Happy Easter! He is Risen!

We enjoyed our Resurrection Day fully. Started off with hot cross buns and Easter baskets, a great service at church, a first picnic with a larger group at the park across the street from our complex and then a smaller second picnic/egg hunt/fun dinner in the neighborhood with our 3 neighborhood families. A fun day, nice weather and the wonderful celebration that He is Risen!

It's Friday

Today is Good Friday. Easter has snuck up on me this year so quickly.  I decided we had better do some Easter activities at the beginning of the week, so we tried a painting project. But before you might begin to be impressed or think this was all fun and happiness, I will give you the 

"real" version. We were making potato Easter stamps that looked like eggs and crosses.  It started out ok- for the first 5 minutes.

 This is Austin's finished product. It looks very nice I think- but it was a LONG road to get here. He was upset that the potato slipped as he made his first stamp. Frustrated that the colors mixed. Wanted to throw it out and start over. And on and on. After 15 minutes I was ready to send him away and my emotions were ...not calm.

 Then they upped the ante a bit. Bennett's work. Also very nice.You probably can't notice in the picture but the right corner is very wet. Lucy accidently knocked the dirty paint water over- all over Bennett, his picture, his pants and the floor. Crying and screaming ensued from all directions, including mine. I might have even yelled "We are never painting again" by the end. Honestly it is not the mess so much as the crying and whining and  inability to cope with mistakes that put me completely over the edge.

 I realize how often I want to make a holiday or whatever time special, but end up getting angry and feeling out of control puts me over the edge and cancels out any fun we might have had. In the end, I had to confess my anger to the kids and they were gracious to forgive me. I concluded the most "Easter" thing about it all was clearly demonstrating Mommy's need for the gospel. I have been learning a lot about how daily, daily I need his grace and acceptance and so often start from a place of thinking I "should" be better at this by now. But this Friday I am thankful that Sunday is coming, the day we celebrate the glorious day when all is finished and triumphant. Thankful that as parenting strips me from any illusion that I might have had it together or been growing more holy- HE is perfect and holy and covers it all.

 Today, Friday, we tried again to do something for Easter involving potential mess.

 We did have a purple dye disaster (again, Lucy spilled something all over poor Bennett and his egg) but we all seemed to handle it a bit better this time. Especially Mommy. As I take deep breaths and remember it does not depend on me getting everything under control.  Or convincing my kids that mess is ok. Or that my mess is ok. It is not ok, but it is not up to me to get it all cleaned up.

This Friday I am thankful for the cross, for the mess that he takes on and cleans for me, for the gospel that is ongoing, every day in the crazy. 

The newest readers

I love that we are a family of readers. Bennett has been working so hard at reading this year and is doing great!  He finished the 100th lesson in his reading book (which is the last lesson) and got to choose a play place outing to celebrate his accomplishment.

And Lucy is SO into reading books lately.  She loves to lay on my bed with me and read. Her recent favorites have been Little Bear series, and especially The Goblin Story (which was one of my favorites growing up). When she is by herself, I can hear her saying "pit-pat-pit-pat". Today she read for over an hour by herself in her room (maybe a first). Of course when I peeked in, I saw this.

 Notice almost every book was off the shelf and on the floor. A small price to pay for enjoying reading (and giving mommy an HOUR of quiet!).

I have loved this stage of all of my children when they start to "read" books outloud around age 2. She is "reading" all the pictures with lots to say "There is the moon.  oooh a triangle. What does the lion say?" Or actually memorizing parts of the actual stories.

Lucy is now two and a half!  She is adamantly refusing potty training, after seeming to want to use the potty last summer. She loves to say "what is that noising?" whenever she hears an unfamiliar noise. She is still obsessed with sleeping with her pacifier, though we are working on maybe wanting to give them to baby Grace this summer as a present. She usually agrees except she always says "Not the red one" her current favorite.  She knows all the hand motions to "Get off the phone" a Rhett and Link video she  loves to watch with Daddy. She is still cute and charms everyone she meets, loves older jie jies (sisters) and other favorite phrase right now is "I do it myself". 

