Birthdays are good for the sole.

Remember Eliot's birthday last year? Super fun party and all his friends brought Hot Wheels cars that he was able to take to Guatemala and pass out to children?


It was impactful enough that he still talks about it. More in a processing sense than anything. Still trying to wrap his mind around kids his age that don't have thousands of toys to fight over with their brother.

This year he's not having a party (we rotate every other year for the big parties) so don't be sad when you don't get an invite. BUT he still wants to collect stuff to take (after a little nudging, lets be honest). His other love language? Shoes.

Starting soon, we're collecting kids shoes. Practical and sturdy, not cheap flip flops, etc. Shoes that were made to last. Kids sizes. New or gently used.

Deadline is May 10.

Spring is the time for COLOR!

(This is the shape of Guatemala, if you're not sure)

I got this today. Sorry for the gross pic but it's not going to look great for about another week and a half as it heals so you get the fresh pic.

I could have just gotten the outline of Guatemala but knowing all that came from that experience, both our adoption and every trip since then, I felt like it needed to be as impactful as the effect that country has had on me. On my family.

If you're unfamiliar with Guatemalan textiles, that's what this tattoo was based off of. I chose all my favorite patterns and my amazing tattoo artist combined them all.

My favorite part? Each region/town in Guatemala has their own pattern that are worn by the women on their huipil (traditional guatemalan tops). Like these below:

I researched which pattern came from Eliot's birth town and we strategically put that pattern over top of that town.

I love it. Each section reminds me of different amazing things that have come out of our experience. Our amazing first child, the love for the country, the friendships (!!!!), the growth in my character, the growth in my faith. I am a different person because of this country and all it gave me.

What I've Learned From My Adoptive Community

(Pictured: a handful of Guatemamas I got to see this weekend. Not pictured: the rest of our foster/adoptive community here in STL and from Guate.)

* There's no land too far or stay too long, there's only longer tourism visas.

* There's no cost too high, there's only more grants, more fundraisers, more selling stuff you didn't need anyway.

* There's no confusion as to whose child this is, there's only attachment practices and fierce love.

* There's no such thing as re-homing. There's only more therapy, more doctors, more conferences, more reading, more loving. (and more wine.)

* There's no right way, no right answer, there's only prayer and support.

* There's no loneliness, there's only more phone calls, texts, and emails. There's only encouragement and support.

* There's no fake smiles, there's only tears and laughter and hugs.

* There's no judgement, there's only nodding of heads and similar stories and a new day tomorrow.

Greed by any other name would still CLING TO HIS TOYS.

Last year while in Guatemala, our family (Russ) was asked to help build bunk beds for a family whose children attend the school we worked with. The day was also spent with a neighbor boy, a squishy cute 3 year old with whom Eliot shared his toys all day. Including a handful of matchbox cars. At the end of the day I asked Eliot if he wanted to give one of his cars to his new little friend. His reaction was to cling, CLING to his backpack full of toys as if it were his oxygen tank.

Startled by his reaction, I reminded him of the basketloads of cars waiting for him at home. It was no consolation. He could only see those within his grasp. As a mom, I didn't love seeing the 6 year old version of selfishness and/or materialism no matter how "developmentally appropriate" it was. At that moment it became clear that he'd learned sharing as a tolerance instead of as generosity.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. As Russ was designing Eliot's amazing birthday party invitations I had an idea, knowing we were headed to Guatemala the day after the party. I ran it by Eliot.

"Hey El, what if instead of your friends bringing you gifts (since you'll be getting plenty of gifts from your family), they bring new matchbox cars for you to give away in Guatemala?" He was *sort of* on board.

(Sidenote: we were inviting his whole class (plus more), of which is pretty diverse socio-economically. We were going to say "No gifts" in case the expectation to bring one would keep anyone away. This party would not have been a gift revenue source either way.)

Upon revisiting the idea multiple times since that first convo, this is what he heard: "Your friends will give you new cars. You'll pick the ones you don't like and give them away." OR "Your friends will give you new cars and you will give away your old cars." We kept reminding him of the original plan.



The invitations went out. The night before the party I asked Sandra (MIL) and Russ if they thought Eliot understood what was going to happen with the cars. The party came. We partied like it was 1999. The party ended. We gathered all the bags in the living room. We held our breath, waiting to see if there would be any tension as Eliot opened 116 brand new cars. 116 brand new cars. He'd never seen a collection that big or shiny ever. And they were all sitting in his living room.

