It finally feels like Winter!

We are par for the course over here in Asuncion. Mackenzie started up school last week (yay!) and then she got sick this weekend (boo!). We are doing our best to keep our sister loving girls away from each other so they don't share the germs!

We are in constant battle with ants. This past Tuesday we found they had discovered our unopened American brown sugar (insert curse word here) so Kiersten made it her personal mission that morning to re-organize the pantry and food storage. Spent some decent money on new Tupperware and realized she is totally an adult. Later that day, both girls were exceptional patients at the Health Unit. We signed them up to get their blood tested for lead. Mackenzie went first with the blood draw and did a little bit of crying. Then she was super brave and calming for baby sister who got a finger stick. The doctor and nurse were both very impressed by our brave girls.

Really just one shelf is organized but look at those labels!

War bandaids.

Finley liked the taste of hers. Gross.

Wednesday our Amazon Prime orders arrived! We are saving some things for Christmas but it was still an exciting day. And Kiersten spent a crazy amount of time in the kitchen baking Salted Caramel Cupcakes and frosting. Good but so sweet.

Kiersten's last run with her trusty Garmin watch of 6 years because...

...Amazon Prime Day delivered! New Garmin fitness watch!

Thursday was a Happy Hour at the Embassy. We officially welcomed the family we sponsored who arrived in April to the community and enjoyed pizza and conversation. It was a very cold, wet, rainy day so the socializing was short.

Friday we decided to get out of the house and have dinner at TGI Friday since it's been a while since we'd been there and they recently reopened after renovating. The food was... not great. We definitely got too much of not tasty food.

Cold walk to school drop off and a sleepy baby.

Baked cookies at school. M&M's!

We spent most of the day inside on Saturday. Mackenzie was starting to have a cough and runny nose so we kept her in as it was another chilly day (50 degrees!). That evening we were invited to dinner at the Low's home (the family we sponsored) for a delicious chicken parmesan dinner. 

We hit up the park right before dinner. We were the only ones there.

Sunday was busy again with our (2 hour!) choir rehearsal. We left early (again) to get kids home for bed. We really hope this commitment is worth disrupting our children's schedules. Some times Sundays are hard.

Mackenzie's "Elsa" hair is getting more elaborate. 

In Nursery with friend Amber.

And today, Mackenzie stayed home from school sick and Nanima called in sick too so Kiersten was on. It's another reminder of how lucky we are to be able to live in a place where we can afford an amazing nanny. The girls got out of the house to go to the mall and Kiersten, for the first time in two years, purchased clothing for herself in Asuncion. It was from Aeropostal, an American clothing store, but whatever!

Sister bath time!

The Mackenzie Update:

• At the dentist on Monday last week people kept calling Mackenzie, "princessa" and she has been correcting us all week. "I not a kid/sweetheart/girl, etc. I a princess."
• She says, "I'm sorry to..." not I'm sorry for.
• We've noticed this for a while but she flips word order in English because of Spanish. Example, "I have a bite bug."

  

  Being silly at dinner.

• This week she graduated from her hanging red chair in the kitchen to a real kitchen stool!

The Finley Report:

• Finely has graduated to the hanging red chair in the kitchen permanently.
• She is chattering more. She's got the 'ba-ba-ba' sound down and it sounds like, "da-da" is close behind. Two babies in a row.

  

  Playing with Mommy's slippers. It's cold here!

• She can crawl! A few steps and then collapse and drag the rest of the way. Just building up her stamina now.
• Within two days she has mastered the ability to push herself up from a crawl position to sitting! Yay!

  

  At the play area at the Mall food court. She wasn't sure about this "grass".

• She has discovered her tongue and she now frequently sticks in out at us.
  

We are a few weeks away from our Bariloche ski/snowboard trip in Argentina. Really looking forward to that.

Two down, one to go!

Ah the start of a new week. Mackenzie is back in school, Scott is busy with new work things, Finley is strengthening her upper body to crawl and Kiersten is running around doing a million things at once.

Winter Camp! Making rain makers...

learning our letters...

making ice cream...

and enjoying it!

learning some household chores...

and finishing off with a mani-pedi.

It was a momentous week for us. Saturday, July 20 marked our two year anniversary living in Paraguay. Two years! Can you believe it?! We hardly can either. Now we are in the final days, everything will be our last... last August, last Christmas, birthdays, etc. The only annoying thing is we still don't know what our future holds. So we're still in limbo but trying to enjoy our remaining time here.

Started our journey with one baby and now we've got a second one. And she's so happy!!

