Christmas Day pictures

(please take note: some children slow down long enough for their photo to be taken.  others do not.  years from now when the little boys look back on these posts and wonder why so few pictures of them, well, I will not take the blame!)

Both sets of Grandparents contributed large piles of presents to our Christmas morning loot :) We were able to FaceTime with each of them and bless them with a bit of our chaos - ha!

There was a good deal of hockey-related gifts, including sticks for Matt and Isaac and John Paul, and a first set of roller blades for Luke.

Oh the crafts - these girls could open a small shop!  so fun

He realized this summer that he loves checkers.  Chess too.  Best to have several options :)

I thought this bed-top writing/art desk would be perfect for my oldest daughter.  She agreed.

A new water bottle.  This boy is motivated to explore, examine, take-apart, discover, dismantle.  His objects of interest (victims?!?!) often require some repair work.  This fall he did a little "research" into "What makes his leak proof water bottle leak proof".  After a good bit of work, his water bottle was no longer leak proof.  sigh.  {and also, I'm so curious to see where this leads him in life... he's definitely a figure-out-er.  thankful for friends that remind me that one day he won't just take apart, he will be able to put it back together!}

Lego. Star Wars.  a winning combination

more lego, more Star Wars.

outside for some pre-lunch hockey

homemade. of course.

bought the girls this puzzle - didn't realize how much I loved puzzles!  this was a fun treat and reminded me of holidays with Grandma Ruth when I would retreat from the crowd and just enjoy a puzzle and a quiet visit with another puzzle-fan.

mini-concert.  both girls played some of their favorite Christmas tunes. John Paul belts out Hark the Herald loud enough that he could lead an auditorium full of carolers with no mic :)

our Christmas lunch table

and a family shot by the tree

a gift to celebrate with these precious people.

Merry Christmas!

more giving days

December 22.... John Paul!

December 23 (her birthday!).... Julianna

December 24, Lydia.

And it was Christmas Eve, one more Giving Day to go :)

We had a sweet weekend celebrating together as a family and with friends.  More pics to come .. sometime. ha!

giving days

New plan this year, something we heard about from Sunday morning friends of ours who are parents of 6 kids (all grown now).

Giving Days.

For the five days leading up to Christmas each child gets their special day to GIVE their gifts.  I latched on to this idea and loved it from the minute I heard about it - a sweet way to let each one shine in giving, and honestly, these guys go out of their way to pick something special for each sibling and parent.  But their budget is quite limited, and their little gifts can tend to be overshadowed by the piles under the tree on Christmas morning.

Last weekend Lydia came bouncing out of her room with a newly wrapped gift and exclaimed, "I can't wait for my giving day!"

Yep, this is golden.

The kids worked out who got which day, and Luke was up first.  He was SO PROUD and EXCITED!

It's taking a little juggling of schedules, but each day we have set aside a time for the giver to steal the show.

Day 2: Isaac.  He was the most hesitant to embrace the giving day plan.  {two of mine are low-change people, oh Lord bless them in this high change life!}.   Happily, Isaac's initial reluctance disappeared and he was fired up (in a very Isaac-way).

His gifts were awesome.  It's fun to see the kids mature in their giving and he's set aside convenience store treats for well thought through gifts.  He gave me a beautiful vase (I already had some fresh flowers and moved them right away); Julianna a desk organizer (goodness that girl has an amazing amount of clutter on her desk!), Luke got a yak horn that makes loud trumpet noises when he blows it (souvenir from our November trip to the mountains).  The big three went together and bought a chess board for Matt and decided to gift it as part of Isaac's day.  And just to be hilarious, he also wrapped a roll of toilet paper as a gag gift for Matt.  The kids laughed about this all afternoon.  It was awesome.

Next up: John Paul.

neighborhood party

This is one of my final (back) posts from the many days of missed posts.... our Neighborhood Christmas Party!

Our American neighbors co-hosted with us and we invited a bunch of friends from the area, kids classmates and their parents, upstairs neighbors, etc.  We had a huge turnout!  so fun!

Crafts, games, music, the Christmas story.  It was great.

