Christmas is in the Air

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....though not quite like the ones we used to know :) But none the less, we've been really enjoying getting ready for a unique Christmas together here! Both of us grew up always having real Christmas trees, but there are none available in our city here in hot Brazil. Rather than just skip on it (like we did last year) we decided to get a little table top one. Despite how artificial it looks, we've been enjoying it :)

As we look around we remember many of you since almost all of our Christmas items were sent to us or given to us by our friends and family....table decorations, ornaments, even the CD we're listening to that Katie and Dan preformed, recorded, and sent to us!

We have a tiny nativity scene from Ecuador. It is on top of the microwave now but originally we put it on the coffee table. The next morning we woke up and it was GONE! We found the cow under the coffee table, the horse in the hallway, Mary under the bed, the manger under the couch, and Joseph under the refrigerator. We're still looking for the angel! I'm not sure what happened, but I think I know who did it....and I think he's in the previous picture :)

We have these nice Christmas towels that my sister sent down last year and even some festive napkins and a candle my mom gave us.

This year I have the cookie baking bug. Have you ever had that? It's funny, last year I hardly baked cookies, but this year I have about 7 kinds on my list and I can't seem to eliminate any of them. I searched for all of the ingredients and can't wait till the weekend to get started. I am especially excited about the peanut butter cookies. Thanks so much Mom for sending the mix! I think I'll make the one with the Hershey kiss in the middle - except we don't have any kisses. Do you think Christmas colored M&M's will work? Do you have anther suggestion?

Well it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. We're singing Christmas hymns in church and reading about Christ's birth.....

The only part I'm still trying to get used to is seeing my garden in full bloom!

Unrelated to anything above - I've made some changes to our blog. First, now I'm going to categorize my posts as either ministry, just for fun, or life overseas. You can see the topic at the bottom of the post and click on the right at the top of the blog to see only posts from that category. That way, if you're interested in hearing about our ministry you can just see posts about that or if you just want the fun stories you can just see those, etc.

Second, I have improved how you can leave a comment. I didn't realize there were so many hoops to jump through to leave a comment. Now it's easy - you don't even need a Google account. Just leave a comment, type in the word you see, and it will appear right away!