Lovely family lunch

Weird places we find our girl sleeping.

Sunday was an unusually busy day. At 3:00 we drove to a church building 30 minutes away to "audition" for a special choir that will be singing for a fireside with a General Authority during the Temple rededication in November. At 4:00 we started singing and both Scott and Kiersten commented that it was nice to sing with a choir that could actually sing and follow direction and not just work on notes but diction and style. At 5:15 we were still singing but our girls were done so we needed to hit the road. It took longer to get home due to some traffic which was annoying. So should we commit to this choir? We probably will.

These two were thick as thieves this week.

This is her favorite place to crawl to.

Mackenzie started back up with school today. When she got home we went back to the dentist for her actual cleaning. She did great! She sat in the chair and immediately opened her mouth. She giggled and enjoyed herself the whole time. Big day for her and she did awesome.

Rockin' it at the dentist!

More piano time.

Finley gets closer and closer to crawling everyday. Today she stayed up on her hands and knees longer than usual and looked like she was about to move but then collapsed and dragged herself forward. One day soon...

Give her a bottle and she's a happy girl.

Playing in their "house".

The Kiersten face! She is my daughter.

Going to be a busy week this week. Thanks for stopping by!

"Mommy, you speak Spanish?!"

Our little Mackenzie has stolen the show this week. Could be the fact that she's out of school for Winter Break until July 22 and we've been spending more time with her. She is such a smart cookie.

This week we've been having Winter Camp at home for her. It's only about 10-15 minutes each morning but we've done dance, art, music, writing, cooking, and piano. She lights up when we do it and she loves it! She's now requesting classes and any new activity is "a class". We've also been teaching her to help around the house with cleaning up her toys, making her lunch and snacks and folding her own laundry. With this new found independence she is starting, on occasion, to go to the bathroom by herself now too. She'll have us stand by the door but we aren't allowed to come in unless she asks us to.

Dance class and music class together.
She insists on wearing a skirt for dance class.

Making banana sushi.

Learning some letters.

One very new experience we all had this week was on Tuesday evening. We went to a dentist. Since we went to Utah and not Virginia on R&R we didn't have our checkup this year so we went here. This was also Mackenzie's first visit to any dentist and she had a great experience. They explained what was going to happen, showed her some tools and then let her brush the tiger's teeth. We'll go back next week for her actual appointment. She's been asking about it all week. 

Dentist visit!

We've been going to the playground near our house daily this week. Mackenzie is branching out and making more "friends" and speaking more Spanish. When we leave the park she'll say, "Good-bye, amigos!" We reminder her to say, "Chao, amigos!" 

Finley watching her sister play!

After our Saturday morning outing to a different park.

Saturday evening our dear friends Brenda and Netza came over to play our favorite board game. Yes, they are still in Paraguay and we are thrilled! We were able to defeat the game in exactly 3 hours. Long campaign but super fun!

Monday was a busy day. We were finalizing the details for our next vacation but weren't able to pay for the flight online but we could make a reservation. Kiersten spent almost 2 hours at the airline office in order to pay and we actually saved some money so maybe it was worth the wait. Later, the girls walked to the grocery store up the street. At one point Mommy called out to Mackenzie, "Espera! (Wait!)" At this, she stopped, turned around and said in a surprised voice, "Mommy, you speak Spanish?!" Kiersten just laughed and laughed. We speak to her in Spanish EVERY DAY!

But speaking of speaking or understanding Spanish, since our Spanish lessons have ended with our beloved teacher, our skills have not diminished. In some cases they have improved. Kiersten is working hard at home with Nanima and Scott continues to have experiences outside the home. 

They love Daddy time!

Now there has been no mention of the baby. Don't worry she's still very much around. In fact, she's been moving around all week! She isn't exactly crawling yet. It's more like a wounded soldier drag. She's on her elbows and sort of moves her legs. But she is thrilled to be mobile and so are we! Her favorite place to get to is under the piano bench and bang on the board above the pedals.

She loves this mirror.

Rock, rock, rocking!

Possibly because of her mobility she has been eating even more solids and we have stopped doing her dream feeds but she is still sleeping through the night. And another thing ended this week: nursing. She had been getting too distracted to nurse and much preferred the freedom of the bottle. Partially due to this and the fact that we have a nanny, Kiersten's supply had been dwindling for weeks and on Wednesday, that was that.

Restless during church.

Sucking on a breadstick.

Chewing on her first head of broccoli.

