a friend's birthday party

Catherine and I attended the 6th birthday of her closest local friend. Below you can find a video of the kids singing "Happy Birthday." Only the last few words of the minority language were recorded, the remainder is in Chinese. 

I wrote in our newsletter about a sweet encounter Catherine and her friend, Shiny, had along the way. Aside from the spiritual implications of their conversation, it's also just really good for our girls to have friends and be able to interact normally with local kids. 

After the party, the mom wrote me a heartfelt message thanking me for being so willing to help her manage the kids during the games (who said being a recreation major had no purpose). 

I'll be honest. She didn't invite us to the party until the day of the party. It was already a stretch to make it work for Catherine and I to go (James had to be able to be home early from work to keep the other girls) and I wasn't exactly "excited" about being asked to help with the games with such short notice. And then there was the problem of the gift. I wasn't going to have time to go out to a store to buy and gift and an afternoon's time wasn't enough to make something so I was left scrambling around our house to find something still wrapped up that a now-six-year-old girl might like. I found a light-up snowman from last Christmas, a cross necklace left over from some gifts we brought from US to China our previous trip back, and a chap stick. I might have found some candy too. With a few hours notice, it would have to do. 

In addition to thanking me for helping with the games, she said that Shiny loved the necklace and sent me this picture of her wearing it to bed that night. Then she told me that after they finish this current busy season she'd like my help to know how to teach her two girls the stories of the Bible. I was so humbled that the Father could use the gift that I put so little no thought into to work in potentially bringing His word and His stories to this family. And that He would do so and allow me some role despite my grumbling attitude about the situation. 

While I'm writing....when we met this girl in January of 2016, her English name was Tiny. Sometime this summer, she decided that she was no longer "tiny" and told her mom she wanted a new English name and they decided on Shiny. About this time, Catherine also became acquainted with the story of God changing Saul's name to Paul. She, too, then needed a name change and started the third session of our homeschool asking everyone to call her Katie. Then, after arriving back in the States when she lost her first tooth, she decided she needed another name change. Since then she's been asking most people we meet to call her Tiny. 

Ann, on the other hand pretends to be a cat most of day, almost every day, but that is another topic for another day. 

video greetings

We made these videos to include with our newsletter, then when it comes times to send out the newsletter, we didn't include them! WHOOPS!

First, this one is from the fall after Catherine had really struggled with fear and anxiety throughout the summer. She wanted to thank everyone who prayed for her.

And Ann didn't want to be left out of the video-making fun....

And, a belated Christmas greeting from the two of them:

First year of homeschool!

Well, we've completed the first level of our literacy curriculum. To be honest, I'm not sure if it's considered pre-k or kindergarten, and I'm not sure if we weren't homeschooling if Catherine would have started kindergarten in this past fall or if we would have waited until next year. 

We started homeschooling in mid-January and finished at the end of November. We started her earlier than we had planned because with her diagnosis of oral-motor dyspraxia, some professionals told us she had a 50% chance of having learning disabilities with reading, literacy, and spelling. We wanted to have extra time to address those challenges as they came up. But guess what? She stayed up with the curriculum without missing a beat! She struggles with a couple pronunciation issues, but reads far better than I anticipated she would at five!

Our first ten week session Tiny and Baron (local friends) joined us. Our second session, we added Qinger. Our third session we added Princess and Hunter and Tiny decided she would like to be called Shiny since she wasn't Tiny anymore. 

I only assessed Catherine, Baron, and Shiny since they were the only one who completed the curriculum, but here are our stats:


31 weeks of homeschool completed! Students learned 26 letters, 4 digraphs,  ending s, and 44 sight words. 
Assessed students can:
Say all letter/digraph names with 98% accuracy 
Say all letter/digraph sounds with 100% accuracy 
Read phonetic words with 93% accuracy 
Spell phonetic words with 87% accuracy 
And recognize 44 sight words with 98% accuracy.


I'm really so proud of each of them. For Catherine charging through and excelling even with a "disability" and for the two others who are now literate in English first, although it's actually their THIRD language to understand/speak

differences in delivering in China

I found this old post saved in my drafts. Here are some pictures I saved of things that made me giggle about some of the differences of delivering a baby in China versus the United States.

