A Very UN-Ordinary Two Weeks

We started off by picking Katherine up early from school.  She has been working hard for months to stop sucking her fingers when she sleeps.  Her reward was to have lunch with Mommy and then I would take her shopping to buy a special surprise.  She chose to eat at Subway and made herself very comfortable. :)  She ate an entire 6 inch Subway Melt, plus the chips and a drink!  She chose to buy a Hello Kitty necklace, a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt. 

Ayi fixed Hot Pot for us.  It was actually very good.  The water boils in the middle of the table and you cook a little food, eat it, cook a little more, eat it, etc. 
Soon afterwards (2 days maybe) is when Regan developed a rash on her back.  We still don't know what it was that she was allergic to, if it was something she ate or just came in contact with.

We had a wonderful time babysitting this little girl for two whole days!  She was absolutely adorable!  Some of the comments when we went out were funny, too.  I had at least one person tell me that she didn't look as much like me as Katherine did, and one person that asked if we adopted her, and one that asked if I dyed Katherine's hair because my youngest had black hair.  It was quite interesting.

She was great to have around and all the kids "fought" over her.  Lauren enjoyed getting to play the role of "big sister" for two days. 

Here is our final thankful tree.  In the midst of everything, we managed to have two with pink eye, one with a 105 fever, one with allergic reaction, and two with hand foot and mouth disease (some kids overlap).  Needless to say, one of our thankful leaves was for Doctors.  By the way, please ignore all clothing choices in this picture :) 

We also had Thanksgiving!!  What fun to have some American food and a TURKEY!  (We did not think we would be able to find one this year, but we did....I was soooo happy)  When I went to pick up the turkey, there were 14 workers there checking out the turkey.  I got to the counter and said, "I am here to pick up..."  I got cut off by several people saying, "She's here for the turkey.  She's picking up the turkey."

This is the group that came over to celebrate with us.  We had such a good time and are so thankful for the many friends God has given us here.

This is one of Jonathan's friends that comes over sometimes to help him with his language. 

Since everyone was still recovering from illnesses and our late night Thanksgiving dinner, we decided to take Friday off for everyone and do some Christmas decorating!  The kids were so excited!  Lauren was my little helper to make sure that lights did not get tangled.

The kids had fun putting on their ornaments. 

 

This year, Katherine got to put the star on the top of the tree. 

Regan posing next to her favorite ornament...baby Kung Fu panda.

Ayi enjoyed seeing all the decorations going up. 

Benjamin in the Santa hat ;)

Lauren in the Santa hat

Lauren decided that Mommy neededd to wear the hat as well.

Not long after the tree was up, the first present showed up under the tree. 

Oh-it's Katherine under the tree! :)
So that has been an overview of our past 2 weeks.  We are on the mend, but still have some sick ones in out house.  Hopefully, all we be better next week!!!

An Ordinary Week

 Well, I had another kid draw a picture and write their name...yep, this time it was Lauren.  She wrote her name in characters and then drew and L for Lauren and drew a curly headed stick figure :)  I love it.  By the time she is 4, she will probably be writing more characters than me! ;)

 We had some friends come over to play on Saturday.  They said they would come over in the morning (and in our past experiences with people that meant about 10:00am).  They brought their breakfast over and apologized for being late.  I'm glad I was dressed :)

 Benjamin love the youngest girl and she liked him, too.  She kept wanting to get in this little bridge but could not do it herself, so Benjamin kept carrying her to the top.  It was really sweet.

 Lauren enjoyed swinging with her doll.

 Oh, we did see some sort of skate club rollerblading through the city.  There were at least 200 of them....the line of them went on and on and on.  It inspired the kids and they all went home to get their skates on, too.

 Regan gave her first presentation this week.  She is learning American history this year, so I told her that she needed to make a poster and write a short story about Thanksgiving.  She presented it to us and did a good job.  I video taped it, too. 

 I stole this idea from my friend, Jenny Moore.  I thought it was a great idea and the kids have loved doing it and I love explaining to EVERYBODY that comes to our home why we have a tree on the door!  I can't wait until it is complete on Thanksgiving day.  It should be full of many thankful leaves. (everyone gets to put a new leaf on each day)

 I love that the weather is sometimes in the 70's now.  It means that the kids are all in their fall/winter uniforms.  I think they are extra cute wearing warm-up suits everyday....especially when you see hundreds of other little ones just like them.  This is a little girl in Katherine's class.  They wanted to walk to class together.

Katherine was very excited to have this shirt to wear!  I believe it was a shirt that her class wore last year for the end of school performance, but Katherine was no there.  Because all the kids are the same, they just pick a day randomly and ALL wear the shirt.  Katherine was so sad that she didn't match her classmates on those days, so her teachers bought her a shirt to match.  I had to pay them back, but that was fine with me.  She does so well at the school.  I am really proud of her and all the kids!

Girl's Time

Regan and I took a trip this past week.  It was just the two of us.  Jonathan watched the others at home.  I met up with some other foreign ladies for a few days of relaxation and I dropped Regan off at her very good friend's house.  She has been looking forward to this week for a while.  This family moved the same time we did and so we have been planning how to get these girls back together.  We both had a wonderful time!

 This was our first day there.   You could not separate these two!  I'm so glad that she has been able to have such a good friend over here. 

 One of the gates of the city.

 The city we went to relax has quite a few foreigners there.  Regan and I were sooooo excited to find special western treats there (many that we have not seen in this country before)  So for breakfast, we went out for coffee/hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls.  YUM!  They were excellent!

 I opted for the cinnamon roll but my friend was adventurous and got the green tea cheese cake.  There is just something about green tea and cheese cake that just don't sound right :)  but you would be so proud...I DID try it and it was not bad at all.  When Jonathan saw the picture, he first thought the camera messed up the exposure. ha!

 We went shopping and had a great time bargaining for things.  I thought this picture was funny because I saw it and thought how crowded it was, but while I was there I did not even one time feel crowded or like there were a lot of people around.  I guess I have officially adjusted to the culture!  When we come back to the States I will probably be thinking "Where is everybody?" 

 The girls bought "friendship cowgirl hats"  They got a great deal on them, too!  If you ever want a good price on something, you should get a kid to do the bargaining.  I don't think they can turn them down.

 This was a sign at our hotel.  I'm still not sure what they were REALLY trying to say, but I think we weren't supposed to walk in the grass.  The sign says "Under the grass urge foot remains blue" hmmmm.  maybe they used google translate ;)

 On the way back home, the plane served us a snack.  I got a kick out of it....a black vacuum sealed egg, and a muffin (I think similar to cornbread) wrapped in a Merry Christmas wrapper.  No, I did not eat the egg.  I still can't bring myself to eat eggs that are black and have the name of "million year old egg."

 I was so excited to get home to see Jonathan and the kids only to find my son locked in my bedroom.  We managed to take the handle and lock off but still could not get him out.  We had a good conversation through the hole in the door though!

 The locksmith finally arrived and after about 30 minutes Benjamin was rescued.  I did feel much better that the locksmith had a hard time getting in.  He broke the lock into MANY little pieces and said he could come back the next day to replace it.

 It was also Halloween, so the kids all dressed up as Daddy.  It was so so so cute to see them walking all over the house like that. 

 The next day, the kids went to a baseball birthday party.  I think I had as much fun or possibly more fun that the kids did. 

This was Katherine's first time ever to play.  She did pretty good and even got a hit!  So that about covers our last several days.