Now please enjoy some common expressions we've been hearing from our three-year-old:

• "I ever see/do that." I've never or I have seen/done that thing.
• "I just a kid." Her explanation for her actions but usually it's in response to a good action. For example, "I not a sweetheart, I just a kid, Mommy."

  

  Eating at a Parisian restaurant this week.

• "Hey everyone!" of just "Everybody!" Standing in her room letting us know she's awake for the day.

  

  Weird places we find her sleeping. In a closet.

• "I have a chesson (question)." Usually before nap or bed time and almost always not a question. Just a stall tactic.
• "Fin-ey-baby!" Her adorable nickname for her sister.
  

Lastly, we think we have entered the Disney Princess stage of her childhood. She was obsessed with Moana for months and knows almost all the songs. This week she watched Frozen and she has since seen it 2.5 times and asked to listen to the music and have "Anna hair" and to wear her "Elsa dress" to church. Ironically, this is the same week we finally ordered the Moana DVD for her.

"Anna hair"

"Elsa dress" with "Elsa hair"

And that's it!

Iguazu Falls

We did it! We finally visited the Falls and it was definitely worth the hype.

We left on Thursday morning, July 4th which was a holiday for us and a normal Thursday for Paraguay. We drove to the halfway pointed marked by a McDonald's and stopped for gas and lunch. We stayed about an hour to let us stretch our legs and let Mackenzie play in the play-place. We now understand the beauty of a play-place. 

Thank you McDonald's.

Car naps are the best naps!

"I'm ready!"

Got back on the road and very soon it divided into a two lane highway! We thought this was a sign of better things to come. We can drive 65mph, pass slower traffic, make up lost time, get there in no time, etc. But oh how wrong we were. We soon found we still had to slow down going through towns because they have speed bumps... on the highway! And soon after that some idiot pickup truck was crossing the highway slowly and, thanks to Scott's terrific driving skills, managed to get by with just a sideswipe from the guy. Everyone was fine.

And then the real fun began. About 45 minutes after the McDonald's traffic came to a dead stop. We sat there for 10 minutes, 15 minutes and then 20 minutes and realized we weren't going to be moving any time soon. Other people were getting out of their cars so we did too. Scott and Mackenzie took a walk up to see what was going on and discovered a line of people with a Paraguayan flag banner spanning the length of the road on both sides. They even blocked off the side roads so you couldn't avoid them. And the police were there doing absolutely nothing. The people weren't doing anything other than stand there. What ever, no big deal, we get to take a little break from driving.

We let the baby do some driving!

Practicing some lettering during the stoppage.

Here are the protesters.

Two hours later they just up and left. That was the end of their protest. Everyone started driving again and off we went. By now it was getting close to dusk (remember it's winter here so the sun goes down around 5) and when we finally got to the last big city before the Brazil border, we were heavily in their rush hour traffic. Long story short, we didn't get to the hotel in Brazil until about 7pm which was actually 8pm because they are one hour ahead of Paraguay. We checked in, ate dinner and went to bed.

In the morning we ate breakfast and got ready to visit the Argentinian side of the Falls. We crossed the bridge from Brazil to Argentina and thought all was fine... again, we were mistaken. The boarder crossing was actually a little past the bridge and we got in the line of cars and moved slowly but then, another dead stop. Much shorter this time before we moved into a line to cross officially but all in all it took about an hour to get into Argentina.

Waiting....

She slept through all the excitement.

Made it to the park and got on the little train to take us to the entrance of Garganta del Diablo (The Throat of the Devil). It was about a half mile walk over the water to get to the viewing platform and it was incredible. Mackenzie informed us she didn't like it because it was too loud. Finley was asleep.

Train!

The entrance to Garganta del Diablo.

Yeah, it was cold.

Lots of walking.

But we made it!

She would not smile. Family memories!

We went back to the train, got lunch and then visited a few other falls. Mackenzie was amazing and walked almost the whole time. Finley took three naps in the baby carrier and didn't complain once.

Making friends with the very friendly coatis, Argentinian raccoons.

A lighthouse which we couldn't go in.

Dos Hermanas

Salto Adan y Eva

Our little monkey being a monkey.

When in Argentina, drink matte!

Around 4:30 we ended the day and went back across to Brazil. This time it took 20 minutes. Dinner was included with our room rate so we had to wait for dinner which was at 7pm because it's South America. Mackenzie had napped in the car but Finley was beside herself exhausted and just cried so we cut dinner short to put her to bed. But that night she woke every 3 hours and then took an hour to go back to sleep. Mackenzie magically slept through all of this and was the only one who looked well rested in the morning.

