Un hogar en nuestro corazon

Just what I have been waiting on for over 3 months now. It arrived today. It came like this...

I have never had a UPS box delivered made out of wood.

They did a great job boxing it up. I had to unscrew 16 screws just to get the top off. Then after peeling back 3 layers of Styrofoam strips I pulled this out.


After peeling though about 6 layers of bubble wrap... this amazing thing came into view. WOW!


This is the Victor Arriola painting that was commissioned just for us back in December. He is an artist in Guatemala that we fell in love with while we were there. We were so upset with ourselves for not bringing one home with us. Then somehow, someway, I got into contact with a lady that sold his paintings in California. She did not have any of his from the Antigua streets (that we loved) but called him and asked him to paint one for us. It is amazing. The picture does not do it justice. This is not just a painting... this is the picture etched into our hearts from our time there. This is a "home in our hearts" as the blog title says. This is exactly how this place looks as you walk down the streets of cobblestone, never knowing what courtyard is beyond one of those colorfully faced buildings. I hope someday Eliza will love it as much as we do, after all, she introduced us to it.

Like...Gag me with a spoon!

Last night we attended an 80's murder mystery party at our friends "Bobby-sonja's" house. I am not sure when I have laughed so hard. We each had characters that we had to portray from the minute we walked in (and even before the party if you wanted to have fun). Each round was filled with clues and task that you must complete in that round. In round 2 (after a little 80's karaoke) Mo Jontana was murdered (by being gagged with a spoon) we had to place our guesses based on the clues during the evening and then each were required to reveal your part in the game/ murder. We really had a blast.

In the interest of maintaining my friendships, I will refrain from posting their pictures because the ones I have are of them deep into their 80's karaoke song and I might never hear the end of displaying "You Can't Touch This" or "I've had the time of my life". (you must know that we all know that you played with the karaoke all day today... you TOTALLY were all about it Mrs. Bananaclip)

Here are Gladonna... the spoiled pop princess diva, and Mr. P... the soilder of fortune with an anger management issue. ( before the party and enjoying a little karaoke)

Fashion Friday HELP

Okay... I bought this dress for Easter because it caught my eye as soon as I walked in.


Now I am not a black and white Easter kind of person because I have always believed that one should appear to look like some form of Easter Egg on Easter. But here was my thoughts... I started with Eliza. I bought her a MUST HAVE dress a few weeks back and it is lavender. Now, I have a little bit of an obsession with blending ( aka matching) as a family for special occasions and Easter is one of them. I found some "wisteria" and green striped shirts for the boys. And I found Brent a shirt (that he agreed only to wear after I told him he would match his baby girl on her first official HOME Easter) it is lavender but also got him a snazzy tie that is purple and charcoal so he can wear it with black pants and look very studly. That leaves my dress. I went with the black and white because Brent will be wearing black pants. I bought it (knowing I can take it back) thinking that if I found a shrug sweater in lavender to go over my shoulders ( because chances are it will be 12 degrees, raining/snowing) it would make it appropriate for church. I CANNOT FIND A LAVENDAR SHRUG SWEATER. Ya'll tell me if you see one... I am on a mission. But also found a green one that might work since GREEN seems to be the color of the season and the boys have that green stripe in their shirts... but I really wanted something lavender... HELP!

Wordless Wednesday

Photo courtsey of 5 year old Callan

Open the eyes of my heart, LORD

When checking my usual round of blogs today, I was struck by a bloger/adoption friends post. Many of you know that our hearts are forever connected to this country of our child's birth, you know that we feel burdened to help, you know our hearts are there. But I wanted to show you through your eyes... not just our hearts.

Tricia adopted her daughter from Guatemala just after we did. We followed each other along the way, and though I have never personally met Tricia... I KNOW HER HEART. She is working to sponsor children who cannot afford to go to school through Mayan Families, she is working to get these same families clean drinking water, she is working to help these family with essentials in life.

Please go here and open the eyes of your heart to see what they live in and with daily. Put yourselves in their shoes... IMAGINE life as they know it. How can we not do something?

Oops! Woops! Ahhhh! UH-OH!

Well, the basement is finished! I have been waiting to post pictures after our furniture is delivered so you have something to see other than wide open spaces... which brings me to my OOPSIE!
The rec room in the basement is wide open right now. There is nothing in it but Brent's new "boy toys"(TV and sound). I fuss at the boys everyday for going down there and running circles as if we just built them their own padded wrestling room. Sunday afternoon I had Brent (who was in the basement on a bean bag studying for his Bible study class) proofread something I was working on. He was taking a long time and the inner 8 year old gymnast in me could not resist playing around a little. When I really was an 8 year old gymnast we would do conditioning by doing handstands up against the wall and holding it to strengthen our arms... do handstand push-ups... or do portions of our beam routines using the wall as a balance.

Well, I proceeded to do a handstand against the wall. I was afraid of plowing the wall so I was doing it softly and my legs never found the wall. After about 4 attempts, I decided to push it a little harder... BOOM... I hit the wall full force. I immediately came back down and noticed my husbands face was a sight to be seen and his mouth was full open. I giggled a little until I turned and looked at the wall. The force of my handstand knocked 4 holes into the wall. Now, in my defense...they were not big holes. Basically the "mud" poped out of the nail holes going down the stud. But, my hubby immediately got up and got the "spackle" and mudded the holes back up. We have to sand, mud again and then paint... hoping it will blend right in.

I guess I do not have a leg to stand on when one of the boys makes their first basement injury. And *I think* I have learned my lesson about reliving my childhood as an adult who is a lot taller, weighs a lot more, and can do a lot more dammage.

SNOW DAY

Blogger has been mean this morning and has not let me post!

WHAT A WONDERFULLY FUN SATURDAY (except for the fact that I did not get my furniture that was supposed to be delivered today... now I have to wait until Tuesday)!




Here are our sledders... even Eliza got inonthe action!