As your side of the world is waking up we are winding down ours. We celebrated our Thanksgiving with a small group of friends. Even though we had less people at our gathering than last year we had more food! We went over to our friend's house and had an imported turkey fried. Then we had some of the usual items like dressing, corn casserole, green beans, and rolls. We didn't have cranberries or sweet potatoes. The guys watched an old football game but we got as close to a Thanksgiving day as we could. Even though we had the food it still really didn't feel like Thanksgiving to me. One of my favorite things to do on Thanksgiving in Overland Park (my home) is to watch the Plaza Christmas Lighting Ceremony on Thanksgiving night. It is even better to be in the crowd down on the Plaza. I also LOVE going out in the early morning for the day after Thanksgiving sales. My last Thanksgiving in America I remember getting in line at Kohl's at 4:30am! Crazy but fun times. :) So you all will be celebrating Thanksgiving as we are sleeping. I am staying up tonight to hopefully (if the Internet is working properly) watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade. (I'll post pictures later... the Internet won't let me do it right now!)
Lately Elijah has been more fussy than usual and yesterday he didn't drink or eat very much. He also didn't sleep too well either. Although he slept until 7am this morning (first time he has gone this long.) I think he was so worn out from the previous day. I figured out the cause of the crankiness... 2 bottom teeth. Poor guy! Today was almost a repeat of yesterday. Short naps, lots of crying, drooling and chewing on anything he can get his hands on. Hopefully he will sleep until 7am again?!
So I am making baby food for Elijah now. I am new at this since Ev refused to eat homemade baby food when we first arrived here. So after she protested by refusing all solids for a while we decided to go with baby food from the grocery store. Ev was 8 months old when we got here and was well established with eating baby food. But we did uproot her and so she could have been having "culture shock" and expressing it through what she was eating. Needless to say once we gave her store bought baby food she returned to eating solids. When we got pregnant with Elijah I had planned on making his baby food. Boy am I glad I stuck with my plan! Last year with Ev her diapers and baby food were taking up most of our costs. With 2 kids in diapers (hopefully not too much longer) we feel that so much money goes to baby items. One can of baby food (2 oz.) cost 5.9 kuai. That is almost a dollar a can. I bought a large bundle of fresh green beans for 4.6 kuai and got what would equal 14 (2 oz.) jars. That is crazy... 14 for a little less than the price of 1!!!! I made some sweet potatoes too. 2 sweet potatoes were about 2 kuai (about 30 cents) and I got about 14 (2 oz.) jars worth also. All together my 28 (2 oz.) portions cost me about 1 dollar!
Just had to post a recent picture of my baby. He is 6 months old already...yikes! Today I was in the kitchen making baby food and the kids were in Ev's room. All I heard was this loud laughing coming from Elijah. He LOVES to watch his sister and he LOVES to laugh. I was in the middle of pouring pureed green beans in ice cube trays but thankfully Todd grabbed the video camera. Just hearing the laughter made my day. He thinks everything is funny which makes it our goal to get him to laugh even more.
Could you resist this sweet face? Just so you know I immediately shut the computer and went to play with her. Mornings with mama... what more could a 2 yr. old want? Today I went out to do a couple of things. When I walked in the door Ev said, "mama!" and came over and hugged my leg. What more could I ask for? :)
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.
