Happy Birthday, Kyle!

Today is Kyle's Birthday! It's hard to believe he is 3 years old already!! Where has the time gone?

Kyle has always been such a pleasant little guy. He enjoys talking very much (he gets that from his daddy, you know?) and has always kept us entertained with the things he says!! The other day at the table we were pretending we didn't know his name and so we asked him if (?) was his name, and he said "no". I finally asked him just what was his name and he said matter of factly, "Dan Durkee". It was very comical at the time! Kyle is a very social person and loves playing with other kids. He also likes to help me with whatever I'm doing (sometimes to my chagrin!). He likes to spend time with his daddy reading books, but his favorite activity is pretending to go on big hunting trips. You don't think he's related to his Uncle Dan do you?

We have been so blessed to have Kyle in our lives. He's a wonderful gift of God. We pray that he will allow his tender heart to be given to Jesus at a young age and then grow up to serve the Lord!

We Love You, buddy!! We wish you many more happy birthdays!

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We tried doing a small photo shoot outside today. It was a little bit too bright and it's hard to see the color of his eyes, but, oh well! Since I can't take them to Sears, this will have to do. He's turning into a handsome little man, eh?!

(Above)

Exactly what he thought about this whole photo session!

(Continue reading previous birthday posts...)

A Birthday Present

We will be celebrating Kyle's birthday in about two weeks when Michelle and Kay will be here...but we still wanted Kyle to know that the actual day of his birthday is special, too. We gave him one present to open up. It was several train tracks to add to his Thomas the Train collection.

Life in the Mason Household

Whew...we made it through VBS! (...and I'm still getting those pictures ready to put on here!) I made two cakes as part of the snack for Sunday. I'm obviously not a professional, but enjoy practicing all the same. Since I didn't have much time, I didn't use any colored icing. Just white on white.

I've always wanted to try this style. It is called 'Cornelli Lace." It is a free-hand style in which the strings are never to cross or touch.

This is the other one I did. I used a basketweave in the center. I've always liked doing this style.

Now that VBS is over, we have a whole week to prepare for Michael's sister, Michelle, and her friend, Kay who are coming to visit us. We are very exicited, but need to do a few things to make our house "ready"! Today we did a lot of odd jobs...and as always in our household, some were more exciting than others! We still needed to hang the lights in the bedrooms and in the living room. Fine, Michael got the kids' room done by standing on their dresser. Next, was our room. Since we don't have a dresser yet, we drug the kids' dresser over to use. Well, our ceiling is a little higher than the kids, so we put a chair on top of the dresser, and that worked just fine. Now it was time to do the living room. We really didn't know what to do here. The top of the ceiling is at least 14 ft. then there's a dome in the center which adds about 3 more feet. Once again, we wouldn't dare ask someone for a ladder, so we had to figure something else out. Michael stood on a chair on the table and used the broom handle and the mop handle taped together to hook the chain to the top. And...it worked!

This is a bad picture of Michael, but maybe you can see what we were trying to do.

The finished product.

Now that job is done. Unfortunately, we still have some more things on our 'To Do' list. ...hanging more pictures on the wall...installing some bathroom lights and mirror...painting a post that Kyle wrote on...changing the oil in the truck...cleaning the truck...finish sewing the curtain in our room...go look for some furniture to add to our one lonely recliner...and a few other odds and ends! Maybe I'll share a few pictures tomorrow of some finished rooms.

A Friday Evening Drive

Yes, I do have some pictures from VBS, but I will share them later...it has been going very well.

Now to the actual post---on our way home from VBS today, we drove around a little and tried to find a lake and dam that's not too far from our house. We did find it, and it's bigger than what I thought, and of course very lovely!

Many people put their horses and donkeys out to pasture near the water, so I took a few pictures.

Just thought I'd share this picture with you! The poor creature was grazing near the edge of the road and begging to have his picture taken. I knew all my fellow bloggers would enjoy it!!

Vacation Bible School

We would appreciate your prayers this week as we are helping in the first ever VBS at the Salamanca church.

Today I believe we had somewhere around 36 kids. Our goal we would like to reach is 50.

I was intending to take some pictures to put on here...but alas, I forgot my camera at home today. Check back soon, maybe I'll remember tomorrow!

A Baby Dedication

Yesterday we held a baby dedication at the church here in Salamanca.

