Christmas Money

Oma and Opa gave the kids Christmas money and this past weekend we were able to take them out to spend it. It was a fun time.

Raimy got a doll and a couple movies. Timothy purchased two building sets. Gabrielle got some Play-Doh kits. Tyler got a couple sets of blocks.

Thanks Oma and Opa!

While I am thinking of it I had a cute little story about Raimy...

We got Timothy some Iron Man stuff this year so I thought it would be good if the kids saw the movie. There are some strong parts that I didn't let them watch. For the most part Gabrielle was disinterested and the older two liked it. Tyler was napping. So, the end credits rolled and the little mysterious bonus clip with Samuel L. Jackson as a recruiter for a special team showed. Then Raimy goes, "Is it over?" I told her it was. Then she said, "It can't be over yet; we don't know who he marries!"

Ha! Such a girl.

Oh, now I am remembering a little thing about Tyler...

This season he was introduced to mint M&Ms (thanks to a package from Becky Gomez). I have never seen a kid do this, but he started peeling them. It was hilarious to watch him meticulously picking at the candy shell.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and that your New Years celebrations are safe and fun. We will be at our big sha-bang at church partying.

Love you!
Angie

Happy Christmas Eve!

Have I shown you all the picture of the kids by the tree? If I have it deserves repeating.
Here is our candle ready to light for lunch today.
Had you heard about Allison's candle problem? I will let her tell you in her own words.

How are things going with the candles in the other homes? Is it a tradition we should keep? Suggestions for improvements?

Here is a picture of DaRonn and I at a Christmas party Monday night with our English speaking friends.
Here is a shot of my dessert yesterday after lunch. So yummy!
Houses of Gingerbread. (I put these on my blog, but I thought they went well with this post and you might not have seen them.)
Happy Christmas Eve!!!

Advent Candles

So I chatted online with mom and Emily a bit and also got an email from dad that everyone received their advent candles in the mail. I am so happy that they arrived on time. Now I am wondering if they made it all in one piece.

We burned our candle at lunch today after we got the tree set up. It was fun to hear my kids saying the same things I remember saying and hearing when I was a kid and we had the advent candle in our home.

Enjoy the pics! I would love to see pics of your candles in your homes too, if you get a chance.

Much love,
Angie

Washington Family Vacation to Santa Cruz, Bolivia 2008 slide show

My kids love looking at the slide shows here on our family blog. I finally am getting these pics up for posterity's sake. We had such a great time!

Doing What They Do

Raimy trying her hand at oils for the first time. She is an artist. Her preferred style of expression is pencil drawing. But anything pertaining to creative arts is her outlet. She loves dance, music, painting, crafts, clay, sewing, drama, making books and whatever else she can do to create.


Timothy doing a word find. These or sudukos are his choice these days. Anything that is building or constructing he enjoys as well. I am amazed at what he can do with his legos and other building sets. He is a thinker.


Gabrielle doing her lessons in school. She is a worker. She says to me, "Mama, I want to work hard in school today." Her undaunted approach to tackling problems is inspiring. I am wondering what God is going to do with her life. It will be amazing to see, I am sure.


Tyler licking a book. So far he has tasted: deodorant, hand lotion, crayons, bubbles, all the furniture in the house, door handles, books, web cams and seat belts. I can't complain because this flows over into his eating of actual food too. He will eat anything!

What did you do today that was YOU?

Hungry Baby

Here is what Tyler does when he is hungry...

Backyard Adventures

Just 15 minutes from our home sprawling on the side of a mountain lays Tunari National Park; this was our fun Friday destination today. The sun shone on my children’s way as they headed out on the trail to adventure and exploration. For an entrance fee of just a buck fifty we will be back again; and next time with a picnic lunch. Here are some snapshots from our morning.

My Eight Year Old Boy

Yesterday I took the kids on our first Fun FridayField trip for a photo hunt up on the Cristo mountain top. I got some great shots of Timothy. I think that eight year old boys are some of my most favorite people in the world.

More slide shows to come of the wonders the kids captured.

February Fun

Is it only the 7th? Only one week has passed in February? Amazing!

Our week has been packed: our kids were in a wedding at church, we had a youth retreat at a resort, and we started school. The wedding was beautiful. An Englishman married a Bolivian. Her name is Wendy and his Peter (like the Peter Pan story). The youth retreat was great. I spent most of my time with our kids. But we had fun hanging out with the youth when they were not in a session. The day after we got back we were all very sunburned but we got started with school. It feels good to be back at it.

I wanted to get these pictures up so you could see them. Enjoy!