Tomb Sweeping

Today is a holiday, Qing Ming Jie (Tomb Sweeping festival). Traditionally it is one where people honor the dead- often by burning paper money/houses/things in hopes it will be given to people in the afterlife and visiting final resting places. There are not too many actual tombs these days.  In such a populated country, there is not really enough space and most people are cremated. However, since it was a holiday we had the day off from work and school. We went to the park across the street from us and were surprised to discover an actual graveyard with tombs. We knew in the past there had been a few tombs before the park was a park (it used to be a big unused patch of land). But it had grown, and the tombs were brightly decorated today.

On the tops of many of them, were stacks of paper with a rock to keep it from blowing away. If you look closely, you see this stack of fake paper money (millions of kuai worth, supposedly). This is supposed to be given to the dead to use in the afterlife.  Such a stark reminder to me of what so many people lack...knowing what comes after death and WHO is the only one who can help them.  

The kids had tons of fun playing in a very dirty hole at the park. Austin was excited for a few minutes to find "a billion kuai!". We had to tell him it was not real and what it was used for. Earlier this week we saw someone burning things by the side of the road. It led to a great and deep conversation with Austin, that included questions such as "what about people who never heard of JC? Do they go to hell?" and "How do we know the B.... is true?" Just some light and easy questions to answer...ha.  I wasn't sure I would be trying to discuss those with a 7 year old.

 Sunday morning picture...spring is here and the neighborhood is bursting with flowers!  Love the new life popping up all over.

 The pond was filled up with water last Thursday and Saturday Austin caught a frog and a bunch of tadpole eggs. Mrs. Froggy is now a resident of the boys' room...as long as they find food for her. I was surprised (and not exactly pleasantly) to find how quickly he caught a fly for it.  Surely he can't keep it up long though, right?

End of a (neighboring) era

Sniff, sniff. Jason, Angie, Bree and Jesh, our wonderful and close neighbors for the past four years just moved. Ok, so it was only across the neighborhood. But when you have been literal next door apartment neighbors and then just upstairs a few (well, 10) flights' neighbors, on the other side of the neighborhood feels a LONG way away.  We have been so thankful for these great friends who drop everything to watch our kids, bring us a meal, have us over for a meal, lend eggs and flour and cauliflower whenever needed, share weekly Friday night pizza nights. We call each other in the middle of the night when husbands are out of town.

This sign greeted us when we returned from America after we just all had moved in next door. It is still hanging up, despite new neighbors.

While I am sad this is their third move since we all moved in here four years ago, am really thankful they were able to find another apartment in the neighborhood. (I need a whole other post on why so many of our friends move so constantly- unreliable contracts, a never ending housing boom, buying and selling happens frequently and renters pay the price.)

However, we cannot just send things up and down the elevator anymore that we need to borrow or give...

After they moved up to the 10th floor two years ago, we started this system of passing things back and forth in the elevator (don't worry, the cauliflower is wrapped in plastic). We did it one more time for old times' sake, the day before they moved out. I could hear Angie laughing all the way down on the first floor as we both took pictures of the cauliflower :).

Or send our kids over to play. Or leave together from our building to carpool kids to Chinese school (yes,  I will actually have to leave the house with Lucy to take them to the gate when it is Angie's turn to drive). Or so many other things we have been privileged with.

But we are so thankful for their long standing friendship that will of course continue even if they are across the neighborhood!! I am so thankful for all of the community I have here and how special it really is.  It is gold, really truly gold.

 

First joint backyard party, not long after we moved in. Bennett's 2nd birthday. They were so little!

Cuties!

 

Austin's 4th birthday at Chinese school, not long after they started going.

 Pajama time!

Fish day...when our neighborhood let's kids release goldfish into the ponds.  A super fun tradition.

This was their first reunion after we all returned from a summer in America. We have lots of goodbyes and hellos here.

 Last pizza night with us all in building 8.

First there were 4, then 5 and we are so excited for JT to make 6 and join our pizza night...they are adopting a little brother!  We are praying, praying they can get him before we make a trip to the States at the end of June. Do not want to miss his homecoming.