Adios, Boohers!

This morning, we headed to the airport to see the Booher family off. As you can see in the picture, we had quite the crowd! Several of us from Casa de Amor were there, and the others were friends from church. 

They're headed to Santa Cruz, Bolivia until Saturday when they fly back to Oregon. We were sad to see them go, but hoping we'll see them back in Bolivia in the future! 

Sunday in Pictures

Just some pictures of our Sunday...

I should've updated on this days ago, but I didn't. We found out last Friday night (a week ago) that Baby E. needed surgery (for severe reflux) sooner rather than later… Sooner meaning this past Wednesday! Surgery took place Wednesday morning, and he was back at the baby house on Friday morning. He's spending nights with me but during the day is upstairs with everyone and doing great!

 Pretty girls headed to church!

I didn't know we'd be having a children's program at church this morning. R. and S. were front and center! Now that R. is 3 years old, she has moved up to S.'s class. Normally, S. bails on any activity her class participates in (and instead comes to find me on her way down the aisle), but she and R. both participated and did a wonderful job singing!

My two conejitos!

 Baby C. with the bunnies!

Rather than deal with getting kids in and out of the car for lunch, we picked up empanadas and had a picnic in the car. 

Does she love or hate ice cream?! Contrary to what it looks like, she really did like it!

Do you think you could've made a bigger mess with that empanada? I love using up all of my baby wipes on your face alone and having to hand-wash all of your clothes every week ;) 

 As we were leaving church, a man gave a sucker to both S. and R. I told them they could have them after eating lunch, and S. made sure to eat her empanada the fastest she's ever eaten! 

"Baby Shawer" for Rosi!

Tía Rosi's baby is due next month, but due to some pregnancy complications, she had to go on maternity leave early. Casa de Amor had planned on having a baby shower for her at the end of July, but that didn't happen as she hasn't been working for a couple weeks (and won't be back until after the baby is born). To make up for it, some of the tías planned a shower for her tonight!

She was shocked and so surprised! When she and her family walked through the door, we all screamed "Surprise!" and she started crying. I don't think it could've been pulled off much better!

We were thrilled to hear she is pregnant again, and it's another girl (she already has one of each)! She's a wonderful mom and loves babies so much. We can't wait to watch her with another one of her own!

 Yovana and Techy peeking through the curtain to see if Rosi had arrived.

SORPRESA!!!!!!!!!

Snack table

I didn't realize until Lindsey pointed it out that Baby C. and I matched! We also both had on blue jeans.

 How many squares of toilet paper does it take to wrap around Rosi's belly?

Tía Sarin picked too few squares!

Tía Techy's guess was almost perfect!

Carla wins!

 Time for presents!

 Rosi's daughter came over about halfway through to help open gifts.

Bolivians have this weird tradition at baby showers… If the person guesses the gift-giver correctly, she gets to draw something on the gift-giver's face. If she guesses incorrectly, the gift-giver gets to draw on her face.

 This little diva got to come to the party!

 When I told Tía Yovana I wanted to take a picture with her, she said "Make sure our daughter is in it too!"

 This is probably the worst cell phone picture ever… but I was so excited to see this crazy tía and friend again! The last time I saw her was at her baby shower back in January… and now her little baby is 2 months old!

Despedida de la Familia Booher

The Booher family leaves next week, and we wanted to have one more get-together before they leave. We decided to have a pizza party with our big boys and girls after school today. Jennifer brought five HUGE pizzas. Really, the pictures don't do them justice. Speaking of pictures… I realized after getting home that I was a terrible photographer! I hardly took any pictures.

I know I can speak for all of us when saying that we are so thankful for all that they have done for us and Casa de Amor. For the volunteers, they have been a great support system. We can always count on them when we need help, advice, or just a listening ear. Time spent with them is always fun and full of games and laughter, and we always enjoy dinners together as we can ensure that we get a "taste of home"!

After being here over a year, I really can't imagine what it will be like without them here. Their departure will be a bittersweet time as we're sad to see them go but excited for them to be back with family and friends after nearly two years away. 

Booher family, les vamos a extrañar mucho y que Dios les bendiga! Gracias por todo!

Feliz Cumpleaños, R.!

Today we celebrated R.'s 3rd birthday! 

