We've got spirit yes we do! ...And that's about all.

Another week, another blog entry. The longer we are here the more routines we continue to establish, which is great. Makes us feel more at home. Some such routines are having a family breakfast each morning before Scott walks to work. He and Mackenzie sit at the island in the kitchen and he eats cereal while Mackenzie has some spoonfuls of his cereal or drinks her breakfast smoothie. Kiersten is usually making more food for either herself or M. Once Scott is at work the girls play until Annie arrives and then Kiersten completes her workout and usually goes for a run in the park across the street. It costs 2000PYG which is about $.35. Annie comes Monday through Thursday from 9am-2pm. Mackenzie naps hard after playing with her in the morning, anywhere from 2-3 hours. Scott gets home around 5:15pm and we eat a family dinner by 5:45. Mackenzie gets a bath at 6:30 and is in bed by 7pm. These are our daily routines. Here are some of the other things we did this week.

Tuesdays are the only days the Asuncion Temple is open in the mornings so Kiersten has been going the last three weeks when Annie is with Mackenzie. This week she was also able to make it to the Embassy for the Tuesday asado lunch with Scott. Both were underwhelmed with the flavor this week. Ah well. There’s always another asado to make up for a bad asado. After last week’s poop-splotion, Annie was a little nervous that Kiersten would be gone for two hours however all was well when she returned, no poopy diapers.

Remember how Kiersten made homemade graham crackers on Sunday? She had some left over dough and a lot of limes that were about to go bad so what do you do in that situation? Make Key Lime Pie of course! Instead of making the graham crackers then crushing them for the crust, she just rolled out the dough and put it straight in the pie shell. More details below in our baking segment of the blog but it was a tasty pie and needs to be made again.

My little helper in the kitchen!

She's really good at opening and closing doors.

Here is the final pie with a layer of whipped cream on top.

On Wednesday we finally paid for our internet. We’ve been here almost two months and haven’t seen a bill yet. The internet cut out suddenly on Tuesday afternoon so we were without for about 24 hours. Scott was able to figure everything out at work and paid for it so no harm done. Never knew how much we relied on internet until we didn’t have it. Sad realization. But the rest of Wednesday was a tired sort of day. We had left overs because Kiersten didn’t want to cook and then we all went to bed early.

Thursday was more normal. After Annie left, K&M went out for an adventure. We have been looking for rugs for our place for about a month now and we can’t really find any rug selections in local stores. The main problem is we don’t know where to look. Well K&M tried a store called Plaza Hogar (hogar means home) which from the outside looked like a furniture store like IKEA or something. Inside you can find home goods such as decorations, office supplies, kitchen gear, appliances, electronics, toys and baby items but no furniture and therefore, no rugs. The search continues.

Inside Plaza Hogar. Mackenzie liked looking at the ceiling.

Mackenzie earned a new toy. She really loves stacking things.
This is the first toy we have ever bought her?

After the rug shopping bust, the girls drove to the Embassy for Mackenzie to walk around outside and play at the playground before driving Scott home. She loves to walk! And chase birds. And go up and down “hills”. And stairs. These are all found at the Embassy. Before driving home, we went to the Post Office and took home about 8 packages. It’s always so nice to get packages. Little glimpses of home as it were. Scott also got his last little birthday present, the traditional birthday card and money from Grandma and Grandpa Hammond.

"I see a birdy!"

"Be very, very quiet...I'm chasing a birdy."

"Oh no it flew away."

Speaking of birthday presents, Scott got fun work socks but
claimed he would never wear these because, 'Pink.'
Now they are Kiersten's. 1/12 ain't bad.

Kiersten made chicken pot pie for dinner and this time had a pie shell to use. (Last time she made this dish she made it as a calzone which surprisingly worked.) Delicious.

We woke up Friday morning to the sound of splashing car tires. The rain which had been promised had come over night and the rest of the day was cool, cloudy and beautiful. It almost felt like Fall! But it’s Spring. No matter! Kiersten made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast anyway. After a morning of playing, M napped and K worked out then M woke up earlier than expected because, poop. Even though we haven’t mentioned it yet this week, she has still been very… regular with her diapers. No significant blow-outs this week as compared to last week but, yeah, she’s needed multiple clothing and bedding changes this week.

