101 uses for an old tic tac box

Okay, so I'm not actually going to give you 101 uses for an old tic tac box, but Bethany could!  Someone gave her a box of Tic Tac's, she gobbled them up, and I think she was more excited about the neat-o box than the candy!

She was just having so much fun drinking out of the Tic Tac box that I just had to share her cuteness with you all!

Incredible Edibles

We received a package a couple of weeks ago from a friend in Canada.  It was "chock full"of all kinds of goodies!  One thing the kids have really enjoyed from the package is the Lego candy she sent.  They are super cute!  You can really connect them just like real Legos, and then comes the best part--eating them!  Pure sugar! ☺

I wrote the above paragraph and then started thinking, wait, maybe these are "old hat" to all of you that live in America.  Ha!☺  In any case, we're enjoying them!

Family Camp 2012

Family camp was way back in February, but I still wanted to share some of the pictures that I took during the week.

Missionary Peter Doolittle hosts the camp for a week every year during the week of Carnival.  During that week there is lots of partying, drinking, and lewd activities that go on in certain areas of the city, and it is refreshing to be able to get away from that into the "country" for a week of rest.

Here are some snap shots of our week:

Allie and Bethany met a veteran missionary daughter, Leah, who speaks English.  She is married and grown now and still comes to camp.  She was so sweet to make time for them and pay attention to them.  The girls loved it when she let them hold her 3 month old baby!

Allie is trying so hard to make friends here in Brazil even though there is still a language barrier.  She really enjoyed playing with this little girl that was her age, Suzana.

One of the highlights of camp is the zip-line.  This year Allie mustered up enough courage to go down all by herself!  Below is a picture of her with Pastor Lorival, he just had finished "putting the gear" on her.

Here she is about to go "flying".  She did great!

Bethany went down the zip-line with Leah and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Jeremy standing at the bottom of the zip-line deck watching Allie get geared up.

A favorite for my kids during the week was the "Sunday School" classes each morning.

 Judah, Bethany, and Johnathan Schrock were in the same class.  

Judah was being such a silly boy.  I told him to smile, and he just kept "eating" his hand. 

Allie doing some coloring in her class.

Jeremy taught the young teenage boys for the week, and at the end of the week one of the boys came to him concerning doubts about his salvation.  Jeremy was able to talk with him about it and the boy went away knowing he was saved!

I helped out with the young teenage girl's class.

Missionary Peter Doolittle giving announcements one morning.

The food was wonderful!

The pigs enjoyed picking out the soggy scraps from the place where the dish water drains.  The kids enjoyed watching them.

The special speaker for the week was Pastor Marcelo from Goiania.  His preaching was excellent!

We really had an enjoyable week.  The kids still talk about how much fun it was and when they can go back!

Sunday Afternoons

So, some of you might be wondering, "What do missionary kids do for fun on Sunday afternoons?"

Well, they build Lego towers on their toes, of course!

long time no see

Two Sundays ago was our TWO YEAR anniversary since arriving in Brazil.  I can't believe I just wrote that!  So much has happened in these last two years, and even these past four years since I left my "home" in North Carolina and started traveling on deputation.  It is amazing to see the different ways God has worked in my life.

Last year around our one year anniversary I wrote about 10 different posts about it and didn't publish a single one of them.  That was when I *thought* I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel ended up being a lot longer than it looked.

I'm so thankful for the things God has taught us throughout this year.  Things that could never be explained in a blog post-- it has definitely been a year of growth!

So, you may wonder what is going on these days in the Lockhart home since blogging obviously has not been a priority in these past few months!

Jeremy:
-faithfully teaches a Bible study on Tuesday evenings to some of the young people in church.
-teaches a kids Sunday school class each Sunday morning.
-helps me much around the house and with the kids to give me some Portuguese study time.
-preaches on occasion.
-treated me like royalty on our date the other night. ☺

Esther:
-I think I may save the things that I'm doing now for another post.  After all, that is the reason that most women have blogs nowadays, right?  We want to tell the world what we're doing.  ☺

