Catching Up on Christmas Activities

I have all these great pictures from the holiday festivities that I haven't shared yet, so that's what I will do in this post. Enjoy! We sure enjoyed making these memories!


The kids in our Sunday fellowship here put on a Christmas play for everyone; it was great! Joshua & Luke wanted to be shepherds, Micah was one of the wise men, and Mercy was baby Jesus. :-) We meant to take off her bow before the play, but oh well. It was very laid back and not a big deal, but all the kids had fun doing it. For the boys, we just bought some fabric and cut a hole for the head and tied it off at the waist. It was perfect! Mercy did a great job as the baby in the play, especially considering how all the kids (Joshua is the oldest one and there are 9 including Mercy) swarmed her as soon as we put her in the "manger". Her white blanket was meant to be her swaddling cloth. :-)



The holidays are not complete without the baking and decorating of the Christmas cookies. We decorated these and gave some to our neighbors. Everyone was impressed that our children could do such things. The first 3 pictures are of the decorating, and the second set of 3 are the boys after they enjoyed the fruit of their labors.

Time to eat some cookies!

Here we are doing some fun Christmas crafts. Thank you, Grandmother, for sending them!

These were taken after we opened some fun presents. Thanks to all our family members who sent gifts for them to open!

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Mercy Update

Hard to believe, but she's approaching 6 months old now! She's sitting up (with help) nicely, and enjoys rolling around on her blanket - or off her blanket. Her little hands are beginning to grab anything they get close to, so holding her while eating at the table has become dangerous. Two little bottom teeth have just this week made their grand appearance, and we're gearing up to start her on rice cereal soon. She even has her own IKEA high chair. :-) Despite attempts to distract her, she has become an avid thumb sucker of her left thumb. We'll see if that means she'll be left-handed or not. Her brothers continue to adore her and like to entertain her even more now that she's more interactive. Mercy's smile can light up the room, and we're convinced that she's the most beautiful baby girl in the universe. Her hair still seems reddish, but we think it's yet too soon to say if it will be a true "red", or "ginger" like our New Zealand friends say. Here are some pictures from the past couple of months...

Crazy Trip

It's been almost two months since we took this crazy trip out of the country to renew our tourist visas. I'm trying to catch up on here... First we took a 24 hour train ride, which was actually a good experience for everyone! The boys were totally stoked about riding a real train for the first time. We had our own room with 4 beds. Mercy slept with me and Luke & Micah slept at opposite ends of another bed. Daddy and Joshua got the two top bunks. It was after we got off the train that the real adventure seemed to begin as we navigated a new city's subway system with the whole family and one large suitcase. We were quite the sight, I'm sure. We were there one extra day before we had to make the trek back, so we decided to go to a Noah's Ark museum. It was pretty cool as the building was built to be the exact size of the real ark - it was huge! I'll include a few pictures of it below. Crossing the border on foot on our way back was actually the hardest part of the trip and we hope to never have to do that again. Then we flew a couple of hours to get back to our city, took the subway to get into downtown, and taxied back to our home. The craziness of it all made our 1 long overseas flight to get here seem like nothing! It's all about perspective after all...

Enjoy the pictures!

Edamame

Okay, this post is dedicated to Aunt Mandy who first introduced us to edamame (baby soybeans). :-) We can buy it fresh and cheap here, but today was the first day I actually cooked some myself. Yum! Anyway, Luke was calling it green beans, so I had to correct him and tell him it was edamame. He was like, "Eda-what?" And Micah's response was, "It's not eda-Micah. It's eda-Mommy!" At least he got it! He was also the only one of the boys who would eat it with me, but we're still working on that...

Late Night Chats with Daddy

Every night Daddy spends a few moments talking to each boy as he tucks them in. A couple of nights ago he had a great conversation with them that I just had to post about. First of all, you should know that recently they got the 1979 animated version of "The Lion,the Witch, and the Wardrobe", which they absolutely LOVE. Now, the boys are all about playing the roles of whatever story they are currently most interested in. So Luke and Daddy were discussing who in our family was each of the characters in the movie. Luke was saying he didn't want to be Edmund, that he wanted to be Peter. So Daddy said he didn't want to be Edmund either. Luke decided that Daddy should be Aslan. Then Joshua pipes in and says, "No, I think Daddy should be the Professor. Is that okay, Daddy?" Daddy agreed, to Joshua's delight because, not surprisingly, Joshua wanted to be Aslan. They decided that I should be Susan and Mercy should be Lucy. Then Daddy asked Micah if he wanted to be Edmund and he was like, sure, whatever. Then as Daddy and the two older boys continued talking, Micah must have thought about it and apparently changed his mind. He piped up and said, "Daddy, I don't want to be Edmund! Can I be Mickey Mouse instead?" After much giggling, Daddy said, "Sure, Micah, you can be Mickey Mouse."

Don't you love 2 year olds? I sure love mine!

MIA

So sorry that it's been such a long time since I've blogged. We're finally feeling settled in our new place and enjoying a good routine. I have several blogs floating around in my head that I really hope to get up here in the next few days. Today is my birthday and my plan was to spend the morning blogging, but I spent the morning sleeping instead. It was Daddy's birthday present to me. :-) For now I've got some celebrating to do, but hopefully you'll hear from me soon! Here's one picture to tide you over...

3 Months Old!

Mercy turned 3 months old on the 19th. Here is her photo shoot from that day with a few extras thrown in there. I've had to put 6 month clothing on her because it got cold so fast and all her long sleeve stuff is either 6 or 9 months. She fits into the 6 months fine, though, so it works. Enjoy the pictures!