Christmas: The China side

 Yes, I am way behind on blogging. With two littles and them napping less as they grow, I have less and less computer time! Too busy living life to record it. ;)

We made it back to the US for a great just-over-two weeks last Friday. It's taken almost a week to get out of the daze of jet lag though. This one was really really bad, exasperated by Ellie's bad congestion and cough. Days I get only 2 hour segments interrupted by them wanting to play in the middle of the night are really hard. But Hadassah finally slept all night and Ellie only woke once last night, so I am feeling like a new person with so much sleep!

With traveling for Christmas, I still wanted to preserve some Christmas traditions for our little family. I don't know why, but I'm big on traditions. So, for us, the Saturday before we left was our home "Christmas."

In the weeks in December instead of letter-of-the-week activities, we did Christmas ones. I really enjoyed making this felt tree, after over 5 people shared various ideas for it with me. ;)

The girls were enamored the first morning they found it, but really didn't play with it all that much after that. Oh well. It was fun to make, added brightness to our wall, and there's always next year to pull it out again!

Dassah enjoyed some Christmas-theme free printables found via pinterest!

This cute print-out nativity set was especially fun. She even helped me attach magnets to the back.

It's fun to have Ellie more and more wanting to get in on the action of things!

Adding it to the fridge was fun for a few weeks too.

I love having little girls especially when it means I get to make such adorable things as these for Christmas presents! Very thankful for a husband who played with the girls all evening one weekday so I could get these done!

"Cozy time" by light of the Christmas tree became a favorite activity for Dassah. What could be better than cuddling up with Daddy and having him tell one of his amazing stories?

We had a full line of Christmas activities by the time we were done.

Our family Christmas Eve tradition, I've decided, is to eat out so we don't have dishes to do. So for what we decided was our "Christmas Eve" we went to our favorite Chinese Muslim restaurant.

It was extra fun to have it be one of the nights this dancer performed. The girls were in awe.

The girls also totally enjoyed dancing on the stage themselves! I love that they both love to dance.

Before bed that night, we had to take a picture in pjs by the tree!

The sparkling Christmas tree in the corner is definitely my favorite time of year for the inside.

We had a special gift for the girls this year too! It was surprisingly inexpensive, and worth getting for the next few months of needing to play more indoors!

We opened presents on Saturday morning before breakfast. This picture just seems to be the essence of sweet childhood...

Ellie could get into it this year too and enjoyed looking at what Hadassah opened too!

Ellie is way into bubbles, so we got a fun bubble set. You don't often have bubbles by a Christmas tree!

And the slide was a definite hit! Ellie especially did it over and over, as she loves to climb!

We had red and green pepper omelettes and beautiful strawberries...

And cinnamon rolls. Because you always need an excuse to have cinnamon rolls. Because my butter was frozen and it doesn't have the convenient markings for tablespoons like butter in America, I cut off what I thought was the right amount, but it turned out to be quite a bit more. But they were the best cinnamon rolls I've ever made, so I'll have to repeat that mistake. ;)

We took some over still warm to friends in our complex, and Dassah serenaded them with "Joy to the World." That's been "her" song this season.

This little miss kept happily sliding throughout the morning, and loved getting things to put down the slide in front of her too!

It was an amazing day outside, so we couldn't resist when friends invited us to go for a picnic and some rides at the park / amusement park nearby. We grabbed bread, peanut butter and jelly and biked over. What an amazing and fun December day!

When we got home it was time for me to start cooking while the girls napped! I had baked the treats ahead, and had fun making Christmas goodies for our drop-by party!

Ryan cleaned out the laundry porch and we set up a play area for the kids. Smartest idea ever! They ate out there (keeping mess somewhat localized) and they played and yelled and weren't too loud since they were secluded. :)

We had a full house! And we had 6 countries represented: China, America, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, and Singapore. I hope that wherever we go, we can stay connected with internationals. It's been neat to see how many are in the area these days. My Syrian friend unfortunately couldn't come, otherwise we would have had 7 countries!

We are so thankful for good friends.

Friends that have brightened our lives so much in this last year. So many reasons to be thankful too.

Some friends we hadn't seen for months but they made the trip out for the party, which was special!

It was a lot of work and a ton of clean up, but I am so glad we had the party. I love having the memories of get togethers and the excuse to see friends. And in the morning sunshine I always enjoyed the tree reflected on the wall!