Just look how beautiful this weather is!

Mackenzie LOVES these pumpkin pancakes. She is Kiersten's daughter for sure.

When Scott gets home on Fridays we have a family lunch. Just another perk of working half days on Friday. After lunch, we went on a family walk. M was still tired having only gotten half a nap so after our walk she went back down to finish her nap. Scott and Kiersten planned to go to the Temple that night so Kiersten went to get the babysitter (Annie takes college night classes and was therefore unavailable). Our sitter was a Laurel from our ward who has developed a good bond with Mackenzie from our first Sunday at church. Even with the traffic, we got to the Temple with time to spare and made our session. It was completely full! It really is amazing and wonderful to see so many dedicated Saints outside of America. We are coming to love these people even after only a few weeks of living here.

First family picture we've taken in a while.

Following Daddy like a little duckling.

First time wearing this rain coat and it basically fit.

We got out of the Temple a little later than anticipated but when we got home, Mackenzie didn’t want Kathia (the babysitter) to go. She went to her voluntarily and hugged her and wanted to play more. She doesn’t do this with Annie so not sure if she likes Kathia better or was just tired because it was bedtime…? No idea but she did go to bed without too much fuss. Kiersten took Kathia home and picked up, you guessed it, McDonald’s burgers for dinner. We’ll branch out to other restaurants once we’re more comfortable with Spanish we promise!

When the weekends come around we sometimes don't always have plans. Ok, we almost never have plans until later in the afternoon and decide, "Hey we should go do something." This Saturday was looking to be the same deal when at 11am one of the Embassy families invited us to come to their daughter's birthday party. She turned four. So at 2pm we found ourselves at a Doc McStuffins themed birthday party. It was adorable! It was really nice to get out of the house and socialize with other adults. And the weather continued to be gorgeous. Everyone was wearing jeans and sweaters and it was fabulous. 

Such a cute spread. There was cough syrup, bandaids, Q-tips, cotton balls and an eye chart!

She loved this balloon.

Getting some hang time with Mom.

See, there were other kids at this party but M was the youngest one so this is how
she celebrated the birthday... doing her own thing!

And playing with their little slide.

Now she's dressed the part. These toys need her professional
attention.

After the party, S&M dropped K off at the church to do some service with the Relief Society sisters and they went home. Kiersten was a little apprehensive in going because she was nervous about having to speak Spanish but when she got there, only the Americans were there! The senior sisters, regular sisters and the other Embassy sister. It was great! We spoke in English with reckless abandon! And got a lot of service done. (We are making 'thank you' presents for the Temple workers for when the temple closes in November.)

That evening after M went to bed, S&K watched the BYU v. Wisconsin football game. Oh Cougars. Silver-lining in this season of losses, Scott's youngest brother Brenton probably won't have to mess with his Christmas travel plans due to a Bowl Game because we probably won't win the necessary 6 games to be invited to one.

Sundays are always busier than we anticipate. Mackenzie was very cranky during church and so we just let her loose during second hour to walk around. No one seemed to mind. Did we mention that the Ward members LOVE our baby? Well they do. She took a small tumble while walking around and let out an almighty wail and several of the women jumped up to comfort her. Of course this made her more upset and Scott was eventually able to calm her down.

Sunday dinners are becoming elaborate affairs. Back home we used to eat Sunday dinners with family so we still aren't used to shopping for a meal for Sundays. We were almost completely out of food but Kiersten was able to create garlic breadsticks, pasta and butternut squash Alfredo sauce. It was a marvelous meal. Brava!

Apparently you can buy butternut squash year round here. Awesome!

At 4pm Kiersten headed out for choir practice. A note about rehearsals. Paraguayans are committed, wonderful people but they can't always sing, at least not parts. It's been a little different for Scott and Kiersten to be the voice in their sections that everyone is listening for or following. We are the strong voices. When Kiersten showed up alone, the men were very sad but the Altos were much relieved.

