Welcome Gabriel Guy St. Louis

On July 31st at 1:49am Gabriel Guy became an official member of our family. We named him Gabriel which means Man of God, and we named him Guy after his grandfather. I think he will be filling some big shoes in this life with those names. In Honduras we have a little bit different birth plan options versus in the US and the plan we picked was at our home with a mid-wife. For those of you who are scared of this option, it is not for everyone, but we loved it!

Part of our home birth included me getting to catch the baby, put the baby on Jamie's chest and cut the cord. What an experience! I think every future dad should get to do that at least once. We kept the gender a surprise the entire time and I did not know the gender until after I put the baby onto Jamie's chest (I was too busy counting fingers and toes). It is funny how unimportant the surprise was for me, I was really just going for healthy.

That being said however, a little boy was welcomed quickly into our family by a very proud father whose house is unevenly balanced in estrogen. I still can't wipe that smile off my face.

Here is the picture of Jamie holding the baby. Yes she really was that happy! Being in Honduras in the middle of summer pregnant is quite a job. I am amazed at how happy she has pretended to be over the last couple of months:)
I should have more pictures later today that I will post and more info on the height and weight. Until then we would like to welcome Gabriel into our family.

Iguana Farm

We have lived on the island now just under two years and never went to the Iguana farm. We decided that it was time for the kids to experience a part of the real roatan. The farm is really a iguana santuary of sorts. They feed the iguanas and keep them safe from becoming lunch. The roatan iguana farm is one of the only two places in the world that have the spine back iguana. In the picture some are this variety and some are just the plain old garden variety. The one at the very bottom of the picture is a spine back.
The iguana's where everywhere. A good portion of them were waiting for a free lunch on the ground, but if you looked in the trees they could be seen everywhere.
Kendalynn loved petting the iguana's and caught on quite quickly. It definetely was a great experience for her. The hardest thing she had to learn was to walk up slowly... when she got out of the car she scared them all by chasing after them.Makiah on the other hand would not get near them, nor would she pet them. After much coaxing and bribing this picture was as close as we could get her to the iguana's. The turtles however she could not take her hands off. She enjoyed pushing them around the little pool.

This is family shot with me and the girls. You can still tell that Kiah is not willing to take her eyes off the iguana's. I am pretty sure that she was convinced they would feed her to the dinosaurs.

Spud-nut Day

This tradition in our family actually started prior to Jamie and I. Kevin, my old room mate showed me his "great-grandmas" spud-nut recipe. To this day I still think they are the best doughnuts even though we latter found him looking on the back of a can the Idaho potatoes when he could not remember the recipe by heart!


Yes. This is my stupid caught off guard look!
For the record, this is a triple batch! Kiah really just enjoyed sticking her fingers in the dough as I tried to roll it.

Does Kenda look excited?

"Kevin's great grandma's recipe" found on the back of the Idaho Potato can...

1.5 Cups prepared mashed potatoes

3 Eggs

2 pkts active dry yeast

.5 Cups lukewarm water

.75 Cups of Shortening or margarine

2 Cups of milk, scalded then cooled to lukewarm

1 tbs salt

1 tbs lemon extract

6 -8 Cups of flour

Oil to deep fry

Disolve the 2 packets of yeast in the water. Mix the sugar & shortening/butter to a cream type texture. Beat in potatoes and eggs. Set aside.

Scald & cool milk then stir in salt & lemon. Combine all ingredients, then add flour to make soft dough. Knead well. Place dough in greased bowl. Cover and let rise in warm place until it doubles in size. Roll dough .5 inches thick. Cut your doughnut shapes out. Let rise another 30 minutes. Deep fry in oil heated to 375 degrees. Drain on paper towel.

Glaze: add hot water slowly to powdered sugar and vanilla to make a thin glaze.

This should make you about 4 dozen small doughnuts. Use flour on your hands and the dough will not be so sticky towards the end stages.

Now that everyone has this receipe I am worried that our family and friends will stop coming to visit us. I hope you all enjoy it. It is always fun with the kids.

The snorkel princess

Kendalynn is now a expert snorkeler! It is funny that we have been trying to teach her how to swim now for two years and she throws the mask and snorkel on and she does! It is important to say however that she still can not swim without a mask and snorkel. This is a picture of her on her first expedition.

4th of July

We were able to have Chad and Lacey who came down to visit us on their honeymoon smuggle into Honduras a couple of sparklers and other small things for the kids. Kendalynn was very serious about playing with fire, but Kiah really could barely keep from touching it. A couple of times she even tried to touch the sparkler to her tongue. Has anyone else had any children who love to play with fire? Some advise may be needed in the future.

We also had uncle Chad over for the BBQ. He is heading back to the states and it was great for the girls to spend some time with him. In this picture he was trying to explain why the cool little spinners that we loved so much as kids are really pretty lame now because they don't spin in the sand! We feel totally ripped off as our children are missing that experience.