She really didn't have a clue about what it means to have a birthday, but Saret (whose 4th birthday is in just a couple of weeks and can't get here soon enough) was very on top of what it meant for R. Saret reminded her countless times about getting to have a birthday cake, and yesterday I overheard her saying, "Make sure you ask Tía Hannah if you get a piñata!" Unfortunately that request didn't make it in in time for her birthday celebration so we just celebrated with cake. She didn't seem to mind one bit!

 This cake is for me?

 Awesome! I love cake!

Tía Yovana lighting the candle for what seemed like the thousandth time… It was really windy! 

Singing "Happy Birthday!"

This birthday stuff is pretty fun! 

She asked me several times "Why didn't you make my birthday cake, too?" She doesn't understand how soon her birthday will be here and she'll have her own cake!

 We couldn't go through a birthday party without this one throwing at least one tantrum…

Look at that big belly!

R. was less than impressed with biting the cake!

E.'s Big Move

This afternoon, two year old E. moved to the boys' house! I have to be honest… We were begging the office for this move. While E. was still living with the Boohers, they asked if he could go to the boys' house instead of back to the baby home when he left their house. The office didn't want that as he still was not potty-trained. He came back to the baby home, and we've been pushing this move ever since. He's a big kid and doesn't realize his strength with the babies. What he considers play often hurts the other kids. He's more agressive than most of our kids, and they just don't have the strength or size to defend themselves either. 

We were so happy to learn that E. would move to the boys' house this afternoon! He's visited there a lot and does great with the boys. He has a bit of a wild personality and that doesn't change at the boys' house, but he isn't as agressive and he knows how to appropriately play with them. We know it'll be an amazing move for him!

Baby Home goes to the Boys' House!

Our water hasn't been working so well the past couple of days, and this morning when Tía Lucy and I woke up, it wasn't working at all. After dripping out of the faucet for about a minute, it completely stopped and never came back. We're not sure why, but our water tank was empty (again). The problem with that is that we need to call the water company so they can send someone with a water truck to fill it up again… and since we're in Bolivia, it never means they're in a hurry to get here. 

In case you've never had to live in a house with 16 babies and any random number of adults in a decently-sized house without water… Imagine this: You wake up at 6am to start getting the kids ready. You need water to make 16 bottles/cups of milk and to wash the kids off (diapers/faces). With no water coming out of the faucets, you use what little water you have in two teapots on the stove to make bottles. What about water to make breakfast? No problem there, scrambled eggs were on the menu for this morning! Pour a couple ounces of that boiling water into a bucket to warm up water to wash the kids so that'll be taken care of, too. No shower for the tía this morning. At 8am, it's time to hand-wash two loads of dirty diapers. We also need to throw in a load of clothes into the washing machine. With no water, that can't be done. Neither can the cleaning (mopping the floor upstairs) that Tía Silvia needs to do. After breakfast, we need to wash off the kids hands/faces/tables, clean the dining room, and wash the dishes… With no water, none of that can be done. Go upstairs after breakfast to change diapers. Since we use cloth diapers and all are still dirty from being unable to wash, how do we do that? Beg the office for disposables (but what if we don't have any more)? So, that's just our day and need for water until 9am…

Can you imagine going a whole day without water?! It's awful. The office agreed to let us take all of the babies, their supplies for the day, cooking supplies for Tía Silvia, and all of our dirty clothes to House 2 for the day. It took two trips back and forth to collect everything, but it made the day SO much more enjoyable!

We had the house to ourselves all morning as the boys were at school, and they were home just long enough to have lunch before heading out again with the tía, so we had an afternoon to ourselves, too. We wanted the babies to nap but weren't sure how we'd pull that off with 6 little boys running around, but we need not have worried. They left before nap time began. 

We stayed through dinner before packing up to head back to the baby house. Rudi Booher came over as we were packing up (their house is just down the street from the boys' house) and offered to drive some of our stuff home too. It was SUCH a huge help! We were able to get everyone and everything home in one trip. Unfortunately, we came home to no water, but as we'd made before-bedtime bottles while at house 2, that wasn't a concern. We did realize, however, that we had absolutely no water left at home to make during-the-night bottles (if we wanted to make morning bottles) and had failed to bring back a bucket of water just in case from the boys' house. Luckily, the babies had a fabulous night and only baby A. woke up for milk (we gave him a small bottle which he was fine with) during the night. 

As I'm actually writing this post days later… the water guy came over Thursday morning to fill up our tank, so we're back to having water!