Feels like Fall

Every day this week the weather was in the upper 70s and mid 80s. On Friday the "rains came down and the floods came up" to quote a favorite Primary song. No joke. The rain came down hard in the afternoon and the flood waters were lapping at our front gate. We've never seen that much rain fall on our street, which was flooding over the drain area. We received videos from friends of areas where the waters were up to the sides of cars and people being saved by Good Samaritans with ropes. Luckily our house didn't flood and we were safe. 

Literal raging waters. So much rain!

They love to play with Daddy.

And with each other. It was her first time in the saucer and Mackenzie was showing her the ropes.

It continued to rain through the night and it dropped the temperature into the 60s. In the morning, we went to Cafe de Aca, Kiersten's favorite cafe, for breakfast. We enjoyed hot chocolate and a delicious breakfast outside in the gorgeous weather. When we got home, everyone took a nap. Mackenzie napped for close to 3 hours, her longest nap in weeks! That afternoon we went to the Galleria mall in hopes of finding Scott a suit for his sister's wedding but we weren't comfortable enough with our Spanish to get one so we ended up walking around, letting Mackenzie play and comparing dollar burgers at McDonald's and Burger King. Conclusion: McDonald's was the clear winner.

It's basically the same temperature in all the places our families live.

Beautifully chilly at the cafe.

Playing while big sister plays.

Mother's Day part 1 was wonderful. Kiersten had a craving for cinnamon rolls so Saturday she prepped them and in the morning we baked them for breakfast. She received a wonderful card from the girls (with the help of Daddy) and got her first, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy" from one of her children. It was very sweet. After church, the girls napped and Mom and Dad noshed on a cheese, fruit and bread board. When they woke, we chatted with grandparents and played then ate delicious steak. It was a perfectly wonderful Mother's Day.

Sadly it looked better than it tasted.

Mackenzie doing a decent job feeding Finley.

The grocery store handed this to Kiersten on Monday. How sweet!

The Mackenzie Update:

• A few times she has said, "I eat Bop-bop" which means she's feeding Bop-bop and one morning she had her shirt up with her bunny on her chest... just like Mommy does with Finley. So... she's definitely in the parrot phase of life.
• This week she was caught in the act of stealing Mommy's dark chocolate bar. She actually enjoyed the dark chocolate.

  

  She even knew she was doing something she shouldn't!

• She finally celebrated a Paraguayan birthday party at school and it was for her good friend TC (TZ = Tiziana). We think she had a good time.
• She declared her favorite song is "lead me guide me" which is what she calls 'I am a Child of God'.

The Finley Report:

• This baby wants to crawl! She has been spinning herself around slowly for almost a month now but this week she started pushing herself up on her knees or feet and essentially planking.

  

  Baby plank! I'm so proud of my exercising girls.

• She'll only nurse when she's really tired. Otherwise she gets too distracted and won't eat. Oh well. Kiersten is back to pumping three times a day. She's half breastmilk, half formula fed with 2 servings of solid food daily.

  

  Feeding herself a bottle. She's mildly successful at feeding herself.

• And she definitely had a growth spurt this week. She needed to eat basically every hour. And she ate a ton each time! Growing baby!

Did you notice we said, "Mother's Day part 1"? Yup, Sunday was American Mother's Day and on Wednesday (May 15) it's Parguayan Mother's Day AND its day two of a two day holiday. May 14 is our Anniversary so we get a day off work to celebrate. Nice, huh? See you next week!