Chinese New Year--Year of the Pig

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

or as we in the USA say it, Gung Hay Fat Choy! We celebrated with our Families with Children from China group Saturday by going out to eat at, you guessed it, a Chinese restaurant! There are at least 23 families in this area with children from China, Taiwan and Thailand--that many belong to this group, and most of us met on Saturday. It is an amazing number when you consider the population of this Quad-City area is rather small.

Here are a few photos of the day: Most of the girls looking in the same direction for their group photo. Luci is standing in the middle. We tried and tried to get her to sit down, but she kept popping up.
Luci with her fan. One of the moms gave the kids a present of a little Chinese bag, a red envelope with candy and plastic coins, and a fan.

Kathy and her daughter, Kalyn. Beautiful Kalyn is the newest member of our FCC group. Kathy and Greg went to China in November for Kalyn. Luci and I have become fast friends with this mommy and daughter.
Another try at the girls' photo.
Bryan kept me on my toes. He loves to show off by eating sushi.
JT enjoyed his lunch! He tried the sushi, too, but didn't enjoy it as much as big brother.

Luci tried jello for the first time. (Sorry, Feingold friends! I need to find some jello without artificial colors and flavors.) I was happy that she liked it. She usually does not like anything that is different in texture, temperature or flavor.

Luci with her red envelope--another mom gave each child a red envelope with money in it, a true Chinese tradition that even American children love. Luci can't seem to find her dollar--it is under her skirt.

Growing Pains

Luci has moved on up in the world...well, she's moved on up at the dinner table, anyway. We removed her high chair tray and she is now enjoying being a real part of the "family table."

We still have an area that is not progressing well, and that is sleeping through the night. I guess that is the "pains" part of today's story. Luci had slept through the night 4 or 5 times before we left our old house. Some of that might have been due to her sleeping in our bedroom (in her own crib), where I could whisper, "hush, it's all right, you can sleep." In the apartment, she did not sleep through the night even once. Part of that might have been because her cries would wake more than just John and me, she might wake others in 3 apartments, so I would respond to the noise she made more quickly by picking her up.

Now we are in the house, and have been for almost 3 months now. Luci has only slept through the night once (and what a nice thing that was!) but we are waiting for more. Many families with children from China report that one of the parents ends up sleeping in the child's room, on the floor. So that is where I am sleeping now. Last night we moved the mattress from Bryan's trundle bed into Luci's room (it is a tight squeeze with both of the beds!) and Luci was only up once. Once is better than twice, which is the normal thing here. I am tired, and this is the latest in the quest for 1: for Luci to sleep through the night, and 2: for me to get enough sleep to make it through the next day feeling sane. (Which leads to 3: a happier family!)

School Days

People are always curious about what we do when we homeschool--so here is a glimpse.

JT does, well, schoolwork!


Luci does whatever she can get away with. Here she is looking out the front door's window. If you can tell me what my camera did to this photo, and how to fix it, I would appreciate it. Don't know why it does that occasionally.


Luci found some table items--a cloth napkin is on her head and the netting is a "keep bugs away" item a lady in Zimbabwe made for me. (The lady was a World Bible School student of mine. A group from our church went to Zimbabwe and this lady, Saziso, gave the cloth to one of the ladies to bring to me. I love it!) This is also another one of Luci's "take my picture!" photos.
No, I don't make Luci dust mop. She loves doing it! She found one of JT's slippers to wear with one of her own. When I looked at this picture while putting it on a CD, I was very happy to notice NO dust bunnies in the background. One of the things I don't do very well when homeschooling is housework. So, no dust bunnies is a very nice surprise. (And, no, I don't think Luci did such a fantastic job that she got the dust bunnies herself.)


If you can't find Luci, look in the cabinets.

Or, look for her emptying the cabinets. This is one of my favorite parts of this new house (one of many favorites, actually)--a pantry closet very close to the kitchen. John wondered why I wanted shelving in the coat closet, but every woman who has seen it has loved it.

And here is Bryan, already done with today's lessons. I'm lucky to get a shot of him in something other than pajamas. Bryan loves telling folks that his favorite thing about homeschooling is going to school in his pajamas.

Karate and Chopsticks

JT had another Tang Soo Do test last Saturday. He did very well. Here he is waiting his turn for testing with Tyler, a friend from class. Tyler and JT broke boards with their elbows! On the first try! Tyler's mom and I were both impressed with our boys. There are 4 kids in their karate class, all of whom are homeschooled. The benefits that I like best are that we get to have P.E. early in the day (the afternoon class would mess up supper-time twice a week) and the kids are learning alongside adults, which makes them work harder to keep up.

