it takes a village...

I heard a while back that the city we live in has about 4,000 foreigners. From all over. So we have import stores, western restaurants, toy stores, a dozen Starbucks. We don't suffer a lot here. I actually wouldn't be surprised if there are actually more than 4,000 "lao wai."

We feel blessed by our little village. In our apartment complex, there are two boys the same age as Luke. And a girl and boy pretty close to the same age as Jace. We have families to play with and folks to do dinner with any time.

We get to go to fun Christmas parties like one that is called a BRIC party where we each make a new recipe (to us) and take it for a dinner party. Someone gets to make the appetizer, someone makes the main dish, someone makes dessert, sides, etc...Our friend thought it up--she's pretty creative. And it's fun.

We get to host parties that are a mixture of our local friends and foreign friends like tonight. We'll eat hot pot for supper and then do traditional Christmas stuff with our friends at our house. Cookie decorating, Christmas story telling, singing, etc.

We look at each other and think how thankful we are for the community we have here. How thankful we are for our ex-pat friends. But just how thankful we also are for our local friends. It's a gift.

Hark!

I'm loving the words to the song "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" this year.

I love that it says: "Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinner reconciled...

Joyful, all ye nations rise,

join the triumph of the skies

...Christ is born in Bethlehem..."

There's a kind of tension that I feel when I'm reading the OT. Sinful people had to wait a LONG time for the Savior to arrive, to be revealed. But it's not just them. It is still a tension for me--that waiting word. Waiting for Him to show us what our niche is here in this city with the people He's asked us to live among. Waiting for those adoption papers to go through and children to be matched to our family. Waiting for Him to speak to our friends. Because apart from Him being all over everything we do, what we do isn't worth much.....

But I think that is the thing I love about celebrating Jesus' birth: the waiting was over. Anna and Simeon were able to see the Savior they'd prayed about for decades. The Father didn't forget them. Us.

The boys helped me decorate the tree the other day.

And presents from America arrived the same day.

So they're having to see those presents every day--to wait to open them.

Waiting has been a theme in our family's life the past several weeks. It's good. It's hard. It's good. It's good to trust in a Father that knows and acts in perfect time to a people that really need Him. And to seek His face in the waiting time--to see again a beautiful God in the face of an innocent babe from 2000 years ago.

PS the third picture is just a picture of one of the lower branches of the tree--the ones that Jace can reach. There are a lot of ornaments on that branch :).

chip off the block...

a couple weeks ago, my oldest wanted to wear his shirt that looked like Daddy's on the same day that Daddy wore his. So, they wore matching shirts to our Sunday time.

It's so neat to me to see Luke want to be like Johnny--I can't imagine anyone I'd want the boys to emulate more!

And they are a lot alike. Johnny can do funny imitations. So can Luke. Johnny is an artist and a writer. So is Luke. Johnny is a good friend to the people he meets, and he is able to make deep friends quickly. So can Luke.

Our Jace is a lot like Johnny, too, but in different ways.

I love to watch them and know they'll be shaped by a man who loves them, who loves the Lord, and is so so so fun to be around!

a day at the park

I was looking through pictures yesterday and playing in Picnik, and I found these pictures from about a month ago. And they reminded me of a fun day we had with a teacher friend and her daughter's school class.

We went to the park. But the park didn't have playgrounds, so they pulled out...

an air mattress for the kids to play on.

It was a first for us. And it was so fun!

crafty crafterson

I like to make things. I'm not professional. But I like to have homemade things for the house, for my kids, and to give as gifts. This year, I am hoping to finish some gifts to give for Christmas.

One of my best friends just adopted twins. As newborns. Well, by "just" I mean almost 3 months ago. But I wanted to give them each a gift, albeit late. So I looked at our online version of ebay, and found some cute stuff but I thought after all that that I'd really like to make something for them. I found it hard to do, but I have one finished. The one for the girl is the same on the front, except for the letter font. Surprise, Marce.

It's no secret that we're impatiently waiting for kiddos from Africa. I made this blanket for our little girl last year when we started the process. I'm thinking I might want to bleach out the bright colors a bit..

One Christmas craft. A pottery barn knock-off (sorta). For our Jesse tree. I am not organized enough to have the boys do a coloring page every day for the tree or a craft, so I'm hoping to fill it with fun stuff/stories BEFORE we start. That remains to be seen. I made 2, one is for a gift. I'm not telling to who. It's wrinkled. But it's sunny today, so I wanted to take pictures and I don't pull out our iron while the boys are awake. I am too apt to forget and leave it on...

And a flower to make a Christmas present look pretty...I used not Martha's idea. But I had to sew it--my glue didn't work

Hi, Mom. This post is mostly for you...

fall in the mountains

Mountain trips are a highlight of our year. We love being in the mountains. It's a bit rugged the way we have to live--long stretches without showers. But we stay in a really fun hostel or hotel, and we all sleep in the same room, which I love. And we hike in beautiful scenery, which I love. This year, since we were there at the end of October, we were there while the trees are still changing colors!

Trees don't change in our city--they have to plant lots of evergreen plants to endure so little sun. But in the mountains...

This time, we went up a valley I haven't gone before. Johnny had. However, this valley has THE most vibrant colored trees. It helps me breathe deep breaths to be out in such splendor :)! I had trouble getting a picture, but you can kinda see it behind this one (an outtake of an attempt at photographing 5 two year olds on our hike):

And in the valley, we had to stop and throw some rocks--it happens every time we're in the mountains...

And feed some horses if they'll come close to the fence:

And hang with friends at our favorite hostel:

And snap a quick family picture. Imperfect? Yes. Real? Also yes.

Robin Hood

I didn't mean for the last two posts to be so heavy. But we have had LOTS of fun over the last two weeks as we have prepared for and then partied with our now 6 year old!

We just had the party at our apartment complex's basketball courts. It was a sunny, beautiful day, which Johnny joked was because Luke and I prayed for a whole week that it would be sunny on his birthday party day. Have I mentioned that the sun is a bit of a rarity here?

This is our attempt at a good, quick picture of hyped up 5/6/7 year olds...

We shot arrows. One boy got a bullseye!

Then the boys and dads played capture the flag to retrieve the gifts that had been taken as taxes for "Prince John". The boys were successful. And capture the flag (gifts) worked relatively well for a first time attempt.

Of course we ate and Luke opened his gifts that he gave to some kids in the earthquake areas.

He "took from the rich" and "gave to the poor".

And then he opened his loot from his parents and nana and papa. He didn't go without.

We sent the gifts from the party off with our friend who will give it to a teacher in a school that lost everything in 2008. They are still building up their supplies...I was proud of Luke. It was a bit hard for him to part with a couple of the toys, but he did it anyway.

We left the next day for the mountains, which we'll post about soon...