Feliz Navidad to the babies!

It might be a little late to celebrate Christmas with the babies, but this afternoon, the babies finally received their Christmas presents! Several past volunteers, Sarah, Daniel, and I all went in for gifts together and bought all new highchairs and two new walkers. For those of you who sent/left money with me, THANK YOU!!! Everyone loves the new highchairs! 

I've been told that the highchairs we'd been using were the highchairs bought ten years ago when Casa de Amor opened, and although I'm not sure if it's true, it was definitely time to replace them! Also, now that all but one of our fifteen kids are eating, we needed more seats. We had kids all over the place in the dining room, and it's been so nice to have them all safely strapped into a chair!

Just because this was the most memorable trip to La Cancha I've ever had… We went a few days ago to check out prices of highchairs. We found a highchair we liked, and it just so happened also to be the cheapest… Perfect! Or so we thought- When we returned, we realized that the stores had multiple boxes of the fancier, more expensive version and not so many boxes of the cheaper version of this particular highchair. We were only willing to pay the cheaper price. After realizing that no one would go down on the price for the fancier one (even though we played the whole "We work at an orphanage and need lots of chairs for all of our kids" card), we kept looking around for another shop. We finally found one who had four of the fancier highchairs in their shop but another nine in their storage closet (in this case think house filled floor to ceiling with boxes of strollers, toy cars, highchairs, etc… It was insane!). We explained that even though they had the number we needed, they wouldn't work because we needed the cheaper version. You had to have been there to see exactly what I mean when I say the shopkeeper begged us to buy them from her, but it ended in her agreeing to give us the fancier highchairs at the lower price and then taking us in a taxi down the road to their storage closet to get the other nine from there. When we walked inside the storage closet, she took us to a back room (pictured above) to get the highchairs. She started stacking up boxes of other items that she then climbed up to get the chairs down… So crazy and only in Bolivia!

I'm not sure how all 13 highchairs and 2 walkers fit into the taxi but they did!

 Once we got home, we realized they needed built… With three of us putting them together, we finished pretty quickly!

I love how bright they are!

 One of the baby walkers!

 Modeling her new chair!

Feliz Cumpleaños, Tía Carla!

Today is Tía Carla's (CDA's psychologist) birthday! We made cookies, and then after lunch, the tías surprised her by putting eggs and flour in her hair. She suspected they would do it and told them not to, but we couldn't let the day pass by without a proper birthday celebration!

 Getting their supplies ready!

 SURPRISE!

The cumpleañera and the culprits!

Ready for School!

After celebrating L.'s birthday, S. and I headed to La Cancha to buy her a new backpack! The Bolivian school system runs February-November, and next week, she starts pre-school. All of the girls already have backpacks and rather than have a hand-me-down, we bought her a backpack for her first year of school! As with anything in La Cancha, there's a HUGE selection of backpacks, and it was quite a decision for her. She finally settled on a Hello Kitty backpack!

Feliz Cumpleaños, L.!

Today we celebrated L.'s 2nd birthday! As his sister, S., now lives at the girls' house, we decided to bring her over to help him celebrate. She was super excited to come but did ask me several times if a clown would be there as she HATES them! L. thought he was such a big boy sitting at the table and even took a bite out of his cake, with a little help from his big sister! We couldn't find candles or matches, so nothing to light while we sang, but with a now two year old, that is probably better anyway!

Hope you enjoy some photos of our birthday boy and his party guests!

Happy Sunday!

Another afternoon at House 2!

This afternoon, some of the babies and I headed over to House 2. We had big plans to finally have our pool/water day. We got everything set up, swimsuits on, and it started pouring down rain! It took about five minutes before all of the kids were back inside. Looking back, we could've just blown up the floaties to play with inside and they would've had a great day! Tía Luz then put on a movie for the kids, and Sarah and I ran to get ice cream to take back to the babies at home. For some of them it was their first time trying ice cream, and their faces were too funny!

Haircuts for All!

This afternoon we took four of the boys from the baby house to get their hair cut... As you can see from the pictures, it was definitely time!

 Baby G. before… You can't really tell just how long it was!

Baby G. after… Looking like a big boy!

S. didn't need a haircut as badly as the rest of them did, but we decided to bring him along for a trim…

 Such a flirt!

It might have ended up being a bit more than just a trim but he sure looks cute (and so much older)!

D. came along to get his bangs (or "fringe" if you're Sarah or Daniel ;) ) cut! 

 In the process!

New baby A. was the real reason for our outing… We knew if we didn't take care of his hair today, tomorrow's group of tías would surely shave his head. This baby has a TON of hair!

Somehow I missed getting a real "after" picture but he looks very different and too cute!