Advent Season and our Christmas Celebration

For Advent this year we continued some of our family traditions we started at the beginning of our marriage.  I made an advent calendar where each day their is a picture or figure of the part of Jesus' birth story that we are on.  Slowly through the month they learn/retell the story.  In addition to learning the birth of Jesus story we have pictures of different people groups up on our Christmas tree.  The kids pick one people group and for the month leading up to Christmas they pray for that people group. On the five Sundays leading up to Christmas we light our Advent candles and Todd leads us in worship.  Last year we focused on one Christmas song to teach the kids and this year we focused on another one.  We also spend time picking out gifts to give Jesus.  Last year we used Samaritan's Purse online gift catalogue also this year we bought clothes for a baby of a local friend who was in need of warm winter clothing.  The kid's picked out buying a well for a village in need of water, buying blankets for the needy, and buying clothing and food for orphans.  Instead of opening presents on Christmas we throw a big birthday celebration for Jesus and give Him our gifts.  The kids woke up to balloons and banners for Jesus' birthday party.  I had found a few games and coloring sheets and activities for them to do.  This year the kids were the shepherds and I made them a scavenger hunt through the house to find the manger and baby Jesus.  Along each stop they had to answer questions relating to the birth of Jesus.  Todd had found a video and some coloring sheets on the people groups the kids had been praying for so we had a time where the kids watched these videos and talked more about the need for these people to know Jesus.  I made a lasagna for lunch and we also had a cookie cake to celebrate Jesus' birthday.  The kids spent the rest of the day playing "Mary and Joseph" and all of the things we did helped us focus only on Jesus.  With the kids being young it is fun to see their excitement as they enjoy the activities and celebrate Jesus' birth. 

Decorating for Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving we enjoyed watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that Todd recorded for us as we decorated our Christmas tree.  I bet you didn't know that little Indians can do such a good job! :) They loved their outfits so much that they wore them again all weekend.   With the help of a friend who had come up from a city a few hours away we rearranged the living room to make room for our tree.  I'll have to take pictures of the finished product, after these few pictures our camera battery died.

As a family the month before Christmas is very special to us.  For our first Christmas together Todd and I started a family tradition of celebrating Advent.  It has evolved through the years as we've added children to our family and as they are getting older we can really do more in depth things.  Also because we live overseas we can really shape what our kids experience and learn through the holidays.  I think last year was the best Christmas experience ever.  We taught the kids about why Jesus came to earth and slowly told and taught them His birth story.  And we lead up to Christmas by praying for unreached people groups, letting the kids pick out gifts from Samaritan's Purse online catalog and we ended with a huge birthday party celebration on the 25th.  For us we chose not to open any presents but to focus the whole day on celebrating Jesus.  The kids made Him a birthday card and birthday hats which turned into being Wise Men hats.  They went on a scavenger hunt through the house answer questions of Jesus' birth story to get to the next spot all searching for Jesus.  They were dressed up as Wise men carrying a gift bag that had their present they had picked of from the catalog written on a piece of paper inside.  The end of the hunt our "three wise men" found the star and baby Jesus.  They were so excited and felt like they had traveled far to find Jesus.  Their faces and expressions showed us that they really got it.  The best part of the day was that no one asked once about the presents under our tree. We really want to teach them that it isn't about presents, Christmas is about Jesus. 

Thanksgiving 2012

We had 19 people for Thanksgiving this year.  Each year my turkey keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Since my kitchen sink isn't as deep as my old one we had to take the turkeys to the bathtub to thaw them.  The kids were excited to see the turkeys taking a bath!

Our friends came over just before noon and most of them stayed until 7pm.  We had our slingbox on with football for the kids we had Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and the ladies stayed around the kitchen table and talked.  We did end up bringing out Catch Phrase and the adults enjoyed that as we at another round of food.

