August Ramblings

These super sweet friends....

I wish Eli was in there too but he's taking his own shots of this same scene....  This is most all of our summer baseball crew!  We're so grateful for Ryan and Eli coming to serve as summer helpers!

A few days before we headed out for 6.5 months, Marian asked if she could have an early bday party, to celebrate with girlfriends here since she wouldn't know many girls to celebrate with for her actual day.  We tried to keep it simple-  I made a cake and she planned all the games- and it was a very sweet time!  Happy 9th birthday Marian... and thanks for sharing your celebration with Holly for her 7th bday that you would also miss this month.  Kate D, you were missed at this party and we're so sad we missed your bday this summer too!  Love to you!

My teacher and Marian's...  how dear of these friends to want to celebrate with our kids!  I love our friends here!!

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And then we flew out....  1 day in Kazakhstan and then onto Amsterdam and home to the states.

we found an obstacle course to play at for a bit of our afternoon in Almaty...

heading up... to catch a view out over the city...

We landed pretty tired and had some of our best jet lag victory here.  I think we slept through every night without any crazy long wake ups.  We had just 2 days in Orlando until we flew to Minn to join the family for the post below....

We got back from Blackduck Sunday evening right before school started.  For their school uniform, there are a few options (red, navy, white, khaki) I went with what I thought would be a simple standard.  Matt explained to me that I dressed up our kids to look like little Target employees.  But they're cute- whatever they are!

First day of Kinder, 2nd grade, 4th grade and 5th grade at Libertas Academy.

They all came home from school saying that they loved it.  Yippee!!

This school seemed to me to be the best fit for our crew for what schooling includes for us in China and I didn't want their one semester to be totally disconnected with all the rest of their schooling that we work hard at.  So they get 4 classes on Mondays at Libertas and then their teachers assign work for them to do the rest of the week at home.  I think it's a good mix of school experience and mama time and self directed work as well as keeping them in Chinese and in math at their non-American levels.... so it's working for us.  I would have been thrilled to let them experience 2-3 days of school a week... but this is what we get, and I'm grateful for it still! 

And we had another "first"....  not only a big girl in her last year of single digits... but a birthday for a kiddo without a homemade cake from Mom!

We were already totally blown away by the crazy generosity of Steve and Lisa to bring our whole tribe under their roof for 3.5 months... and then this!!  We had a surprise delivery from our host of glamorous gourmet cupcakes for Marian's birthday!

We have been Totally Spoiled in this time here!  It's just crazy for me to think of it!  Here's Marian and John on the tube with Mr. Steve.   (Isaiah and Vivi got a turn next.)    It has been amazing to see our kids be so blessed with such experiences as this!  We all got to watch the professional water-skier, Ms. Lisa, and then both John and Isaiah got up waterskiing in just a few tries thanks to all their expert help and tips and squatting practice from "Grandpa Bart" too!  Marian had a hard first try and I hope she'll get back up on water-skis too!    And after this boating afternoon... dinner with these two favorite couples in Orlando ...  crazy.serious.joy.here!

John's #7 Mark

John Timothy is our funny face, full of expression, compassionate, bike rider extraordinaire, Chinese speaking, reading on grade level, draws action packed stories on multiple pages every day, deeper thinker than you might guess, not the crazy bravest (yet), hilarious, super sweet heart Seven Year Old.

#welovehimlikecrazy

Happy Birthday, John Love!

a super sweet fun group of boys here to celebrate 

We played games outside first...  For capture the flag, these "light sabers" were the "whackers" that could send your opponents to jail.   (Love these fine ten year old young men!)

Then they came up for some delicious lagman (the local noodle dish) and cake and ice cream and a bit of splashing around in our little blow up pool.  #supergrateful

This shot was actually from a few days after his party... we were at a new park that just opened and John wasn't feeling well.  Sweet boy ended up tossing his cookies at the park, but he was still a cheer to be with, even being low energy.  

We're so grateful and so outstandingly blessed to have you as our son, dear John.  May the Lord continue to grow your heart and mind and body strong in Him, and all for Him, for His glory!  We could not love you more John Love!  ~ your smitten mom and dad

the Shi-bang!

(Shi2 is Ten in Chinese)

Isaiah's tenth birthday party was a bit late this year.... he graciuosly agreed to wait for his party til the MLB season had begun.  His party worked well as an all out nerf battle and then a rest break to watch a bit of a game from the night before (check out the game concessions- those cute popcorn "sellers" below).  I was grateful it gave me a break between Vivi's party and his too!  We are so happy to celebrate this gift of a boy!  

(still cute, even when faithful to her no smiling policy)

goofball faces

My dear photo loving SIL, Heather, thanks for your encouragement to be in some pics!   I wish I could get some....  but I think I need you here for that.  This is the one shot I got when I gave my camera to a local friend.  How about you come take a few for us?  (excuse #7,419 for why you guys- all you friends and fm!- really should come visit us! :) )  

good thing he wanted carrot cake because the icing tube for writing his name was solid as a rock...  carrots worked!  

We got to celebrate another ten year old at the party as well... Charles turned ten the day before this birthday bash.  So blessed to enjoy such dear friendships here!

leave it to Matt to find a deal on 300 nerf bullets....  a heap big enough to blaze like crazy all morning long and to send every boy home with a new pack of their own.  Fun for everyone!

She's Five!

Birthday girl, you are worth a celebration of the highest thanks and joy that the Giver would give us YOU.

Birthday breakfast!  As fancy as we could dream up (for a school morning especially!)  What a treat to celebrate Vivi!

She gushes joy and sweetness and silly goofballisms all the time off camera but she's quick to avoid it when the lens is pointed her way so I guess I just have to treasure all that up in my heart since I can't share it with you here.  

