Merry Christmas from these parts!

Happy New Year almost now to all of you!  We had a nice Christmas and are looking forward to another day or two off to celebrate the new year.  We enjoyed some of our usual traditions at Christmas time and had a really fun family day together (and with friends later on). Chris did have to get back to teaching on the 26th, which is the way things work around here but will have time off this coming week for the New Year. The kids are at really fun ages to enjoy Christmas but thankfully aren't up at the crack of dawn these days either. Here are a few shots of the day (better ones i realized are on my other camera...these are just the phone shots). But waiting for those might mean I never post so here goes.

 Christmas doesn't seem complete without a Christmas cookie, messy, fun time - this year was no exception. And we continued our family tradition of making cookies for those who live or work in our neighborhood or so- giving cookies to our neighbors, lady who cleans our building, sellers at the local vegetable market, etc. Always a fun time to get to bless those around us.

 All serious and hard at work.

 And I thought maybe I was shooting myself in the foot to do cookies one day and the gingerbread house the next- but Chris was very involved in the gingerbread house and we all survived. Has anyone ever made a gingerbread house covered with gummy lizards? I thought not. :)

 Christmas morning was all it should be- starting with stockings and then breakfast of cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole and then on to gifts.  It was fun to see the kids really getting into making gifts for each other this year. The boys each spent a little money on gifts and then Austin made Bennett a puzzle, Bennett made Austin a game he created and they both bought beads and made Lucy a necklace and bracelet. 

 And Bennett painted this picture for Daddy.

 Lucy in her new chair and with her new blanket for her big girl bed. And...a mouse. So we have a real mouse intruder that deserves its own post, but on a whim I got all three kids each different colored stuffed mice from Ikea for their stockings...I am not kidding I think it is one of their favorite gifts. They each are sleeping with them, making them play and talk to each other throughout the day and ...who knew it could be so easy?

 Austin made a joke book for Chris- including some original, made up jokes. "what do you call a lizard who smokes ?"  "A dragon" (maybe influenced by a recent reading of the Hobbit) "what do you call a new boat?"  "A ca-new"  etc. Pretty funny!

 Christmas evening we enjoyed having old, new friends over to celebrate a meal. The Brocks are old time friends from our first days here in China, but have recently moved to our city with their four kids. Our kids have really enjoyed playing with these new-to-them friends. They enjoyed destroying eating the gingerbread house!

 Reading new books- about Star Wars of course (thanks to the Davis clan).

 Merry Christmas from this side!

 Um, how did he get this old? My eight year old is a big kid now.

 Bennett is voluntarily keeping his hair long these days...taking after Daddy.

 Still a delightful little goofball.

Six weeks

Well, six weeks have come and gone since my last post. Not sure what has happened other than once you get out of the habit of blogging, it is hard to get back in the routine. We have had two birthdays, Thanksgiving, and a lot in between. This will be a quick run through the past month and half!

 Lucy swinging with JT - we got to enjoy some fun moments with him and look forward to many more. But we said goodbye to the Hunemullers in early November. They will be gone 4 months and then back but again the reality that 7 months of this year we spent apart in this crazy expat life.

 The kids jumped in the leaves and had a great time...till somebody threw some poop covered leaves in the air and splattered it on my phone. Just when I was thinking...wow this almost feels like America getting to jump in a pile of leaves- my illusions are shattered. Ha.

 Austin is now going on three times as a ring bearer. He is getting professional!  And still so cute.

 At the wedding reception my boys got into a big argument. About who got to eat the duck head. Seriously. They both really wanted it and finally a shu shu at our table asked the next table if they wanted their duck head. Can you believe they didn't?  Everyone went home happy.

My little boy turned 8!  He seems so big these days- he knows way more than me about many topics of science, geography etc. He is kind and thoughtful and loves to do things right. Disaster was narrowly averted the day of his party as the original plan to take some friends to an outdoor bouncy house was changed when the bouncy place was just not there as promised (I was not entirely surprised). But a friend of a friend who lives in a  very nice complex that comes with its own indoor play place allowed us to go there. It is awesome- with three story slides and some amazing things- and all ended up being free. No complaints and Austin ended up having a good time. His friends were also really encouraging when plans changed, which helped us make it through.

Clone Trooper cake...these things are getting harder and harder.

 The new favorite post-dinner game, otherwise known as the "Falling off game". Everyone rides on Daddy while he plays this Simon and Garfunkel song "If I Could" and walks around while they all try to stay on. And inevitably fall off.

 I would love to do another post about this trip- but I was able to go with a group of women to a big foster home (you might recognize it if you have read a certain well-known book) in another province and love on some babies and the families that work there. Definitely a moving weekend. Wish I could post pictures of all the precious lives there but I can't ...

 Thanksgiving came and went in a flash, but we were thankful for many things like the car we were able to purchase this year and so many other blessings we receive, tangible and intangible. Lucy has become quite the kitchen helper these days.

 Chris is like the pied piper with his banjo, playing praise songs after our Thanksgiving meal.

 Once again we had a blast at The Gift, the Christmas bazaar and arts event Chris helps put on every year. So fun to get in the Christmas spirit and see Daddy perform.

 No comment needed- cute and sassy. We actually got a real tree this year- its a bit Charlie Brown like but we love it. 

 We enjoyed a fun visit from an old friend from our old city...last time I was back there was for her wedding. She now has a daughter about Lucy's age. She was in town for a conference with work and spent a fun night with us.

