Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas (now that it is almost New Year's). Despite colds that most of the household has been fighting, it has been a wonderful Christmas with Nana and Bop here. The kids are having so much fun reading stories, going on outings, cooking, Fun Bagging and more!  It has been great to be together to celebrate this special time as a family.

 The traditional sugar cookie making time with added bonus of Nana and the super fun sprinkles she brought.

 Christmas Eve we had a special dinner and celebration at our house with two neighboring families (and grandparents) Staege and Hunemullers. Chris played music and Bop gave us a Christmas Eve message.

 Here is the gingerbread train- the finished product- before it was eaten.

 After our Christmas Eve celebration, we all watched (what else?) Charlie Brown Christmas before bed. Nana even obliged with a (little) dancing.

 Christmas morning!

 Wow, so cool!  Lucy examines a light up toy from her stocking. She really got into the stockings and present opening this year.

 Our traditional breakfast of egg-sausage bake and cinnamon rolls. Mmmmm.

 Helping Bop open a present...the boys were eager to open and give to others this year. Austin's teacher at school actually helped him pic out presents for everyone in our family. They were really thoughtful too- I think giving gifts is one of Austin's love languages. Bennett also seemed to "get" the idea of giving this year and was super excited to give Mei Mei several gifts.

 Post-morning play - new Legos from Grandpa and Nai Nai.

 On the 26th we went to a really nice (maybe my favorite here) restaurant for Christmas lunch. It was decorated really beautifully and tastefully (a rarity here) and the food was wonderful. We had a pretty day too- it has been balmy here in the low forties. A warmish winter for us up north.

 Bop and Lucy are quite the buddies now and she was enjoying some of his silliness with great delight!

Merry Christmas to you!

Nana and Bop!

Nana and Bop are here!  They arrived Wednesday night our time and everyone was counting down the days till they came.  Such a fun reunion. In the midst of some crazy Christmas schedule, we are having lots of fun.

 Thursday they each got to accompany a boy to their homeschool coop class and we ended the day with hotpot at our favorite HaiDiLao restaurant. They specialize in service...mom and I got our nails done for free (we both branched out from traditional to red with white snowflakes on it ha), kids played at the play place, got balloons and yummy food.

 Friday Nana, Bop, Lucy and I went to the pearl market (the boys had an all day field trip with school). It was lots of fun, Lucy did great with the shopping, ayis doting on her and had lots of fun with Bop. The only bummer was it took us 2.5 hours to drive home in bad traffic. We will definitely take the subway next time!

 Bop has been doing a lot of reading...Narnia and Phantom Tollbooth to the boys and the "pippies" book (poky little puppies) to Lucy.

 Nana's Fun Bag has reappeared and with it lots of fun and anticipation. Today's was a train gingerbread making kit. All three had tons of fun with Nana as they made it and she was very patient with them.

Thanksgifts

A bit late, but wanted to recap our Thanksgiving for you. One of the books I have been impacted by the most in the last year is Ann Voskamp's 1,000 Gifts. She is a gifted writer who has been transformed by practicing gratitude...day in and day out, in the midst of the mundane and tragic and everything in between. So I have been trying (but often forgetting ) to practice this more and more (she had a goal of listing her 1000 gifts or things she was thankful for) and of course the Thanksgiving holiday is a great reminder of that. The boys had a thankfulness notebook that we wrote in during the month of November (not as consistently as I hoped, but that is reality these days). The boys had lots of things they were thankful for, including things like Jupiter's red spot, friends, turkey, Mei Mei, space, Christmas, pizza and so on. It was fun to do together.  I am super thankful for especially the people God has gifted me with in family and friends and our community here.  Here are some pictures of our special day of Thanksgiving as well.

 Lucy all decked out in her favorite color- purple. She is SO girly these days and loves to wear purple, eat out of her purple bowl, drink out of her purple cup, etc.

 These cuties held hands almost the whole walk from our house to the Staeges' where we had Thanksgiving dinner.

 Mmmm, turkey. Actually, mostly she ate Therese's delicious rolls, while Chris and I enjoyed full plates of lots of delicious food.

 One of the kids' tables. Our neighborhood of four families, plus one other family from church (who have one kid) now totals 13 children!  

I printed some Thanksgiving coloring pages off in hopes of some quieter activity during the night...it worked for a short time.

We are now full into the Christmas season...we decorated last weekend (mostly) and the calendar seems to be filling up at an alarming pace. We are also happily anticipating Nana and Bop's visit. They land here on December 18!