After a lot of "Look at this one, guys!" and "Woah, red is my favorite color!" and of course, "Look at the spoiler on this one!" they were all opened and put into columns.

He looked them all over and said, "I can't wait for the Guatemalans to see these!"

And then I wept.

When Russ asked, "Well Eliot, what do you think?" Eliot asked if he could maybe keep 2. Russ offered to buy two extra before the trip to replace the 2 he wanted and Eliot was content.

And then I wept. Again.

Eliot wheeled his small suitcase through the airport proudly, laughing at the xray machine showing an entire carry-on full of cars. The day came. We headed to Guatemala City and met with a new ministry. We brought out the two bags and told Eliot it was finally time. We started down one walkway and saw a few kids. Eliot carefully chose cars for them. One little girl paused, looked closely at her pink car. Her eyes widened, a smile broke out across her face and she took off running yelling, "MAMA!" Eliot looked at me and smiled.

And then I wept.

It took about .4 seconds for word to spread through the neighborhood that someone was handing out cars. Sweet kids came from every doorway and every alley. Eliot happily passed out every single car and was disappointed when he ran out.


Did this whole experience teach him generosity like we'd hoped? We have no idea. Did he come home and immediately start giving everything away? No. In fact he had get used to sharing with a certain 2 year old again. But our hope is in the seeds planted.

We wanted him to feel it. To feel generous. To wish he had more to give away. To experience joy through sacrifice.

We have no idea what we're doing as parents the majority of the time. I've tried outsourcing the development of my kid's character but no dice. The problem is that "more is caught than taught" so while we work hard to provide experiences like this, it really comes back to what they're seeing is us on a regular basis. I've got some work to do.

Eliot turned 6! (a couple months ago...)

Eliot's birthday happen to fall during our trip to Guatemala this year. So, for his birthday we brought him to his homeland with 20 sorority girls and let him ride horseback up an active volcano.(yes, the same volcano that kept us there last trip...)

Go big or go home.

His actual b-day started at &Cafe, then we headed to one of our ministry sites to freshen up the paint, which he was happy to help with...

"The World's Greatest Brownie" happens to be baked at a restaurant next to our hotel and one of our Baylor girls happens to love being a weirdo to people on their birthday.

A couple days later, we took the team to hike Volcano Pacaya. Russ and I have both been several times but have never taken Eliot. We decided he could handle it, since he's so very old and mature now. We also knew they offered "taxi" service for a small fee. Win/win.

Our guide took us to this spot in the volcano where you can actually climb into this small hole and it's crazy hot inside. Like a mini-sauna. Check that off the to-do list?

Happy birthday, Flyin' Mayan!

Bringing Guatemala home one tortilla at a time.

If you kept up with my adventures on our last trip, you may remember my learning how to make tortillas by hand. Back in the day Sharon was a better Guate-mama than me and took full advantage of her time there with cooking lessons on authentic dishes. Me? I did score a great recipe for Guac but that's the extent. And Russ makes it, not me. So, for whatever reason, I got really passionate about making tortillas.

Like if I were writing a personal ad it would read, "Loves long walks on the beach, dairy, and making handmade tortillas." There's no cell phone plan on the planet that could handle the amount of minutes that ad would draw. Good thing I'm married.

I digress.

So, Amanda and I searched the Bodegona to find the mix to make them stateside. We each made room for the extra 2lbs in our luggage and successfully brought Guatemala home with us. And after two days, Guatemala looked like this:

Thank you, Daisy. Hope you liked your tortillas.

However, don't despair friends, this is a story of redemption. The STL has a few ethnic grocers and the one closest to my office had the exact same brand. The real stuff! Guatemala was here the whole time!

Cheesy yet happy. Speaking of cheese: I made a mini quesadilla with this sweet little guy. Take that, dairy-accountability-friends.

The smell took us right back to the streets of Guatemala, in a good way. (ha!)

We missed it.

One of our favorite anniversaries. The day that ties for ABSOLUTE.FAVORITE.DAY.OF.MY.LIFE. anniversary. Two of them, actually. No, wait, three. Wow.

Event 1: Gotcha day, May 31. Cue volcano, mud slides, tropical storms, and whatnot. June 1 we realized we "missed" Gotcha Day. Awesome.

