kinder grad. cont.

This is the after graduation party....the kiddos filling their bellies up

Kinder graduation

Saturday was the kinder graduation. Here are some pictures!Daniela getting her pre-K diploma....it is kinder for her next year she is just not ready quit yet to go to 1st grade.

Fernando getting his pre-K diploma.....it is kinder again next year not so ready to go onto 1st grade

Mario getting his diploma and it is off to 1st grade now

Monica recieving her pre-K diploma, next year she will be in kinder again...just not ready yet for first grade
Cindy also got her diploma and it is off to first grade for her. We did not get a good pic of her getting hers, just her back.

Mario and his class singing.....it is what Mario loves to do.....sing!
The song was "un beso y flor"
A kiss and a flower

lMiss Monica

Monica marching in......well at least she did not run in like her brother when they called his name. Like light he ran to his seat.

Mr. Mario

Cindy.....being shy....she was not too sure about sitting without me

Daniela, Monica, and Fernando

Thanksgiving

Here at Casa we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got our fill of turkey! We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, noodles and cream, stuffing, corn, rolls, salad, guacamole the ladies threw in, ham, and desserts! It was good to have some of out comfort foods. We have so much to be thankful. The kids all talked before we ate and each and everyone of them named what they were thankful for from food, to beds to pillows to being thankful for each other. It was sweet to hear them say the little things that I do not even thank of that they were thankful for.

Hope that each and everyone of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here are some pics from our celebration! Here at Casa we are thankful for each and everyone of you and your support and prayers! Here are all of the kiddos getting their bellies full..........they ate and ate and ate........some of them I am surprised that their little bellies didn't pop.

Here is Miss Olivia who helped do a good bit of the cooking

Here we all are filling our bellies

Tia Gina with Daniela, Marvin, and Fitto

Fransico not feeling so well

Us telling one another what we are thankful before we ate. This is Dorian telling everyone what he is thankful for.

Dad......me, him, and Olivia did the cooking.....actually they did most of the cooking and I just helped out here and there.

Marc with Pamela

some more pics

Marjuri

Pamela pulling Katty along on the horseKatty Katty!

Daniela, Cindy, Fernando, and Monica in their kinder classroom, last week of schoolAntonio and Fransico

Good byes

Oh how I hate good byes.....why are they so hard?
After having my mom and Joyce here for a week and a half they left today! :( So it was a hard day!
Although my dad will be here soon to visit too, but once again the good byes come, but we will not think about that yet.
Thank you mom and Joyce for your sacrifice of coming here and helping out with these kiddos and giving us a bit of a break! You will never know much it meant to us!

Here is our tree....

It is starting to look like Christmas around here......

Joyce helped the kiddos put up the tree this year! Brayan and Rudy especially loved doing it!
The kids got gifts from gma Joyce the other morning. So when all the kids woke up and saw a small gift they thought it was Christmas!!! :) They wanted to know why their stocking were not filled up! I had to explain that it was not Christmas morning, but they were content with their one little gift.

Last Day of school.........

So the kids had there last day of school on Friday. They are out of school now till the middle of February.
So now we have them all everyday here at the house. We are trying to be creative and get things going for them so that they are not sitting around getting bored and such here at the house everyday. Just trying to implement some things with the kids and we shall try and see what works and what doesn't work and change things as we go along.
The kinder had their party yesterday for the last day of school. A day full of food, pinatas, cake, gifts, and lots of excitement. I usually do not get to go to the kids activities at the school because we do not have enough staff to do that. But since we have my mom and Joyce here I got to go with the kiddos to celebrate. It meant so much to them, Monica at least 10 times told everyone I was her mom that she was so proud of. Through out the year they have had several activities that we have been unable to attend in the school and kinder. So for me getting to go was such a joy for the kiddos.
Although this is not the end of all of the activities. The 1st and 2nd graders still have their celebrations to go and gift giving. And the kinder have their official graduation later on in the month.

pics

So help has arrived........my mom and Joyce Foreman got here last Friday and are here till next week. So they are here helping us take care of the kiddos and such. And then also Tues a volunteer, Olivia arrived on Tues and she will be here till Jan. So help is now here. So thank you for your prayers!
Haven't been so good at taking pics lately but my mom has taken some so here are a few. I will try to post more sometime later this week!

