Aron's Birthday!

Aron turned 10 on the 10th of December... his golden birthday! We decided to invite the kids from his class to celebrate with pizza, cake and a movie... :)
The (required) face-smashing!
[I love his friend Axel's face in this photo!]
Table 1 -- all boys!
[l-r: Axel, Diego, Marcos & Pedro]

Table 2 -- all boys!

[l-r: Eduardo, Garret, Ramses, Giessi & Aron]

Table 3 -- all girls!

[l-r: Belinda, Keyla, Julissa, Nereida & Candi]

Aron with his presents... Spree's and a Lego trailer!

After supper and presents, the kids topped off the evening watching Night at the Museum -- always a favorite! :)

The whole group!!! It's hard to believe that most of these kids are already 3rd and 4th graders... God is so good! ;)

Now... the below video is how my dear husband managed to keep all these kidlets busy for a good 30 minutes before supper!

[Good thing it was BEFORE supper and not after!]

Gingerbread Men & Lucha Libre!

On Friday night we invited the Wulfs over for a night of food and fun! We thoroughly enjoy this family and since our boys are of a similar age... good times are had by all! :)

Duane and Ann with their gingerbread men...
Joel and I with ours...

Marcos with his "snowman" gingerbread man... ;)
[Funny how the kids seemed to use LOTS of candies for decoration; well, the kids and Duane that is!]

Candi... with her Skittle gingerbread man!

After supper and dessert, we had kids racing their Legos cars...

... taking pictures of themselves in the frosted bathroom mirrors...

... thoroughly engrossed in reading...

... just hanging out (thanks, Cass, for letting Candi take bunches of photos of you!)...

... and fighting!!!

In order to "work off" all the sugar we had "lucha libre" [actually, I think it just spontaneously started... as it does with lots of boys!] in the middle of the living room!

They came, they fought, they cried, they conquered... a normal series of events! ;)

Here's a video so that you can check out the action (my apologies ahead of time for the LOUD laughing... oops):

And then THIS was the game that took us until close to midnight to finish! The Who Wants to be a Millionaire? board game... which we love, but definitely takes a while to complete! We had played this before with the Wulfs and it was great to play again... :)

[I love how pensive Ann looks in this above photo!]

AND...

... how could I not post a picture of my sister and her fiancee?!?

We and the kids are super-excited for Jake and Tif and praise God for how He has worked in their lives to bring them to this point!

I don't know, two Bahr girls in less than a year... scary stuff! ;)

Thanks for your prayers... please pray that God would continue to reveal His grand love for the kids here and that we would have His eyes, His compassion, His heart, and His patience for the work He is doing in each life!

Abundancy of Life!

That title about sums up our experience these past few months and weeks! :)

Yesterday we went out for supper to celebrate our six-month anniversary (thanks "Uncle Seth!") and it is just incredible to me that that amount of time has passed since we were married... and yet.

And yet, paradoxically, it seems to be so normal!

God is so faithful and we are both thankful that He continues to teach us... we pray we can always remain teachable!!!

These were just a few pics from the past couple months... enjoy!

Our kids received some gifts from a sweet friend of theirs and have been constantly playing with their Legos... thanks Gabri!!!
Candi lost her first tooth! And... ahem... the tooth rat (yes, Mexico is slightly different) threw her tooth away and STILL hasn't given her her pesos! She frequently reminds me of that... ;)

My companions on the nightstand at 25 weeks of pregnancy... :)

I love this creativity! Thank You, Lord, for dirt!!! :)

We took care of Jodi's girls back in October when she went home for Ross & Leah's wedding... we thoroughly enjoyed them! This was a dress-up day at school (for Todd's birthday) and so the kids were all decked out!

We are living in a new location now (Limon & Kristi's old house, which used to be the old girls' dorm), so I will try to post a few pics of our new home! Things here are always changing... ;)

Thanks for your continued prayers for our family and for CVE -- please pray that we (specifically) would have patience to understand and desire God's timing for the adoption, not our own, and that He would move the process forward at the best time possible. Please pray for the spiritual battles here at CVE as well... praising God for His provision and protection and asking Him to continue to reveal, in His time, the paths He desires for each child here!

A Visit from the Grand Rinks!

The end of October and beginning of November, Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jeanne came to visit us! It was wonderful to watch the kids interact with the "other" set of grandparents (in a situation not as "filled" as the wedding weekend!) and how they thoroughly enjoyed being the grandkids... :)
Grandpa Jim was always ready to do puzzles, games, catch, etc...

