Our Jesus Birthday Celebration

Being the teacher that I am I really wanted to incorporate the main things we wanted to teach the kids this year into one activity.  We have been learning the story of Jesus' birth over the month, they've been praying for different people groups and spent some of their money to buy things for others in need so to make it all relate we told the kids they were going to be the "wise men" who were on a hunt to find the "star" and when they found the star they would find baby Jesus and they could give Him their presents for His birthday. 
So on Christmas morning we gathered around the computer and the kids got to pick out their gift from the Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog.  Evangelia picked a gift to help support and love on orphans in Uganda, Elijah picked a donation to help feed starving babies, and Ian picked giving needy children new shoes and clothing.  I drew a picture of each of these gifts and placed it in their gift bag.  We then took the party/wise men hats that we had made and dressed them up to look like wise men.  I gave them their map of our house and told them they were on a hunt to find the star and Jesus but had to use the map and answer questions about Jesus' story to move on to each step. 
When they made it to the end after traveling through the house they found the star and one of Ev's babies wrapped up to be like Jesus.  They presented their presents and told Jesus happy birthday.  It was precious. 
Right now as they are little and enjoy birthday parties they were so excited the whole day to celebrate Jesus.  We had a full morning of coloring a birthday banner, making party/wise men hats, choosing what present they were going to give Jesus off the Internet, going on their hunt for the star/ Jesus, and making a baby Jesus ornament for the tree.  We ate lunch and the boys went down for naps and then in the evening we celebrated again with our birthday cake for Jesus and lighting all of the Advent candles, singing songs and reviewing the story again.  It was a full day of Jesus and it was exactly what we wanted. 
As they get older and the excitement over birthday parties will fade we will have to come up with other ideas to celebrate Jesus' birthday but this first year of taking the us out of Christmas was really meaningful.  I can't wait to see how it plays out in the years to come. 


Here is the video of our "wise men" finding baby Jesus.  I know the video is a little long - my camera man was taking pictures with another camera at the same time but if you want to see some cute little wise men it is worth it!

****Well I've had some technical difficulties so I am needing to call in Todd to help me edit down the video so I can upload it here. So be patient and come back to see a very cute video!

Getting Ready

This week like any birthday celebration around here I started creating our living room into party central.  Well at least my kids think so.  As we come down to a week before Christmas or as my kids know Jesus' birthday I thought like any other birthday I would decorate for it.  As this is our first Christmas to not open presents we want to focus on Jesus.  We have done a birthday cake for Jesus in the past but this time we are going all out as if I we were celebrating for one of the family members birthday.  Usually it is theme based so I have been going with using small crowns, Christmas lights, Jesus' name and decorating with stars.  We will have a special birthday dinner, birthday cake, a craft, game and we will give our presents to Jesus.  Ev is wondering how we are going to do that!  Oh and sometime when Todd gets back from his trip to a local orphanage we will sit down as a family and go through the Samaritan's Purse Gift Catolog 2011.  We are excited this year to be able to look through the online catolog and have the kids pick out what they want to purchase using some of their money they have gotten from family to buy things for people in need all over the world. 

We are together again

Elijah got released from the hosptial on Thursday so they got home Friday night.  We were all glad to be a family of 5 again.  Here are some pictures from the hospital and then around Hong Kong.  I have never been to Hong Kong before but from what I hear and see in these pictures it confirms that Hong Kong IS NOT China! 

Preparing for Christmas

 I know this picture is fuzzy but I love how Elijah is just hanging out on the couch letting everyone else do the hard work!

We have two small trees for the kids rooms.  I let them put the tiny ornaments on their trees this year.

This is our Advent calendar I made a few years ago.  The pocket hold either a picture card or character.  We tell them the story of Jesus' birth every night and add a picture to the top of the calendar and a character to go in the kids nativity set.  The repetition helps them retell the story with us.  It is excited because this year they retell the story in more detail than before.

 Every night for our Bible story time we tell the story and have the kids tell us the story.  We add a person to their nativity set and then we pray for a people group.  A few years ago when Todd and I were beginning our family Christmas traditions we wanted to put emphasis on the nations.  So we made picture ornaments of about 15 people groups.  We hang them on the tree and in the previous years we let the kids pick one each night and we would pray for them.  This year the kids each picked a people group and we have been focusing on those three groups the whole month. 

These are the 3 people groups that the kids chose to pray for. 

In addition to our sharing/ the kids learning the birth of Jesus story and praying for other peoples to know Him on the 5 Sundays prior to Christmas we light the Advent candle and sing together as a family.  We really enjoy preparing our hearts and teaching the kids about our Savior during the month of December.  And as we were convicted a couple of years ago it seems out of place to lead up to Jesus' birth day and then open lots of presents and in a way celebrate ourselves.  So this year we will not open presents on Christmas.  We were in America last year and the kids learn really fast that Christmas means getting new toys and gifts.  We don't want our kids to think of Christmas in that way so we are going to open presents on New Year's Eve instead.  As a family we are going to be participating in helping the local people around us as well as finding ways that the kids can give "gifts" to the people group they chose.

