2015 December

We spent the Advent season celebrating the birth of Jesus.  We did the Jesse tree again this year long with a devotional explaining the reasons why Jesus born and the kids picked a people group to pray for for the month.  On Christmas we had a birthday party of Jesus.  This year the kids were each different characters in the birth of Jesus story.  We learned a name of God each day of advent and they had their scavenger hunt around the house to find Jesus answering questions from all of their learning through the month.  

We went to a couple of Christmas parties, one a friend had and the other we had for the students I have been helping learn English.  We were able to sing songs in their heart language and Todd was able to share the story of Jesus' birth in their language. 

We also went to an English performance of some students we had met at one of the parties.  It was a good month of celebrating Jesus.

Preparing for Resurrection Day

We have been leading up to Resurrection day by sharing in detail the story of Jesus' last days before he was crucified and the reason behind Him dying on the cross for us.  We are using our Resurrection eggs opening one every evening and going into detail about the meaning/story.  This year we are hanging the small symbols from the resurrection eggs on our tree made out of branches we collected outside.  This year we made an "mountain tomb" from Noel Piper's book, Treasuring God in our Traditions and we will make Resurrection Rolls on Sunday morning. 

Like Christmas we wanted to take out the "us" of Resurrection day and focus on Jesus and thankfully as we live in a country that doesn't commercialize American holidays so we can teach our kids the true meanings of holidays like Resurrection day.  No Easter bunny, plastic eggs, and fancy clothes here not that those are bad but we really want the kids to not be distracted by those things and think of candy and hiding eggs as the meaning behind Resurrection day. 

Having our "mountain tomb" out has lead to some great discussions with our babysitter/helper.  I have been able to share with her the real reason why Jesus died on the cross for us. 

 Jesus is still in the works, Ev made him out of clay and is planning on making a crown of thorns and some more things to add to him before we put him on the cross.

We add the symbols to the tree after the story is read. 

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!

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. :) 



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. :)

Christmas Season

This was our first Christmas married - 2005


Hobs was a chunky monkey! 2008



Ev Christmas 2008


Our first Christmas in China 2007 - Elijah was in my tummy


Christmas 2008 - Todd and Ev playing the guitar/broom during our Advent Worship time


Christmas 2008 - This Christmas we decided to go back to America to see my Grandma. We left Christmas eve so we had to open all of our presents and pack in a day.

My Advent Calendar that I made in 2008

Christmas 2009 - We took this picture for our Homestudy which was on December 11, 2009. This December 11th we will arrive in America as a family of 5!

We started our tradition of Advent with the kids. It isn't the same this year, we don't have any decorations up other than the kid's nativity set. I love decorating for Christmas so I am a little sad that we don't get to decorate this year. I'm also a little sad we are not using the Advent calendar I made and we have been using the past few years. We decided it was a little too big to be taking everywhere this month. With our Advent calendar each night we read part of the story of Jesus' birth. The kids pull out picture cards and or a nativity character to add to the picture scene story and the kid nativity. Ev got really good at telling the story last year since we spent the 30 days leading up to Christmas telling it slowly and over and over.

So since I can't decorate here are some Christmas time pictures over the past few years. Sorry they are not in order.

Resurrection Day

Easter Sunday Todd got up before 7:00am to turn on the NCAA final four games and I got up a little bit before to start making our Resurrection rolls. :) We hosted Easter brunch for the 3rd time in a row. I'm a little sad that next year our group will have to find another place to have brunch since we will be back in America.

At our play group on Friday the kids dyed eggs together. This was such a great idea. It was a lot more fun with a full table of little ones rather than just Ev and Elijah. Since I was carefully watching Elijah Ev was at the opposite end of the table dying eggs like they were going out of style. She was the oldest at the table but my kid had to be the egg hog!

With the egg dying kit came stickers and it was so fun to hear Elijah yell out "baseball!". I had to smile, the kid is more than obsessed with baseball but it made him happy to find baseball stickers to put on his eggs.

We had a great time at our Resurrection day brunch. This year we used the Resurrection eggs with the kids leading up to Easter. They loved them and still want to do them during our evening Bible story time before bed.

Elijah ate 3 bowls (kid bowl size) of cereal BEFORE brunch and probably ate for 2 hours once everyone was at our house. I really should get video of how much he eats to give the Pediatrician who is worried about him being under weight. I think he is just like daddy, who at high altitude can't keep weight on.

