boy can my kids sleep they just don't sleep 'in' the morning

I completely forgot about these pictures, b/c they were taken on Tim's phone. This was how Preston and Isabella slept on the way home from the village.  They slpet like this for like 2 plus hours. It was so CUTE!

For the grandparents

 A few updates about my kids. If you are not family please feel free to not read. Bella is 17 months now and talking lots. She is also responding to Vietnamese commands like, "shake hands" "give a hug" "say hello" She adores our helper who watchers her in the morning while I do language study. She is quite the fashionista and when she wakes up from her nap she will pull on her clothes and say, "change clothes." She often follows Prestons every move. It is so cute to watch her follow Preston around the house imitating his gestures.

 As many of you read on facebook, a couple of weeks ago Preston hit some major milestones. He made it to his 100th reading lesson and as a present he got a new Ninjago toy (his most favorite toy at the moment) During this same week, he transitioned to the top bunk on his bunk bed, and began riding his bike with no training wheels.

 It feels like overnight he just grew up. Im so proud of him!

 My two favorite guys in this world, aren't they handsome!

Our time at the village wedding part 2

The family knew that there would be hundreds of people in attendance at the wedding, but no one knew there would be 1000 plus people there. In order to accommodate the massive amount of people expected, the cooking began days in advance. From butchering animals, to cooking kilos of sticky rice. Below is some of the food prep.  

 Preston was born in Thailand and the majority of his 5 1/2 years of life have been spent in Asia, so he is used to Asian food. However, village food is a different story. Below is Preston sneaking candy into his back pocket. Actually, for days he survived on sticky rice, candy, and boiled quail eggs. He learned the hard way that this combination is lethal, when he threw up in the middle of the night.

 The bride and groom welcomed the community to their wedding. Below is a picture of the bride and groom with their parents. This was the official beginning of their vows.

 As you can see below the tent was packed with people, and still hundreds waited outside for tables to be cleared and a reset with food to eat.

 Above is a picture of some of the people who were waiting for a table. It was the biggest wedding I had ever seen.

 Above is a chicken stuffed with something. Sometimes in the village it is better to just eat and not ask questions as to what you are eating. Below is the mother of the bride and Bella bonding over sticky rice.

The wedding day turned out to be the warmest day of the year, it was a gorgeous day and we were happy to be a part of our friends wedding.

our time in the village

we left Tuesday at 2:30 pm for the village. It takes 8 hours by bus. We take the sleeper bus as there is room to stretch your legs. It was about 11 when we arrived at our friends house. Bella and I shared a bed, and Tim and Preston shared another bed in the stilt house we were staying in. The kids went right to sleep, and we all woke up early in the morning with the help of the chickens who arose with the sun below us. 

 Bella ate breakfast first while playing with the cats that she was totally obsessed with. We were all tired, but it felt good to be back in village again. Our friend cooked us fried eggs plus some more traditional food for breakfast. It was yummy and we were thankful for his hospitality.

 In all breakfast was, cooked greens, dried meat of some sort, fried eggs, fish and sticky rice. After breakfast we all got ready for the wedding. For all meals a mat is laid on the floor of the 1 room house and a small table is brought in. We all get a bowl of our own and eat the food around the table family style.

 We arrived at the place of the wedding early so we could see all the preparations  When we got to our friends house, the family was gathered around a table of food that had been offered to the spirits. The grooms family was handing out presents to the various aunts and uncles. We were so blessed to have received one of these family presents as well. The present was a Tai Dam head scarf, a pillow, and a wash cloth. It was a very practical gift to receive.

 Also during this time many people were cooking TONS of food for the wedding that was to start in a couple of hours. You can see the greens being prepared below. As it turns out there were about 1000 Vietnamese and Tai Dam who attended the wedding. More on that to come.

 Below is a picture of Bella and Hoa. Hoa used to come to our house almost every day. However,  Bella had not seen Hoa in a long time since she had moved back to her village months ago.

 While Bella took a nap, I chatted with the ladies who were all waiting for the party to begin. It was a very cultural experience, and we were honored to be a part of the big day. Preston and Bella survived on quail eggs and sticky rice for the days while we were in the village. They were tired and so were we, but for the most part they did great. I was so thankful for their willingness to be flexible and travel to the ends of the Earth with us. Also I was so grateful for the hospitality of our precious friends in Son La. They took such good care of us. I will write more later on the actual ceremony but for now this was just to get us started.

Lent is fast approaching

I just wanted to remind everyone that Lent is fast approaching. Do you remember the Jesus tree we did last year for Lent? It is coming out again this year, but it isn't too late for you to make your own. If you want the ornament patterns I used email me and Ill send them your way. It is a great way to share the story from Birth of Christ to Death and Resurrection  It makes Easter so much more meaningful. Also if you are like us and did some sort of 'Jesse' tree during Advent, than this is the perfect addition. Click here to see last years picture.

I added a picture of the ever so  squeezable Bella to encourage you to GO FOR IT THIS YEAR!

funny faces

These pictures crack me up. Like father like son :) Some more pics of our park time in Bangkok.

Bangkok at a glance

We ran into some visa issues, and had to leave the country to reissue our new visa. So in a way, it was a forced trip that we turned into a mini vacation. It was so nice to get out of cold dreary Hanoi and into some warm sunshine. We had 4 days to play and we tried to make the most of each one.