That evening after the baby retired to bed, S&K watched a short indie film on Amazon video called 'Idaho the Movie'. It was actually really beautiful and amazing. Makes us want to visit Idaho more fully. And we watched 'The Lost City of Z' which was also very good. We recommend both of these films.

Now we've come back to Monday. It's been a normal Monday and the weather is still pleasant with a promise of the whole week being slightly cooler than the last with more rain later in the week.

Since creating these three continuing segments in this blog we are constantly on the prowl for what will make it and what won't from week to week. We work hard to take pictures so you, the reader, can more fully enjoy what life is like for us in Paraguay. So here they are Misadventures in Baking, Quirks of Paraguay and The Mackenzie Update.

Misadventures in Baking:

• The Key Lime Pie. Since we’ve never tried to make a graham cracker crust without crushing them up, this was already a strike against us. Kiersten rolled it out very thin, baked it then allowed it to cool before adding the filling which was a no-bake. It was our first time using this particular recipe too so we weren’t sure how it would set up. It was a little runnier than anticipated but the flavor was delicious. Now the crust got soft and was difficult to pick up with the slices. Next time, we would roll the dough a little thicker and try a different baked pie recipe and bake it all together like a normal pie.

• 

  Graham cracker crust out of the oven.

  
  

  

  Now with the key lime filling!

• Kiersten has been craving Chex Muddy Buddies (or puppy chow if that's what you're familiar with) but we can't find Chex cereal here. We bought some square cereal that is made with grains and then some Honey Nut Cheerios. Conclusion: You can make Muddy Buddies with Honey Nut Cheerios and it tastes pretty good. The other cereal was too dense but still tasted fine but then again what doesn't taste good smothered in chocolate, peanut butter and powdered sugar?

  

  Muddy Buddies for the win... too bad they weren't playing Wisconsin.

Quirks of Paraguay:

• Knock over a telephone pole? No problem! Just set it back up again and call it good! (They replaced it about two days after this accident happened.)

  

  Standing up in a pile of rubble.
  They left electrical lines down too. No big deal.

• We discovered the tree outside of our house has fruit growing in it. They vary in size but Scott was able to get one of the little, low hanging ones down for us to examine. It looked like a lime on the outside but inside was a whole different story. The jury is still out as to what it actually is.

  

  Lime?

  
  

  

  Nope!

  
  

The Mackenzie Update:

• We failed to mention last week but Mackenzie is now 15 months old!
• We’ve been dragging our feet on baby proofing our house but this week she was just too curious for our patience so we bought some locks for the doors in the kitchen.

  

  "Now I can't make a mess in the pantry."

  
  

  

  "Hehe! I'm just testing it out for you, Mama."

• We bought some foam play mats for the space under the stairs as a new designated play area. She loves walking around on them and then on Friday discovered they are giant puzzle pieces and started to take it apart. Grr! She's too smart sometimes!

  

  In the new play area under the stairs.

• Annie and Mackenzie developed a new game.

  

  She knocks down the blocks off those bars.

• Playing peek-a-boo. She’ll cover her eyes, wait, then ‘peek-a-boo’! She used to sort of do this but now she’s much better at it.

  

  She really loves that we play along with her.

• Mackenzie LOVES water but she really needs to drink milk. She just doesn’t like it. Never has. We’ve been hiding it in her breakfast smoothies but it isn’t enough for the whole day so we’ve been re-introducing it to her straight. She still doesn't like it so to get her to drink we’ll ‘clink then drink’. We’ll clink our glass with her sippy cup then we all drink. It doesn’t always work but she loves clinking glasses.

  

  Clinking glasses with Daddy at dinner.

• She really is so smart. If you ask her to get her shoes so we can put them on, she knows where to go but doesn't always get the right shoes. If you ask her where her nose/nariz is, she can point to it and her head/cabeza. And now she also knows where her belly is! She'll lift up her shirt and show you her belly. So cute!

  

  This is a repeat picture from last week but still works.

Can you believe we've been here almost two months?! We can't either. Time flies and then it doesn't all at the same time. Looking ahead for the next week, Kiersten goes to her first Spanish lesson and applies for a job as a contractor with the Embassy. Tune in next week to see what happens!