Fun Fact Friday -- Cookies!!!!

I've been negligent in my Fun Fact Friday posts, but I think I'm getting back in the swing of things!!! Here's this week's fact.

When I was a little girl, my mom took me to Brown's Bakery about once a week and let me buy one of these little guys:

I have fond memories of all the little Gingerbread men lined up hand to hand and toe to toe -- each with different colored frosting. Mrs. Brown used the leftover frosting from her cakes to decorate the cookies, so sometimes they were rainbow colored. I especially loved those!!! They were yummy, too!!!

Well, a while back I discovered a new Mexican cookie: the cochi.

Yes. It's a pig.

Just like every "man" cookie you see in the US will probably be a Gingerbread Man, every pig cookie you see in Mexico (or at least in Sinaloa!) will be...a Gingerbread Pig.

"I am the Gingerbread Pig, I am. I can grunt. I can, I can!"

Hmm. It doesn't have the same ring. But it was definitely tasty!!!

Do you have a fun fact to share? Link up below!!!

Wordless Wednesday -- Clowning Around!

Well, it's pretty much wordless!

Here's us being clowns at a birthday party in Reforma last week. We did the "Jesus is the Key to Eternal Life" drama.

Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Reaching out to Families

One of the ways our family has been reaching out to the families around us is by offering free parenting classes. We’ve recently started another session in a village about 30 minutes from our home. This is our 4th week of classes and the response has been wonderful!

Sarah, Caleb and the rest of the gang are in charge of “childcare” during the classes. The first week, they had about 25 kids show up. Afterward, Sarah asked the pastor’s wife how many kids should be there each week. Eugenia said that there should only be about 10. Apparently the neighbor kids saw a fun thing happening and wanted to be included. Sarah laughed and said that she’d have to work at keeping it interesting and fun, but not so fun that every kid in the village wants to come!

Originally, seventeen people signed up to take this class. It’s now grown to 21 – that’s almost half the church body! We’re excited about what God’s going to do in the lives and homes of these parents and grandparents as they put the Biblical principles into practice.

Rebecca’s started a pretty-much-weekly sum-up of the main points of the lessons. If you’d like to check it out, click here to visit her blog.

Pray for these families! We know that raising children isn’t easy. We can all use all the help we can get, right?! Also pray that God would open doors for another class in Las Glorias. Several couples have expressed interest, and several single moms, too. Pray that we would be able to find a day when all of those who are interested can attend the classes and that God would provide the materials needed!

New Kids on the Block

Some friends in Los Mochis who run the deaf school (where Sarah volunteered last school year) were gracious enough to loan us a couple of kids for the summer! Meet Andrés and Juanito:

These boys are wonderful! It's been a while since we had "little ones" clomping around the house on a regular basis. I've certainly missed it!

To be sure, our house is seldom what you would call "quiet" and never "boring", but adding an eight and nine year old to the mix has given us some neat reminders of times past and some new experiences -- for our two youngest especially!

Observations:

• Juanito goes everywhere at a run and talks 200 mph. Until he gets tired and then he just stops.
• Andres is fascinated by the "nature" we have around here. He spent almost an hour the second day he was with us watching the male cardinal and searching for the female.
• Having a younger sibling is a new experience for Evie -- she's stepping up!
• Our Andrew loves being big brother to little brothers.
• Caleb is the little boys' hero...especially after this incident:
  

That's a "culebra pollera" (chicken snake) going after our new baby ducklings. Caleb is holding the machete so I could take the picture.

I think Juanito and Andrés enjoy having 4 big brothers as much as the big brothers enjoy having two more little brothers to goof off with!!!

Cool Photo Thursday

I see so many interesting sights here. Thought I'd share one today.

Wonderful old tree outside the church in Tamazula, Sinaloa, Mexico.

Preparing for Rain

It's that time of year! Hurricane season is upon us, so we're battening down the hatches and trying to finish up some outdoor projects we've been putting off since last rainy season.

Here are some pics of Doug, Andrew and Sarah tearing down our tejaban (awning) and replacing the palm fronds and the old, shredded tarp.

Sarah pulled down all the old fronds -- including the buckets and buckets of concrete debris from all the construction we've done over the past two years.

Doug and Sarah hauled the old tarp away from the house -- you should have seen the dust cloud when they pulled that thing down!!! That's why Doug looks like this:

Doug Vader

The city workers had just trimmed the palms lining the boulevard, so Doug and the boys went out and gathered what we needed.
Then up went the new tarp.

Carefully.

And then they were done! Hopefully, this means that when the rains come we won't have a lake in front of the house. That is, at least, the plan!!!

Lord, bring the rain!!!

Attention Grabber

We were in Home Depot a couple of weeks ago and I noticed this near the checkout...

I watched the crowd grow for a few moments and wondered what everyone was looking at. No one was moving...

Wanna guess???

Mexico vs. Italy

The World Cup is such a big thing here, the schools dismissed classes or brought TVs into the classroom so that the students (and, more importantly, the teachers) could watch the games. At least they have their priorities straight. :^)