Merry Christmas!!

We hope everyone had a nice Christmas! We had a fun and busy time, as usual! :) Christmas Eve we went to church as a family and then went to Daniel's parents' house for a nice Christmas Eve dinner. Then we went home and Christmas morning our kids slept in until 8:15!! Can you believe that?? They never do that:) So, we did the opening presents thing at our house and then went straight over to Daniel's parents' house again for Christmas waffles and more presents. Then, around 1pm, we went to my parents house joined by my brother and sister and all their children and opened more presents, ate more food and had more family fun! :) Reece had a hard time getting to sleep last night because she just wanted to play, play, play!! :)

Then, this morning, we bravely loaded up the kids in the van and hit the after-Christmas sales! We found some really good deals today. This was our first major "shopping for Indonesia" trip. I know we still have a few months, but we took advantage of the sales and bought some things we needed to take with us when we move. Daniel's favorite thing was buying kitchen knives. My favorite thing was buying SIX pairs of Crocs!! I've never even bought crocs before in my life, but today they had buy one get one FREE at the croc store in the outlet mall, so I decided to buy each child one pair for the next THREE years! I figure they would be good jungle shoes! I had to guess on the sizes, but I figure they will fit eventually. I'm SO not one who stocks up on things, so this is all very weird for me. But, we feel accomplished for beginning the process. Any advice from those who are good at stocking up?? It's really hard to stock up on childrens' clothes because even if they are on sale, the price adds up really quickly. I'll have to hit up some major garage sale/re-sale shops!

Well, Christmas wasn't all about presents and buying things for us this year. It was neat to see Reece absorb more of the true meaning of Christmas and Jesus coming to us as a baby, but then growing up to save us. I have been really overwhelmed the past few weeks of the thought of that precious baby Jesus. If you've had a baby, you know what an AMAZING, sweet, precious blessing it is to hold, nurture and love that little one. Can you even IMAGINE getting to be the mother of the precious baby Savior!?!?! To get to train, love, play with and feed that amazing child??? WOW! Such a neat thing to think about. Makes me want to have another baby! :) Just kidding, Daniel....not quite yet :)

I will be putting up Christmas pics later...for now, I must go recover from our shopping day!

Good night!

Fun in Rainy Weather

It has been raining all week here!! We miss playing outside and seeing the sun. The other day, we were playing outside during a brief break from the rain and Joseph couldn't resist splashing in the puddles. Reece quickly joined in on the fun. You can see how Joe was forcefully hitting the ground with both hands trying to get a big splash in the face. I think he was disappointed with this puddle. The one we were playing in before I took this was a lot deeper.



Today was the best tumbling class we've had so far. There was no preschool at the church were the class is, so today about half the kids weren't there. They started off will an all-time favorite...the parachute! Reece is in the pink shirt on the right.



This was Reece's turn to sit in the middle as the others walked around. Then, the kids on the outside would quickly pull on the parachute making the kids in the middle slide around.
This is the kids under the "snow." All the kids were laughing and wiggling around. It was so cute!



Joe at tumbling. He was SO ready for his nap, but thankfully he was able to walk around and play on some of the extra equipment to keep him distracted. He also loved watching the parachute.
Joe on the balance beam.
So tired!



The best part: the HUGE slide that Coach Frank and the other coaches created.... you have to watch the video to get the whole effect.
Thumbs up and ready to go!




And a bonus silly picture of Joe! Daniel is blowing on him making his hair stick up!

I don't really have much to say, but I did want to update everyone on how support raising is going. Our December newsletter should be mailed out this week or next, but the cool thing is that the "support raising" section is already old news! We are currently at 54% for monthly support and 61% for outgoing!! Isn't God amazing!! We have had some very generous gifts this month and it just keeps coming.

