Jesse Tree -- Advent

I'm normally a total procrastinator. I'm that student staying up until 4 a.m. to finish reading the book for the book report that's due the following day. I tend to order birthday presents the day before people's birthday and look at them shockingly the next day and say, "I'm so sorry! Your present hasn't arrived yet!" (I totally just blew my secret)

But this year, I actually had some sort of forethought. I actually did some planning ahead. I know. Shocking. My dad probably just fainted.

I began thinking and planning for Advent this year at the beginning of November. Seriously. Don't be too proud of me. This sort of planning ahead doesn't happen too often around this household!

It began with me thinking through putting up Christmas decorations and imagining little hands stealing my carefully placed ornaments on my Charlie Brown-ified Christmas tree. I began thinking of creative ways to keep them off my tree. 

Brandon suggested an electric-shock fence. 

I decided to go with a little less call-CPS approach...

Make them their own tree!!

My initial idea was to make a bunch of cutesy fun ornaments. Maybe three with each of their names on it. Stars. Gifts. Glittery balls. Anything that might distract them from pulling the cherished ornaments that I drug across the ocean with us off of the already-leaning tree.

But as the idea continued to develop, I imagined how I could incorporate our Jesse Tree tradition into this. Because last year our Jesse Tree Garland was a little pathetic. I'd suddenly remember it was time to do that day's JT Devotion and would scrounge around in Salem's toys for his plastic snake to string up on the garland for the story of Adam and Eve. That was the total procrastinator coming out in me. It was a sad and pathetic little gathering of random toys (does a Lego man count for Moses?!) and coloring pages.

So I set out for Pinterest, despite my previously mentioned dislike for all things Pinteresting, to find some ideas on how to make advent-ish type felt ornaments. Sure enough, Pinterest did not disappoint and I found lots of inspiration. I geared ours more toward our choice of Jesse Tree devotionals. 

And then I began sewing my fingers raw...

Here's a few of my faves.

Adam and Eve and the Stump of Jesse

I had a lot of fun figuring out how to put some of these ornaments together.

Jonah and The Flood

Creation and Bethlehem

Is it a little strange that my globe doesn't even have The Big Chicken pictured on it? 

Abraham and Isaac (and the Ram) and Elijah

The Angel and The Lion and the Lamb

All 27 of them...

(That was before the final finished product with the red border.)

I'm slightly terrified they'll be ripped to shreds, the kids will yank all the buttons off, or Caleb will eat one of the ornaments. So maybe for this year we'll hang it out of reach. So much for the hands-off-my-Christmas-tree idea. :) 

But I know they're really excited about it. Which makes it worth all the work and anti-procrastination efforts, especially if it helps them treasure the significance of Jesus' birth.

It starts tomorrow, ya'll!!

The Thankful Tree

I'm not so into this Pinterest craze lately. I got on Pinterest the other day to find a chocolate cake recipe and an hour or so later I emerged from the Pinter-vacuum feeling like a total failure of a human being because I've never made a fireplace mantel out of pallet wood that I salvaged myself or repurposed one of my husband's old dress shirts into an infinity scarf.
If you've never Pinterested then you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. (and way to go, you!  You aren't missing anything.)

But back before I got over the Pinterest sensation, I did come across a winner. The Thankful Tree.
And I will say that it is one of our family's favorite new traditions. This has been our second year of filling up a thankful tree and the kids love it. Eden remembered doing it last year and was really excited to start it again at the beginning of November.
This year was a little more difficult scrounging up those tree branches as the trees had all grown a bit taller a year later! (eh-hem...seriously, who WAS that crazy white foreign lady out there pulling perfectly good branches off of trees?!?!)

I figure starting a Thankful tree tradition with kids ranging from 1-4 was a great idea. Because really, we can only go up from here. This year Eden graduated from being thankful for her Cinderella movie last year to being thankful she can sing and dance this year. I'd say she's starting to grasp what we're going for here.




Salem...well, he's got a ways to go. But again, some day when he's 17 surely he'll look back on our 2012 Thankful tree cards and totally get a kick out of being "thankful for monkeys and tigers."

Then there's this boy...

 who I'm sure is thankful for grapes, ritz crackers, and moments that people forget to shut the bathroom door and he gets to play in the potty. He can't voice it yet, but I'd guarantee those would be on his Thankful tree cards. Meanwhile, his name is written on several of our cards of things that we're thankful for!

Plus, it's a total conversation starter. "So, um...why do you have dead tree branches in a vase on your dining room table?" Ahhh yes...well, lemme tell you about the One whom we owe all our thanks.

So each year we'll look back on the previous year's Thankful tree cards and see how the Lord has continued to provide, prepare, and lead our family through all sorts of exciting, uncertain, happy, sad, and wonderful circumstances.

As we put up our Christmas tree the other day, Salem exclaimed, "Wow Mommy!! That's a REALLY BIG thankful tree!!"
Truly, son! God has blessed us so much we could fill a Christmas tree with thankful cards too.

Kids Will Be Kids

Today was one of those days.

A day where everything is as it should be until your house helper gets a call from your children's preschool classmate's mom saying she's on her way over because she needs to apologize for her son hitting your son and about your son's head leaking blood.

screeeeeeeech...as your day comes to a halt.

"Wait...what? Salem's head is leaking blood?"

Yes, that's the quite literal translation. I may still be fairly new to this whole Chinese speaking thing. But leaking blood...yep, I caught that one.

