Pumpkin Invasion

I'm multi-tasking again...as usual. With internet slightly faster than Morse Code, I try to have several things going on at once, so that I don't get too frustrated with the fact that this really neat blog I want to read still hasn't finished loading.

Right now I have four sites loading, I'm baking a pumpkin pie, simmering chili, unloading photos from my camera and writing a blog post. Not bad for a Thursday afternoon!

So, the timer on my pie beeped. I looked over to see who was in the kitchen so they could slap the thing to silence it and noticed that I have a lot of pumpkin on my counter. Pumpkin in various stages. I had to take a photo. Yes, I'm a camera addict.
In the far back, on the left over there, is the last of my super-cheap-what-a-deal pumpkins waiting its turn in the oven. On the right is the next-to-last pumpkin, which just came out of the oven as the last two pumpkin pies went in. Right in front, sitting on my trusty-rusty deep freeze, are the first of the pies to come out. They are the reason my stomach is rumbling right now...just a sec. I'll take a picture...

Isn't it purty?!

So, while I sit on my duff and wait for timers to beep and pages to load, my faithful slave, er, I mean daughter is busily doing my job...

The chili is now ready to serve and the first cooked pumpkin looks like this...


So...I'm thankful.

Thought I'd forgotten, didn't you?! I'm only mostly out of touch. I do manage to remember things like Daylight Savings Time, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. Thank you, Facebook!

Thank you, Lord, for another beautiful day.

Thank you, Lord, for my family.

Thank you, Lord, for my amazing husband who, amazingly enough, has put up with me for nearly 19 years and still loves me dearly!

Thank you, Lord, that all of my children have put You first in their lives and that I'll be seeing them forever in heaven -- even if they move to Europe in this life. For instance. Not that any of them would ever do that. Right? Sarah?

Thank you, Lord, for all our friends and adopted family here in Mexico. For Chuy, who stopped in for a glass of water and ended up hanging out all morning and staying for lunch (which is pretty normal for us!) and is now learning all about the Thanksgiving tradition of "pay de calabaza de holowin" (that would be "pumpkin pie").

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good...para siempre es su misericordia...His mercy endures forever!!!!

Why I hate piñatas

The term posada is used, at least in our part of the country, to describe just about any Christmas party held on or around the 22nd of December. In the traditional posada, children dress up as Mary and Joseph and walk the streets in search of the house where the Christmas party (or posada) will be. This is done, of course, as a remembrance of the night when Mary and Joseph wandered through Bethlehem in search of a night’s lodging.

As with many Christmas traditions, much of the deeper spiritual meaning has been sucked out of the celebration by the commercial. At least the name hasn’t changed! The posada of Las Glorias was much like the non-Christian Christmas parties (is that an oxymoron?) of the States: lots of food, tons of candy, soda pop for the kiddos and beer for the grown-ups...and cake. You've gotta have a cake.

To be totally honest, we had planned to skip this year’s festivities. Several of the men of the village take advantage of the “free beer” aspect of the party and things can get a little out-of-hand before the evening is over. But when your family’s presence doubles the number of children, and you know that the whole village is counting on you being there…you show up. Especially when they ask you to bake the cake – you have to stop by to deliver the cake, so how are you going to drop it off and say, “Oh, no. We won’t be coming back even though we know you’ve bought candy bags for each of the kids and you invited us weeks ago.” RUDE!!! So we went.

And we had fun.

They got everyone to take a jab at the piñata. You know why I hate piñatas? Cause I’m always afraid that someone will get a picture of me looking like this…

So the party ended (fairly early!) and we headed home with more bags of tamarind and chili-laced candy. What is it with tamarind candy? And who thought that putting chili sauce inside of a sucker would make it taste better??? Just give me a Hershey’s bar, and I’m satisfied!!!

Decking the Halls

We're going to pretend that this photo collection was posted on December 10th, rather than January 10th. We had a great time getting the house all "festive". Finding a real Douglas fir was a special treat. It cost a little more than we ever paid for a tree in the States, but we were glad we were able to do it. There's just something about the piney smell...

I love decorating for Christmas. One of our favorite traditions is to put on our silly elf hats, play Christmas music and drink hot-cocoa in our Christmas mugs while we decorate. We had a fun time!!!

And God bless us, every one!

Samaritan's Purse Comes to Boca del Rio

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

To everyone who has prayed and to everyone who has given over the past couple of days to meet this need we send a huge

THANK YOU!!!