This is the family...Tino, Tinito (Little Tino), Yanet, and Baby Yanet
(They are a sweet family and Kyle really enjoys playing with Tinito)

Baby Yanet
(I believe she's around 3 months old now - she's such a cutie!)

Philip praying the blessing over Baby Yanet.

Disclaimer: Please excuse any mis-spellings of names.....

Taylor

Yeah...to those interested (or not!!)...Taylor did get a hair cut recently. I kind of like it!

Christmas in July!

Not really! But, Philip and Collette recently went to Texas to pick up some visitors, so they also picked up our mail. Along with some things we had ordered, my mom and sister sent two boxes. We got some snack foods, books, clothes for the kids, a pair of sandals for Kyle, a few small toys, and some other misc. items.

I'm one happy lady! Besides chocolate, this is one of my favorite snacks!!

Thanks Mammaw and Aunt Brenda for the goodies!!!!

Cookin' Food

Well, not too much going on here out of the ordinary! Actually, that's a good thing! I've been doing some baking recently and thought I would share a few pictures.

The other day, I finally found some 'normal' peaches! The ones they had previously had around here were very small, hard to cut, and extremely juicy! Peach pie is one of my favorite fruit pies, so I thought I would try using those peaches for a dessert. After fighting with the peaches trying to get what little fruit I could, I decided it was hopeless. Now, for whatever reason, they have the larger 'normal' peaches available. So, what did I do? Aaahhh...I made a peach pie!!!

I also made rolls that same day to go with our supper. I used my mother-in-laws recipe. Mmm...Mmm...Good!!

And then yesterday, I made a snack for our weekly Bible Study group at church. I made 60 mini-snickerdoodles.

Hey...I can't communicate very well with the people yet, so for now, I can cook for them!

Washin' in the Rain

Okay. So what do you do when your washer is outside, your clothesline is outside, you don't own a dryer, and it's pouring down rain outside??? After so many days of not doing wash, hoping that the rain would clear up for a day or two, I knew I needed to do wash and that they would have to come inside. I really didn't want to drill more holes in the wall just to hang an inside line, so I came up with this plan. Thankfully, we have a very large closet in our room, so I ran string through the slats and tied them...and now I have my inside drying rack!!

Now, if I can just figure out what to do about the rain coming through my leaky roof in the living room!! Ha!

Computer Problems

If you think of it, say a prayer for our laptop computer. Michael was on the internet yesterday and it froze, so he turned it off and...it would not come back on. We talked to technical support and they suggested we try our utility disk, but it didn't work. They think the disk is faulty and are sending us another, but we won't get that until late next week. And as most people learn only once, we don't have anything backed up...we're hoping all our info can be saved...all those pictures...my rosetta stone software...and we need to get a newsletter out, but of course, our template and articles are saved on the laptop. So for now, we are using our old-timey desktop.

Update

I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July. Philip and Collette came over and we grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and had pasta and potato salad, chips and then strawberry pie and oreo dessert. Everything was delicious!!! We then played a game of Balderdash. That was fun! A great highlight of the evening was when Collette asked for an answer to be repeated, promptly answered "Yeah, I'll take that one"...only to find out she had picked her own (and didn't realize it)!! Hee! Hee!

The picture below is of us eating our dessert and playing games. Please excuse my crazed look ~ not sure what that was all about!

Thanks to Philip for helping put up the light in the kitchen. We have similar ones still to be put up in the living room and both bedrooms.

As for other things I'm doing...finishing painting the bathroom and then hanging a mirror, sewing curtains for our bedroom, and then hanging pictures and decorations little by little ( I say that, because your arms get a little sore after drilling holes into stubborn concrete)!!

A Sunday Evening Scenic Drive

Sunday evening we took a drive with the Burch's. They took us to a crater that was formed from a ruptured volcano many years ago. In the picture below there is a small village nestled towards the back corner. They also have beautiful, fertile fields of corn planted.

A Birthday Celebration

Last Saturday, we went to a birthday party for Carlos, the son of one of the young women from church. He just turned 8. Here are some pictures from the event.

The birthday boy!

Some of the kids enjoying homemade pizza.

Fun on the trampoline.

Carlos taking the first shot at the piñata.

Kyle tried his turn at it too!