Luci paid such close attention (ha!) to her big brother as he tested in karate! For some reason only known to her, she loved that yellow line.
And the Chopsticks!!

Luci found a pair of chopsticks in the silverware drawer the other day. I showed her how to use them, and she went to work. Luci picked up a raisin correctly and put it into her mouth, without dropping it! Here she shows how to pick up Cheerios.

Smart Girl!

Thank You!!

Mom and Dad sent this dress for Luci's birthday and now it fits perfectly! Thank you, Mom and Dad.
And thank you for TMX Elmo!! Hilarious!

I had to put this one on the blog--it is titled, "I love me!"

Take My Picture!

We hear that all the time, mostly from Luci. Here are a few from this week: When she's grown up, she won't believe she was ever this small.
No, Luci doesn't need to go to the dentist. She is eating hard-boiled egg.
I guess Luci thought she was invisible.

This one is JT, in the same box Luci was sitting in in that first photo.
Bryan. Acting like ? ? ? I'm not sure. He's 14, what can I tell you?
Not sure what her headgear is, but take the picture!
Movie star. The binky has Chinese on it! I think it says, "sweetheart."
Luci climbed in bed by herself and lined up her "babies."
This is from the snow last Friday. I think Luci looks like an Eskimo!
JT, in the snow. It is snowing again today, too! 3 times in one year. Of course, if you added up all the snowfalls into one, they'd almost be 2 inches total. Not much, but it is exciting for us.

CIMMA-LELLA!

If you didn't know, that is "Cinderella" in Luci-talk. She loves all the Disney princesses, and Cinderella is the current favorite. We have a DVD player in the car and the road to town is a long one, so we have the movies going most of the time. Okay, ALL of the time. Usually it is one DVD played again and again until we get really sick of it, and can quote the entire movie. Cinderella is the one we are memorizing now. 2 year olds don't mind repetition--Luci is no exception.

When Cinderella is transformed into a beauty when the Grand Duke puts the slipper on Cinderella near the end of the movie, Luci can stop traffic with her screams of "CIMMA-LELLA!" It is so funny! The boys rewind the DVD (can you rewind a DVD??) over and over just to hear her.

Our very own Princess Luci, in her Cinderella ballgown.

Some Disney Magic

We met three people on our cruise that really added to the magic of Disney. Each of them worked hard at helping us all have fun. Martina, our assistant server, is from Slovakia. She is adorable. She got JT to dance on Pirate Night. (Ask John about the kiss he got from her on the last night!!) Teodor wowed JT with a magic trick. Teodor, our server, is from Bulgaria (Laura, you would have liked this guy! really cute!). He is showing JT how to balance forks on toothpicks.

And Geronimo, from the Philippines (I didn't get a shot of him--picture a big, strong guy with a shaved head), was our room attendant. He made towel animals for us each night, and decorated them with our glasses and sunglasses. He also left some really good chocolate that you had to fight Luci for. Guess what each one is--I'll write the name of the animal below each picture.

Seal

Snake

Peacock

Luci --oh, sorry, guess what the animal is again. A side shot below gives you a clue.

Dachshund

Elephant

Monkey
Okay, so this one is not a towel animal. It was on the breakfast bar, and so pretty that I had to take a picture. Have you figured out what it is yet? It's a watermelon!

SNOW DAY!!

Yes, our meager snow deserves capital letters. We got a good dusting, almost an inch of snow overnight. It had already started to melt by the time we got up at 6:30. JT hurried out by 7 am and tried his snowboard down our hill. He had some help from Pal, our yellow Lab. It is kind of dark in the photo because it was so early in the morning! It was pretty exciting. We got about this much snow last year, and none the two years before that, so we take advantage of it all that we can. Luci even got out early on the deck. She thought it was pretty thrilling, too. Notice her shoes, she put them on all by herself.
JT wanted you to see this shot he took of the deck.
Here's our house! (Cool! The grass is peeping up through the snow--that's what John and the boys put out last month.) Can you believe our county cancelled school for today because of this little bit of snow? People here tend to freak out whenever the weatherman mentions "winter precipitation." I am betting the school board is kicking themselves right about now (9:45 am) because it is now in the upper 30's, and everything is melting fast. It would have made more sense to just start classes late. Of course, the boys are pretty miffed that, as homeschoolers, they can ALWAYS make it to class! We are having class today. Bummer, Mom!
Just had to include this one of the boys working together, and harmoniously, at that!