resemblance

I haven't done this in a while - look at pictures of Lizzy when she was Hayden's age now. The resemblance is uncanny.

Hayden's presents

Some people were mortified that I didn't get Hayden any presents last year. But he was more then compensated this year. Here's a sample of his gifts:
Pixar Cars car track

Transformers - little bitty guys that actually transform

Little transformer robot action figures

big gawdy car track (Mommy bought this)

and a car wash

Not pictured are all the cars that go with these gifts. Lizzy commented that Hayden got a lot of boy toys. Indeed.

Lizzy's presents

As usual, grandparents and other loved ones have gone overboard with the kids and Christmas presents. Here are a sample of their gifts this year
Dress up clothes:

Jellious' outfits


Doll plus accessories (note the summer theme, Mom bought these on sale during the summer...)

Movies, clothes, books, and much much more. Thank you everybody, we will try very hard to teach Lizzy to be a grateful girl for all that she's been blessed with.

Christmas Morning

There's two ways to look at it. The "half empty glass" approach is: this Christmas sucks big time because both the kids ran fevers on Christmas Eve and are both coughing and miserable on Christmas day, and therefore Mommy had a very hard time getting both to cooperate for a good picture". The "half full glass" approach is: praise God it's Christmas Day and added some wonderful delight to the children's otherwise miserable day. Here's a picture of them on Christmas morning:

Here's the fun part - tearing open of presents

After presents, we went out for breakfast at the Sheraton. The kids were so sick they didn't eat much, but Mommy had two helpings of delicious omelet made by the chef. :)

Merry Christmas - from the children

Jungle Snow Pants

I bought Hayden these Jungle themed snow pants. In China, we spend a lot more time outside (waiting for busses, walking to a taxi point, etc.), so it is essential to keep one's legs warm. Most of the time he looks real cute in them because he has it on over his regular pants, and then wears his blue down coat, with matching orange hat. But this day, he was wearing overalls, and hmmm...something just didn't look quite right. I'm adding this picture to my collection of pictures to embarrass Hayden by on his wedding day.

Ding Tai Feng

A really good Tang Bao (soup bun) restaurant opened up just down the road from our home. I've been looking forward to it since they've been remodeling the restaurant. Finally, one day after church, Lizzy and I went. Since my only companion was a 4 year old, I had to ask her to take a picture of me - not the best angle of me, I must say, but it'll do to comemorate our first visit.

Here she is with the pretty Christmas lights in the restaurant.

The food - very good.

Mighty Day

Busy Christmas

This past weekend was crazy busy with Christmas festivities. Lizzy was in a musical with her school Friday night, "Christmas in Egypt", so here she is dressed in her costume,

And here she is on stage, far right


Then on Saturday, she was in a play called "Tale of the Three Trees", and she performed with some other kids in the disabled children Christmas concert, here they are backstage watching the show

And here are the three trees

I didn't take any pictures of the 3 trees on stage because I was too busy directing the kids from backstage.
Then on Sunday, Lizzy was on stage AGAIN, at church singing Christmas songs.

This was hilarious because the boy next to her started making funny faces. The audience started laughing and Lizzy thought they were laughing at her so she pouted the entire time. Also, the lights bothered her so much, she started tearing up and rubbing her eyes. It was pretty dismal.

So this was our so very busy weekend, in between all the plays and performances, we also had a Christmas party and a meeting in our home. During our Christmas party, a couple of our associates sang this song, and I just wanted to share it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1oHJR2g7Tw

This song is a very pretty song, but also meaningful because it fills us with thanksgiving for our God who entered into our world as a baby boy to deliver us. Our kids are still young, but we pray that they will always celebrate Christmas with a knowledge that Jesus is the reason we do all that we do. That all our meetings and parties are to honor Him for what He has done for us.

Casual Chic

The tie has little red trains on it - so cute.

Sickie Hayden

Finally feeling a little better. Here are some pictures of Hayden this past week suffering from his stomach bug...




uh-oh, I'm gonna hurl

Another Chinese song

Sorry the lighting was so bad, but Lizzy didn't want to re do it. For non Chinese speakers, the words to the song is:

5 little monkeys swinging, laughing at the crocodile for being under the water
crocodile comes to get them, and eats one little monkey
4 little monkeys swinging, so on and so forth until there's
no little monkeys swinging.

For Chinese speakers, the indistinguishable line is "e-yu lai le" meaning, "crocodile coming"

Christmas...from last year

Sometimes family members don't know the exact size of clothes to buy for the kids. This outfit, for example was from Christmas last year, just in time for Christmas this year! :) I think this is from great Grandma - thank you great Grandma!(p.s. this was taken before the "bug", so she's still got some flesh on her cheeks)

My Rescue Hero

Stomach Flu

After a day of throwing up and high fever and several days of not eating, Lizzy has lost a layer of fat - can you see how skinny she is? My poor baby...

My little Indian

For Thanksgiving, Lizzy's class invited us (family) to join them for a little Thanksgiving feast and they had a presentation for us. Her class dressed up as little Indians and they quoted a psalm. The verse Lizzy was assigned to was, "give thanks to the lord of lords!" We practiced saying it loud and clear at home. She got a little stage fright but she said it eventually. My camera ran out of batteries, otherwise I would post pictures of the other class dressed as pilgrims. :)

All bundled up

Here are the children all bundled up for the winter. Don't they look warm and cozy? Believe me, it was cold out, and we played for an hour outside. I'm pretty sure Lizzy's lips were purple when we came back in.

Little Model

I came back from the States with some new clothes for Lizzy... (well, the hat is mine!)

Goodbye Family

I'm going to the States tomorrow. I'm excited to see my friends, but it's very hard to leave my little ones. I love you guys!!

Giving kisses

Can't get enough of these!