New Year's Eve!

This afternoon, I picked up S. and R. to spend the weekend with me. The older kids had big plans for New Year's Eve with the tías so we decided it'd be better to get some of the younger ones out of the house as they're too little to really celebrate. These two girls didn't know what they were missing at the hogar and were thrilled to hear they'd be coming with me! We ended up meeting up with a group from church for dinner and walking around the Prado... R. so nearly made it to midnight and S. fell asleep right after we welcomed in 2016 (we're 2 hours ahead of you in Louisiana!). I'm hoping they'll sleep in late tomorrow because we're all going to be tired if not... 

As it's already 2016 for us, we'd like to wish you all a very happy new year! I can already tell this is going to be a big year... But more on that another day! :)

 Got the crazies and we're busting out of here!

We arrived first to the restaurant so the girls got to play for a little while.

 Some of us during dinner

 You wouldn't have known the girls actually ate dinner before leaving the hogar... They were both "SO HUNGRY" and ate another plate of food!

 I don't know how many times I heard "I'm thirsty" or "I need water" from them... While they definitely drank their fair share of soda, when it was time to leave, both walked over to me with cups of juice... No idea who gave it to them!

The restaurant was still decorated for Christmas!

I love watching other people love our kids... Pastor Fernando (and his whole family) does it so very well. He carried R. around for hours and then carried her to our house when it was time to leave and she was asleep just so she wouldn't have to wake up and walk home with me.

S. just had to have one of these ridiculous singing, spinning light up toys... 

She almost made it to the new year but not quite!

Wordless Wednesday~ Movie Night

The Evolution of an Outfit

Ten year old Shyrlen is absolutely IN LOVE with ten month old R., and really loves changing her and putting together all sorts of creative outfits for her. She's very Bolivian in her fashion sense... Think lots of layers and colors and many mismatched patterns! 

After R.'s bath, Shyrlen offered to get her changed. Over about a ten minute period, the layers and amount of clothing on R. increased quite a bit!

Christmas Cookies!

I ended up not going to the hogar yesterday like I planned, so this afternoon the girls finally got to decorate their cookies! They were really looking forward to it, and I'm assuming that's because they were all under the impression they'd get to eat all 5 cookies after decorating... Wrong! They each ate one and shared the rest with the tías and babies. As you can see they were heavy on the decorations, but they said the more sugar they had, the better they tasted!

December Pictures

All of these pictures were taken at some point in December but never got posted...

 Beach bum

 As you can see in this picture and the one below, the girls think it's just the funniest thing ever when Shyrlen shares her clothes with me!

 A rare moment of quiet... This baby usually screams 24/7. It's ridiculous.

 G. will always be about 8 months old in my head... I cannot believe he eats by himself now!

 She stayed outside while everyone else went in for lunch. She knows it's the only peace and quiet she may have all day!

 So many crowns for this princess!