My first niece

My oldest sister Cynthia gave birth on January 8th to my first niece, Chloe Lyn Anderson. Praise the Lord she's a very healthy and beautiful baby! My parents and my little brother Luc were able to drive down to Florida and visit them just a few weeks ago. Luc absolutely loves babies! and I heard he fell in love with Chloe instantly.

CARNAVAL!

Well, this past week was Carnaval, which means I haven't had to teach all week :D Poor Micah only got off Monday and Tuesday since he teaches at the American high school here. I was really excited about experiencing Carnaval here in Brazil for the first time. I know what some of you are thinking "Kristy don't you know Carnaval isn't for Christians..all the drinking, dancing, nudity, etc." But I figure if you live in Brazil you have to experience Carnaval at least once....all the excitement, celebration, bright colors, parades.... Well, in the end it didn't really work out to see Carnaval in person this year. Micah and I never figured out where they were holding the parades in our city. But we did watch part of the parades in Rio de Janeiro on tv. Brazilians definitely know how to throw a party! I hope next year Micah and I will be able to see at least one of the parades in person.

Our new wallpaper

For those of you who haven't already seen pictures, here is what our kitchen looks like. We only a one bedroom apartment but all the rooms are huge so it feels much bigger! We're on the second floor and right below us are the ESL classrooms, where I teach English to Brazilians. I can't ask for a better commute :D

Just last month we wallpapered the kitchen. All the floors and walls in our apartment are white so it really needed some color. When we went to buy paint here the guy who helped us had never seen wallpaper before and didn't know how it even worked. He was even more impressed when he found out it was for our home and not for some fancy restaurant. It's always funny to find the little things that are so different here from home. We're planning on doing the livingroom this month sometime. Once we do it I'll post up some photos...it should be really cute!