For our last Sunday in China before Christmas, we had to wear Christmas clothes of course! It's fun how with layers, Dassah's Easter dress works for Christmas too. We're going to miss the special Christmas Eve service with our church so are praying that goes well. But we are also very much enjoying our time with family in America. Especially now that we finally seem to be getting sleep...

We didn't bring our laptop (too fragile after the water spill) so hopefully I'll post pictures from America after our return home the beginning of January. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Tale of Two Tea Parties

 When you have two sweet girlies, you just have to do tea parties, right? I figure it's good to get some practice in with friends while they're young, so I have ideas to do it more when they're old enough to really help and enjoy it to the full!

 With Danielle here, it was way easier. She made almost all the food, straightened up, set the table...

 The first party was on Wednesday. Having gotten many requests to teach/practice English with kids, we asked Danielle if she wanted to do it while she was here. Just being American and a native English speaker means people are willing to pay too! She was interested, so we put out a flyer for four sessions for girls ages 6-10. But, evidently we know very few friends with girls ages 6-10! But some friends shared the flyer, and there ended up being four girls interested, but they couldn't come each of the days. So, we decided to just one special party. One girl ended up being sick that day, but we got to enjoy 3 very sweet girls for an hour!

We had a simple book about friends, with them to answer "what do you do to be a good friend?" at the end. They all spoke English very clearly, but didn't have an extremely wide vocabulary, so it was fun having various books and props to use.

 The tea party didn't take up the whole time, so after a story and songs, playing a game provided great enthusiasm and opportunity to practice colors and numbers and other English expressions.

 They also really enjoyed playing with the felt dolls, which taught them the name for various types of clothing too!

 Two moms and a younger sister came along, and they all seemed to have a good morning. Danielle did a great job too, leading conversation and facilitating everything!

 I hung out with the moms some, but if we were in the room, they mostly just wanted to take pictures with the girls or get their attention in some way. Okay for a little bit, but it got tiring for the girls after  while. ;) So I played with Hadassah in another room for a bit, and then Alex took her out to the apartment they're staying in to play when Ellie woke up. Worked out really well!

That afternoon Danielle helped me make some more felt scenes for Dassah. Mine was a garden scene. The spider looks like a crab, I know - need to make more pointy legs! ;) But the googly eyes make everything so much more fun! :) These were mostly pinterest ideas, but a lot of fun to make. And it's fun to know that what I make for Dassah, Ellie will eventually be playing with too!

 Danielle made the solar system! It will be fun to teach Hadassah about the planets, and I may have her do things like put them in a line from largest to smallest, and eventually use them to learn where they are in relation to the sun. Gives me lots of ideas of things to make out of felt for homeschooling one day!

 Summer evenings are for game nights, we've decided. We're staying up a little later these days and definitely feeling it, but it's really fun having people around to play games with, and relaxing at the end of hot days!

Thursday we had another tea party, this time for Dassah and her friends! This little girl came early as her mom had a doctor's appointment to get to, and they were excited about the food they saw getting ready! And having the parties two days in a row was so smart... Allowed us to just make double of the same foods to have at both!

 Fruit on toothpicks was a big hit! Though, we realized, a little sharp for little girls. But they handled them well!

 Mini cupcakes are adorable and made sure they didn't get too much chocolate! ;) The mini cupcake pan I bought on Taobao as a mistake (thinking it was a full size one) has turned out to be really useful!

 Chewy chocolate chip cookies, again in a smallish size. ;)

 Cucumber-cream cheese sandwiches cut in flower shapes. Because shapes make everything more fun.

 Danielle also made more of the delicious watermelon lemonade! It is so nice to have her take the time to squeeze four lemons and puree a bunch of watermelon! The girls really liked it too. :)

I told Danielle she is now certified for a tea party hostess. She's great at doing them with girls of all ages!

It is fun seeing these girls become better friends too. They all looked so cute dressed up, and they're really beginning to play together more. Dassah was very happy, said things like "welcome to our tea party!" and is spontaneously giving friends hugs sometimes. It is fun to see her growing up, and so nice to have her have friends to grow up with.

 One of the girls' moms then had us to her house for a delicious, huge lunch that she prepared. She is always such an amazing hostess, thinking ahead to have some Chinese food and some American food so there is always something for everyone to enjoy. And on hot days it's also nice to be in someone else's cool apartment with new toys for the children to enjoy.

It's been a year since we moved to this apartment complex, and we are so blessed with the community it has provided. What a blessing.