It's really un-real for us to thing that we are half way there!!! Soon after that amazing feeling, we get a reality check and realize that we have to repeat everything we just did to get 50 MORE percent! :)

No, but really this is all in God's timing. We know for sure that He has called our family to serve in this role and all we can do is do the prayer and the work and HE is the one that brings in the funds. It is SO great to see our God at work everyday in this way!

We have a lot of key verses that we think about during this time in our lives, and one of those is Ephesians 1:11-12 which is on our desk. It says, "In Him you were also chosen in order that you...might be for the praise of His glory," (that is paraphrased slightly). This whole process is just to reflect His glory to not only people in Indonesia, but people at home, too!

On another note, we have had a really "fruity" week here. Reece is downing the Cutie Clementines-about 3 a day! Why in the world Joe doesn't like them is beyond me...

But, he does love strawberries!! He was picking them up and taking bites of them all by himself and he didn't even eat the leaves...amazing!
Oh, and here is a picture of our Christmas tree. I don't think we've had a full-sized one in a few years because I just hate to spend the money and we've always had little people around that like to steal the ornaments off the bottom! But, this year, they were all a great price so we decided to go for it. We just put the wooden ones on the bottom so the kids can look and touch if they want.

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season so far!

Merry Christmas from Houston, Texas!

Reece and her Daddy built a snowman and then I helped her clothe him. We have been reading a book called "The Snowman" so it was exciting for her to get to make one today!

Proud Snowman builder

We bought our Christmas tree of few days ago. Decorating with a three year old is not as easy as getting it done during her nap time like I did last year! She, of course, must help do everything. Which is fun, until a nice ornament breaks... oh well :) We had fun decorating together. Then, Joe woke up and discovered he had lots of new "balls" hanging from a tree in his living room. He could almost reach, but we had to hang them all on the top two-thirds of the tree. It's so cute to see him toddle around pointing to the tree saying his version of "ball" which sounds more like "bah"

This is Joe's cow lovie that has been in his crib since he was a few months old, but I had never noticed him interested in it until just a few weeks ago. He has been carrying it around the house lately. I think it's cute that he has a new lovie friend, but the bad part is that I bought it from someplace like Stienmart for really cheap and when I got it home, I realized that it had a little pink trim on it! Oh, well! Oh yea, and he likes to suck on the nose :)

Build-a-bear...or pink unicorn...

So, we went to build-a-bear to celebrate Reece's third birthday. It was so fun! She had a blast picking out all the things she wanted. Such a big girl to be able to make all those decisions. If you've ever been there, you know they have a wall of all the animals you can choose from. Out of all the cute bears, kitties, bunnies and doggies, our little girl picks the flashiest, sparkliest, pinkest unicorn. That's Reece for you! She also pick out a ballerina costume and named her unicorn "Flying Girl." She picked out the name all on her own. Daniel and I gave her many suggestions, but she decided to decide herself. So cute!!
Kisses for flying girl.
Hugs for flying girl!
Going home. She carried the big box all the way through the mall all by herself!
Opening presents from Mommy and Daddy....princess shoes!


Blowing out her three candles! It took her a lot of blowing and help from Daddy.Decorating cup-cakes (and eating the sprinkles!)


All decked out in princess gear.Joe was pooped from all the birthday fun! :)

We had a fun and busy day! Our little girl "is big" now (that's what she keeps telling us).

Pumpkins, Flower Fairies and Birthday Boys

Well, these pictures are better late than never! Our Internet was down for a week or so, but here are the latest festivities going on in the Perez household...

Reece and Daddy carving the pumpkin. Reece would NOT touch the insides of the pumpkin. We have a book we've been reading that is about a farmer carving a pumpkin, but it incorporates the Salvation message, so we were able to talk about this while carving.

The finished product!

Joe wanted to help, too!

Daddy and Reece after a long trick-or-treat outing!

Here's cutie Abigail in her pumpkin costume. We went to a retirement community with our MOPS group to visit the residents, and our friend Abigail was there, too.

The cutest princess flower fairy ever!!



