Chinese New Year: Attempt at a description

I know I have often tried to describe the scene and sounds of celebrating 'spring festival' or Chinese New Year, but every year we experience it, words still fail the whole phenomenon. One American who has lived in China a while described it as: 'purgatory and Groundhog's day' hilarious and fairly accurate.

Let's try this...

Put on your favorite war movie...lots of bombs, shellings, lots of gunfights. Blare the movie as loud as your TV will go. Maybe put it on in your back room for a full week. As it gets closer to 'the day' go sit in that room for three days. Turn on the surround sound. When we say 'lots of fireworks' we do not mean the small town, beautiful, 4th of July variety, our next door neighbor had those. No no. We mean the packed- full-of-gunpowder- BOOM kind, times 500, or however many neighbors you have. At least this year they did not set them off in the stair well.

We had  a very pleasant evening, enjoying our cook out, our walk, seeing all our neighbors also eating outside with their family and friends. We built a fire and roasted marshmallows and enjoyed smores. Yum. We lit off some of our own fireworks. Tobin was NOT having it. He actually did not mind all the loudness around us, but when David tried to do one Tobin would cry. But he eventually got okay with most of it.

We put Tobin and Gabrielle down around 7:30-8:00 p.m. and let the older two girls stay up until 9:00 p.m. and watch half of a movie with us. Then David and I watched a movie (still fireworks blaring behind us the whole time). A true-story war movie.

The girls really wanted us to wake them up for the midnight commotion. They were sleeping so well when the mayhem and loudness started, we almost did not wake them. Then we did and opened their curtains and watched beautiful fireworks all around us and heard all the others. We are always amazed that they sleep through the fireworks going on all evening and then wake up when they get really loud. This time we woke them. Then Tobin did wake up and David let him watch too. David laid down with him while I laid down with the girls. This is when Sophia, in all her tiredness said: 'actually, I don't really like Chun Jie (Spring Festival)'. 

This year's festivities have been fun and enjoyable, despite the noise. We were invited to various friends' houses, and chose three villages to visit. Pics of those will follow soon.

Chinese New Year's Eve: Jan 30th

 This was the first time I have had all three on the moto. They were SO excited. I have taken Tobin once and David has taken him once. He is now used to it, knows the rules and loves to go. I was grilling chicken and making 'onion strings' (pioneer woman's recipe) for our New Year's dinner, and needed something else from the store. While almost everything shuts down for weeks around the New Year the grocery store does not. Thankfully.

 This reminds me of Sophia saying she wanted to go to school in America so that she could ride a school bus. Our friend, her Aunt K, reminded me that most American kids would want to go to school here so they could ride on a moto like this. True indeed.

 We had a light homeschool day and then spent the day getting ready for dinner and fireworks. David took the girls and bought a TON of dynamite fireworks! I prepped dinner and we ate outside...

 Gabrielle's baby chair is right below Bella there. A few moments after this pic Bella's chair flipped on top of Gabrielle, with Bella still in it. The corner of her chair missed Gabrielle's face by an inch. It happened so fast, I grabbed the chair quickly, Bella was screaming, and David jumped up to pull her up. Gabrielle was completely unharmed, and it should have REALLY harmed her. Really. Somehow I remained calm. Miraculous. All of it was quite miraculous. I sat down closed my eyes folded my hands and Tobin asked: 'Momma, what are you doing?" 

"I am thanking God, honey, I am thanking God." And a tear rolled down my cheek, a thankful tear.

 Then we went down the boardwalk as a family, something we haven't done in a while.

 One of our goals is to do less tag-team parenting. It is harder. Dividing and conquering is easier, but it is not better. Together is better!

 I love Bella's face below. It is so...Bella.

I will tell you how the night went in the next post.

Fine Arts Glimpse

Two weeks ago we got back into CC Cycle 2 after a short break. These six weeks we will study famous artists. We started with Rembrandt, who happened to have been from Holland. I asked, who do you know from Holland? And the kiddos named our friends. Then Sophia said: "oh, he probably said 'nay!'" Yes, he probably did, that is her one Dutch word. When we told our Dutch friends this they had a good laugh.

For Rembrandt we got mirrors and made faces in them and then drew our different faces, angry, sad, happy. 'Pay attention to what your eyes and nose do with different expressions'. They had fun with this. Our neighbor and friend, Yang Yang, has now joined us for two weeks of our Fine Arts lessons, so I try to translate what we are doing. She is a good artist and does very well.

 Here is Sophia's face drawing...

 

 

 This past week we studied the Botanist, Linnaeus, who drew lots of flowers. They went outside and picked one and then we used magnifying glasses to try to see the detail better.

 Tobin was up a little early and  did this with us. But not really. Instead he tried to steal the magnifying glass. Many times.

