Snapshots

Hi.  My name is Regina and I'm addicted to taking pictures. HA.   Does that statement surprise you?  Seriously though I do love keeping my camera handy and photographing our lives.  It's fun and believe it or not I don't post every picture I take.  The following are a bunch of random photos that I've taken over the past few weeks that I have just not posted yet.  I should be caught up after today.

When the family that shared the 2nd floor of our house moved out they gave the boys this large box. They have been having the best time playing in it. They call it their home and it's been a work in progress ever since. They have drawn with markers on it, painted on it, and done repairs on it with their tools. They have just had a fun time with it.

This was it after they first got it- plain jane.  It's been through the wringer since!

On one of the inside "walls" Cruz drew a mural like in his bedroom.  He drew clouds, a road, a truck, a tree, and grass below.   He was very proud of himself. 

One evening after they had gone to bed I peeked inside and saw this.  They had neatly lined all of their cars and animals around the wall.  It made me smile.

I mentioned earlier about washing clothes being a daily part of my routine.  Another daily thing around here is washing Cruz's school uniform when he gets home everyday.  Most kids have one complete uniform.  They wear it to school and then go home and it gets hand-washed and line dried for the next day.  That's the case at our house.  The first thing he does when he comes home is change clothes.  We then wash his uniform out in our pila (outdoor sink) and let it dry.

His is most always filthy so it requires a lot of scrubbing and rinsing.  It's not my favorite part of the day but it's necessary.

The good thing about living in a year round hot climate is that it doesn't take very long for your clothes to dry on the line.  Here's his uniform drying the other day.  The sun helps keep that white shirt nice and bright.

Here's Ben enjoying a frozen strawberry yogurt snack on a recent trip into town.

Speaking of snacks, the McDonald's in Guatemala is now serving biscuits.  Yippee!!!  Other than the KFC in Guatemala City I don't know of another place here that serves biscuits.  This is a welcome treat.  You have the option of a sausage biscuit, a sausage and egg biscuit, or a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.  On a recent morning trip into town to buy groceries we ran through the drive thru on the way home to try one.  I ordered the sausage biscuit...

but once we got down the road and I opened it I discovered that they gave me the bacon, egg, and cheese instead.  Don't you just hate when that happens!  Anyway, the biscuit was very crunchy and not what I was expecting but I'll keep trying them and hope they get better.  I ate about three bites and then reached down to pick something up and dropped the whole thing in the floorboard.  That's a bummer for sure!!!  I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. 

We also saw this sight on a recent trip into town and are making plans to attend it this weekend.  Cruz and I are super excited.

Several posts back I shared photos of the boys playing at home but couldn't get the video to load with it.  Here's a short video of them having fun riding down the hill at our house.

And here they are clowning one morning while I was trying to get them dressed.  Getting them to be still long enough to do anything is a chore.

sweet brothers

I recently tried a recipe for Cinnamon Cream Syrup.  It tasted delicious on our banana pancakes!  We all enjoyed it and I'm sure I'll make it again.  Cruz liked it but after he finished eating he said "mama, next time I think I'll just want my syrup out of the bottle".  Kids can say the funniest things can't they.

I recently dug out our Jenga game and discovered that it can be a pretty cool toy for little boys to play with.  They love building towers and making roads for their cars.  It can entertain them for the longest time and that's always a plus for parents.

I love this picture of my sweet Benjamin

I smiled when I saw this in their room one night.  It reminded me of a log truck back home in Mississippi. 

And I'll leave you with this major disaster of a mess.  This is the downside of being a children's book hoarder.  They love to pull EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM off of the shelf.  It drives me nuts!  But, I'll keep buying them because they sure do love to read and look at them.  Books are my very favorite thing to buy for my boys.   You just can't have too many (and I remind myself of that when I'm picking them up all day long).

Thanks for reading!