Samuel is 4

Samuel turned 4 January 19.
We are not sure where the time has gone.
Every parent I know has said this at least once,
"It seems like just yesterday and we were bringing him home from the hospital."
That is exactly how we feel.



Samuel has many loves in his life.
He loves fire fighting.
He loves lawn mowing.
He loves wood chippers.
He loves cooking appliances.

When offered a variety of things, he chose to
have a fire truck cake,
to go four-wheeling at my uncle's shack
and to have lunch and go bowling at Chet & Emil's.

It was a great day with two of his close friends
and our family plus Grandpa and Nana.

We love you, Samuel Jose, and we are so thankful for
your place in our family.
It is our prayer that you will keep learning to love
Jesus more than anything else in life
and to have your heart inclined to Him alone (Joshua 24:23).

 

 

Peek-a-boo

Joel loves to play peek-a-boo...
I think maybe it should be called speak-a-boo since he thinks he's supposed to cover his ears, not his eyes!

Tender hearted

We have said nearly since Joel was born that he and Katrina seem similar to us in many regards.

One sad similarity is that both struggle with tummy issues.

Today Joel needed an "intervention" and Katrina is all-too-familiar with this particular "intervention" so she was very tender hearted and gracious before, during and after the procedure.

As soon as I had Joel up and on his feet she was getting his favorite show "Chuck" up and running on the iPad.

"Do you want to watch "Ch-Ch?"" she asked.

His eyes lit up as he heard the theme song and clambered to sit next to her on the sofa.

There have been countless times I have sat with Katrina during an "intervention" when she asks me, "Why me, Mama?" As hard as it has been to not indulge her (or join her!) in asking why, we have encouraged her (and ourselves) to look for WHAT God might teach her through the issue.

Today she saw firsthand that compassion and empathy is a beautiful thing to be able to offer someone, especially your baby brother.

2 Corinthians 1:3,4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

No Greater Joy

3 John 4
I have no greater joy than to hear of my children walking in truth.

I was finishing reading the New Testament and the Lord
chose just the right day for me to read this verse.

It is easy to find joy in Samuel smiling like this and making us laugh like he does on a daily basis.


It is easy to find joy in this sweet face and his adorable little voice. 

It is easy to to find joy when this girl puts on sunglasses and gives us a fashion show. 

I had been having a difficult time, though, finding NO greater joy, than hearing
of my children walking in truth.
And then I read this verse and God reminded me that investing truth into them
and seeing it come to a harvest is what should bring me most joy.
It does not matter if Samuel can count from one to ten in order. 
It does not matter if Joel cannot identify pictures in My First 100 Words.
It does not matter if Katrina is not reading at a 3rd grade level.
What matters is that our children are walking in truth.

Gift Days 2012

Several years ago some good friends talked about a December
tradition where they would have what they called "gift day."
On this day the children in the family would open gifts from the parents
 and then Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were set aside
for Jesus and the gift He is to us and how we can give to Him.
This idea struck a chord within Pancho and me and we decided
to begin a gift day tradition at the Duran home.

Each year we have done gift day a bit differently than the year before.
Each year we have chosen to give the kids three gifts each and we
thought it was a good idea instead of giving the gifts all at once to give them
one at a time.
We have had scavenger hunts with clues and we have done one gift at
each mealtime.
This year we decided to drag out gift day into three days.
One gift for each day.

We had some special things planned for each child this year.
Samuel and Joel have been very interested in transformers
so we purchased a set of transformers and gifted the boys the
set, helping to teach sharing and cooperation.
Katrina has been overly excited about our upcoming trip to Venezuela so we
thought we would incorporate some of that excitement into
gift day.

The final gift day gift for Katrina was exciting for all of us.
We bought her a new travel backpack, a big girl backpack, and
inside we hid a pair of earrings and a necklace.
Not just any earrings or necklace.
These were dolphin earrings and a dolphin necklace.
The final thing hidden in the backpack was a frame.
This frame did not have a picture but it had a note for Katrina
about our upcoming trip...



Can you read the special note for her?

Pancho has dreamed for years of swimming with dolphins.
In his quest for the best flight for our family to Venezuela
he found flights through Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela,
very economically priced.
After calculating other things, he discovered that this was the
absolute best offer we have ever found!
Once we bought the tickets we began to look for
hotels since we decided to spend two nights on the island.
He found a great hotel that is RIGHT NEXT TO a
dolphin academy.

Pancho and Katrina are registered for a dolphin encounter
the day after we arrive on the island.
Needless to say, she is over-the-top excited.
I must say, Pancho is too! 

Musical Debut

Katrina participated in the Solid ROCK children's choir
at our church this winter.
They had a Christmas concert in the middle of December.
Katrina thoroughly enjoyed singing praises about
Jesus' birth and our hearts could not be
fuller praising God for her heart for Him!

 

Venezuelan December Food traditions

Over the years we have worked at exposing our children to some December food traditions from Venezuela.

This year we made hallacas and pan de jamon.

1: all ready to start working with the dough, shower caps, errr, hair nets and all

2: rolling out the dough

3: layering the ham

4: adding the olives

5: adding the raisins and rolling up the loaf

Although the kids did an incredible job making the pan, they do not care for eating it. We are hopeful that with time and an extended palate, we can enjoy a loaf as a family!

It won't be long

Yesterday Joel was the only child awake when Pancho went out to clear the driveway. He sat on the chair and longingly looked outside. It seems he a lot like his big brother, Samuel, and will enjoy snowblowing and shoveling with his papa!
It won't be long, Joel, and you'll be out there clearing snow too!

Rub a dub dub

Joel's longer locks are cute dry but it appears they are even cuter wet!

We got a tree

We went on Saturday morning to get a tree. It was a great morning to go. We ran into some good friends and some dear family, which made the experience even richer.
We all had a great time and it is fun to have a sparkly tree in the living room.