Our Pride and Joy

Today we took some time to write a special letter to our Compassion child, Estiven. We called him "Yordi" for about a year-and-a-half until his mother corrected us in the last letter we received. Oops. I'm sure all parents go through that phase where you call your kid the wrong name. I was called "LaJennifer" for several years of my life (combo Elizabeth + Jennifer). Yordi, I mean Estiven, I feel your pain.

Our lil punkin "calabasa" is growing up so fast! We were matched with Estiven when he was only 4 years old, and he's going to be SEVEN in March! We decided it would probably be quite meaningful if we wrote him this month en espanol. Hopefully he's starting to read and write at this age, so he might get to actually read our letter! (My ever-talented twin, whom some of you might know as 'the prettier one,' Elizabeth, is VERY FLUENT in Spanish, so she translated our whole letter! Spanx, mi jimela!)  I love taking time out to encourage him through words and adoration. Even though we've never met Estiven, I feel like we could immediately start goofing around the first minute we met- kicking around a soccer ball, eating suckers, drawing pictures, playing tag. If the picture of him is correct, he has silver caps on his teeth, which might just mean we've got an adventuresome punk on our hands (or, one who enjoys sugar and doesn't brush enough. probably more likely...)! Either way, I know we have a lot in common with Estiven. His mama in the USA LOVES sugar, and his dad in the USA probably could knock out someone's teeth with the fell swoop of a kayak paddle. A match made in heaven. Estiven, podemos ver creces a ser un joven muy guapo, responsable, e inteligente!

Otherwise, today was a pretty normal day. You know, filling out the 2010 Census, watching the XGames for 8 hours (in preparation for our own version of the XGames in less than a week), steak dinner, etc. Wait. Scratch the part about "normal day." Really, we've been a bit off kilter for the past three days. Too... much... snow....

I've found one way to stay warm with all the snow on the ground is to stay huddled by the stove and oven. And, of course, they must be on. Nextly, said appliances must be cooking or baking something with butter and sugar to provide enough heat to fill the house. It's simple science, people. I have managed to bake my way through several sticks of butter over the past few days. Hips don't lie! It's getting a little brisk in here, so I better go fire up the cast iron skillet.

Snowed In

Well, it's no longer late spring. Our garden is a thing of the past. In fact, it's winter. Full-fledged winter. We have about half a foot of snow on the ground right now and we're cuddled up in front of the fire. Please excuse the absence. We realize the ol' blog got a little rusty over the summer and fall months. Allow me the efficiency of a bullet-point list to explain what happened over the last 6 months:

* Trip to Colorado for some gnarly kayaking (Jake) and picture-esque wildflower scenes (Jennifer). God bless Claritin D.
* Harvesting of, oh, 2,000,000 butternut squash
* Small renovations on the farm house
* Completion of South and Fourth Street project
* SALE of South and Fourth Street project
* Weddings, weddings, wedding, and then we went to a wedding
* Sad, yet much-needed departure from farm house
* Condo living at "the most prestigious address in NWA"... yeah, not so much.
* 2nd Christmas for the record books as Mr. and Mrs. Newell = camping gear and new pots and pans (I'll let you guess who got what)
* 3 more lots under contract for Swiftwater Development
* Personal lot under contract for our first home. Definitely the most prestigious address in NWA.

And... we're up to speed. Actually, to be completely up to speed, you should know we're currently cuddled up to a warm fire watching Varsity Blues. Jennifer actually hasn't ever seen the movie. What a shame. The script alone is simply mind-blowing. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Speaking of which, better go for now.