lovely 70 temps next week. It's about a 20-30 minute walk (depending on speed of kid legs :), so a little far, but we discovered a bus route that takes us right there, so we'll for sure be taking that after playing and exhausting ourselves in the future (if not on the way there too).

I took a nice walk around the path with Shae.

We discovered a massive spider.

 Played on the exercise equipment a bit. 

  So happy that there is such a lovely shaded playground!

Belen was so excited to meet this little girl and that they got to play together. We have gone a few more times over the weeks and sadly haven't run in to her again which has been a big bummer for Belen.