"Home school Week"

"Home School Week" is one week where a teacher comes from the capital of our province and teaches our kids, along with other ex-pat kids. This was the second year we participated and once again it did not disappoint. Last year they did science, language arts activities, and lots of crafts. This year the theme was Christmas/Advent and the girls loved it even more.

The hardest part was maneuvering their schedule around Chinese School and all of the morning and afternoon activities associated with the week. The teacher is from the UK originally, so our girls came home with British accents. They love her.

 The crafts were amazing. They made these quilt like pages (behind their heads above) with pictures that remind them of the Christmas season. They made the wreaths on the wall (over Sophia's head below)

 What I love about the wrap up time at the end of the week, is that the teacher gets every kid involved, from age 5 to age 10. Sophia told a little about what they did...

 And Bella had her turn too.

 They also did a drama show with many songs. Each person had a part...it was so creative.

 They were the animals in the 'barn' where Jesus was born. The play was from their perspective.

 they are still singing the songs!

And I am too. Tobin went with us to watch the wrap-up and sat still the whole time! When I asked them what was their favorite part, Tobin chimed in and said: "my favorite part was watching".

Super Tobin

 On Thursday I let Tobin watch an old Disney Superman comic strip video. He immediately got into character and stayed there for many days. While I was putting make up on in the bathroom, he came and held the wall up so it wouldn't fall on me. Then he went to show me he could pick up the laundry basket, which is about his size.
And of course, the water bottle...SO STRONG.

And then on Friday, as we sat down to do Tot School he said to me, in all seriousness:
"Mama, Superman doesn't do Tot school"

Cuddles with daddy

Advent is here and nightly readings have been such an  encouragement.

I love this pic because Tobin is true to self: plastic sword wielding, eye winking little boy. But if you ask him, he knows what is going on in the story. We are reading Jotham's Journey as part of our Advent season and it is not for the faint of heart, we are loving it.

David said I had to capture this. Gabrielle, our cuddle bug, will lay her head down on your shoulder and pull her hand up around your neck like this.

 I mean...

Gabrielle: Movin' and Groovin'

This girl.
She has got some personality.
She is almost 15 months old and has about 4 words, unlike our other kids who seemed overly verbal by this stage. Her favorite word of late is NNNO!
She is a little spoiled to be sure, doted on beyond measure by her siblings, and is moving along literally to wherever she wants to go...

 These days this is where you will find her. Under Bella's desk.

 She can sit there and play for quite a while.

 She does like to climb up on things, or just sit awhile.

 And look at those teeth. Of all of our children she got them the fastest (many at a time) and youngest. In her fourteen months of life she has 10 teeth! No wonder she has not slept most of her life. Every month another one, sometimes two at a time. Our Thanksgiving trip? She was inconsolable as we discovered two molars coming in.

 So we have a little compassion when she sobs through the night.

 The big dark eyes, and cute curls in the back help her cause.

 Lots of mutual love between siblings too.
She still drinks milk from a bottle, has another cold, and just added a new word, the Chinese word for when you answer the phone: "Wei.." and she says this as she holds her hand to her ear.
There is the baby G round-up, though almost to the toddler stage she remains our baby.

Mid Day Dance with Gabrielle

 We were doing our CC review and I let the girls dance to all the songs...
they got Gabrielle involved.

 No, she is not walking yet and she is almost 15 months old.

But she can dance, and climb a bit. And she remains adorable.

Thanksgiving Road Trip: Part 2

We arrived and instantly started enjoying time with our friends and their three children. We have known this family for over ten years and are always challenged by them in so many ways.
But more than that, they know our ugly, they see our struggles, they come alongside our joys, and love us so well. Even if we haven't talked in a while, when we get together we 'let our hair down', relax and seem as if we see each other every day.They are vulnerable with us as well, and that makes this friendship solid, safe, and actually restful.

Though our weekend was NOT restful, because we had some catching up to do, and a VERY fussy one-year-old.

On Thanksgiving Day, the dads were in charge of crafts! Excellent job David and David.

what Tobin is thankful for: Race Cars, Fighter jets, God and Jesus.

Bella wrote hers...

And Sophia put hers all together as well.

 This was super cute and fun to watch.

EP is two years younger than Sophia (but about the same height), they got along well.

One craft our kids loved was making an Indian head dress and giving themselves Indian names.

 This fam has great toys!

There was Tons of this going on, holding babies and taking every moment to talk about anything and everything.

 For Thanksgiving dinner we went to the house of another ex-pat family that we know. They smoked a real turkey! It was some kind of yum. There were eleven kids between the three fams which equals chaos fun.

 Erica had brought back this craft from the States: making your own place mat, the kids all enjoyed this.

The spread. Oh my goodie goodness. I did not bake a thing. We brought these two families pineapples, avocados, and cornmeal from the subtropics, but we did not contribute in any way to this meal, except to partake.

 Casseroles, stuffing, rolls, turkey....are we still in China?

 TWO kinds of Sweet Potato Souffle.

 The smoked Turkey, did I mention yum?

 And....Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving....

 And Dessert. I don't want to make you stumble, but this chocolate mousse pie and apple crumble with homemade vanilla bean ice cream and salted caramel sauce was indescribable. So, there you go. Worth every calorie eaten, and the second and third time too. Guilt free! We were meant to enjoy and give glory to God in eating. So we did.

 The kiddos exchanged gifts our last night there. The babies are sleeping.

 Act goofy:

On black Friday Erica took me shopping at Wal Mart. Sandra joined us and was a huge help with my three carts of stuff. We also went to the 'Cheese' shop so I could by cheese, bacon, and other specialty things that we don't get.

We went for a great meal that night and then got up and left on Saturday, after borrowing our friends' car topper for all of our stuff.
Even though Gabrielle cut two molars and had to be rocked for four hours one night, we had an incredibly blessed Thanksgiving trip reconnecting with our friends and watching our kiddos enjoy/make new friends. Thanks P family for welcoming us and blessing us so!

Thanksgiving Road Trip: part 1

We hit the road for Thanksgiving and traveled to visit some of our closest friends in a city about 5 hours north of us. The first hour of the drive the road is horrible and after that smooth sailing...and BEAUTIFUL. I never tire of these valley views. And then when you drive up. And up. And through the mountains, And down. His splendor is here.

David was an excellent driver. We borrowed a GPS from a friend that told us where traffic cameras were, hmm...helpful.

Still in the valley

The new road that will help the horrific first hour of huge trucks, blind curves and not much space.

Look at how high those mountains are!We are already pretty high, our city starts about 3,000ft, and ended up in a city at about 6,500ft.

Tobin and Bella sat in the back, played together some, colored and did great. The pic of Bella was blurry.

Soph was a huge help sitting next to Gabrielle who had a rough four days.

She is telling you why...my teeth mommy, my teeth!

We love tunnels! And there were many.

We did 30 minutes of CC review, listened to 'My Father's Dragon' for an hour, listened to our catechism songs and Story of the World. I tried to turn SOTW off, but got protests. Then we arrived after five hours and one less-than-ten minute stop for the restroom. The kids did great, and no one got car sick.