~Random pics and some Christmas goodies!~

~Elijah cracked us up when he would put his teeth together and start grinding them. Now his teeth are bigger and he doesn't do it anymore. We loved his mouth in a straight line and his chipmunk cheeks. =)~
~I made little "ornaments" with our kids' pictures on them to hang on our tree.~
~I love this picture, of a picture, of a picture. =) I took this picture of an old picture of my Daddy's family, put it in a frame, and then took this pic to put it on my blog. =) My Daddy is the baby in this pic. Isn't he cute? =D~
~Elijah looking cute in an outfit and hat that was a gift from the Shirks.~
~Elijah has learned how to pull off his hats. =)~
~Baking is one of my favorite things to do in life...so you can imagine that it is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas too. Baking also helps our hearts not to be too lonely for our family, friends and USA at this time.
We normally cannot find Hershey's Choc. kisses here, but the other day we saw some in a store. I bought some, wanting to make cookies with them, but didn't want to make the normal Peanut butter kisses cookies. I happened to see that day that one of my friends was planning on making some "Cherry Choc. kisses cookies". I had never heard of those before, so I looked on the internet and found the recipe. I made them, and our family LOVED them!~
~I saw this recipe on Nate's Mom's blog, and my family was GLAD that I tried it. Choc. chip cookie dough Truffles. DELICIOUS!~
~I made a table full of fun munchies for our family to enjoy. I made spiced nuts and included a bowl of fresh grapes along with the tin of my cookies, and tin of my fudge.~
~Choc. cut-out cookies. Good flavor, fun shapes.~
~Mocha nut fudge...easy and delicious!!~
~A Christmas tree shaped jello.~
~Our kids wanted to make Gingerbread houses out of Graham crackers. We have never done this before, but the Lord helped us, and the kids were happy with how their houses turned out. We didn't have access to store-boughten icing, nor candy canes, but God helped my homemade icing to be thick enough, and we found fun marshmallows in the shapes of snowmen, Christmas trees, and candy canes.~
~Elijah played in his walker under the table while we made the houses.~
~Noah's house.~
~Noah and I with his house.~
~Sarah with her house.~
~The back of Sarah's house.~
~Kimberly's house.~
~Kimberly with her house.~
~The little "village" of yummy houses.~ This will be our 3rd Christmas that we have spent outside of the USA. (1 we spent in Costa Rica, and 2 here in Colombia.) It is not easy, and sometimes we get a lump in our throats when we hear the song, "I'll be Home for Christmas"...however, we are doing our best to tell others about the TRUE reason for the season. Why JESUS came as a little baby...to become one of us, to live, suffer and die to save us from our sins. If we touch even one Colombian for Jesus...it will be worth it all.