 And we celebrated Chris' birthday with- what else- a giant gingerbread man cookie and lots of love. We had a nice date the night before too with fusion Vietnamese food and live jazz music.

 A family in town has started a local awana chapter here in our area. This year has been our first exposure to it but the kids love it and got to really take a step of faith to invite a friend and neighbor to our English Christmas party. Lots of fun, games and learning about Christmas.

Well, that was a picture dump but glad to catch up. My new year's resolution will be to get back on track with the blog.

October 31...

Well, Halloween has come and gone, but here is a recap anyway. According to our tradition, our neighbors Jim and Therese helped plan a super fun time of a roving scavenger hunt that went to our neighborhood friends' homes and ended with food and candy (most of which this mean mommy did not let her kids eat since we were still on our whole30 diet).  Pictures are better than words for this post:

King Arthur, Guinevere, Clone Trooper, Darth Vadar and of course Princess Leia (or princess mommy, as she sometimes called herself).

 Obstacle course

 Slime search for missing coins

 "Yummy" food. Actually it really was yummy bean dip.

Staege clan

 Barrons, the brainchildren of the party (really Jim is the mastermind).

 Happy together

And not so happy, tumultuous relationship between Arthur and Guinevere.

Finally!

I am back to the blog, finally!  After a three month hiatus I am ready to start up again. With our crazy moving around schedule in America this summer, I just got out of the habit.  I will devote some future posts to highlighting our summer. But tonight I will just give an update of our last two and a half weeks back.

First I will dedicate this post to Aunt Diana, Chris' aunt who loved and faithfully followed our blog. We were so thankful to get to visit with her this summer and saddened to learn she passed away just days after we returned to China.  This one is for you!

Here are the kids with Aunt Diana outside St. Louis this summer. We are so thankful for the time we got to share together.

In the 20 or so days since we have been back, its' looked a little like this:

Here we are at the airport, waiting to board our plane. Our flight back was much better and smoother than our flight to the US.  We got bumped to economy plus for free, they brought us all vanilla ice cream sundaes for Bennett's birthday on the plane (his had tons of cherries on it) and we landed and got home with no unexpected delays. Spent the first few days in a jet lag fog of unpacking, midnight snacking and reunions with friends.

 We celebrated Lucy's third birthday with her best friend Molly at a local play place. They were so cute and held hands a lot of the time. They are so funny to watch together. We had cupcakes and pizza and called it a party (3 days after we returned, about the best we could do in our jet lag fog).

 The next weekend we celebrated Bennett's birthday with about 8 friends by going to a "bouncy place"- an outdoor area with three large bouncy slides. This was the tallest and by far the highlight. I think they all had a great time, followed by lunch at Burger King. I am starting to be a fan of parties outside my home, which is a new thing for us. Definitely this close to an international trip, it made it easier on this momma. I did make a Darth Vadar cake, which is on another camera that I may remember to show another time.

 Lucy was so excited to see Ayi when we got back. The first day Ayi did not do much but play with Lucy- she was possessive of ayi and they had a great time. Here she is "helping" to wash dishes.

 We now have a week and half of homeschool under our belts. I gave us a week to get settled and then we all were crying in our inner hearts for ROUTINE. Once we started, behavior and fighting issues have gotten much better (but certainly are still here). Our Chinese school situation sort of disappeared over the summer so they are currently not going in the afternoons. That was sad in many ways, though it has made homeschool less rushed and a bit more enjoyable. We are currently exploring options and will probably hire a tutor for the boys for the fall. (Yes this picture is related to homeschool- lots of battles and sword fights in Story of the World medieval history lessons). 

 Darth Princess? Lucy has been wearing this dress a LOT, both inside and out.  But I love this picture because it combines her girly nature with her love of whatever her brothers are into as well.

 Sadly and quite depressing at times, we have had some really bad pollution days. The day we landed was bad and then last week (on Co-op day too) it was record high and all outdoor activity was cancelled. Thankfully since then we have had some beautiful days as well and the wind has been our friend.

 Pizza night- now complete with the addition of JT! The Hunemullers adopted son is now home and we were all excited to be together again. Sadly they will leave for 4 months starting November 6, so our time together is short. But they will be back in the spring...the ever revolving door of the expat life.

 Pink and purple dinner! This girl's dream come true. Actually, we have started a month of the Whole 30 diet...no grain, dairy, soy, sugar or sweetener of any kind, no beans...Why would you do that  you ask? Many days I wonder that too!  Austin has had recurring, almost daily headaches, I have some unexplained nerve issues, some behavior issues- all of which may or definitely may not be related to some of our food intake. I have always wondered if diet could make a difference in any of it, so we are giving it a go for a month at least. I am glad we are doing it, but wow, it is kicking my butt. The food itself (mostly meat, veggies, fruit, nuts, coconut milk/oil/flour etc) is not bad, but the food prep and cooking is pretty constant and time consuming. And everyone is hungry all the time. So trying to keep bellies filled is my almost full time job this month. We are ten days into it and hoping we can persevere to the end of the month...and who knows what we will add or not add after that. 

 I did it. Sorry to those of you who will protest, but I gave Lucy a (little) haircut. Every day was a screaming battle to brush her oh so tangled hair. Even with conditioner, it was getting matted and knotted badly. So, she needed a trim. I just cut about an inch and a half off the bottom. It looks cute and she still has curl at the bottom. And brushing it has been MUCH easier. WIN.

More to come, but thanks for coming back to read our "outside country" life.