The next day we celebrated "Breakfast at Vivian's", her party, with all her fancy friends... 

Stuffed crepes and yogurt parfaits (with oatmeal cookie bar crumbled inside...  great use for a recipe that wasn't A+ on it's own) and strawberry lemonade scones (they were top notch!).  We had a yummy, dress-up fancy time!

this is when she knew I wanted to get a pic of her with her birthday crepe and her #5 candle.  Almost as bad as last year, sweetheart!  

After breakfast, Vivi's best friend from school had to leave because she wasn't feeling well.  She was missed!  But the party did go on...

there were at least 4 wardrobe changes.... all of them stunning (don't miss, the dress layered over dress look modeled here.)

This is her camera look these days.  I wish I could show you her smile because it's sparkling, but this is all she gives me.  I'll have to try to be sneaky...

And I do hope you know that all hairstyles, jewelry and dress arrangements were done all by herself.  I hope that goes without saying!  Wouldn't want credit to come to me for any of that!! :)

Her brothers really were there.  They just, sadly, didn't get in any photos on my camera.  But boy, do these boys love their little sis.  A gift to have their protective care shown to our littlest.  

It felt like a gift to us to be able to find a gift here that we wanted to give our girl.  (If I were really savvy with online shopping in Chinese, I could find stuff here too, but I don't dive deep in those realms.)  But this Alice in Wonderland book with super fun pop-ups super delighted her heart.... so, of course, it delighted us too!

Isaiah's Double Digit Mark

His siblings were proud of the gifts they found for him, including some nerf guns that were still on the way.    (Gifts are hard to find for me here, so these great finds from all of us made each one of us glad!)  

What joy to see our firstborn growing up.…. an outrageous gift to have such a fun, healthy, smart son that is a good friend to others, learning to work hard, growing to the love the Lord and cherish His Word.

The evening of his birthday, we opened up a bigger load of gifts than we’ve ever done for birthdays before.  It was a fun celebration.  And there’s more celebration ahead.  We've received news that Grandma and Grandpa's package is in our city, and we. will. surely. get. it. soon! 

For a party, he let me space out our birthday madness  (3 B-days and our anniversary in 9 days) by choosing to do a MLB baseball party soon after the season starts.  Glad I have a bit more time to prepare for that crazy fun time.   There will be pics of that time too...

Here’s just a few of the mile markers for Isaiah, his growth graces recently.

My favorite thing about this awesome guy right now is his smile and the special things he lights it up for.  One morning, after we said our family pledge to begin our homeschool day, Isaiah smiled deep and bright and said, "I really like that, mom."    He said the same when I introduced the poem we just finished memorizing, "Flame of God," by Amy Carmichael.  

There was the time when I was driving down the road here, thinking over how many in ministry can loose track of loving their families well.  I said out loud to the kids, "You guys, I love you more than I love China."  One quick glance to the back seat and it shone out at me, bright as day, that smile of his knowing, understanding gladness.  Best gift he could give me.   

Again, he blazed that glad stretch when we connected about our morning readings and he and I discussed Apelles, who is "approved in Christ" (Rom 16:10) and how he is approved in Christ, because of Christ too...

He's a devoted baseball, lego, nerf guns, Ballpark Myseteries fan.  He usually picks nonfiction for reading on his own, unless I assign him a fiction book, and then he can get totally wrapped up in fiction too.   Sherlock Holmes (a young reader's edition), a gift from Marian, is his favorite story lately.  

He recently took his first standardized test ever and it showed him doing very well.  His general English scores were fine.  I knew his math would be high because he's always loved "number games" (what we call math problems) and he gets to meet one on one with a math tutor- he's learning math in Chinese, using local Chinese textbooks.  And I knew he's kind of a word nut.... thinks about words and asks me all sorts of odd questions ("Can you think of a word that has three U's in it?").  So I should have known that he would test high on spelling too.... but I wouldn't have guessed that he'd test more than four years above grade level in spelling.  How fun for a 4th grader boy to be a word pro like that!  I've told Isaiah several times how Pastor John Piper has joked about how he learned to love grammar and words in middle school so he could grow up to be a preacher.  Maybe so for our boy?  

The kiddos' allowance is beginning to add up- if they save long enough!- to some pretty worthy gifts for each other.  Such a joy to see their pleasure in giving gifts to each other!  John picked well on this nerf gun.  

Growing Big!
From ten to teen sounds so much closer than I ever thought he was just a few weeks ago!  I LOVE seeing him grow in skills, wisdom, interests, friendships...  What a privilege to know him and to get to be this fine young man's mom.  

the sixth...

We got to celebrate our little big boy's birthday with a Pilot Party.... thanks to the amazing grandparents who sent a package of toy planes and cool Auntie Heather who found kiddo aviator glasses and a fun piloty shirt.

We folded and folded and I'm still finding more folded paper airplanes and most the evening was spent trying to hit targets or to shoot planes out of the air with the nerf gun that Isaiah and Marian bought for John.    It was a silly fun evening all around!

Happy Birthday John! 

Auntie Heather, you rock.  He *Loves* these Glasses!

you can hear that sound effect, right?

eyes on the target

We love you crazy much sweet boy John Timothy! I'm so proud of how you're reading, how you care for your little sister, how you listen to read alouds and sermons even when I think you're a million miles away.  I love how silly-goof-ridiculous you are sometimes (a lot of times) and how great a little athlete you are.  You are a joy to watch growing up to know and love the Lord.  Our hearts most earnest desire for you, son, is that you would cherish Christ and cling to His Word and serve His church with everything in you.  May your life be richly satisfied as you seek first the kingdom of God...  We are for you and love you endlessly.  Mom and Dad.