Raimy’s Twister

By: Raimy

This morning I saw on the floor a pair of broken socks. I decided to make Twister. I started sowing one sock at the top and bottom with the other sock inside. Then I sowed a string to it and tied it to my foot so that it could come on and off. I started circling it round and round and jumped, just like in the video. You can make your own too. Twister!

Washington Family Christmas Photos - part two

Here are some fun moments from yesterday:


Tyler showing off his new trick of sticking out his tongue and waging his head.


Raimy got a few canvasas and paint brushes. She was inspired to paint a portrait of one of our new guinea pigs, Patrik.


Gabrielle grabbing some sweet goodies from the kitchen.


Timothy by the glow of the Christmas tree.


Papa and Tyler listening to Christmas music. Tyler singing along.


Gabrielle with "Patrik".


Raimy and Timothy with "Rosebud", the girl of the pair.


Tyler playing with his awesome new toy.


Timothy trying out his new golf set.

Just the 6 of us (well, 9 if you count our pets) celebrated Christmas at the house. The day was bright, warm and sunny. The kids went to the park to play golf. DaRonn got a nice nap in. And I finished reading "East of Eden", a great, great book. We lounged around all day eating baked goods and Chineese take-out. It was a nice day. I hope all you had a good time too.

Washington Family Christmas Photos - part one

Merry Christmas!

Plans for the holidays have begun to slowly trickle in from my dear family. Keep 'em coming. I want to hear about everything!

We had our Christmas celebration with church. You can go to my personal blog to read about that.

Today is a normal day in the office. Some of our staff is on vacation, including Pati my house help gal. So I will be cooking and cleaning (gasp!) for the next couple of days. :-) An American holiday!

We found a website that has online radio stations that only play Christmas music. So I have been filling the house with traditional Christmas carols. It has been fun to dance around with the kids to the familiar tunes that are new to them. I did my baking last week: 200 cut out sugar cookies, 2 loaves of banana bread, a coconut cream pie and a batch of brownies. Looks like I need to do a bot more today. I think I will do an apple pie and another batch of brownies. Oh yeah some of my famous bread pudding too. Yummy Yummy! Our tree is just exactly like I wanted it. (Pictures will be posted later.) We are going to do presents tomorrow morning.

Here are the christmas pictures from last year and this year. Thought you might like to see the comparison. You might notice that is this year's picture that Gabrielle lost her first tooth. She was happy about that. I will be posting more pictures after the family celebrations.

We love you! Merry Christmas!

Peanut’s Plan

Last night my four little nuts and I were eating our dinner. I said, “Guys, after you go to bed tonight…”

Peanut-butter interrupts rolling her eyes with a little grin on her face, “I know, I know. You are going to go out.”

“I know where she is going! She is going to see papa bowling!” Peanut-man declared triumphantly.

“Nu-uh! You don’t know!” Peanut-butter stated trying to get the upper hand.

Peanut, ever the peacemaker, raised her voice above the din of the argument brewing across the table, “There is a way we can know! In the morning we can go into mama and papa’s room. If there is a trophy there that means that papa was bowling!”

Cheers of approval from both sides of the table revealed their enthusiasm as to the validity and rightness of this plan to verify mama and papa’s extracurricular activities. The unanimous observation was completely founded on logic (in their heart): If papa is indeed bowling then a trophy will be the sure proof of this activity.

In conclusion: Papa bowling = a trophy won.

All in their jammies this morning my little nuts gathered around the gleaming white trophy in the shape of a bowling pin. The comments were varied.

“You got another one?” Peanut-butter clarified.

“How many of those do you have now?” Peanut asked with proud grin on her face.

“Is this one bigger than the last one?” Peanut-man implored with eyes wide inspecting the first-place, city-wide championship prize.

Nutmeg just watched and listened, contented to be in the middle of the mix as his papa showed the trophy to his ever adoring and most faithful fans. Someday they might actually get to see him win one of those things; when the championship is not held past their bed-time.

Happy Birthday Timothy!

Here is our birthday boy making a run through the obstacle course at Panchita, a chicken restaurant; his choice. He was very interested to know how fast he did it. The video shows 40 seconds - not bad. :-)

Here is his fun lunch the Panchicono; the chicken and fries are on top of the cup of lemonade with a straw to take sips while you munch.

Here he is enduring a double whammy of kisses as his sisters congratulating him for his birthday.

Scrabble

We have found a fun new web-site: www.scrabulous.com

If you want to be in on the next online scrabble game then let me know. You get an email when it is your turn and click through the link to play. It is fun!