November!

These are all out of order but at least I've blogged... ;)

 This month our school had a Walk-a-Thon. Everyone finds sponsors to pay for each kilometer they walk, and this year the money will be donated to a nearby orphanage (where some of our former Sunshine House kids were transferred over the summer!) and the Bolivian equivalent of a Title 1 school nearby our school. We had a poster contest and my class won 2nd place in the pre-school division... I've been told our win gives us a popcorn party! (The blurry parts are where I blurred out my kids' names next to their footprints.)

The school year is coming to an end for the Bolivian public schools, and our pre-schoolers at Sunshine House had an end-of-the-year exam. Sarah and I were in charge of helping them study one Saturday morning and it was a bit of a disaster. They don't know how to count to 10, barely know shapes, colors and body parts and can't identify the vowels (well, except maybe E. who sings a catchy tune when he names the vowels...). I never heard how they did but I can't imagine they did well. Students aren't allowed to fail here, so even though they'll be moved up to kindergarten, they've got their work cut out for them during vacation... We've got to study!

 A few weeks ago we took our older kids to Aldea SOS to visit our kids who were transferred there. We always enjoy our visits and so do the kids!

 Los traviesos taking part in their favorite hobby- turning on the sink and playing with water/flooding the bathroom!

 For several Sundays in a row, S.'s Sunday School teacher asked me if she could stay a little longer and practice a song her class was learning. I always stayed behind with her and no one could ever really tell me why they were learning this song... Come to find out, they were participating in our church's talent show! As several of our tías go to our church, when they found out that S. would be in the talent show, they decided that we ALL needed to go to the talent show (I'd assumed that for ease, I'd just take S. and her sister, B.)! After getting permission to take all the babies with us, we got them all ready for bed (it didn't start until 7:30pm) and headed over to church... Apparently no one told the tías that O.'s tiger "pajamas" is actually supposed to be worn as a costume?!

 B. used to be SO scared of going to church but now he loves it! He always raises his hand in the air or claps along to the music and he's even started going to his Sunday School class!

 We celebrated 2 birthdays this month! S. (not pictured) turned 11 years old, and A. turned 4 years old.

Miel had her first real vet check-up since I got her... She got a shot and has been told she needs to fatten up!

I don't know that this actually counts as "decorating for Christmas" if it's all I've done so far, but I put up my little tree the other day...  Now I need to psyche myself up to go to La Cancha to get a big tree for the living room!

 S. LOVES the babies and this morning offered to help me bathe the "triplets" before church.

We can't say it enough- our church loves our kids so well! This morning, Pastor Fernando held both his own grandson (on his other knee... you can't see him in the picture) and our O. during the children's worship time. Both boys were smiling so big! All of our church friends don't hesitate to grab a toddler and love them like their own :)