A Big Umbrella

I was reading in Psalm 7 today and a phrase that is repeated over and over again in that book stuck out to me. I just had to share it with you in hopes that you might also find the encouragement in it that i did this morning. It really is a simple phrase, but it never really stuck out to me before. "Take Refuge." As I thought about it i had this crazy picture come to my mind. I'm standing outside in a downpour, and the Father is standing right there beside me with a massive umbrella that will protect me from all the rain. I mean, it is coming down so hard that i am completely soaked through to the bone. First, i just stand there. Maybe I'll just wait it out. Then, someone walks by, who is also getting soaked, and hands me a piece of cardboard, or a book, or something very lame like that, and i grab it, thinking it will give me some kind of shelter or "refuge". All the while, there is this huge massive umbrella just one foot away from me. All i have to do is walk over to the Big Guy holding it and stand there underneath the umbrella with Him. this may sound silly, but it really struck me. How many times, when I am just overwhelmed with my circumstances and really in need of a refuge, do i ignore the refuge that my Father provides. Or, even worse, how many times do i reach out to the things of the world thinking that they will provide me with some kind of refuge, when all they do is maybe keep a few drops off my face for a few minutes. So, today, I am telling myself to stop getting wet and take the refuge my perfect and loving Father so graciously supplies.

update in pictures

We are very quickly approaching the packing stage of going home (ahhh!), which means i have already entered into the "cleaning out pantry" stage of going home. thanks to my always wanting to save our precious export items for special occasions, we have lots of goodies to eat up before we head home! at least it will make cooking a little bit easier for me these next few and very busy weeks. here's Elly Bean enjoying our mexican feast last week!
that there is a mouth full of tex mex goodness!!

mmm...fajitas....good....mmmm

and, by the way, the girl LOVES refried beans! who knew? i don't really care for them, but i am officially outnumbered in our family, so i guess i better figure out how to make them before we come back since the can variety is not readily available over here!

Daddy finally got to packing up his camping gear after the tent was dry (it rained, errr poured, on them during their camp out) and the sleeping bag came back from the cleaners. he thought it would be a fun ride for Eliana. I think she agreed!
it just looked way too fun to not join in on the fun. "go faster, daddy, faster!!"
Eliana's friend Abigail turned two this week and had an Elmo birthday party for her friends to come and celebrate with her. eliana had a pretty good time coloring (kind of)
playing with toys and lots of fun Elmo books and things
but, she did not, however, have fun during picture time. this was our failed attempt to get a picture of all the girls together. Happy Father's Day to Daddy! Eliana loves having such a fun and silly Daddy to toss her upside down and other crazy stunts like this!

Eliana and Abigail our taking a break after their big Father's Day lunch. i guess they just ate too much. :)
We babysat Abigail one night and this is what we did...

like my chipao?? i need to grown into it a little bit more!
that's all for now! bye bye!

of shoes, children's day, tents, and other such things...

"mama, do you happen to know where my bunny shoe went??"
now, why does she insist on wearing her furry bunny slippers in the middle of the summer?? i guess it's like having a stuffed animal on her foot. :)
Happy Children's Day!!! the younger children get the day off of school, and they definitely take the opportunity to party extra hard on that day!! we didn't know what exactly it would be like to go out that day, but we figured we would go grab lunch and then go to the baby store to see if there were any sales on diapers and wipes (which there was! :)) first, we tried KFC, then when we saw that there were no tables and lines out the door to order food, we went elsewhere. we ended up at a japanese noodle restaurant, where Eliana was given the cute little dog in the picture. she insisted on holding it throughout our entire lunch pretty much. the waitress made a friend for sure when she handed that dog to Eliana. and, the night before Children's Day, her Aunt Enid gave her the bag of bilingual children's books in the picture. she loves looking at those books and taking them in and out of the bag! she's going to be a genius some day!
playing with her loot
"what, don't you have a tent in your living room??"
she's helping daddy a lot as he gets ready to go camping next week with the guys."maybe if i show daddy how i can use this thingybopper, he'll take me with him!"
"my mommy sure does like to hug and kiss me a lot!!"