So I say to my house helper, "Is he going to need..." and then I made sewing motions on my head as if she totally knows what I'm talking about. And her reply is "yeah, probably..."

Immediately I turned and went to do two things.

1. Change my pants. Because if I was going to be spending the rest of the afternoon in a Chinese hospital, my pajama pants weren't going to cut it. Especially since it was 2 pm. (oops)

2. Look up in my phone dictionary how to say "stitches" in Chinese so I don't have to make sewing motions on my head 37 times that afternoon.

After switching pants I came back into the kitchen and my house helper begins to clarify... "In Chinese we have two terms for leaking blood...one is like dripping blood, and one is like a scratch." 

"Ok great. So which one does Salem have? Is his head dripping blood or is it scratched?"

"I think just scratched."

Great...wish we could have clarified that to begin with before my mind fast-forwarded through all the gory details that were sure to happen that day.

About 5 minutes later the kids, two of their teachers, and the preschool offender's parents show up at our front door.

A big ole goose egg. No leaking or dripping blood. Just some tear stained eyes of a boy who was ready to see his mama. 

I asked him what happened... "I hit a wall!"

"what? I thought your friend hit you?

"No. I hit a giant pink wall!!"

Apparently he was shoved into a wall. And what Salem clearly remembers from the incident is that that wall was PINK.

But it's nothing a little 'Mater band-aid can't fix.

Meanwhile, we enjoyed some cultural oddities. Since I've never had a child in preschool in America that's gotten pummeled by a classmate, I'm not sure what the right course of action is. But here, the parents come, they apologize, they talk about how they need to do a better job of disciplining their child. We say, hey...kids will be kids. Don't worry about it. (because this actually is the SECOND time this couple has had to come apologize on their son's behalf...the first time for biting Salem. And no, he did not "leak blood" then either)

 But perhaps the most important aspect of the whole visit is the gift giving, which really is expected no matter the circumstance. When you show up at someone else's house, you gotta have something in your hands. And where it gets tricky for us Americans is that it's not what's on the inside that counts. It's totally all about the value and the packaging. The more expensive, the better. The fancier the package or wrapping...the better. The more reusable the package or box, even better. I hear that usually the actual gift inside is tossed out and the outer wrapping is put on display. That's a hard thing for me to grasp as I give cookies to neighbors in twice-used ziploc bags and wrap books in newspaper. (oops, again)

So today, the offender's parents brought us a giant pink sturdy expensive box of eggs. 36 eggs in fact. 

I'm glad I signed up to bring deviled eggs for our Thanksgiving meal next week!

I felt that it fit quite well with the situation...goose egg...chicken egg... I dunno.

I'm thankful these days don't come around very often.

You know...the days where you get a call about your child leaking blood. 

Yeah. I hope that doesn't happen again. At least for awhile.

As for Salem, he's just fine. Says his forehead hurts. Says YiNuo (the offender) is still his best friend. And maybe he'll be steering clear of pink walls for awhile.

Silence coupled with Thankfulness

On our blog, silence is usually one of two things.

1. Nothing to write about, or at least drawing a blank as to what to share among the blogosphere.

2. Busy. Busy. Busy.

This time around, it's the latter. I feel I've got too much to write about, just no time to do it. Here's a quick update on our world lately...

We've reached a much sought after benchmark as far as our language progress. We're hopeful that within a month we won't be thought of as full-time language learners anymore. Will the end ever come to language learning? Definitely not! But at least I won't have a tutor showing up at my front door every morning at 9 am anymore. We're so thankful for the time we've gotten to commit to learning this language, but we're even more grateful that it's drawing to a close.

I've been spending every wednesday morning with the kids at their preschool, helping out the teachers, teaching "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" until my back nearly breaks, and hugging little necks from 7:30 - 11:30 am. Just so you know, Ring around the Rosie is a hit anywhere, no matter if they understand the words or not! Getting to know the kids' teachers better has helped me to further understand the Lord's provision and how he's so graciously provided teachers for our children that love them and love Him. So thankful for them.

We spent a week mentally and verbally prepping for leading a discussion on parenting. About 50ish preschool student's parents came to hear us teach on "American methods of parenting." It was completely daunting, since we often feel inept at parenting...much less at communicating it all in Big Chickenese! I'm thankful for the opportunity as it was truly encouraging and challenging as we found ourselves being careful to practice with the kids what we were teaching! Not to mention that it totally stretched our language!

We had our first snow last weekend which means it has cooled down quite a bit here. But as it's not quite mid-November, the government regulated steam heating hasn't been turned on yet. We're walking around at home in big fuzzy slippers, layers, and cuddling under lots of blankets on the couch for multiple nights a week of family movie night! Thankful for these chilly nights and how they can make us slow down.

And with the winter has come the usual cough/congestion that has made it's rounds through all of us. Anyone want to send us another BIG bag of Hall's cherry flavored cough drops?! I've had them sitting high up on the medicine cabinet for a year and a half now, since we arrived here, and within one week we've dwindled them down to two! Thankfully we're all feeling much better and are no worse off having consumed so much mucinex and and so many cough drops!

This is my favorite time of the year. Fall, transitioning to winter, choosing gratitude and recalling on things that the Lord has been faithful to provide for our family and the ways He's gone about revealing himself to us, molding us and conforming us more to His image.