Thinking through the holidays

Todd and I have started a conversation that I wished we would have thought out way before now. We started celebrating Advent when we were first married. We have continued to do it each year and as we have added children to our family it has looked different each year. Last year I made an Advent calendar to help give Ev a better understanding of what we are doing. This year Elijah is more into it, last year he was a sweet little 7 month old who just sat in his high chair (since we did our Advent time around the dinner table). This year I hung the Advent calendar beside one of our couches near our large bookshelf so the wreath, kids nativity scene and the calendar are in the living room. Ev loves the routine every night - we pull something out of the calendar and each day share more of birth story of Jesus. We use a picture book as Todd tells the story and we add characters to the kids nativity scene. We end up with singing "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him". Ev can sing that with us since the chorus is easy and we decided to sing the same song over and over this year. Last year we would do more but it was just Todd and I singing. It is much more kid friendly now! Then Ev picks a picture of a people group that we have hung on our Christmas tree and we pray for them to know Jesus.

So after a whole month of focusing on Jesus we do what... open presents on Christmas day? Presents are not bad at all we are thankful that our families love us and want to shower us with wonderful things. I just want our kids to be able to give to others and more importantly give to Jesus. How did we stray from Jesus' birth story of the wise men giving Him gifts to getting gifts ourselves?

I think as we are in the process of adopting a child our hearts are heavy to give to the orphans and people in need around the world. We started way too late but I think next year I want to do as much as I can with our kids to give to others. We have a few orphanages in our city, I need to check if they will let foreigners in them. But I was thinking of doing something for the kids here locally. Hopefully we will have our new addition by Christmas and I want Ev and Elijah to be able to understand what they can of that process.

Next year we will be here for some of the month and then we will hopefully be going back to America. I hope to do some things here locally and then also when we get back to America. I think it would be meaningful for Ev to pick out items for a girl her age and Elijah to pick out items for a boy his age. Maybe as the years go by we can dig deeper into demonstrating God's love to others. I know they can only understand so much right now so maybe next year Ev will really comprehend more.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am closing out or Thanksgiving day by watching the Today show and then the Macy's Thanksgiving parade on our sling box. Hopefully I can make it through to 2am. :)

Things around here went well. I got up and started cleaning my bird. I named him Frank. I was a little grossed out to have to pull his head out and all the other fun things. It took me almost an hour to clean and then cut out and remove the backbone. It wasn't as easy as it looked in Martha's magazine. I guess I should have picked up on the phrase, "or if you want you can ask your butcher to butterfly the turkey for you..." I put some major muscle into it and was hoping it would work. I did have to cut off the legs and put them in the second oven separately but with removing the backbone and trying to lay the turkey out as flat as I could I made it just barely fit in my oven. Needless to say using a turkey bag and taking flattening it out, it wasn't hard to cook once it was in the oven. It smelled good and it looked and ended up tasting just fine. Yeah!

People started showing up a little before 12pm and everyone stayed until after 7pm. We had imported turkey, sweet potatoes, broccoli cheese casserole, rolls, jello salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, chocolate tort, dutch apple pie and decorated sugar cookies. The men loved watching football the whole time. The ladies enjoyed talking and the kids played. Elijah started running and throwing himself on the ground like he was getting tackled. It gave everyone a laugh as they realized he was copying what he was seeing on the TV. The Todd in him came out as he realized we saw him and then would grab the football and go down to the ground.

Elijah grazed all day. I had veggies dip, apples and candy corn to munch on pre meal time. When I came out of the kitchen I found him standing on a chair with his hand in the bowl of candy corn just shoveling them in. No one realized what he was doing. He ate almost the whole bowl.

This is our 3rd Thanksgiving here. I would say that this one felt the most like a Thanksgiving at home.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

Two years ago today was when our family left America to move here. I think it was an interesting day for us to leave. We didn't book our flights so we just went with what we were given. So I guess instead of celebrating America, we left it. Our 30 plus hour journey started in the evening so I remember when we were landing at LAX we saw fireworks going off from the sky. It was really an incredible site. Neighborhood after neighborhood had colors flashing up above them.

Last year on the 4th of July we were getting settled in as a family of 4. We had brought Elijah back from Thailand a few weeks before.

This year we are going over to our friend's house. We are grilling and celebrating with some of the traditional 4th of July food. Our friends are also going to be doing some fireworks. Fireworks are not a big deal here. They go off several times a day. But the older kids in our group wanted them so we'll have them. I am dressing the kids up in red, white and blue. Maybe Todd will cooperate too and wear one of the colors. You really have to work hard to make it feel like holidays here. Most of the time we try but it still doesn't feel like the holiday, oh well.

Happy 4th of July!

