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!