We decided a trip to the aquarium would be a great way to spend 1 of our 4 days. The kids loved it. Bella liked the glass bottom boat and seeing the shark swim under the boat. I on the other hand had flashbacks of being in a small boat in the Okavango Delta in Botswana and praying hippos didn't tip us over. I was 15 and spent the summer in Botswana. One night our guide took us out on a small boat with a huge search light. We were spotting baby crocs in the bush, but being careful to not wake sleeping hippos, apparently they like to tip over boats. At 15 that was the biggest adventure I had ever been on. That was then and this is now :) Of course sharks weren't going to tip our boat but I couldn't help the trip down memory lane.

 Preston met a friend. His name was Louis, and he was German. They were behind us in line when we bought the tickets. Preston at 1 point asked Louis if he was Korean. Tim and I were both confused at the question. Preston then told him that he spoke Korean. Of course we thought he meant to ask him if he was Vietnamese, but then Preston proceeded to sing Gangnam style complete with dance. SO FUNNY! The kid was obviously confused, but they played for the rest of the afternoon so I guess Preston's dancing and singing skills won him over.

After the aquarium Bella was tired so we thought we would try our luck and head to see a 2 pm movie hoping that Bella would sleep through it. We went and saw Wreck it Ralph. It was a cute movie and only the 2nd Preston had ever seen. It was a fun treat for all of us. Bella did sleep through the 2nd half of the movie so that was nice too.

 Of course we didn't just come to Bangkok to stay indoors, we spent 1 of our days at the park. When you live near a park, I'm fairly certain you take it for granted. It was so unbelievably nice to be in grass, and nice weather. Both of the kids went to Bangkok with a cold, and just the sun and warmth cleared them both up. For Tim, he said his highlight of the trip was playing frisbee as a family in the park. We were surprised at how quickly Preston picked up this skill.  It was a gorgeous week. My mom was also going to fly from Atlanta just to be with us for our few short days, but when she got to the airport, they didn't let any standby passengers on the flight because of weather and weight of plane already. That was the only bummer. I was so excited to see her even if it was for a few short days. The good news is mom and dad are planning on meeting us in June after our conference in Thailand. YAY!

superhero 5th birthday party

We sent out the invitation a month before his birthday and allowed him to invite 5 friends to his birthday party. We live in a small apartment, so six 5 year old kids (including preston) is a LOT. 

 I found a Vietnamese woman who is really good at making costumes, I showed her a picture of a cape I wanted for Preston and his friends. It was a reversible superman and batman cape.  Preston was so excited about this new cape. I put a balloon on all the chairs at the table and also had the cape attached to each child's chair. Since the party was from 1-4 on a Sunday we decided to start with pizza. As the kids ate pizza we introduced them to the party theme. They were superhero's, and the house had been invaded by bad guys.  I basically printed off a sheet of batman villains I found on the internet, I cut them into 1 inch squares and lamenated them.  They were like tokens each kid could win.  The first game was superhero bingo.  When a kids got bingo, we gave them their first villain token.  Now that they were full of food and knew what bad guys they were looking for we moved on to our second game. The kids were so excited to get a villain after each task.

The next game was 'capture the villain bean bag toss'. I got a cardboard box and cut three shapes into it. I put the words pow, bam, and splat on it and put a picture of batman behind it. For each bean bag they got into a hole they captured a bad guy. I got the bean bag idea from here.  Each kid got three bean bags and had 3 turns each. Again they were so excited to get the little villains after each turn.

Because the attention span of a 5 year old is very short we quickly moved on to another game. This game was a last minute idea. In the above picture of the city, you can see a picture of a villain on the wall. Each kid got two turns with the nerf gun to shoot the villain. They were so cute trying to aim at the villain with precision. Most of the kids shot in all sorts of direction, and then Prestons friend Nick stood up took the gun squinted at the villain and with perfect aim hit the villain. It was so cute! Clearly Nick is on his way to being a super marksman. While our young super hero's were busy getting the bad guy, other bad guys took over our city. This led us to another game. 

 I cut holes in the outer two boxes. I then hot glued tissue paper to the holes. Then I placed a bad guy token, or a piece of candy in each 'window' and closed it with paper cups in the back. The kids took turns punching holes in the boxes and rescuing the city from the bad guys. When all the bad guys were found we moved to the final game. I made a pinata and inside had candy and more bad guys. It was the final game. Each kid got two turns to diffuse the 'bomb' and luckily it lasted so each kid got a hit. When it exploded they ran to catch the goods.

 The games lasted about an hour and we all had so much fun. Each child lined up and I could congratulate them on being fantastic superheros and capturing the bad guys. Then I gave them each a goody bag I had bought in the states back in September. When the excitement settled down we brought out the cake. I made a 4 layer chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. I had a spider man candle and put a few simple comic book sayings on top. It was the first time I made a layered cake that wasn't leaning to one side. I got the idea from here

 

 Of course we couldn't resist taking a few pictures of our super selves in the city background. Bella had fun with her pink cape too.

When it was all finished and many kids had left Preston and a few of his friends decided to help clean up and   tore everything to shreds. They had as much fun doing this as they did playing the games. 

 Needless to say superheros are a MUST have in our house. As a present for Prestons birthday I also had 2 more capes made for him. My favorite is the captain america cape. Having a boy is SO MUCH FUN!