Sweating In A Winter Wonderland

It's hard to believe the holiday season has come and gone!  It's a little more difficult to get into the festive spirit when it's the hottest time of the year, but we did our best to combat this by decorating our house for Christmas in early November (I figured we needed twice the time to realize it was the holiday season, haha), listening to Christmas music and watching plenty of Christmas movies :)

We began our celebrations with a trip to our colleagues' house, who live 3 hours away, for an American Thanksgiving.  We gathered with 4 other missionary families who live in northeastern Brazil and enjoyed lots of 'American' cooking and English fellowship!

We had Isanara, our super sweet friend from the city we lived in our first year in Brazil, come stay with us for a week in mid-December.  It was a week of firsts for her: first time leaving her home state, first time on an airplane, first time on an escalator, first time in a mall, first time seeing Santa Claus, first time seeing the ocean...We had a great time baking Christmas cookies, going Christmas shopping, playing with the boys, and showing her a little about our life here in the Northeast.  However, our brains were definitely tired after a week of ALL Portuguese speaking!  (We usually just speak English at home).  I was very impressed with Carter's level of communication with her though!

We were able to have two Christmas parties in our home.  The first was with some Brazilian friends and we enjoyed showing them what an 'American' Christmas party might look like - full of cookies, goofy games, and a gift exchange.  Nick was able to share about the true meaning of Christmas and read the story of Christ's birth from the Bible.  We had a really fun time!

Our second get-together was with two other American families - one who lives in our city, and one who lives 3 hours away.  We ate yummy casseroles and desserts, played games, and had a movie gift exchange.

(picture to come)

We took the boys to see Santa at the mall.  You may remember Carter's pictures from years past, in which he is screaming and looking genuinely terrified, so I'd count this year as a success ;)  The funny thing is, every time Carter sees a Santa in passing, he gets very excited, but when it came time to get on his lap, he kept saying "No thank you, no thank you!"  Once we left, Carter said, "Oh man, I forgot to tell Santa what I want," haha.  I asked him what he would like, and he replied, "A present."  At least he's easy to please...

Christmas Eve I cooked a big dinner of pot roast, crescent rolls, and pumpkin casserole.  (I had to get a little inventive with the casserole.  I wanted to make a sweet potato casserole, but sweet potatoes here are a white-ish gray so that wouldn't make for a very appetizing dish.  So, I opted to use pumpkin instead.  And you can't find pecans here so I had to make more of a brown sugar crumble topping...but it was good!)  We went to our church's Christmas Eve service after that.

Christmas morning was so much fun with our two little boys.  Somehow, all three of my guys managed to sleep until almost 9 o'clock (which is unheard of in the Sroka household), while I, in my Christmas excitement, was up before 8, haha.  We opened stockings, enjoyed a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, and melon, and then opened presents.  The boys were so spoiled with gifts from our families that Oliver didn't even make it through round one before taking his morning nap, haha.  We were able to Skype with both of our families and even meet our new little nephew (via video chat) who was born December 14 to Nick's brother Joe and sister-in-law Michelle.  Carter loved showing all of his grandparents his new toys :)

We had a nice relaxing weekend at home as a family and are now gearing up for a week with a volunteer team from Georgia.  Only 361 more days until Christmas!