Ídolos

So, if you hadn't noticed, things have been a little busy this month.  I'll catch up on all of that sometime but for now I thought I'd tell you about our friend, Martim.  He's a good friend from our church in Portugal and he's one of the 2 finalists on the Portugal Idols show!  Just like American Idol but in Portugal!  Can you believe it? We know someone famous!  In Portugal, at least!  He's a great guy and we're really excited for him.  We went to an autograph signing they had for the top 5 so we could say goodbye before we left for 6 months so that's where this picture is from.

The final show is tomorrow night (New Year's Eve) so we'll get to see if he wins or not before we go to bed!  So cool!   

Força, Martim!!!

C is for Cookie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whew, we had a busy weekend!  First, Melissa and 2 friends of hers came to visit for a few days during their break from teaching.  Melissa and I were roommates our first year in college.  She taught me how to write a check and let me use her laptop and I taught her how to procrastinate.  Fair trade, right? 

It's fun that she's over on this side of the ocean for a few years too and it's fun to catch up!

She and her friends we the BEST house guests!  They slept in our living room, cleaned my kitchen 2 or 3 times, played with the girls and were so easy to have around.

 We hosted 2 Thansgiving dinners this weekend!  The first was on Friday and was with our American teammates and some Australian friends.  I got the girls dressed up in their fancy dresses, just because it was a reason to dress up! 

 Here's the girls at the kid's table!

 All set to eat!

 The first bird.

 Dinner number 2!

This one was with some people from our Sunday evening Bible Study.  There were 3 Brazilians, 4 Portuguese, and 1 Australian..  Quite the international Thanksgiving!

We have so much to thankful for!!!!

I hope you had a fun Thanksgiving too! 

The Birthday Girl!!!!!!!!!!!!

My sweet, sweet little Carly is one year old today!  Can you believe that a year has passed already??? 

We had a nice day today getting to go to the zoo to see the dolphin show (yeah for zoo passes!!!!!) and making pizza and eating birthday cupcakes together.  It is so wonderful to get to celebrate my little one and remember what we were doing this time last year. 

 Here's us at the dolphin show.  Daddy was working but the girls got to enjoy the show (and later a Happy-birthday-to-the mommy-mocha at Starbucks!  I was the one who did the LABOR, right?!!).

 The proud big sister who was very excited to see the dolphins!

 The birthday girl checking things out.

 Back at home having make your own birthday pizzas!  A friend gave us the BEST recipe for pizza sauce. Yum!

 I just love her sweet smile in this one.

 You can't really see her cupcake but it's in front of her and she is not sure what to think of it...

 On Saturday night we had some friends over to celebrate with us.  I dressed the little lady up in her fancy dress for the occasion! 

Notice the big bump on her forehead.  Poor thing is walking all the time now and that means she's falling quite a bit too.  This time she fell and hit her head on the door frame.  Ouch!

 Opening some presents.

 Singing Happy Birthday in 2 languages!

 Note to self - Don't plan child's birthday party for the time when child normally goes to bed.  She will become fussy quickly and not be interested in said party or guests.

Yep, while everyone else was still eating it became very clear that the Birthday Girl needed to go to bed so we busted out her cupcake and sang but she was not interested.  Poor thing.  Check out the expression on her face.  "What is going on???"

I have to say that I'm surprised at her lack of interest in the cupcakes.  Don't 1 year olds normally make a big mess and eat up as much ccake and frosting as they can get their little hands on?  Both Saturday (when she was really tired) and tonight she wasn't interested at all in her cupcake.  She especially didn't like how the frosting felt on her fingers and still didn't want to eat it even when I put a little on her tongue to taste it.  Ok, I guess she won't be our big sweet tooth.  Katie has that department covered anyway.

I am SO thankful for this little girl.  What an amazing blessing she is and what a gift it is to be her mommy.  Lord, I praise you for this sweet little life!

A Few Catch Up Pictures

Our camera battery charger somehow dissapeared but we were able to get another sent to us last week so here I am with just a few catch up pictures...

She'll be 1 in 3 days but I've made it this far, I have to post the 11 month picture!  It was taken (almost) on time. 

She's so squirmy that it's really hard to get a posed picture of her right now.

 My feet before the race.

 Neon yellow shirts!  Imagine thousands of people wearing them all together... kind of nauseating! 

Making Cookies

My friend Kim recently introduced me to this website with recipes for kids.  I've tried a few things and they've been good!  My favorite so far are homemade graham crackers.  Yum! 

This week we made them for our second time.  The recipe is really easy to make and Katie loves cutting out the shapes.  The first time I made them I didn't roll out the dough very thin so they basically came out like gingerbread cookies minus the ginger - soft and cinimmony.  Yum!  This time I rolled them out a little thinner and cooked them a little longer so they're a bit more crunchy like actual graham crackers.  Both have been good, it just depends on what you're going for.  Also, I've used molasses instead of honey just because I had some that a friend gave me and Carly isn't supposed to have honey yet. 

Note the incredible amount of drool on Carly's shirt!  She's teething and has a cold so there is an amazing amount of drool coming out of the cute little almost one year old!  Poor thing!  She likes the cookies though!

Busting out the old camera

Trying to keep the grandparents happy with some fresh pictures.

Just kidding, they haven't even asked for any!

I dug around and found our older digital camera to use while we wait for a new battery charger to arrive for our regular camera.  Enjoy some funny moments from the last week or so!

Little Pumpkin

 I just love the way she's laughing in this one.

 This is what happens when Big Sister gets a hold of the head bands!

Teething again... everything goes in the mouth!

 Keeping everyone lined up just as they should be.  What a good first born!

Hope you're having a good week!

Leave a comment and let me know you were here!  I wonder sometimes who stops by...