... and Grandma Jeanne was a huge success with her reading! Before they arrived, we started getting packages with some of Joel's favorite books from his childhood inside... the kids loved them! (They're enjoying English more and more... :)

We had several nights of company and this was our living room with a combination of our kids, Jodi and her kids, and the Wulf boys! I love it... :)

Our Festive Fall Pizza in the making!

Diego and Axel with the finished product!

After supper, the kids headed outside and found this really weird bug... we have no idea what it was, but I'm super-glad it was outside! ;)

Saturday morning was "bed party" time with Grandpa, Grandma and (inevitably) the Uno cards... :)

One of the Rink family traditions is to have shrimp at Christmastime... so we did it early! Candi got home from school and immediately was introduced to peeling (is that what you say???) the shrimp...

... which she loved!

The cooks at work... and the result was great! The kids LOVED it... and we hardly had any leftovers!

But THIS was what our fridge contained after a week with Grandma Jeanne around... enough leftovers for two meals! ;)

Katie and Cafe Sed had their 1-year anniversary the last day Mama and Papa Rink were here... so of course we went and played games!

After church, on their last night, we headed into town for the "best hot dogs in Magdalena"... DOGOS!

Joel and I...

... and the Abuelos!

We are so grateful that you both were able to come... thanks for making it such a special time for us and especially for our kids! We love you... :)

Thanks everyone for your continued prayers for this place... they are felt and appreciated! Please continue to pray that God will open our eyes and guide our hearts as He reveals each new situation in these kids' lives... may He be glorified!

Every Friday night, Joel and I are blessed to be part of a "scheduled date night" with Duane and Ann and Juantan and Bere! That means that every third week (or so) we get a "date night" while one of the other couples watches our kids... and vice versa.

Last night was our turn to watch Duane & Ann's kids... and it was mucho fun! ;)

We started out with a bonfire (even though the kids are almost all in shorts, it's still cool enough for us to have bonfire weather!)... and then on to carving pumpkins!!!

Cassidy is the oldest of the Wulf kidlets and was an amazing help as she took care of Luisa (Juantan & Bere's youngest... she and Gloria, her sister, stayed the night with us, which made Candi quite ecstatic! :) while we were getting other stuff around for supper!
Gloria and Candi got "baby" pumpkins that they could draw all over... I don't think they were that impressed, though, because the rest of the kids kept talking about all the goopy, oozy, nastiness of the inside of the pumpkins and turns out it was really NOT as exciting with just a Sharpie.
oops... :(

Marshall and his pumpkin seeds...

The table of pumpkin-seeders... :)

One tray of the pumpkin seed goodness... in need of washing and cooking, but mmmmmmm! We really like pumpkin seeds at our house... ;)

Marcos showing his "pretend" mouthful of seeds... the camera wouldn't flash and so while he was holding this pose he kind of lost some of his original excitement to take the picture. :)

And... what can I say???

My husband is brilliant... ;)

Turns out that "carving" ten pumpkins in one night is a little much... unless you use a dremel (yes, I had to look up how to spell that and since Joel's not here I can't ask him if it's right... :) and then it's a lot easier and significantly quicker!

While the pumpkins were getting finished up, Axel decided to construct a "spit!" He informed me that he's always wanted to build one and now he had the opportunity to do so!

[This was then the future site of roasted pieces of pumpkin, pieces of wood, string, insects (I think), and other unidentifiable objects found lying around on the ground nearby... :)]

Diego just hanging out and roasting his marshmallows!

Zach decided to use the bag from the baby pumpkins as a hairnet... go figure! ;)

Aron and Axel chilling while eating their s'mores ("s'mas" in Spanish, I hear... if you don't get it, don't worry... :). They might have been observing the second fire that the boys started next to our firepit or potentially the third fire that they set under the tree 200 ft. away. Yikes! Young pyros in the making... ;)

At last... completed works of art!

All the pumpkins lit up and glowing in the dark...!

Our crew of pumpkin-carvers! They did a great job!

And now our kids' pumpkins are inside displayed on our bookshelves... ;)

I really enjoy carving pumpkins... even though my "carving" was pretty minimal this year, thanks to Joel! ;)

Thanks again for your prayers... please pray that God continues to grant discernment, patience, wisdom and strength to rely upon Him in ALL circumstances and in ALL timing. And please pray that God would break down any barriers that Satan has constructed so that His words, His truth cannot go through... thanks!