Amelia's first easy bake cake!

Amelia got to visit Santa a few days before Christmas - Eli did too but he was crying to hard for a picture.

Holiday Tamale Baskets

As part of our Christmas gift to each of you this year we donated one tamale basket in honor of your family.

I thought you would all be interested in reading a little more of the story as well. If you would like more information you can visit the Mayan Families website.

Holiday Tamale Baskets

A meal of specially prepared tamales with seasonal trimmings is the traditional Christmas dinner of indigenous Guatemalans. With many families unable to afford nutritious daily meals, enjoying the Christmas tamale meal is beyond their reach. Mayan Families prepares and gift wraps baskets containing enough food to prepare a festive Christmas dinner. Each reusable basket contains oil, rice, a block of drinking chocolate (the traditional drink at midnight), a loaf of bread, raisins, grapes, apples, sugar, meat, tomatoes, coffee, leaves to wrap the tamales, cloves, pepper, sesame, and pumpkin seeds.


Here is the story of how we started this program and how you can help!
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IT IS THE SEASON FOR SHARING.

At midnight on Christmas Eve 2005, two of our sponsored students went door to door hoping someone would give them a tamale to eat.

This is the traditional meal at Christmas in Guatemala. Their single mother could not afford to buy the ingredients to make Tamales. When we found out about this we wondered how many other families could not afford to celebrate Christmas and how many other children were sad and hungry at this time of the year. It turned out there were a lot of people who could not afford to celebrate Christmas.

In 2006 we started the Christmas Tamale Basket Program. We gave out 215 baskets of food. In 2007 we gave out 650 baskets. In 2008 we gave out more than 1,000.

There is a food crisis in Guatemala now and there will be even more families asking for help.

Mother Teresa said "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one..."

We are asking for your help to feed just one family this Holiday Season. Food prices have continued to rise and the Food Crisis is taking its toll on children and families. There are lots of families needing help. Malnutrition is a constant challenge. Many families in Guatemala do not have enough food to eat this year. Many of the families that we work with cannot afford to have the traditional meal at midnight on Christmas Eve.

Snow, snow, snow....

We got more snow on Saturday! It was beautiful, big, soft flakes. And best of all - it snowed enought to make everything pretty and then it stopped!

We were in the middle of baking cookies so we took a quick break and enjoyed the snow without coats.

The Climber

Sorry - These are a little fuzzy - but I think you get the idea....

Decorating Cookies

Amelia got to decorate a few cookies with Grandma before she left...

Getting ready to say Goodbye...

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sad having to say good bye....

A ride with Spiderman

Fun with Grandma & Grandpa

Eli is showing Grandpa all of his Christmas music makers. (And yes, he does know how to play them all by himself...thank you Amelia...)Amelia got a pillow pet from Grandma & Grandpa. The unicorn that she's been waiting for!Amelia found a fellow puzzle fan....even if they have different methods.

Story Time

Grandma got to come to Amelia's class and read two christmas stories today. And then Grandma stayed and had lunch with Amelia.

Eli's 1st birthday (for the 3rd time...)

How is it that our little one year old has had 3 birthday celebrations??
Aunt Tina's digger was a big hit with both kids!

Here's our birthday boy!

Could he have really gone from this little guy....To this.... In just one year????

Time for Christmas

Amelia and Daddy went to pick out a christmas tree in the snow yesterday! And Eli got his first taste fo snow.