These stickers were on the ceiling of our room. 

I never delivered in a hospital in America so I can't make any true comparisons of taste or quality, but my guess is that US hospital food is a little different that this, right? Also, they supplied 3 meals a day for James and 5 meals a day for me. 2 were like snacks and not necessarily things I liked.

The view from our hospital room. 

Our "free" gifts included in our hospital package: toiletries, 2 sets of baby clothes, one baby blanket, towels, and an elastic waistband thingy to wear after birth. (Asian sized, mind you). 

a set of pajamas for me. even the XL was too small :(

Again, I've never had a baby in a US hospital, but I have had other things done there and I remember having to verify my information countless times. Here, no verification. Thus, the spelling of my name on my hospital bracelet. 

And one more thing: There is apparently no use of a peri bottle here. I had actually remembered to take mine to Chengdu with us (and I'm glad I did) but when a nurse helping me clean up after saw me use it, I knew by the look on her face I was doing something very non-standard.




PS  We continue to be so thankful for http://samaritanministries.org/! They helped cover the cost of our birth even though it was in China. Ask us if you have questions about how it works!

some of the beauty of our province

August Grassland Wedding and UNESCO World Heritage Site

Wedding location

Abigail and the mother of the groom

It's official: I'm licensed to drive and have have now exercised that privilege

Ann and Catherine were flower girls for the wedding. We found this out.....the morning of the wedding. We were 7ish hours from home and hadn't really packed anything appropriate for that. Then it rained so the only dresses we brought with us were too chilly for them to wear. 

The UNESCO World Heritage Site 

remaining section of wall of historic city

city gates

photo by Catherine 

Mid Autumn Festival

Mid Autumn Festival fell on Sept 15th this year, but it is celebrated on the 15th days of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. It's a day when families enjoy a meal together and go outside to look at the large, round, bright full moon. 

There's a traditional food to enjoy called "moon cake" which are small round cakes filled with all kinds of fillings. (some tasty, some not so much). 

Here's a quick video we took in our neighborhood on that day. 

Catherine and Ann say thank you

Happy Easter

 This is the best we could do, ya'll. We took pictures at church, only no one told us Ann's dress was unbuttoned :( So, here are the ones we took before we left.

a few homeschool pictures

We are beginning our ninth week of homeschool with Catherine, which means we are almost finished with our first session of ten weeks. We took one week off for Chinese New Year and one week off for illness. We have two local kids who join us. Tiny (the girl pictured below) is a bit older than Catherine and Baron (the boy) is a bit younger. For the first five weeks they joined us everyday (five days a week) but once local school started back up they join us two of the five days.

We are using Upwords Reading for our curriculum and I really like it. We learn a new letter and a few sight words each week, but at week five using only five letters a few sight words, the kids could all read a book! They're all reading quite well provided the text uses the letters and words we know.

This is no small feat for Catherine considering the doctors told us there was a 50% chance she's have learning disabilities related to her oral-motor dyspraxia and no small feat for the other students considering they are reading and writing in THEIR THIRD LANGUAGE! Both of our classmates have one Han Chinese parent and one minority parent so they are bilingual in both languages. Tiny can read and write some in those languages but Baron's first language to be literate in is English.

When we decided to advertise for some students to join us we wanted to do it for Catherine's socialization and for the income, but I was worried about who would respond and what their expectations would be. The moms of these kids are great and have become dear friends. They are so understanding about when Abigail cries in the middle of class or if Ann wakes from her nap early and joins us...they are patient and kind. One day a few weeks ago I discovered after class one of the moms had folded my laundry while we had class! She is paying me for something I'm doing already and folding my laundry! I can't think of better win-win-win scenario!!!

invisible ink (lemon juice on white paper that changes color when held close to heat source)

Most of the photos are on my phone but I'll try to get more posted soon.

6 months of Abigail Joy!

Can you believe she's been around half a year???  Here are the photos we love most of her. Starting with when she was wee little...

And moving on to each month:

She is truly the happiest, sweetest little baby! She is content all the time, but especially loves it when Catherine sings and dances for her, when Ann play peek-a-boo, and the past few days she has loved holding a small soccer ball in her lap and kicking it with her legs.