Event 2: July 5, the day we met Eliot (2006).


Event 3: July 9th, Homecoming Day. I've said it 900 times if I've said it once, a day I will never forget. There is nothing like that feeling on the planet. If you haven't watched the video or seen the pics, click here and you can navigate your way through it. It's worth a few minutes of your time.


To be honest though, I think this is a good sign. We didn't just miss it by a day or two, but well over a week. The first year anniversary of these dates, I thought about it non-stop, the second a little less and now on the third it was an afterthought. Not because the magnitude of the situation was any less, but because life has moved along. We're not 100% focused on the adoption.

I actually dreamed of this day. As the other moms and I would watch our kids scoot around the tile floors we would dream of a life not centered around the process, the money, the foreign country, the paperwork, the margaritas, the lawyers all the while we knew these kids were ours and were waiting for a bunch of official people to figure it out along with us.

So, here it is. Real life. Real life. And it only took 3 years.

Happy anniversary(ies), sweet little man.

Guate pic/story dump #ITS THE LAST ONE!

Wednesday through Friday was thankfully uneventful. We spent days at the children's hospital, evenings at the pool and bouncing around between our favorite restaurants. Although I did get a call on my Guate cell phone from the ambassador making sure we were okay and checking to see if we had gotten flights out. Yeah, no bigs.

Mel was able to fly back in to Guate Wednesday night so we finally got to hang out on Thursday.

KKG!

Scandalous 4 year old...

A pretty accurate picture of what Eliot could do for hours on end. o.b.s.e.s.s.e.d.

The team at Santo Domingo!


All the Mohr's!

Finally on our way home!


And now we can get back to regular life...

Guate pic/story dump #6

Monday was a blur. A little case of "second verse, same as the first." Flights canceled, hours on the phone rescheduling for Friday, time loving on the kids at the local hospital.

Tuesday we told the team we were having a fun day but didn't tell them any details. I thought it was appropriate for this experience to spend the morning at the nut farm. Literally. The macadamia nut farm.

So, we hired a fleet of tuk-tuks and headed toward the most incredibly awkward farm tour I've ever experienced. Not sure what I was expecting but I will recommend not taking any conservative friends that could be easily offended.





The farm had a couple puppies that E was slightly obsessed with!


Then off to a different hotel/restaurant for some much needed pool time.



At this great hotel they have a great playground, so Madi and E had a fun afternoon. I think we all needed a little break.

Guate pic/story dump #5

(I like to draw stories out. over several weeks. a good month or two past the date of occurance. It's all about building suspense. You're welcome.)


Sunday we woke up to blue-ish skies, not really blue but not raining, so it counts. That made a world of difference. I ran to the Bodegona for more phone minutes and a few snacks. The scuttlebutt (I wonder if scuttlebutt translates to Spanish?) around the store was the storm and all it's damage, including mudslides and flooded roads. We didn't have internet at the hotel since Saturday morning so had no way of really knowing what was going on.

While we were finalizing details for our Baylor church service, I ran into our housekeeper who told me she didn't get to go home because of the roads. I casually mentioned how it might not be the best of {bad} ideas to try to drive to another country if she couldn't even get to her house outside Antigua. Her eyes got very big, so either I said something really wrong in Spanish or the idea was as crazy as I thought it was.

Emergency meeting #426: to drive or to stay. No idea if we'd make it to San Salvador, no idea what flights would actually be left.

There are times when I'd like to grab a bag of fruit snacks and my tag blanket and stop being the adult.

Divide and conquer: Russ upstairs to host church, me back on ye ol' telefono. This time, straight to the Supervisor, my bestie. Out of nowhere, she had 9 spots open up on the flights for Monday morning. We had heard the airport may be opening Sunday afternoon but people had already canceled their flights, opening spots for us. This was unbelievable.

3 hours and a can of pringles later, I had everyone re-assigned to new flights (again)out of Guate City ranging from Monday afternoon to Friday morning.

Sunday night we had the opportunity to serve at a local school. Families that were displaced because of mudslides came to stay there until further notice. The school needed hands to help distribute dinner, so chipped in and then were able to play with the kids for a little while before returning to the hotel. Eliot had a very important job of handing out spoons. Every time we'd leave a room he'd yell, "Let's feed more people!"






A pic taken a few days later of the clean up at a nearby town of debris from the mudslide: