Chinese New Year:

To Celebrate or Not To Celebrate?

Well, our eldest daughter Chloe, who is now 11 and has probably outgrown this “belief,” declared when she was about 5 years old (much to the surprise of the teacher she announced this to), that she was adopted from China.  From that time on, she has insisted on celebrating Chinese New Year- to honor the “place of her birth.” Although Chloe is not truly adopted from China, we have humored her for years by celebrating Chinese New Year annually.

 The Lunar New Year is truly an important cultural tradition to the Chinese and is a time for family reunions. It is a traditional custom for close knit Chinese families to get together for a special Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner.  During this time, Chinese Christians give thanks for the bountiful blessings they have received in the past year and also ask the Lord to bless them for the coming year. This is one of the reasons why Chinese Christians celebrate their New Year -because it can strengthen their faith together in the One True God.  

In our family, we order yummy food from “The Dragon Treasure Restaurant,” and spend time together after a prayer for our meal, eating, playing games, and doing Chinese crafts.  This year we’ve added eating theme based cookies the tradition-due to my new cooking decorating hobby.  It’s overall just a fun time for us, spending time together and appreciating a culture other than our own a bit.

Chinese culture is also full of folklore, according to one of these stories:

Once upon a time,12 animals competed in a big race across a river. The rat jumped on the back of the kindhearted ox, who saw no problem giving the little guy a lift from one riverbank to the other. But as they neared the finish line — ahead of the others — the rat jumped off the ox and snatched first place. The ox came in a close second. The Year of the Rat is, then, the first on the Chinese calendar, followed by the Year of the Ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, & pig... based on the order in which the creatures finished the race. 

This Year, a 15 day celebration begins on Saturday, January 28^th & marks the Year of the Rooster. For thousands of years, roosters have been viewed “as in charge of time, because the rooster wakes up the day.” The rooster is also symbolic of hard work and diligence— always the first one up, with energy to take on a new day. 

Although there are some aspects related to the Lunar Calendar and Chinese New Year that are not desirable as Christians, there are some fun cultural pieces that we can choose to focus on if celebrating this holiday.  This year: working hard and diligently (like the rooster) is a great goal for anyone to focus on!  (Notice: I did not say always being the first one up or waking everyone else up!) 😴😴😴😴

So...really..............I do like to blog

It's just that keeping up with my 3 children 

barely allows me time to breathe, yet alone do anything productive.......

but I really do like to blog.

And since it's the last day of school, 

and quite possibly my last day of sanity for a few months

(or more realistically years...) I'm going to indulge.

We survived another school year, 
or two, as I see it has been 2 years since the last posting...
and I should probably clarify that by saying we barely survived....

This is how the last a.m. of school this year played out....

I may have hit the snooze once, ok twice...

Dragged myself out of bed....so tired!

(The only thing I really want to do this summer is SLEEP.
If you have summer plans that do not involve sleeping, please count me out.)

Sammy was already up and telling RyDaddy every 60 seconds,

"Come on, we need to go, you need to take me to preschool now!  

Swimming day is starting...."

Keep in mind it's barely 6:30 a.m. at this point and 45 degrees outside.

8:30 a.m....
the bus driver had to knock on our door to see if Chloe 
was going to school on her last day....
"Yes, yes, she is almost on her way out the door...." 
She was running late too.....her email wouldn't send, 
Chloe insisted this email needed to be sent this a.m.....
even when I told her I was pretty certain her email could read whenever it got there, Chloe insisted the password needed reset right then and there 
because she forgot her password....etc...
Finally got her out the door, with a bit of reminiscing.....

First Day of Kindergarten

Last Day of Elementary School:her bus driver Mr.Jack
is seriously the sweetest bus driver in the world!

Snapped a couple quick picks of K-Rae and me
before heading off to walk her to her last day of third grade.....
we didn't make it too far on our walk before I noticed
a diligent neighbor mom spraying sunblock all over her son for field day.
I must have had that "Should I turn around and go back home 

or just let her get a lot of vitamin D at field day today?" look 

as she shouted out to us....

"Want me to spray Kelsie too?!"  Yes, yes, that would be super!  

At least I thought so....more like WWIII trying to get the sunblock on K-Rae, 

but we can say we made an effort anyhow.

I.survived.another.school.year.

I felt better about our craziness after seeing a mom walking out of the school after borrowing a large utility broom-- 

she was going back to a large tree to knock her daughter's lunchbox down.... 

her daughter had decided to toss it up there on their way to school! 

Most likely a kindergarten mom....

you do those kinds of things for kindergartners....

any age after that, I think you just say, 

"Sorry you're going to be hungry today!"  

