A pet what????

Just a few weeks ago we were walking home from having lunch with friends and saw this man with rats on a leash.  Actually they were just tied with a string to the top part of the rats jaw.  I have NO idea what people may buy these for... we'll just have to wonder about the possibilities.  Hmmm?!!!

Preparations for Chinese New Year

Sometimes the sheer volume of where we live drives me crazy- cars honking, salesmen with megaphones, people everywhere...  but one thing I love about our location- we get to see all kinds of cool things on a daily basis.  The most recent happenings- preparations for Chinese New Year.  About a month ago they began with the decorations.  The light every and anything that is green- bushes, trees, grass... it is beautiful.  I need to go out at night and get some photos but this is one I took the other day after picking the girls up from Chinese Kindergarten (it happened to be there last day before their month long vacation for Chinese New Year).  

The only thing about the tree lighting that I wince at- the cluster of lights plugged into multiple extension cord which are plugged into each other at the base of the tree.  It's kind of hard to see here but can you see the yellow and green tape (just to the right of the center of the photo) wrapped around the connecting plugs of about 6 strands of lights?  There are dozens and dozens of such connections on each tree.  Some are wrapped in sandwich bags, I would guess to protect from the elements.  But the balls of lights at the base of the tree are just screaming "HAZARD" to me.

On the same day that I took the above pictures there was a group of ladies practicing for Chinese New Year Celebration.  These ladies are part of a Drumming Group that practices outside each morning (at least week days for sure).  They either hold flags, cymbals or drums and play and dance in a synchronized fashion. We love to watch them.  Anyhow, for the New Year they put down the drums and picked up a dragon.  This group is coordinating about 4-6 dragons in their presentation.  Another little glimpse into life here.  *** Warning- turn down the volume on your computer- I was standing right next to a drum and a cymbal- it's quite noisy***

Smallest Restaurant Ever?

Just last night Chris & I went out on a date to an Italian Restaurant that folks have been raving about.  Our friend Caroline volunteered to watch the kids for us and we headed out to the subway with our little "Date Invader" in tow (AKA- Jedidiah :).  We had to transfer lines to get there and do a little searching but we found the restaurant that we had been hearing so much about.  We had an appetizer of chicken fingers (15 kuai about $2), apple/ chicken salad ($2), pizza ($3.80) and pasta (I forget how much that cost), a sprite and water.  The portions were smaller but perfect.  We were able to get all these dishes and share them for under $15.  We left FULL and delighted.  The food was AMAZING- authentic and delicious.  Below is a picture of this amazing and super TINY restaurant.  It has seating available for eight people. Yes 8!  They have plans to move to a larger location at the end of the month and we're hopeful that this means it will stick around for years to come.  Good Western Food (that is not fast food like McDonalds) is a RARE find here.  We both agreed that this is the best food that we've had in our city over the last 2 1/2 years.  YIPPY for a good find!

Chris & Jed stand in front of the little divider that separates us from the "kitchen".  You can see the owner working at the oven behind the counter.  

There is quite a bit of glare but hopefully you can see the four tables (with 2 stools by each table) which makes up the seating for 8.  :)  We both laughed at the thought of taking our whole family to eat here- we'd take up more than 1/2 the seating.  hee hee!

Christmas 2011

The following pictures are from the month of December.  They are in no certain order but glimpses into our last month's activities.

The four kiddos in their Christmas Eve PJ's from Grandmom.  Actually Jedi had a more Christmas type of PJ but our dryer was on the fritz and after hanging for quite some time they still weren't dry.  We went for a set of PJ's that matched the big brother.  

For each of my kiddos I've tried to do professional baby shots at 3,6,9 and 12 months.  Well, living in this culture and having professional pictures taken, that are similar to my taste, is not always an easy task.  I usually prefer a simple background- white or black.  I prefer few to no props.  In previous years I've had to plead with the national photographers to please leave out the cow print backdrop or ask them to stop shaking the tambourine in the baby's face- "it only makes them cry louder".  Chris encouraged me to just try it at home by ourselves.  Well, this year I enjoyed a quiet photo shoot at home with Jedi.  A friend watched the older kids for couple of hours, I cranked up the heat in the living room, took him down to one layer of clothes and took tons of pictures.  It was nice to not have a gazillion people watch our photo shoot, which usually happened in the photo studios where we previously went and never proved helpful in getting the babies to relax.   Having a quiet setting at home was great to get some of Jed's natural smiles.  Here (and the last picture from the month) are two of my favorite 3 month pictures of Jedidiah (no, I can't make up my mind what I will call the poor boy- I use every variation of his name that I can think of :).

