Mahalia and Friend

   So, the other day I was scheduled to do a photoshoot for a couple twin 1-yr-old boys who have never had their picture taken with anything more than a cell phone, but they had to cancel at the last minute.

   However, right at the scheduled time, a different neighbor family dropped in to visit us and so I got to do an impromptu photo shoot for them, just for the fun of it!  Their two daughters are really good friends with our kids and love to play together in our back yard.  Here's a picture of their 8-yr-old with Mahalia.

Johnathan's Language School

   Johnathan has really enjoyed language school here in Brazil. He has class everyday for about 20 minutes with our language teacher. They go through his picture books for vocabulary and then make simple sentences with the words. Sometimes they "play store" or find other ways to interact and use Portuguese in common settings. She very patiently corrects his pronunciation and verb conjugations since the verbs are much more complex in Portuguese than in English.  

   The strange face he makes (0:32) is because his teacher told him that one of the types of shovels is called a "cereal shovel" (grain shovel). The only "cereal" that he understands is the kind you eat for breakfast, so he turned to his Daddy and said in English, "It'd have to be clean first!"

Felipe - People of Brazil

   Another kid from Family Camp just having a great time!

Isabele - People Of Brazil

     We enjoy this little girl from the church here.  She is always ready with a smile; especially if I have my camera! :)

Léo - People of Brazil

     Léo is a great friend of ours.  After church, our children enjoy playing with him and he is always ready to help in any way needed!

Paula - People of Brazl

  I think little Paula had a great time at Family Camp this year!  Of course, with candied apples, who wouldn't be enjoying themselves!?

Diana - People of Brazil

       We enjoyed getting to talk to Diana again at Family Camp this year.  Her sweet, quiet spirit made it a joy to be around her.  Her mother has raised her going to church and we pray that she'll continue to be a sweet young lady for the Lord.  I also posted a picture of her in 2011.

Mahalia and Friends

     If there is one thing our kids do not lack, it is attention.  Mahalia especially gets an overload of attention, mostly because of her extra-white skin and the fact that she's still small enough to be picked up!  

    Though she'd often just be left to run on her own, getting all the attention does have it's benefits at times - like an occasional lick of a friend's candy . . .  (eeew!)

    We really do appreciate that the Brazilian people are so nice to us and our kids!  It is such a blessing to have so many friends here in Brazil!

Letícia - People of Brazil

      Letícia is another one of our friends who attended Vacation Bible School this year.  Though she and her brother had come last year and had attended Sunday School for a while, they moved to another house and we hadn't seen them for quite some time.  Finally when we found where they moved to, Johnathan, Mahalia, and I visited them a couple times and let them know the dates for the VBS this year.  Though they may have come even if we hadn't invited them, Johnathan was very excited to see some of his friends at VBS that he had invited himself!

Óliver - People of Brazil

   We really enjoyed getting to know Óliver and his family at Family Camp earlier this year.  Both Mahalia and Johnathan got to play with him quite a bit and we got to visit with his parents a good bit as well. 

Márcio - People of Brazil

Here's one of the boys from this year's Family Camp.

They Just Keep Growing....

Well, here's a little update on our chillins.  Omar got a chance to take a few pictures of the kids this past weekend, so here's a peek:  

Mahalia is about as ornery as they come - no REALLY - she has quite a stubborn streak in her that will hopefully one day be aimed in the right direction.  Until then....she's ornery.  

But she is fun, loving, and very, very girlie.  She LOVES getting dressed up with dresses,  hair bows, and bracelets.  

She loves her dollies, and drags them all over the house and yard, whether they like it or not :)  

Johnathan is growing up so much already.  He is his daddy's and my big helper, and his sister's protector.  

And he's getting to that "please stop taking so many pictures of me, Dad.  I'm only going to make silly faces for your camera now" phase. (As you can clearly see below.)

He is starting to learn his alphabet, and loves to "read" books all day.  

That is, when he's not outside riding his tricycle, aka: motorcycle.

By the way, if you were wondering, this is his "tough guy" look.  Try not to laugh be frightened.

Family Camp 2012 - Activities

Here are some of the fun activities that go on during free time at family camp.

Ping Pong

Carpetball

Here is the zip-line at camp.  The kids love it!  They wait and wait in line until it is their turn.  First they have to be strapped in.... 

....then they jump off the edge and ride it down the hill between the trees....

....then one of the kids waiting at the bottom of the hill will grab the rope that is dangling from the harness and pull them back up to the top for the next person in line.  

Every afternoon the ladies would gather together to do crafts.  This year they made pretty little canisters and decorated flip-flops.

I think they really just enjoy the fellowship more than anything.

Canteen: one of the most important places at camp - just ask the kids.  They sold drinks, Brazilian chips (like cheetoes, but many different shapes and flavors) and various candies.  And even though we didn't buy any candy from this canteen for our kids, they got plenty of it!  Brazilians love to share food with our kids, and they don't think to ask an adult first.  I don't even remember how many times I saw Johnathan or Mahalia wandering around with a sucker, or chips, or candy that someone had given to them.  I thought about putting a "Please don't feed the Americans" sign around my kids' necks :)

Meanwhile, the men and teen boys would get up a soccer game or two every afternoon.

And the kids all loved playing at the playground. This big swing was always full whether it was kids or adults!

Here's my little pale face at her favorite place at camp: the merry-go-round.

And here are a couple of crazy American boys going up the slide the wrong way.  Who's boys are those, anyway!?

Family Camp 2012 - Services

Here's a look at the services that went on during the week of Family Camp.

The theme of the year was "Passo a passo com Jesus" or "Step by Step with Jesus."

This is the main service for the adults with the Camp's special speaker, Pastor Marcelo.  He and his family are from a different state in Brazil, and they continually commented on how HOT Cuiaba is. (It makes us feel a little better about feeling so warm when the Brazilians complain about the heat too!)

During the morning services, the kids split up into different classes.  This is the 2-4 year old's class that Johnathan was in.  The teacher is holding up a card that says, "sin" in Portuguese.  Hmmm....I wonder if she's pointing that toward my son for any particular reason....

Here's Johnathan and his teacher working on a craft paper.

This is the "juniors'" class with their teacher.

Here is our co-worker Jeremy Lockhart teaching the young teen boys' class.

This is the young teen girls' class...

...And, the singles class.

For the evening service, everyone would meet together.  There were many musical specials before the preaching service would start.

Even though we still can't understand everything that is being said during the preaching time, we're able to understand more and more, little by little, "Step by Step."

Carlos - People of Brazil

     We had a great time at camp last summer with this boy, particularly on the soccer field.  He was a real go-getter and just had a great time all week!

Janaína - People of Brazil

    This shy, young lady seemed to really enjoy herself at youth camp this past summer.  Here she's enjoying some friendly competition at the fusbol table.

Ricardo - People of Brazil

Ricardo is yet another one of the boys who enjoyed Youth Camp this past year.

Rebeca - People of Brazil

    Rebeca is another girl from my continuing series of kids from this year's Youth Camp.

Dionathan - People of Brazil

Tânia - People of Brazil