Father's Day

For Father's day this year Ev and I made Todd a card. She loves to use scrapbook decorative scissors so the card had a lot of funky cuts but it was totally Ev. She also likes to layer stickers on top of one another so that was cute. I had bought a really nice wood frame when we were in Thailand back in January. I was saving it for this special occasion. I found several cute pictures of the kids with Todd so I made a collage of 4 pictures to go inside the frame.
I also made him lemon poppy seed muffins (his favorite) for breakfast, we went out to what he calls "the donkey wrap place" (another one of his favorites) for lunch and I made biscuits and gravy for dinner (again another favorite!).
The funny thing was that he didn't realize it was Father's Day. It wasn't until I gave the picture frame and card to Ev to give to him. :)

We love and appreciate Todd for who he is and for being the leader of our family. He brings lots of laughter into our home and fun. That is what dads are for, right? We love you Todd, Happy Father's Day!

Preparing for Resurrection Day

I have been wanting to make decorations for Easter. (But started a little late.) We don't have plastic eggs so I couldn't do anything with those. But then the more I thought the more I am not sure I want to decorate with eggs. Why do we decorate with eggs anyway, why do we do some of the things we do to celebrate this holiday? I did some research online and read about the pagan background, hum... I don't know what we want to teach our kids. We have tried to be very intentional with other holidays especially Christmas and wouldn't Easter be just as special of a holiday?

Actually the word Easter comes from Eastre a goddess of fertility. I never realized this and prefer using Resurrection day instead. I like how in the language I am studying the holiday is called "Fu huo jie" (Resurrection) day.

One thing I like are the Egg trees I've seen on websites. So I created my own. On my way home from class last week I walked by this row of bushes and looked both ways before I tore off a few branches to use as my Resurrection Tree. I noticed that where I tore the branch off there was bright green inside so with my husband and helper looking at me like I am crazy I placed the 2 branches in a vase and added water. A few days later the buds started opening up. This was even better than I had planned. What looked like 2 dead branches came to life.

I decided to cut out small pictures of various things relating to the last week of Jesus' life. I hung them on the branches with some ribbon and had Ev color them. Next year hopefully she will understand the meaning behind the more. This year when I told her the story she wasn't too interested.

I'm also planning on making "resurrection rolls" for Sunday morning. If all goes as planned there will be a hole in the middle of the rolls. As if it was the empty tomb. How are you celebrating the holiday?

Decorations

Here are some pictures of our Christmas tree. We want to be intentional with what we put on it. Last year we made these picture people group oraments. Last year these as well as other ornaments made our friends curious and ask us what they were. Tonight we will have one of Todd's friends over and between our Advent decorations and our tree we are hoping to be able to share some of the story with him.

Advent Calendar

I finally finished my Advent calendar! I didn't realize how long this would take to complete. I've been working on it for a month. I have researched and taken some ideas from several sources and came up with this. I found a website that had several pictures of the story (sparklebox.com) so I printed them out a couple on a page and they ended up being the perfect size for my pockets. I have 15 pictures representing the story of Jesus' birth and then in the other pockets I found this cute website (makingfriends.com) that had the characters in the story. So each day is represented by a pocket and I made them so I can change the calendar every year (the numbers are hung by string on a button on the pocket.) We take out what is in the pocket and gradually tell the story of Jesus' birth. Going back and retelling the first part then adding each day until we finish the story on Christmas. Our desire is for Ev to be able to tell the story on her own. We will use the picture cards to attach to the top of the advent calendar and they will help us remember/ retell the story. Then the little characters will be added to a display of a nativity scene Ev can put together. As the story goes along we will introduce the appropriate character. I hung the calendar over a piece of art that is hanging in our dining room. Ev's chair is directly opposite of it so whenever she is sitting at the table she is looking directly at the calendar. Last night I worked hard to complete it (since today Sunday was the first day of Advent) and hung it up. When Ev saw it this morning she was jabbering all about it. Todd and I first started this family tradition our first Christmas together. This year looks a lot different since we are including Ev in it. Our time together consist of lighting the advent candle, family worship, reading/retelling the story, more worship and reviewing what we learned. We also have out our 2 board books on Jesus' birth so Ev can look through them as we are singing. We realized her attention span isn't too long so she was encouraged to shake her bell instrument as we sang. Through out the weeks we will do some crafts. This year for Thanksgiving I did a few with Ev and hung them up in the dining room and she noticed they were gone today. So she is ready for Christmas ones. I hope you enjoy reflecting and thinking about what an impact Jesus' birth was to this world over this month.