I guess these pictures are really out of order because before Halloween, we celebrated Joe's FIRST birthday!! I can just remember sitting at home one year ago holding my BIG newborn in his pumpkin shirt. He was so sweet then and is still the sweetest little boy ever. I just love him so much! He is just what this family needed: a laid-back, funny, and sweet man.

This was his reaction to the first sight of his birthday cupcake. I promise, he has never had one before, but he acted like he knew just what to do. I've never seen a 12 month old devour a cup cake like he did!

Tasty!

Here is Joe dancing to the gift we got him. It is a farm magnet toy for the fridge. He also got a set of blocks. But, he couldn't decided whether to dance to the farm toy or turn around and rip open the other gift. :)

12 month old Joeman.

Here are some of the things Joe is up to these days: Dancing to ANY type of music (including Reece's constant singing of princess songs :), giving lots of kisses, giving me the "more" sign language sign (which for him is just clapping) all day because this boy always wants to eat! He loves balls, escaping through the back door to the patio when we have it open, eating DIRT ~yuck~ whenever he can sneak it in at the park, climbing everything and practicing his walking skills. He's not much for saying words, but he's got many lovely boy grunts, yells and of course, baby gibberish. He and his sister are getting along better and better these days. Today they were cracking up while I was making dinner, and I said, "what are y'all doing in there?" and Reece informed me that they were, "playing a game." Love it!

We adore you, Joeman!!

Tomorrow we celebrate our beautiful daughter's third birthday. Build-a-bear here we come! :)

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Perez October 2009

Trip to Dallas

Yay for road trips!!
We took a week long trip up to Dallas last week to visit with some friends and family and to tell them more about MAF. We stayed in a little cabin the whole week. It was cozy as it was only one room, but it was fun :)
We had such a great time with our friends and family. So many people were excited about what the Lord is doing in Indonesia through MAF and so many people decided to give generously. We are so thankful to God as He is providing for us and also revealing Himself to others through His work in Indonesia!

Best Buds! :) Sure, they look sweet in this picture, but things were not so happy in the middle of the night in the cozy cabin. Not much sleep was had, which makes for an interesting trip :) We really did have fun during the day and at all of our visits, but the nights were rough...The cozy cabin.


It sure was cold in Dallas!! One day it rained all day long! The cozy cabin got even cozier that day!! :) There was a small playground right next to our cabin and a TV/laundry room right next to that.One of the highlights of the trip was that there was a really fun mall right down the street from the cozy cabin with lots of fun things to do for the kids. The most fun thing was a Daddy/daughter ice skating adventure!! We were so proud of Reece for being so brave on the ice. Daddy had to help her a lot with the skating, but she learned how to stand on her own and she skated around several times with the help of her Dad.



Don't fall!



We got home on Saturday and had to prepare for our presentation on Sunday at church. So, after that, we had a relaxing Sunday afternoon/evening. We spent some time outside enjoying the nice weather. Our presentation went really well. Thanks for everyone who came to ABF on Sunday!


Beautiful girl on her tricycle. She's getting so good at riding it!

Good ole Joe in his walker. He actually took his first step last week! But, it was short lived excitement. He has only done it again a few times, so I think it will be awhile before he's running around the house.

I just think it so cute when they're playing outside together. We had a lot more races that evening :)


Random pictures:
Reece helping Mommy mop--in her boots, of course.
So, I'm getting motivated again to unpack the boxes that line our hallway and dining room. Reece and Joe "helped" me unpack the DVD box and then decided to get in it. Actually, Joe was in it before all the DVD's were out. Such a helper... :)

Pumpkin Patch Day!

It was a HOT day here in Houston, Texas, but we pretended it was a beautiful fall day and headed out for our annual pumpkin patch day. The kids had fun exploring, and we even got a few good pictures.

Ahhh... the memories...

Reece 23 months and Joe 2 weeks from his birthday

Reece 23 month

Reece 11 months all dressed up in her doggie costume!