I really enjoyed connecting with some of the parents (including parents of some of the girls who were at Julianna's party Friday evening).  And Isaac got to spend some good time with one of his favorite classmates.  Isaac is definitely more on the shy side, so he doesn't always connect quickly with kids at school.  But he really likes TongTong, and TongTong's mom is the classroom mom, so I knew she would be fun.  Big win for Isaac to have this new connection with a classroom buddy.  Isaac's already asking for TongTong to come play another day.

create a nativity contest

So we might make this an annual event :)

Tuesday afternoon I kept the big kids home from school (the pollution was terrible, the exam prep at school is boring for my non-exam-taking kiddos, and I just like it better when they are here anyways so I don't need too much of an excuse!)

I launched a "create a nativity" contest and gathered the troops. 

This involved an enormous amount of craft supplies and about ten minutes of clean up when all was finished.  Worth it.  

The only requirement was that the scene include Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus.  Everything else was optional.  

Late afternoon I quickly created the awards and Matt announced them at dinner (with all kinds of drum rolling and fist pumping and general excitement - like we needed to crank up the energy level at dinner!)

And here's how we "all" win .....

This was a HUGE hit for everyone.  John Paul was working on a different nativity scene this morning before breakfast..... next year, round 2 :) 

a letter from a friend

An unexpected treat tucked into a Christmas package - Isaac got a letter from a friend!  As we look towards an extended stay in the States sometime in the next year or so, it's extra special to hear from a stateside buddy.

Isaac went right to the school porch to get some paper and write Simeon a letter in return!  I love this picture of him because it's so "Isaac" right now - the Star Wars pajamas, the black frame glasses, the diligence in writing.

Grateful for friends on both sides of the globe!

Julianna's party #2

This is the first year that Julianna has asked to do a separate party for her local friends.  It was a HUGE success!  So very thankful!

I walked up to school to meet everyone at the end of the day Friday ...  Julianna invited five friends from her class and then Lydia invited a friend too, and of course the boys.  Made for a nice crowd waiting at the gate (Lydia and her friend were out earlier than Julianna's class).

Several of these girls have been in our home before, and all of them live within walking distance (this is the benefit of dense housing - the neighborhood school is LITERALLY in the neighborhood).

We started with the pass-the-present game and everyone really enjoyed it!

Then, Matt arrived home from work and I dived into pizza making (with all kinds of help! - mostly inexperienced!)

This was wild, and hilarious, and noisy, and fun, and messy, and definitely a big win!

Later that night, right before I turned out the lights she told me, "It's kind of like I have double the friends, because I have them in two languages."  She doesn't have a lot of American friends that can speak Chinese and run with the local crowd, and of course none of her local friends know another American at all (not including our family members).  So she's usually either "all in" one world, or "all in" the other.  It's a unique world, and she handles it so very well.

back row (Lydia, Yang SiRan, Wu LingJun)
front row (Yang Miao, Julianna, Yi YunDuo, Yang Shuting, Chen YiLan)

Whew!  What a night!

So thankful for this girl of mine and her many parties - she's got one more coming up - on the date of her birthday.  The final party is for our American friends in the neighborhood, and it's part Christmas, part celebrating Julianna.

She's asked for lasagna dinner, which is a multi day process to make - ha!  I ordered imported noodles and shredded mozzarella, and I made my ground sausage a few weeks ago (its in the freezer).  Tomorrow I need to keep stock piling yogurt (in the winter my yogurt making is sloooooooow because the temps are lower and it takes that much longer for the milk to thicken).  Wednesday I'll make ricotta.  Thursday I'll chop tomatoes and brown the sausage and ground beef and make the sauce layer.  Friday I'll put it all together.  And then we'll party :)

look-alikes

ack!  I was without a computer for a week (yay though, because my friend was installing a new operating system on it) and now I'm just now getting everything restored and in the meantime I'm terribly behind on blogging all these fun days!

So I'll start with this picture of my boy.  I like to think we resemble one another more every day :).

Certainly we both like big smiles!

party #1 (Julianna is almost 11)

This girl Julianna has a birthday party plan :)  And it involves more than one party!

Early on she asked if she could have one party for her American friends, one for her Chinese friends, and maybe one on the actual day of her birthday too?!  Well, it's hard to say no to this lovely little lady - and it was such a sweet idea.

Today was party #1 - she invited her best friends to the movies.  I accompanied these lovely ladies to the mall, where we found plenty of potential shopping, and also the movie theatre!

Girls at the movies - Moana, the new Disney show.  {I liked it.  So did they.}

These girls are such dear friends to Julianna, and I am so grateful for them (and their families, especially their mommas!) who are amazing friends of mine.

A sweet afternoon of celebrating, and enjoying my almost-11 year old, and her pack of friends (and sister!)