We've reached our goal and will be able to distribute the gifts to the area children as we had prayed!!! We'll be sure to post lots of pictures here next week so you can see what we're up to! I'd like to give a special thanks to Miss Jocelyn at A Pondering Heart and the Mom-Team over at 5 Minutes for Mom for their "boost" to this endeaver. (Even though I think they would probably rather not have the credit, I'd still like to say thank you for linking up!)

Once again, Merry Christmas everyone!!!

For the first time in the history of this small fishing village, Samaritan's Purse: Operation Christmas Child is coming!

Pastor Ricardo went to Guamuchil with a group of area pastors yesterday to find out what they needed to do to receive the shoeboxes. He stopped by this morning with a prayer request, which I'm passing on to my loyal blog readers! ;^)

Samaritan's Purse will make the shoeboxes available to the church at a cost of 7 pesos each. We did wonder, as I'm sure you are wondering, why there would be a charge to receive these gifts. The men at the distribution point said that the charge was to cover the transport of the boxes from the port of Mexico City to Guamuchil (20 hours away). At any rate, the cost works out to about $.50 each. Calvary Chapel -- Boca del Rio would like to be able to distribute the boxes to the children of Boca del Rio and Las Glorias and also to the villages of Las Pitayas and Carricitos (villages which suffer extreme poverty and have no Christian church). We've cancelled our children's Christmas party, which was scheduled for today, and are praying for enough funds to purchase 500 boxes. The day of distribution will be January 2, so there is still a week to raise the money needed. That date coincides with the national celebration of Three Kings Day -- which is another gift-giving holiday here.

I know that this time of year, you see someone with their hand out every time you turn around. The Salvation Army is ringing the bell to take your change, there's a homeless person in every parking lot asking for work or food, the youth group is raising money for this, the children's department needs that, and to top it off the kids' Sunday school class expects 2 dozen cookies by tomorrow.

Well, I don't want to add to the chaos and craziness, but if you do happen to have a couple of dollars extra and would like to send a very special gift to one of 500 kids who might not receive any other gift this Christmas, it would be a blessing. We are trusting God to provide the $250 needed.

If you find yourself unable to help financially, will you please pray? We know that the fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much! So pray fervently that God would provide and that the Church would be able to bless these children and that a door would be opened to share the Gospel in Las Pitayas and Carricitos!!!

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

17 Years Ago Today

Today is the Coult family's seventeenth anniversary. To celebrate our 17 years of marriage, I thought I'd post a great picture/scrapbook layout that a dear friend of mine made for us. If you like her work (and who wouldn't???) you might want to check out her collections of digital scrapbooking layouts over at Scrap Girls. Thanks, Ursula!!! You're awesome!!! ;^)

What does it say on the bottom?
"Life is all about learning how to allow love to flow freely out of yourself and then patiently waiting for others' love to flow in once again."

A Thanksgiving Blessing to My Friends

To be honest, Thanksgiving Day nearly passed me by unawares this year. I only just remembered on Saturday when I was in town, so I was able to get some cream cheese for our traditional Thanksgiving cheesecakes. Most of the "traditional" Thanksgiving Day foods aren't available here (or you have to pay an arm and a leg for them) so we've adapted, but cheesecake crosses all cultural lines!

My blessing for you my friends and family this Thanksgiving season comes from Colossians chapter 4 verses 2 through 6 (This is the NI-me version, so bear with me a bit)

Continue in prayer and watch in prayer with thanksgiving. Pray for us, too, that God would open a door to speak the mystery of Christ to those around us -- which is why we are here. Pray that we would show the mystery as we ought as we speak. Walk in wisdom toward those who don't understand the mystery, redeeming the time. Speak with grace, seasoned with salt, so that you would know how to answer every person who questions you.

I pray that God's grace would dwell in you richly this season and every day!

-- Rebecca

My First Blog Anniversary

I can't believe I've been blogging a year already!!! The past year has simply flown by! Funny how they do that as we get older. I can remember when summer vacation seemed to last 6 months. Now it seems I barely have time to pack away one year's old textbooks before the new year is upon me!!!

In honor of my one year blog-i-versary, I'm throwing a big ol' party. Coffee and cheesecake for everyone -- and I'll have a pot of water boiling if anyone would prefer tea. Come on in! There's room enough for everyone!!!Thanks to Wilton, for supplying the gorgeous cake! Looks good enough to eat!