Antonio wallering with the dogs....it is what little boys do the best ( but Katty does it even better, the poor dogs)

"Our little monsters"

Happy B~Day Rudy

So Rudy we celebrated Rudy's b~day with him on Tuesday the 23rd . He turned 11 years old. Which makes him the oldest kiddo in the house, although he does not look it at all!

Marc had made some plans to have a bonfire with the group that is here and have a cookout for Rudy's b~day. Well that so much did not happen. The bonfire was all ready but the wood was just too wet to even start a fire. So the plan of cooking out was canceled and we just ate the hotdogs with chips and potato salad inside. And then the group was running late that night so we ate with out them so at this point Rudy had waited for this all day and was feeling a little bummed. The group arrived while we were eatting supper and had brought cake and ice cream and Rudy his very own soccer ball! So his face began to light up and he was back to being happy!
For those of you who know Rudy he has a hard exterior and is hard to get to know. He is never one who will come up to you and ask for a hug or want to snuggle up to ya. Well in the past three weeks he has changed. He has cried out to me, "love me"! I always hug him and tell him good morning and he sort of pushes me away and acts irritated that I would even want to hug him.
Well I guess all of those good morning's and hugs paid off. He whispered in my ear "I love you" for the first time. And it is daily now that he hugs me and wants to snuggle up to me. He is wanting to just be loved. His hard exterior is being broken and this little boy is truly letting us love him. When we watch movies before we go to bed he seems to almost always sneak his way over to me and want to cuddle up to me. Sweet stuff! This is not only with me but with Dorian and one of our ladies that work for us he is warming up to them and wanting their attention and them to play with him and just love him! He is taking discipline much better than before and learning to respect and have boundaries. He still has street mentality at times but he is coming along for sure!

And as I always tell you guys I see this changes because of the awesome God we have! Thank God!

God may you continue to be a God of great big love and may you help me to mirror your love to these children!

Happy Birthday Rudy!

Sorry for the lack of pics. Terri got some pics I think of the b~day that night but I didn't get any! So for all of you picture people I will get some pics on here soon!

1 year

So today marks one day since we took our second set of five kiddos. Last year on this day we took in Cindy and Marjuri(sisters), Monica, Fernando, and Katty (siblings).

Marjuri did not know how to walk or much less talk or show any emotion. She was a very scared little girl. Well now she is here and full of joy and beginning to talk up a storm at times, she can walk, and even is completely potty trained, and for sure is full of joy!
Cindy is still a work in process but hey aren't we all. Cindy came to us with a lot of anger and confusion. We would have to sit with her a hour at a time or so and restain her and hope she would settle down. We would get bit and kicked and our hair pulled and get called all sorts of names. Well she still is coming along but I look back and she has came a long ways. Some days I am still not too sure what to do with her but then I look back at where she was and she is slowly coming along. Also Cindy attended kinder this year and next year is on to the big 1st grade!

Then there is Fernando, Monica, and Katty. They came from very poor circumstances and where not so much behaving proper/normal at times. They were not shown how to eat properly or to dress properly. Monica especially ate like a monster. After a year of being here they are acting more "normal" if that is even the word. But the three of them are more than a blessing to this family. They are each forming their own little personalities and becoming their own. Monica and Fernando spent their first full year in kinder but will repeat next year and Katty will get to start next year too we are hoping!

Thank you for all of you who take these kiddos names before our father. It is because of people like you that I see change! God is good!

Here is a good laugh for ya........

Marvin happened to get ahold of my camera and took some photos of himself making some faces!

pray, pray, pray

So right now I am asking all of you prayer warriors to be double or triple time praying for this ministry! Things are tough right now we are short handed. So pray that God leads who He wants here in this ministry! And pray that all of here keep our sanity in the mean time!