Although I'm the mom that walks into school with my third grader 

to search lost and found for the missing jacket that was worn once 

and has since disappeared.  

It was not there,

which means:

A. It is lost for good.

B. It is in her room, and basically lost.for.good.

In the mean time..I now have a few minutes to go through "the pile..." 

which has overflowed from the dedicated "pile space" on the kitchen counter 

to the dining room.

This has all been hauled home by my children from school this week
Seriously teachers....we love you, but FOR THE LOVE!"
What am I supposed to do with all this stuff?  

I did find some cute things in the pile though.......

Awwwww.....

K-Rae self portrait...love....

K-Rae's poem....so much said in a few lines....
sigh....the "sibling of Chloe" part tugs at my heart strings....
notice not "sibling of Chloe & Sammy"....
Yes, so much of our lives revolves around Chloe and her significant needs....
and I know how K-Rae feels a little bit...
I'm pretty much known as "Mom of Chloe" in our community....

Sweet note from Sammy's teacher

Sammy's self portrait probably sums up best how well we've survived this school year!

Cheers to summer and.....

What's he talkin' about?

So......my darling, 

loving hubby 

sent me a private Facebook message a few days ago, 

a link with a "wink."  

I didn't know you could send such a thing, 

and I got so excited to get a private FB message from him---

with a wink none the less!!!! 

 And then, I read it......

 I'm still trying to figure out how to take that message!

And I'm still trying to figure out what in the world he's talking about!
(at least that "you'll come home to a spotless house part!")

 Yes, that's a rag doll with a bronchitis reading a book on the couch back there.....

And although the house may look like a tornado recently hit, 

that tornado's name is "Sammy," 

and he is learning to make paracord survival bracelets at a very young age.....

an important skill for a two-year-old to know!

Thank you for the FaceTime lesson Sampa---

that nearly ended in disaster several times during the session,

with this second bracelet yet to be finished still!

 The Prims are going to be styling this year.....

 A few other summer "creative" projects.....

K-Rae is becoming quite the little creative genius herself, 

and making all kinds of fun sewing projects....

 Fingernail painting is one of my favorite past times.....

well, at least I'm learning to like it 

since I have two little girls that insist on it quite frequently! 

 A first grade class at the girls' school got some pretty cool chair bags, 

that may have been completed at 1:00 a.m. the night before Open House...

 A fun project K-Rae helped me put together.....a Bride Survival kit for Auntie Kara......

(some items may have been added to the kit after the picture for certain reasons, like me wanting to remain a Prims' teacher....)

 Oh yes, and the other wedding projects.......

And look how cute this lil' guy looked in that onesie....

 And my little sister is one amazing lil' mama,

 that managed to pull-off hosting a wedding at her house---

for our beautiful littlest sister

just 3 mos. after lil' premie baby Henny (as Sammy fondly calls him!) was born!

Maybe I can do a wedding blog soon---

I don't want to spoil  too many surprises with pics before Kara gets to share them first though---

but it was quite the amazingly beautiful event!  

And way back to a Memorial Day craft, 

for our dear sweet neighbor friend, a widow of a Veteran.

 Yes, yes....I do enjoy crafting and creating....

and not so much the house cleaning part......

And I'm still waiting for all my kids to learn to get out of their own jammies and dressed!  

A novel idea!  

(Lil' Miss Mae, who is home from church "sick," is reading along while I'm typing this and laughing her head off!)

And I still have high hopes she'll continue to practice getting herself dressed, 

so I can have more time to craft and create more messes! 

(I mean so I can have more time to clean our house!) 

Now she's off to her bedroom---and it sounds like another tornado is going through our house 

with all the dresser drawers opening and slamming! We'll see what she comes up with to wear! 

H

Back to School 2014

Well, school started in the middle of summer for us this year.  

I don't think any of us were quite ready for that, 

but Sammy was excited to start preschool for the first time!  

Here are some pics from his Open House night, 

and he still calls his preschool "my open house" when he talks about it!

And Sammy is learning his colors....Me: "What color is your shirt?" Sammy: "Orange." 

Me: "What color is Elmo?" Sammy: "Red."  Me: "What color is your elephant?" Sammy: "Cute!"

 And a few more pics from the first week back to school....

 K-Rae has gone for the "cheetah" look for second grade. 

Chloe is a classic school girl for fourth grade, which she calls her "funnest year ever!"

 

 (and we're on day 8 of second grade for her, and K-Rae is still dressing like a cheetah each day!....)

Spring 2014 MPact Award Video

Highlighting Victory Life Wed. Night Kids' Clubs... There is sound, and you may need to click a couple of times for it to play slideshow.

Slideshow created with Smilebox