Coffee anyone? I found these great steel coffee cups over at The Green Head. I know nothing about the site, other than they have some interesting "novelty" items -- like coffee mugs that don't shatter when you drop them on concrete floors. Gotta love that!

Tea's hot, too! I have a delicious Apricot tea, Licorice Spice, raspberry leaf and of course Earl Grey from San Francisco Herb Company. I have yet to try one of their teas I don't like.

I hope you'll take a moment to try a slice of cake or at least pour a cup of your favorite beverage and sit a spell!

I'd love to hear what's been going on in your life this year! Perhaps you've been experiencing an overflow of God's grace in your life, your schooling, your marriage or your parenting. Has God been teaching you new insights you'd like to share? Maybe this year has been a challenge and you feel like you're about "done" for the year. Whatever the case, leave a short comment (or a long comment! I don't think the comment box has a character limit!) I look forward to hearing from you!

Also, come check out my 1st anniversary blog carnival:

Blog Anniversary Carnival

I started blogging a year ago. I am still such a novice! So many things I've learned, but so many more I still just don't "get". That's OK. I should be used to that by now -- it's kind of the story of my life!

At any rate, in honor of my 1 year Blog-i-versary, I'm hosting my first "thingy". Y'see? I'm so new at this I don't even know what to call it. Let's call it a carnival. That sounds like fun! ;^)

First of all I need to tell you a bit about myself. Really, it's more like a confession. I have two major faults which are very detrimental to my housekeeping, child-rearing, homeschooling and marital harmony: I procrastinate and I'm flat-surface-challenged. I think the latter problem is hereditary. My mom, my aunt and I used to joke that if we were to design a house, every flat surface would be set at a 45 degree angle so that we couldn't stack stuff.

The former problem is just me. It's something I'm working on, and I know I'm not alone in the battle and THAT, my friends, is what this really fun carnival is all about! Throughout the month of November, I'm giving out free Round TUITs. There's one at the top of this post and the code to insert one on your site is right here!

The Round TUIT Round-up is all about finishing up those little, niggling projects that are cluttering our corners (in our rooms or in our minds) and stealing our peace. Do you have a pile of mending overshadowing your sewing corner? Maybe a school project isn't due till spring, but you really need to get started on it. Have you been meaning to detail the car or write Christmas cards or write a letter or send flowers to your mom? It's time to get around to it!!!

Once you have your Round TUIT at your blog, you have no more excuses! Do something you've been putting off "until I get around to it", post about it at your blog and link back here using Mr. Linky. Feel free to post once during the month, or once a week, or every other day! The more times you sign in to Mr. Linky, the more projects you're finishing and the more you're breaking the procrastination habit!!!

[BTW -- If I don't make any mistakes setting this whole carnival thing up, I'll be so shocked!!! Please send me an email or post a comment if you find a broken link or any other silly mistakes! Thanks for your patience -- ahead of time!!!]



P.S. When you sign your URL in the Mr. Linky box, be sure you insert the url of your Round-Up post, not your blog url.

Like this: http://thecoultfamily.blogspot.com/2008/09/moo-ve-over.html
Not like this: http://thecoultfamily.blogspot.com
That way we'll be able to find your post easily! Thanks!!!

Our Fourth of July

As uneventful as it was, I've been such a louse at posting over the past few weeks that I thought I should at least report on our Independence Day celebration. We didn't do much. HOWEVER, we did make a small fire, shoot off a couple of firecrackers and roast marshmallows.


Mexican marshmallows are called "bonbones" and they really taste nothing like marshmallows, but they do melt nicely!



The boys located a handful of firecrackers which they lit...while wearing sandals or barefoot, holding the box of matches in the other hand and throwing the lit firecracker into the air to explode. My mother is tsk tsking and shaking her head right now. ;^)






Here is Jessee roasting his strawberry-flavored-quasi-marshmallow over our roaring bonfire. We were all so exhausted from the events of the past week that this was about as much energy we had for wood-gathering (more about those events in later posts...I promise!!!). It was sufficient to get the job done!


Then Seth tried to mooch his 'mallow!

To no avail! Jessee was victorious and managed to eat it himself!



Finally, Sarah took the traditional "Family-minus-one Photo"...

...then we prayed together and shuffled the kiddos off to bed.

Good night and happy 4th of July everyone!!!