Saturday we decided to rest in the morning so Finley could nap (which she did for 2 hours) and let the day warm up a bit. It was 31℉ when we woke! After the baby woke from her nap, we went to a Buddhist Temple which we'd discovered on our internet search the night before of Foz do Iguaçu, Brasil which is where we were staying. It was a nice green space just outside the city center.

You can see how miserable F is from her poor sleep.

Enjoying her first guava fruit.

At the Resort.

Giant hammock!

Of all the statues this was our favorite at the Temple.

Our next attraction was the Itaipu Binacional which is a large dam between Paraguay and Brazil. We ate lunch at the visitor's center then caught a tour bus to see the dam up close. We viewed the three giant spillways, the reservoir and the dam itself. It's a hydroelectric dam and produces 75% of the power in Paraguay. Brazil and Paraguay built the dam together and split the power production. Since Paraguay is so much smaller it's energy goes further. Pretty impressive.

The spillways.

Riding on the top of the double decker tour bus.

Yeah, she was tired.

That night was much better. We decided to let Finley sleep on the other Queen bed and she did indeed sleep through the night. Mackenzie woke at 2am with a bad coughing fit for the next hour where she coughed every 5 minutes. Miraculously Finley slept through it all. Maybe the girls could share a room....

Enjoying her dessert on our final night.

After a fun trip, we got on the road as early as we could on Sunday morning. The girls were amazing on the drive. Finley slept and cried very minimally. Mackenzie played, listened to the audiobook we downloaded for her, sang songs and ate so many snacks. We stopped at McDonald's again but stayed less. After an hour back on the road Mackenzie told us she was tired and took a nap! She's learning that tired means its ok to sleep! Made it home by 4 and watched the rebroadcast of the Women's World Cup Finals and called it a day.

Hiding!

Super nice resort. 

Go USA! We've got four stars!

We both anticipated the 6 hour drive would be hard for the girls but they were both champions. They played, ate or napped and were generally happy the entire drive. We'd downloaded some shows for M in preparation but she didn't watch a single minute of anything on the drive. We really have some great girls.

We also brought a surprise new toy for Mackenzie.
My Little Pony has entered our life.

Today Mommy and Mackenzie started her first day of our home Winter Camp with a dance class. We did some ballet and then free-form dancing. We both had a great time. Later in the day we had a cooking class where she made a Goldfish trail mix we are calling "Mackenzie's Pez Mix". She loved it! We brainstormed ideas last week and have enough to do something everyday. It's gonna be a great week!

She is all girl and yes it's cold here too.

The Mackenzie Update:

• We've been working on helping her understand that naps are a good thing and it's ok to take naps. She is FINALLY starting to accept this as truth.

  

  Day before we left we took her birthday chalk out for a spin on the driveway.

• She is remembering so much, especially what we tell her. She'll turn right around and hold us accountable for things we tell her. For example, Mommy climbed into the back seat during the drive to help Finley and didn't put on her seatbelt right away. Mackenzie said, "Mommy you need a seatbelt. Finley is buckled. Daddy is buckled. I am buckled. You need to be buckled." We've used this exact argument with her to get her in her car seat.
• "Eat me like a baby." She means "feed me like a baby" and she asks us to do this when she doesn't want to feed herself or is dragging out her bed time routine.
  
• This week she started to say, "Hola" to people we passed on the walk to school completely unprompted from us.

  

  Walking to school in our "walking school bus".
  I'm borrowing this term from The Blue Zones Solutions book I'm currently reading.

The Finley Report:

• She had some of her most miserable nights sleep during our trip. We seriously questioned any future vacations but thankfully it's just a phase. We blame the temperature, new location, different mattress and possible teething.
• She is dragging herself now. Not quite army-crawl but she is moving and getting across the room. Not sure we're ready for 2 mobile children.
• She had the WORST diaper rash of any of our babies. Luckily we started treating it and it looks so much better. She never complained about it. What a good baby.
• Her adoration for her sister continues to awe us. During the ride home when Mackenzie was napping Finley was awake and for most of that time just stared at her sleeping sister. We think she was confused about how quiet she was.

  

  Their first sister duet!

• Once we got home on Sunday she had a big diaper blowout which required a bath. She timed it perfectly. Good girl!

We are so happy to have finally made it to Iguazu and have that experience. We'll have to do another post of just pictures from the nice camera later this week. And if anyone is still thinking of visiting us, the answer is yes, we'll go back to the Falls with you.