at school and on the balcony

My mom wants me to post pictures of Grace's school, so I had Kevin snap a few photos yesterday morning. Last week in class was rough for Grace but this week has been much, much better. Here's Grace at the front gate... and at the playground. There are no public playgrounds in town (besides outdoor exercise equipment) so Grace loves getting to play on this!

Wanna play Where's Waldo? Here are about half the students in class as they are finishing their breakfast of rice porridge. The other 20 students were lined up at the door to head out for morning exercises.

And for funsies, I thought I'd add a picture of our neighbor's balcony. Our neighbors just had a baby girl! The custom here for a new mom includes lots of rules regarding what she can and cannot eat. A new mom is generally required to stay indoors for 30 days after giving birth. And she can eat CHICKEN, lots and lots of chicken. As in a whole chicken a day. (My helper also said they can eat pig's feet.) So, camped out on our neighbors' balcony are 10 chickens awaiting slaughter. My girls have had fun looking at them each day. I asked my helper if it would be a good idea to give our neighbors a chicken as a baby gift, and she reminded me I probably wouldn't know how to pick out a good one. :) Guess I'll have to stick with getting the new little one some baby clothes instead.

What I want to remember

Something precious to my heart right now is that for the last month Trinity has been joining her big sister for the night-time routine of Bible story with Daddy. Currently our routine is bath, jammies and brush teeth, right after which Trinity usually yells, "BIBLE!" Sometimes she will go find Kevin and tell him "BIBLE!" as if to say, "It's time now, Daddy!" After Bible story Kevin always asks the girls what they want to thank God for and for the first several days Trinity usually said, "crackers." Sometimes we don't really understand what she's saying and she often wanders off during the prayer, but it's fun to see her growing up and joining her big sister in this nightly ritual. She also joins Grace and me for a book right after prayer time.

Something else I want to remember is the last few months of watching my girls interact. Sure, they have their moments of fighting. But overall I've decided siblings are just a really fun thing to watch. These two deeply love each other and I've treasured how much they are developing into friends. Sometimes if Trinity is awake from her nap before Grace (and if I don't want Grace to sleep too long), I'll have Trinity go in with me to wake her up. Here's a picture I snapped today of Trinity's attempt to wake up her sister. I want to remember that lately Trinity gives the BEST hugs. She almost always gives me one on command at this stage in her little life. Some nights she will play a game where she goes in between Daddy, Grace and me and keep giving us hug after hug. This girl is a snuggler. I want to remember that although the days seem long right now, I should savor every moment because my girls are growing up quickly.

I want to remember that Grace is a coloring fiend right now. She sometimes colors up to 6 pages in a day. Her mind is always working and thinking of a project we can do or a way we can pretend together. She loves to dress up silly and pose for the camera.

I want to remember that although kids at school still yell "foreigner" every day Grace walks in the school gate and at times make mean faces, the other day (after being home sick for a few days) she told me she missed her 2 teachers. And I've seen some progress in her language. And sometimes she comes home and tells me she made a new friend on the playground.

I want to remember how faithful the Lord has been thus far. And how confident I can be in His goodness. I want to remember to press into Him whether I'm having a rough culture day here or whether we're having the best family day ever at Disneyland. For some reason, the rough culture days remind me more to press into Him than the carefree days. Why do I forget to pursue Him so much when life is easy?

I want to remember that although there's not much that seems "easy" right now, I know these are some of the most blessed days of my life.

all on the 31st

I remember, even as a kid, generally not enjoying Halloween each year. Freaky, scary costumes just about did me in when I was young. But since my 4 year old already knows a bit about the holiday (read: dress up and eat candy) my plan for this year was to load up the girls, take them to a few houses to beg candy, and call it a night. But the young people with whom we work really got into the celebrating and made it a fun night for my girls and also for the big kids we know and love here. Here are my little ballerinas on our way out the door.

Daddy put on his Olympic hat and called himself a 2008 Beijing Olympic tourist.

Here's a fierce ninja, and eskimo, a baseball player, a Welsh emigrant, 2 ballerinas, and a mother who had to be in the picture so the small ballerina wouldn't scream.

We had some local friends who really wanted to participate in giving out candy to the kids. So one of our friends made the kids trick-or-treat into every bedroom in the house. TOO funny!

Aunt Alicia made cookies and remembered exactly how Grace likes them, sans icing. Could she BE any more thoughtful, that Aunt Alicia? I think not.

This Arkansas grannie and her little kid were HI-larious.

And ended up hosting a little fall party.

No, I don't really want to debate the merits of celebrating or not celebrating Halloween. I just want to remember that some sweet friends helped us make a memory tonight!

Don't tell them

because they've never heard that girls don't like to wrestle... In fact, it's almost become part of our night time routine around here.

These two are bound to be partners in crime for quite some time.