Below is our family's Christmas picture this year.  Chris- with crazy goatee (which he recently groomed per my request :).  Karen- short hair (first time in 8+ years).  CJ- 8 3/4 years. Miriam- 6 years. Eliza- 4 years.  Jed- 3 months.

CJ helping decorate Christmas Tree cookies.  Before we made the cookies I told the children they could eat 2 for snack.  While the kiddos decorated I turned and saw Eliza (not remembering the protocol for cookie making) was eating the raw cookie dough with decorations off the tray.  I told her we needed to wait till they were cooked and she replied with an "Oops!  I forgot!"

Three new friends that we've met November and December.  They were a few of the students that came to our house to learn more of how our family celebrates Christmas.

Chris' Cultural Exchange business hosted 12 American students for 2 weeks in China, this December.  During their time in our city they visited our home and participated in the above mentioned Christmas party and other activities.  Here is a picture (l-r) of one of the American visitors, Miriam, Bunny and Eliza as they played a Christmas game that is similar to "Hot Potato".  I don't think Eliza wanted to give up the loot.

CJ and Mama- holding a vase that CJ had bought me for Christmas.  This year CJ has been working diligently to earn money by doing various tasks around the house.  It was so sweet to see him plan on how he would spend his hard earned money to buy gifts for his sisters and parents (he told me Jed was too little to get anything this year :).  He bought Miriam and Eliza purses made by a minority group in China, he made Chris a gift certificate good for 10- ten minute back scratches and 3 bottles of coke.  He KNOWS his Daddy well.  After a few days he informed his Daddy that a ten minute back scratch was too long and should be 7 minutes instead.  Hee!  And for me- a cute little vase.  He was having a hard time keeping it a secret.  He kept telling me that he bought me something glass and it started with the letter "v".  

Christmas day was a whirlwind but such a blessing!  After waking the boys for Christmas morning and feeding Jed, we read the Christmas story from the Bible together.  We then proceeded to open presents (with one of our American friends joining us).  At 2:00 we swapped presents with American friends that live in the area and at 3:00 the American Cultural Exchange Students joined us for the rest of Christmas day.  We ate and ate and ate.  Read the Christmas story together (CJ and Eliza helped in narrating parts that they memorized from the Luke 2) and sang carols.  What a wonderful way to celebrate.  

 Life in our home was too hectic before Christmas to manage a Ginger Bread House but we were able to pull it off in the days that followed.  I have made ginger bread cookies before but never a house from scratch.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and everyone LOVED it.  They are actually still loving it (still picking treats off the house).  I think it will become a tradition in our home, along with Christmas caroling in China.  This year was the first time for us to do both of these and I loved it.  We only sang in a few locations but it was warmly received and was a great opportunity for us to build a relationship with those around us and to give a small gift of a meaningful Christmas card and a candy cane.

Here's our Ginger Bread House- notice some imported candies on our house- Good and Plenty (only Miriam and I enjoy these, we have Oma's taste for licorice) and candy canes.  Yum!

Sweet Eliza- she always loves posing for pictures!

Miriam poking cloves into an orange.   The idea for this activity we got from a devotional book we were reading during Advent this year.  Doing this activity, and smelling the aroma of the cloves and oranges in days to follow, was to help us remember the aromatic gifts that were given to baby Jesus by the wise men.     

Oh my- what can I say about this boy- "Sweetness"!  This Christmas, having a new born in the house, I thoroughly enjoyed my life full of blessings.  It seemed more hectic than normal and a bit more difficult to accomplish the tasks that I had before me, as I tried to balance his feeding schedule with all our other tasks but it was such a blessing to look into Jedidiah's face, especially in a quiet home during our late night feedings, and meditate on my readings in the first few chapters of Luke.  I sat and tried to envision what it was like for Mary as she held Jesus and I remembered the many occasions of worship of our Most High God that took place in those early chapters of Luke.  Mary worshiped: Luke 1:46 "And Mary said: 'My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...".   Zechariah worshiped: Luke 1:67 "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,..."  The heavenly hosts worshiped in Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven..."  The shepherds worshiped in Luke 2:20 "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God..." I'm overwhelmed with thankfulness at the gift of this sweet boy (as well as my others, of course).  I'm overwhelmed at the gift of my Savior, God's own son, that he willing sent to the world.  It was a meaningful Christmas and I'm thankful!