botanical gardens

well, the gardens here were definitely not anything like the botanical gardens in Fort Worth or my grandma's beautiful garden and flower rooms in her house, but it was still a nice little family outing for us this Tuesday. Tuesdays have become our Sabbath, and we oh so love our Sabbaths! its not that we sit around and don't do anything, but we get to play and rest together while daddy is home! so, now that the weather is warm, we've been on the hunt for some more exciting things to do. We've done the remote control cars, play areas in the shopping areas here, and this week we "escaped" to the botanical gardens. eliana really wanted to explore it more, but the ground was so uneven that she fell way too much during her free exploration, so she had to resolve herself to having mommy and daddy tag along and hold her hand the whole time. :)
if only she would have smiled!
and, she's pooped! let's go home and take a nap!! :) after all that exploring and picture taking, she slept from 2 till 5 that afternoon!!

apartment Tour, Part 2: Bathrooms, Hallway, and Utility Room

Okay, I've finally gotten around to continuing with the apartment tour! We are very very blessed to have 1 and 1/2 bathrooms in our house with a utility room too! Well, we call it a utility room because we don't know what else to call it, but more on that later!

HALLWAY

when you walk in our front door, the hallway leading to the bathrooms, utility room, and two bedrooms is directly in front of the door. we painted the pictures on the wall when we first arrived with different verses that encouraged and reminded us of the important things. the picture in the center was our attempt at making our own matting that spells out family and has different pics of all our family in it.
hang a right at the family pic and you will wind up in Eliana's room and the full bathroom. the shelf there serves as our medicine cabinet (don't worry, all of the dangerous stuff is out of little one's reach), linen closet, storage for extra toiletries we can't find here....all those good lotions (i'm a prissy girl who likes her bath and body works and body shop) face wash (i'm kind of picky), and deoderant (Vip's kind of picky and I like him to smell good and not like a stinky boy!).
FULL BATH

Some of you may remember the saga of the bathrooms when we first moved in here. when we were faced with the decision to move here or not, it came down to the bathrooms. there was one squatty potty (the first door on the left off of the hallway) and a room with two showers and nothing else at the very end of the hallway (after you turn right and before you get to Elly Bean's room). We told the landlord that wouldn't work, so she let us figure out a solution and convert the two bathrooms into what we have now. So, here's the before....
and, the after!
now, this room has a toilet, sink, and bathtub with a shower!! woohoo! again, i was so thankful that my sweet husband went through all the stress and mess that he did to make this happen. getting workers and overseeing that kind of stuff here is not an easy job. you have to be watching them constantly to make sure things get done the way you want them done, since the western way is not normal here! for example, we were delivered two sets of tile on accident and they almost layed them both down, they were going to install the tub so that the shower could not be used while standing in the tub, and then in order to use the tub and shower at the same time, they were going to leave a huge gap between the wall and the tub.
vip had them build a brick ledge around the bathtub and tile it in so that we could use the tub and the shower at the same time and not have the big gap. smart hubby!! and, it works great for Eliana's toys and all the soap and shampoos! the shower curtain rod in the back is where i hang up clothes since our dryer isn't very big and doesn't dry completely. i can't wait to be in america for six months and be able to use a dryer again!!
UTILITY ROOM

this is the middle room down the hallway. we don't know what it's original purpose was, but now it holds our tools, christmas decoration, cleaning supplies, etc. since it also has a random sink (which our landlady wouldn't let us move to the back bathroom...not so sure why), it also serves as our house helper's cleaning area. she is able to keep all of her cleaning supplies, wash the rags, and all that good stuff here and lets them dry there without having to worry about putting them back up. it would have been nice if we could have put the washer where the sink is, but oh well!

1/2 Bath

this is the first room on the left off the hallway. this bathroom might not seem that impressive at first glance, but if you compare it with this before shot....
then, you will understand why we love our 1/2 bath so much!! it used to be a squatty potty, including the raised floor that is necessary for a squatty potty, but my wonderful hubby went through all the mess of having it turned into a western toilet before we moved in. as you may remember, it was quite the mess, but we are so pleased with the results!! and, since it still has the raised floor, some of our friends have lovingly called it the "throne room". :)

and thanks to my mom, who brought some of my old rubber ducky decorations (along with some new ones too!), we got to decorate it a little too! this is kind of unusual to many of my friends (that we decorate bathrooms), but it always makes it feel a little nicer to me, especially when i can smell my neighbors stinky fish through the bathroom fan!! everyone say it with me...ewwww!!!
yep, we like ducks!
and, since no one wants to have a post with pictures that don't have any cute smiling girls in it, here's ya go!
she's ready to welcome ya anytime!!