Friday, January 25, 2013

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.









Monday, January 14, 2013

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!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

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!