 I saw this in a magazine I like seeing how our family has grown over the last several years!

 I need to finish Todd's stocking!  I need to do that ASAP. :) 



Sickness

This week the whole family went to the local hospital to be seen by one of the foreign doctors. 
And this was the outcome...

Ian just has a cold.  His first one in the whole year we've had him!
Ev has bronchitis so we are monitoring her so it doesn't get worse.
Todd also has bronchitis so we are watching him too if it lingers pasts two weeks.
Elijah has pneumonia and we are giving him antibiotics, breathing treatments and bought an oximeter to monitor his oxygen levels. 

Which lead us to today....
We borrowed an oxygen tank from a friend because Elijah's levels are just too low.
Made a few calls to doctors and we decided to get Elijah to a place that has better health care.
Meaning Todd and Elijah took the 9pm train to city a few hours away.  They will spend the night and hopefully take 2 flights to get out of the country to Hong Kong where they can go to a good hospital. 
Elijah wasn't himself today.  His poor eyes tell the story.  My poor baby!

 This is how we are trying to keep each other from spreading the sickness

I also saw the doctor he looked over my previous months blood test and had me do one for this month.  Surprisingly after the previous two months of declining numbers my white blood count was on the higher end of the scale.  It was probably the highest reading I've had in a really long time.  I am so thankful.  I actually cried when I saw the results.  With the rest of my family being sick in order to take care of them I need the high white blood count!  Praise Father for the good report!

1 Year!

The kids first look at Ian June 2010

Todd holding Ian for the first time

Ian's main caretaker

Adoption Day November 30, 2010

 Ian figuring out what life is like with siblings

Our first Christmas family picture December 2010

 Celebrating with Ian November 30, 2011

Putting up the Christmas tree 2011

Wednesday we celebrated Ian adoption day a whole year ago.  We can't believe it has already been a year.  Ian has had many firsts over the last 12 months.  We are thankful to have him in our family and we celebrated with Mexican food and a cookie cake.  Ian loves to eat food and when I asked him what he wanted to eat he told me, "taco/pizza/hamburger!"  We ate Mexican food since I know he misses Taco Bueno badly.  When we were in America we would be driving in the car and he would see Taco Bueno and point and yell, "FOOD"! 

We showed him the video the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute gave us and showed him his picture book of his first months with us.  In the year we have had him he has gained only a few pounds, but his feet have grown 21/2  sizes and he has grown over 4 inches in height.


EV is the Natural

Last week I introduced the Natural to the kids and it is their new and hopefully last Favorite Movie, "She did it, EV did it..."

Thanksgiving and Advent

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a full house for Thanksgiving.  Our largest crowd yet of 19 people.  I got to use my new oven and kitchen sink faucet for the occasion -they are early Christmas presents of mine :).  I made the little kids pilgrim outfits along with their own felt version of Thanksgiving dinner.  I was able to finish sewing 4 of out our 5 new Christmas stockings while the week leading up to Thanksgiving every one in the family was sick as a dog except ironically me, the one who still has low white blood cells.  How is that possible?  We had lots of good food.  We are very thankful that our Import store imports turkeys from America for the occasion.  I cooked a 15+lb and my friend also cooked a 13lb turkey.  We had rolls, cornbread stuffing, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli cheese casserole, green bean casserole along with chocolate cheese cake, apple pie and pumpkin pie. 

 We managed to get most of our Christmas decorations up on Saturday before we hosted again on Sunday morning.  And we were able to start our family tradition of Advent.  I am really looking forward to this year as we take each night from Sunday until Christmas to teach the kids the story of Jesus' birth.  We also sing together and pray for others to know Jesus.  Four years ago we hung pictures of unreached people groups on our Christmas tree and would take one each night and pray for them.  This year each kid picked one and we are focusing on those three people groups for the entire month.   We want the focus of this season to not be on getting presents ourselves but we want to teach the kids how we can pray and give to others.  I think I am going to find/make boxes to represent the gifts we are going to be giving to their unreached people groups.  We will also participate in helping our local friends this Christmas as well. 

(pictures to come... the Internet is not wanting to load them right now. :)

 We've been getting ready for Thanksgiving around here.  More pictures to come!

EV's Adrian Beltre Impression on the Fastball

Homerun off One Knee Like Adrian Beltre in Game 5 of the World Series.

I was bringing the heat too, didnt faze my Little Mike Napoli.