Advent and such

One of the best family gifts we received was this book from Poppy and CC last year: The Advent Book. It is a compilation of various versions of actual scripture and has big beautiful doors on every page that are so fun to open. It is a gorgeous book and the girls have loved reading it this year, they can pretty much quote the scripture on every page since almost every night they start from the beginning and read the story. We also do our normal advent calendar, having the girls take turns putting that days' character on the quilt/calendar. We did add a Jesse tree this year and Sophia has done a great job of cutting out the ornaments and we read along a little snippet and prayer that follows 'the line of Jesse' to Jesus. This sounds like a lot, but it all takes just a little bit of time each night. We may or may not continue each of these things, but we will keep doing The Advent book, a true highlight.

Our week has been jam packed already. I think I made about 12 loaves (4 batches) of pumpkin gingerbread as gifts for neighbors and other ex-pats in town. Today Sophia and I made 60 cookies for her classmates (which her teachers let her give out, she loved that), Thursday we will have some local girlfriends over for a movie night (David will go out and meet with some local guys), Friday I will start making the pies for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Eve day we will go to a wedding of a local friend and that night we will have another American family over for dinner! It has been fun, really, but non-stop!

Thanksgiving

We are so thankful to be able to go visit some of our closest friends on the other side of the country for Thanksgiving. It will take us 3 airplanes and all day, and we will not leave China. But we are SO excited. We also will meet up with a team from TCC and get to hug the necks of dear friends from back home, including Travis! We sure will miss Julie and the youngin's but we will take what we can get!

To gear up for Thanksgiving, this week the girls and I started in on a few very small projects/crafts. We try to practice thanksgiving a lot, naming things we are thankful for, discovering and remembering ways God has answered our prayers, etc. But this week we put it more in writing. David started the week by introducing the girls to Squanto and his story. They are still reading that together.

Our crafts started with a paper quilt. I got the idea from HERE.





I basically followed the instruction. I did not have canvas, but I used a thin foam board that I had and was not using. I also had scrapbooking scrap sheets, I cut out the rest and tried to find fall colors. The girls had so much fun trying to draw pictures of what they were thankful for. Daddy and Mommy both participated as well.
Everyone did three. Sophia's first picture was a picture of Big Caleb, Little Caleb, and herself. She really is thankful for those guys. She also drew a picture of some mountains and said she was thankful for Daddy. Her third was 'Jesus' and she drew a cross.
Bella mainly scribbled, but she said: 'Daddy', 'Jesus', and "Sophia".



The next thing we did was make a Thanksgiving Tree. We had gone to a park over the weekend and I collected some dried roots from trees that had just been planted, they looked like sticks and were bendable. I then cut out a bunch of leaves and again had the girls draw pictures and name some more things to Thank God for. Then we hung our leaves on the tree. We spent quite a bit of time on this and they loved participating. It reminds me that I really need to make a better effort at doing more crafts with them every week.






Our journey to the NE begins tomorrow!

Recipe: Mexican: Taco sauce and bean dip

I made Taco Bell Taco Sauce to put in the chimichanga recipe, you can find it here.
I made CC's Mexican dip, which David loves:

Can of refried beans

Salsa or picante sauce

Sour cream

Shredded cheese

Layer first three ingredients, stir, top with cheese and bake until hot.