*Padilla familia 2010 at-a-glance*

Happy New Year from our family to yours!! So much for getting this out with our Christmas cards last month. But, better late than never, right? So here we go, 2010 highlights at-a-glance...

January-Returned from our very snowy trip to Hume Lake, ready to start fresh * Girls have sewing sessions with Aunti Ali (my sis) and made some cute doll outfits * Classes continue: piano for Reece, hip hop for girls and Sylvan tutoring for Ama*

February - fun trip to San Luis Obispo with Ama & Shayley, visiting the SLO Mission, bubblegum alley and Apple Farm * Mo and Bekah continue to serve on worship team at church (vocals, keys) * Ghana families from SoCal meet in San Diego for some fun & grub* Bekah starts leading worship time for Womens Bible Study*

March - Bekah continues to be Hands On Art docent in the 3 older kids classes * Jonathan turns 3 with a Race Car birthday party * Shayley enters Speech Contest and receives a ribbon* Shayley gets her braces on * Bekah presents nutrition class at ECE Conference*

April - Trip to Hume Lake during Easter break, more snow * Ama starts volleyball * Ama turns 11 with a trip to the American Girl store*

May - Girls perform in the stomp musical Joseph, From the Pit to the Palace * Bekah heads up to Hume to help Grama get ready for summer renters, clean, clean, clean * Bekah assists with makeup in Journey Show at church *

June - Celebration of Grami & Papi's 50th Wedding Anniversary with friends and family * Shayley turns 9 with a party at Color Me Mine art studio * Date nights with kids continue (ice-skating, bowling, movies) *

July - Celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary in San Francisco while the kids stayed with Grama Richman & Grami Padilla * Beach Days * Pool Days* 4th of July party * Swim lessons start * campout in the backyard *summer reading program at the library * piano & dance classes * museums, puppet shows * Bekah continues to work on Saturdays teaching nutrition at Clinica Medica Hispana *

August - Reece turns 6 with a visit to Medieval Times * Recycling cans/bottles for supporting Christ Outreach Orphange in Ghana begins * Labor Day weekend trip to Hume Lake, sunshine *

September - Mo does the Century bike ride and finishes! * School starts; Ama enters 5th, Shayley enters 4th, Reece enters Kindergarten, and Jonathan starts preschool *

October - Bekah attends 20 year high school reunion * Mo takes kids to first Galaxy soccer game * Pumpkin carving * Harvest party at Ascension Lutheran * First donation to Ghana orphange buys textbooks *

November - Amaleah & Jonathan become U.S. Citizens * Ama accepts Jesus as her personal Savior * Trip to SLO town with college friends * Girls Dance Show * Hume Lake with Valladares Family (first snow!) *

December - Ama gets her hair braided * Re-Adoption Day for Padilla fam December 23 * Christmas! * 2nd donation to orphanage buys food supplies & a goat for Christmas dinner * The Grove in Santa Monica with 4 kids & their AG dolls * Ethiopian food for the first time * NY Eve Party with friends*

Wishing you lots of special memories & God's indescribable peace in 2011*

Rice, oil, water and .... a goat!!

We have an exciting update* Since late August we've been able to raise over $550 by recycling cans and bottles, with the help of our recycling team (neighbors, family, school, work). We posted awhile back (Oct) that we were able to help Christ Outreach Orphanage in Ghana buy textbooks for their school. Recently, our recycling fund contributed to some much needed groceries that the orphanage requested: rice, tomatoes, minerals, oil, pasta, salt, a goat, and water. Here is a picture of some of the people at the orphanage with their goods. What an incredible blessing to have so many people on board with us in this endeavor, we are truly grateful for their support. And for our kids to know that their family is being supported (and fed!) in Ghana is just priceless, such a beautiful gift. In November, our kid's school, Ascension Lutheran, had a can/bottle drive to bring in as many recycleables as possible in order to help us raise money for the orphanage. They managed to bring in over 3,200 bottles/cans which raised over $200, great job for a very small private school :-) We posted a pic here of what our garage looked like after bringing all those bags home.

Psalm 10:17-18 You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

During our church service last month our family was featured in the Giving Thanks video. We're so grateful for this opportunity to share our story with our church family and now YOU! We had some fun making the video too with the media guys and felt like moviestars for about an hour as the bright lights and camera equipment circled around our living room. Enjoy!

A Christmas Gift - 7 hours in the making*

A dear friend from the kid's school offered to pay to have her friend, Lydia, braid Ama's hair last weekend, as a Christmas gift to her. Ama, to say the least, was very excited about this :-) So after about seven hours of braiding (and sitting for Ama!) she had a full head of beautiful braids! What a thoughtful and generous gift, thank you Mrs.Madu and Ms.Lydia!!

BOOOOOO!!

(slideshow below) We had lots of fun carving pumpkins the day before halloween!! We all dressed up on halloween to do a little 'neighborly' trick or treating and then off to Ascension Lutheran School for the Fall Festival. Lots of fun games, a bounce house, food, cake walks, costume parade and trunk or treating. We dressed up our car with a luau theme for T&T'ing...our version of a little bit of paradise :) and WON 2nd place!

Free slideshow generated with Smilebox

Turning trash into text books

I'm so excited as I write this post, I wish my fingers could type faster and my thoughts would slow down :-) Since August, our kids have been collecting cans and bottles from friends and neighbors, co-workers and family, in order to recycle them for money to give to charity. So far they've earned over $180!! It's truly amazing that our once small effort of going around to about 8-10 neighbors has turned into a much bigger and unexpected blessing than we'd ever imagined. God has a way of doing that, doesn't He. As I mentioned, we started out by going to some of our neighbors with the hopes that they would save their empty cans/bottles and we would come back every other sunday to collect them. Many of them have graciously jumped on board and been saving their recycleables for us, even dropping them off on our porch sometimes to our pleasant surprise! How many times have you heard your kids shout for joy when they drive up and see a trash bag sitting on their lawn or porch? (uh huh, thot so) Well, our kids do. They know better. Because inside that trash bag is money, in their eyes. Money for those in need. The first time they went to the recycling center to cash in their cans/bottles (pic above) they saw firsthand how what was once trash was turning into money and eventually textbooks for the kids at Christ Outreach Orphanage in Ghana (once home for Jonathan & Amaleah), pic above, Ama's Grama Rose in dress on right; Ama's sister Olivia in red shirt on left side. Soon, some of our family was handing us bags of bottles/cans and once word got around at my husband's work of what we were doing, his co-workers started saving them too (even the janitor!). Then, the cherry on top was this afternoon when I received a call from Ama's teacher saying that the teachers at school decided that they would dedicate Nat'l Make A Difference Day (October 23) to our cause, asking all the families at school to bring in their cans/bottles to support our orphanage in Ghana. WOW!! How does the old adage go...be careful what you wish for?? At times, our garage is overflowing with cans/bottles, but we couldn't be happier. We are truly humbled by the outpowering of support we've received from so many people. Something tells me that we will never look at an empty bottle or can the same again, in fact, I'm confident we won't. On more than one occasion one of our kids will see a disregarded can/bottle sitting somewhere and I can see a light turn on in their eyes as they go to grab it ;-) Because that 5 or 10 cents that it's worth to us is priceless in the hands of a young orphan who was just handed a brand new book or fresh drinking water, or maybe even the only meal they will have that day.