It snowed all day so we had a white Thanksgiving.  It is great to have friends to be with on holidays and since we are so far from home it is like our friends are our family.  We are very thankful for the people the Father has put in our lives here and in America.

Last year the kids I made the kids Pilgrim clothing and this year I made them Native Americans.  Todd found the bow and arrows and we gave them to all of the little kids.  Everyone enjoyed shooting arrows!

Ian Hitting Highlights

Ian is swinging the bat really good and starting to hit balls pitched to him. He looks so little wielding that big bat.

EV Hitting Some Serious Heat

EV refused to be outdone by her new power hitting brother. So I brought the heat and she caught up with a few.

Hobs' New Found Hitting Power

I told Hobs a couple days ago that he needs to rotate his hips more to face first base and swing through the ball. That is literally all I said, he somehow totally understand, and 1 swing later he changed from slapping the ball like Ichiro to smashing the ball like Josh Hamilton. It is an amazing difference. Hobs thinks so too, count how many times Hobs himself says "WOW".

"Kind of Like Roy Hobbs" - Hobs

    Hobs is hitting like his namesake now.

E's Art Birthday Party

Over the weekend we celebrated Ev's 6th birthday.  This year she wanted an ART party so the kids all got an apron, set of watercolors and they drew and painted.  It was exactly what Ev loves to do!  I decorated with E's artwork all around the house from her weekly Art class.  I made her a rainbow cake and Fruit Loop crispy treats along with a rainbow of food items. 

Before and After Apartment Pictures

 This is our dining room in our old house with our laundry room.

This is our new dining room with our laundry area off to the side that you can't see.  This room is narrower but it is longer and our laundry room is smaller. 

 This is our kitchen in the old house the last day we were in it.  We came back to play baseball in the empty place and while the kids and Todd were doing that I was taking pictures for one last time.  Let me just tell you that playing baseball in the house took on a whole new meaning when the apartment was completely empty and they didn't have to worry about breaking the 5th picture frame!

 Our new kitchen.  Did you just do a double take?  Looks the same right?  Look at the cabinets- they are the same.  The one major difference is that our counters are about 10 inches SHORTER!  Yes this is standard height here... well I think these are even shorter than standard.  Every time Todd walks into the kitchen he calls it "the kid kitchen".  He can sit on the counter top like a bench and the kids don't need step stools to help me cook anymore.  They can even reach the faucet and wash dishes now.  But the kitchen is a little bit longer than the other one.  In the 3 apartments we've lived in here this is my largest kitchen yet. :) (It's probably as big as your walk-in closet)

Here's another shot of our old kitchen from last Thanksgiving.

 Old living room

New living room

It more narrow than the old one but it has a "sun room" as I call it in the back.  If that wall wasn't there this room would be the same length.  The "sun room" is one of my favorite parts of our new house. 

Home School Room Pictures

Took a little trip out of the city

We spent the day watching horse races and hanging out with friends while enjoying the beautiful blue sky and sunshine! 

Home school

We just finished our 5th week of home school.  This week we added art class back into our schedule with a local teacher who comes to our house.  Ev loves art class and even though I am sad that she would rather have the other teacher teach her than me I think it is best.  Right now Ev and Elijah have Chinese class 2 days a week and Art class.
I also started studying this week too.  My days are full of home school in the morning and then right after lunch I have class for a couple of hours 3 days a week.  

 I love using the internet to find activities or ideas and using pinterest to find fun home school ideas.  On pinterest I had seen someone using sheet protectors and took apart a workbook and put it in a binder so they can use the workbook over and over.  Here we can buy binders that have sheet protectors inside of them so I've been using them a lot.  Since I will teach Kindergarten back to back to back,  and I figured I will save a lot of paper this way if I only copy it once.

 This is Hobs practicing writing letter A with play doh and dry erase

 These are Ev's sight words- She uses home made letter tiles to write the word again and then with dry erase.

I have a phonic workbook for Ev that I made and it is great to do with her and then for her to do on her own.