 The girls all did a great job drawing their respective flowers/ferns/ whatever.

 Here is the Roman Road I promised...layers and all. Daddy David did a great job. You are supposed to show the layers by doing all the bottom, then 3/4 next layer, then 1/2, then 1/4 (the top). The top is supposed to be smooth flat stones. These are from a common Chinese game, they used glue  and sand for cement and the road is actually 'rock solid'.

Seriously...

 Quick David get the camera...see how perfect our kids are....

 Yes, they sat like this for a while...

And they were reading....

The Bible. 

Yes, my two year old can read. I told you. Perfect.

JUST KIDDING.

These days are rough and fun with sibling squabbles and fireworks galore, LOTS of training, and tired parents. But they are fun. And we are learning....this year as a focus, to enjoy Everything in our story(death by living). They actually did sit and 'read' for awhile and then got up and got into yet another fight. 'She hit me! He hit me!' all ring as loud as the fireworks around us...and we continually try to put out the fires with truth and patience, sometimes we have to put them out in our own heart first! Sanctification folks, hurts so good. But in pictures on a blog....things do look pinterest perfect don't they? Don't believe the lie, we are in the thick of it, right where we are supposed to be...not wishing it away...digging in and trying to live it well.

Where Go the Boats?

One of the things we have incorporated into our homeschool memory work is poetry. I just throw this in there with all of our CC stuff. It is part of our 'morning memory time' and the kids love it. I actually don't care too much if they memorize them all, but they have fun saying them and acting them out.

David has started to give me some homeschool planning time on Saturday mornings, which has been helpful. I have tried to have some kind of project of fun thing planned for him to do with the kiddos if he wants to, completely his choice. So far the projects have worked out.

The first one was the weekend after we started a new fun poem:

Where Go the Boats?
by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Dark brown is the river. Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating— Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22517#sthash.rrgqTOTy.dpuf

 

Dark brown is the river,

Golden is the sand.

It flows along for ever,

With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,

Castles of the foam,

Boats of mine a-boating--

Where will all come home?

On goes the river

And out past the mill,

Away down the valley,

Away down the hill.

Away down the river,

A hundred miles more,

Other little children

Shall bring my boats ashore.

Dark brown is the river. Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating— Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22517#sthash.rrgqTOTy.dpuf

Dark brown is the river. Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating— Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22517#sthash.rrgqTOTy.dpuf

My challenge to David was to make some good paper boats and find a good, flowing river. He was all over it! He knew exactly where to go, and looked up how to make unsinkable boats (color them with crayons and the wax makes them somewhat water-proof). The kids loved it. 

 Before leaving Sophia said: 'I don't think any other children will bring my boats ashore because I have never seen kids out there'. ...I quoted the poem, and said, 'honey, a hundred miles more! Some Burmese kids will bring your boat ashore.'

 David said this went well, though they did not flow for too long. He was trying to find the 'perfect' flowing spot for launching. But Tobin, mesmerized and on a mission, just walked over and plopped his in. Don't you know his boat went the farthest!

Last weekend David helped them build a 'roman road' as a history project, If it is still outside I will take a picture and post it!

My 'running shirt'---Tobin

We had a friend come stay with us for a few days, I note it here because Tobin really took to 'Uncle Justin'. He happens to be an avid and competitive runner, training for an ultra-marathon. He would go running daily and Tobin soon started to dub his own sleeveless shirts 'running shirts like Uncle Justin's'. Tobin loves to wear sleeveless shirts and to him they all used to be called 'basketball' shirts. This changed, for a few weeks anyway, after Justin was with us...

 Justin did make us some delicious ice cream.

 And while he worked on his taxes, Tobin shadowed him. A lot.

I had already started my post-partum running, but when I would gear up, the kids did start to say...'are you going on a run like uncle Justin?' The answer was an emphatic, 'No, not like him at all, or like him a little only about five minutes slower. per mile.' 

He also inspired the kids to want to run, and I let them go with me one day, the first lap, which is about 1.2km. They did pretty well. We certainly need to work on some P.E. 

Justin did find some good 10k routes for me, but all up hill...right now... not gonna do it....I will stick to circling the 'hood.

OOPS she fell in!

We have a water area near our house, the kids often go there to play. The water is pretty gross, but still there are sometimes fish in it. This day David was outside with the kiddos and came to the back door with a crying Bella. From behind her, while she cried, he motioned for me to get the camera. I consoled her gently, hid my smile, turned around and went to capture the moment (stellar parenting, I know). She was quite cute in her sopping wetness and crocodile tears which turned to a smile once we started joking with her about it.

I am most amazed that it took a whole year and half of living here for one of our children to take the plunge.