Allie:
-Is in the middle of first grade and she has a love/hate relationship with it.  Hates doing school while Bethany and Judah are playing.  Hates seatwork.  Cries bitterly when she gets anything less than an A+ on a test.  Loves reading.  Loves her Abeka academy teachers.  Loves the kids in her "class" (although they are probably actually 10 years older than she is. ☺)
-She has officially become a book worm.  Sitting for looong periods of time engrossed in her book.
-Loves anyone that speaks English.
-Loves anyone that is her age.
-Lost her first tooth a couple of months ago and had to go to the dentist on Wednesday to get two teeth pulled and will get another one pulled on Monday.  Poor girl has her mother's teeth. ☺)

Bethany:
-Wakes up way too early in the morning, but always with a super big smile!
-Loves being "mommy" to anything/anyone that will let her and is usually the one telling everyone what to do.
-Everything is big and exaggerated for her.
-She is working her way rather slowly through K-4.
-Loves helping me in the kitchen.
-Loves being the silliest and the center of attention!
-Is without a doubt a mommy's girl.









Judah:
-Is potty training himself!!!!
-Has three mommies ☺ (really, sometimes he'll call "mommy" and I'll come running only to find out he was talking/playing with Bethany!  She has him trained).
-Loves to cuddle when he wakes up in the morning.
-Anything that is not on the ground is meant to be jumped from, and sometimes jumping is preferred over walking to get from one place to the other.
-Loves anything "ball", "car", "block", or "tool" related.
-Always has a bigger smile when he is dirty; hence, he is a very happy boy!

Other tidbits:
-The water company is on strike so water is scarce around here.  I am in extreme conservation mode telling the kids whatever you do, DO NOT flush the potty {in one flush it uses up enough water to take a complete shower (albeit a very quick shower), and we only flush a couple times a day.  I know--it's gross} so if you're coming for a visit let me know so I can clean my potty ahead of time. ☺
-We finally are getting an official title for our house.  It's a long, complicated story, but I'm thankful for the way the LORD has worked things out, and for honest people!
-Carnival (Brazilian Mardi Gras) has recently ended, and we spent a week at camp.  We had a wonderful time of fellowship and getting to know more Christians in the area.  I took lots of pictures that I would love to share sometime.

That will have to do for now.  I "plan" to be back soon.  I'm just assuming you all want to know what my life has been like and what has been on my to do list these past weeks, so I plan to tell you about them.  Soon.

Pictures

Last month we had some family pictures taken.  I shared them on Facebook, but hadn't put them all up here yet.  Our missionary friend, Omar, took them, and of course we were pleased with the results!

Bethany-age 4

Allie-age 6

Judah-age 2

Missionary Monday--Worms

Real life missions...

Do you want to a deep, dark secret about the Lockhart household? ☺

I'm only telling you this because I know you'll understand that things are different where we live in Brazil and be sympathetic... remember it's not America.  ☺

Ready...

We have Worms  *just pretend I whispered that*


I know, I know it's embarrassing, but I read on the internet that one in four kids in the whole world have worms.  That's a lot!  So we're not so uncommon, right.

Don't ask me how I found out.  You don't want to know.  I'm not certain that *I* have them, but everyone else does.  I'd rather not know if I do or not.

We're all taking some medicine to get rid of them, and we only have five more days left.  We are also working on extreme sanitation in the Lockhart household.

1.  Never put your fingers in your mouth.
2.  ...or your nose.
3.  Hand washing at EVERY opportunity.
4.  Always wear shoes outside. (I wear flip flops from the time I get out of bed in the morning until I go to bed at night.  I just can't get the floors quite clean enough!)
5.  ...and you can just imagine the other rules (not quite appropriate for this blog ☺) we have had to lay down with our semi-brazilian two year old, four year old, and six year old...

How did we get them?

That's tough to tell.  Since they are probably so rampant amongst children they could have simply come from shaking a little girl or boys hand and not washing our hands right away.  It also could have come from something we ate that was contaminated... you never know.

The pharmacist labeled it as a vicious cycle.  You can get rid of the worms, but the eggs are more difficult to get rid of.  You must keep everything clean, keep hands washed after using the bathroom, etc. in order to keep the cycle from continuing and keep those eggs from getting in places they do not belong.

If you are just curious you can Google "pinworms" and find out more than you probably wanted to know.  ☺

So I know it's been a long time since I've blogged, and I'll try to catch everyone up more on Lockhart news soon!

(The original idea for Missionary Monday {along with the cute button} came from this blog which I enjoy reading and recommend.)