Will and I pretended to be parents for a little while. We woke up and made banana pancakes, gave Ana a bath, drew pictures, colored Disney princesses, and for the grand finale--we went to the park.
This is Ana as a little cook, mashing the bananas for the pancakes.
Will threatened us with snowballs, but we called a truce and he quickly rekindled his friendship with Ana. For the New Year, we made a new man. Since I was the only one with gloves, the structure of our human was up to me. After careful deliberation, we decided that we would stick with the basic anatomy of a snowman, three balls stacked on top of each other. 
Ana was very adept with the detail work. Since we are eco-friendly, we used all found materials. Leaves were obviously the best choice for hair. To keep the leaves fashioned to his head, we had to devise a yammukah for him to wear. So our snowman quickly evolved into a Jewish snowman. Naturally, he had to have a beard, and pine needles were the perfect facial hair. 
Ana was very adept with the detail work. Since we are eco-friendly, we used all found materials. Leaves were obviously the best choice for hair. To keep the leaves fashioned to his head, we had to devise a yammukah for him to wear. So our snowman quickly evolved into a Jewish snowman. Naturally, he had to have a beard, and pine needles were the perfect facial hair. Unfortunately, our Jewish man lasted for a short time, he met his untimely death when Ana started pulling his beard out one strand at a time, and poking his eyes out with her pudgy fingers. No memorial service will be held. 
We gave the gift of practicality to my dad--he loves clean cars, so he was thrilled about the detailing tools we gave him. 
Sarah drew us a beautiful picture of the Manti temple, and being the art teacher that I am, I gave her a drawing book to help fine tune those skills.
Sterling and Steven looked dashing in their new pajamas. I think I'll have to make a pair for Will next Christmas so he doesn't feel left out.
Santa was good to us as well. We finally got a dvd player so we can watch movies on the tv instead of Will's laptop.
Elder Hernandez, Inocencia and her children, Ramona and her 4 children, and me, Elder Lehmitz
The baptism of Benigno and Irma, accompanied by family and neighborhood friends
Coco trees, beautiful
Sugar cane! And check out the cool straw hat and Indian bag. La cana, y mira el sombrero piri y la bolsa
This is one of my favorite places in Paraguay; barrio Salado in Limpio. I love those hats too!
Paraguay, especially in the town of Luque, is known for its hand-crafted guitars and harps. I never say anyone else wear a poncho, but I thought it was cool anyway. The orange and black centerpiece on our kitchen table below is called nanduti, which translated would be something like "spider lace."
This is a bag made by the indigenous peoples. There are actually a ton of different Indian tribes in Paraguay with lots of different languages and dialects. Thes bags are mostly a tourist souvenir; the people don't hardly ever buy them.
These are some more souvenirs from Paraguay. The three cup things in the middle are called guampas and are used to drink the most common beverage of Paraguay, terere and/or mate. Terere is drunk using ice water, whereas mate is made using hot water and mixing it with yerba, which is a combination of dried herbs that when mixed with water, makes a kind of tea. The guy on the right is a figurine made of a wood called palosanto, which is native only to Paraguay. It smells goods too!
This shot includes some bracelet trinkets and the currency of Paraguay. Their money called guaranies are highly inflated and come in sets of 1000 units. The small bill, similar to the U.S. dollar in its usage is the 1000 bill, which is call a mil. They also have 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, and 100,000 guarani bills
This is a brick kiln that they use to cook a special kind of bread called chipa, which is similar to a bagel. I can't remember the exact name they use for the oven though. 
In this picture I'm sporting my Paraguayan shirt made of a material called aopoi. They do some pretty cool embroidery with them and come in long and short sleeve in a variety of patterns and colors. I'm also showing off Jorge's Mission Fund. I baptized him the last day of my mission and we still maintain contact. We currently donate $10 a month to help fund his mission, which he plans to serve as soon as possible. If anyone else would like to contribute, just contact me.
Although this piece is non-representational, the floating organic forms kind of remind me of outer space. As I was creating it, I kept thinking about the band, Brave Saint Saturn, and their strange, ethereal theme. My favorite thing about collographs is the layers of intricate texture that can be created. 
Since I used a monochromatic color scheme, painting Grandma Ruby was a great exercise in value. It's funny how our eyes deceive us sometimes. At first, I had some of the shadows way too dark, and then I had to go in and lighten some things up. I really enjoyed working on this piece, but now I want to try something that will challenge my creative abilities by producing a more conceptual piece.
And here's a little hoodlum. (She's wearing a hood. . . silly) 
