One more pre-Christmas Post

Ok, here is one more family night I forgot about. We went to Prairie Lights. It's one of of those light displays that you drive through (sort of like Christmas in the Oaks used to be for those of you New Orleans). Very similar to the 'Festival of Lights' we went to last year. It was really nice and the kids really liked it. Here are some pictures of our night out.

We let the kids sit up front with us. Needless to say, they loved it. They both wanted to take turns "driving."


In the middle of the drive was a place to stop called the "Holiday Village." It was like a small carnival. There were two rides for kids but the nice part was that they were free. Here is Caiah on the Carousel.
Daddy and Caiah playing while waiting in line for the second ride.

Our turn to ride the "dinosaurs" as Orin called it. I'm not a big fan of these rides but they convinced me to go on by promising not to spin to fast. I couldn't believe that Damien wanted to go on it since it was only a couple of days after his stomach thing.
Orin and Caiah loved it. Damien would turn it so we'd spin just one time around - plenty for me. Everyone would scream and fall to one side.
I love this smile. It's his fake smile for the camera but too cute!
Orin has decided to take control and take pictures for himself (I think it's to get me to stop taking pictures of him for a while). He has a hard time point it correctly, but he'll get it eventually.
There was a tent with concessions. We waited while daddy got a funnel cake.
Micaiah finishing off his share.
Gotta lick the powdered sugar...That's the best part!
Our strange child eating an apple because he doesn't like funnel cake.
We went out for pizza afterward. Orin doesn't like pizza either - noticing a trend here? Since there weren't really any other options he had chips for dinner. At least he had just eaten an apple. :-)
Caiah enjoying his pizza.

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I've taken about 1,000 pictures over the past week and have tons I could write about so I wanted to finish up with the last pictures I took before we came down to New Orleans. I'm really going to try next week to get all of my Christmas pictures up!

We got this great basketball goal from the 'boutique'. The boutique is this great store we have on the center. People donate used items to it much like you would to good will. Except everything in the store is free. So we can go whenever we want and pick up a toy, or a few extra shirts for the kids or just something random. It's a really neat ministry. I got this a few weeks ago and Caiah loves it. He will stand there and shoot baskets over and over. Orin plays with it some but really likes to get into it. This day he said that he was a Guinea Pig. His preschool class has one so I think this is where he got the idea.
I've been trying so hard to cut down on our grocery budget. I enjoy cooking, Damien enjoys eating what I cook and this leads to spending more money than I should (or that we have) on groceries. One of our biggest splurges is juice. Damien loves juice and wants something besides water with meals. So I'm trying to think of other options. One thing I've been stuck on the last few weeks is limeade. I LOVE it. I'm going to try lemonade too. I've also been brewing sweet ice tea. Maybe I can convince Damien that we can do less juice and more of these things. Unfortunately, all three of these drinks have TONS of sugar. So we may be going cheaper, but not as healthy. Maybe I can somehow find a good balance...
Since we don't do the whole 'Santa' thing for Christmas, the kids don't really have much of a concept of him besides the few things they've seen on TV. A few of the PBS shows they watch occasionally had a show about Christmas/Santa. So needless to say, they now have an idea of him, but it's definitely not the full picture. They've picked up on the fact that he comes at night when people sleep and that he says "Ho, ho, ho." I think that's about it. So this day they decided to bring their blankets into the den and pretend to sleep. They told me to go out of the room and then come in and say, "Ho, ho, ho." Then they would wake up and act really excited! It was actually pretty fun. Then they had to each take turns being Santa and come in and wake us up by saying, "Ho, ho, ho." Oh the little things that entertain children.
Orin reading to Micaiah. I LOVE it. This is a book that Damien's sister sent to them a year ago while she and her husband were in the Philippines. The kids are obsessed with the book. They have it completely memorized and even though C&R have been back for 6 months and we see them often, they still want to read it all of the time.

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A Special Package

Each year our sending church, Reston Bible Church, organizes 'Christmas Around the World.' They sort of do an Angel Tree for all of the children of missionaries they support. Since RBC supports over 200 missionaries, I'm sure it's a lot. In August they asked us for Orin and Caiaih's wish list (3 items). We received the package in early December and put the presents under the tree as soon as we put it up. We've been trying to emphasize how special they are and attempting to explain why we received them. I've been very proud of the kids for not touching or messing with them. Tonight (well I'm a little late posting this - it was on Dec. 19) we decided to let them open the gifts. Since we're leaving soon for New Orleans, we wanted these gifts to be open separately on their own, so they wouldn't just get mixed in with the other presents they will get. It was really special for Damien and I too. I had to document the fun.

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The Sweetest 'Silent Night'

Is this not the sweetest version of 'Silent Night' you've ever heard? He's not incredibly loud so you should turn up the volume.


Oh, and this is the silliest. :-)

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Anticipation, Sick Family, Book & Losing Friends

Isn't it funny that sometimes the anticipation of something unpleasant that is going to happen is worse than the actual event? Orin and Caiah had to get their second flu shot (I guess the first time you get one you have to get two.) Orin remembers his from October and anytime we've even mentioned the Doctor since then he has said he doesn't want a shot. Well, yesterday his fears came true. From the moment we told him in the morning that we had to go to the Doctor, he was crying. Unfortunately, he asked if he had to get a shot when we told him we were going. We couldn't lie! Luckily, his crying was soft until we got in the room. Then he lost it. He wouldn't let me hold him and tried to get out of the room a couple of times. The nurse was killing me because she was ssssoooo ssssllllooowwww! I couldn't believe how long it took to get everything set up. But then, the second she put the needle in Orin's arm and took it out, he stopped crying.

Anticipation leads me to the next item. My sick family. Caiah has been on antibiotics for a week. He's been throwing up on and off for the past 7 days. We don't know what's up. Then, last night, Micaiah comes running in saying, "Orin's throwing up!!" I was proud of him for coming to tell me. I find Orin standing on the bed in his room in a puddle (seriously) of you-know-what. This was about 5 minutes before our mission's director was supposed to call to have a conference call with his Shepherd group who has 'adopted' us. Orin has great timing. Anyway, the rest of the night Damien and I weren't feeling good. It's like we knew that we'd probably be doing the same thing Orin was in the middle of the night. Just anticipating it was making our stomachs hurt. Then we wondered, should we we eat or will we regret it later on? Anyway, Damien ended up in the bathroom all night. I, on the other hand, ended up the the guest room so I couldn't hear!

So a neighbor introduced me to Francine Rivers. She's a Christian fiction Author but I had never heard of her. Before she became a Christian she had actually been a well known romance novelist. My neighbor loaned me a book of hers and now I'm totally hooked. I read "A Voice in the Wind." It was so great. I'm looking forward to reading the second in the series, "Echo in the Darkness." I enjoyed Christian fiction as a kid, but I haven't found anything that I really like as an adult - until now.

Which leads to my last topic. Our neighbors moved yesterday. The were the first people we met when we got here. They were on furlough from Papa New Guinea and are now returning. The boys loved to play with their two kids. We spent much of the fall outside watching them play and talking. She's the one who introduced me to the above author. We were all sad to see them go. I know that this will be part of our lives as missionaries. People are always coming and going. The only other family with young kids living on the center will be returning to their country in February, so we're praying that the new families who move in have kids Orin and Caiah's age. One positive to them moving is that we inherited a few of their toys. I've always wanted to get the kids a play kitchen. They seem to love it. We'll have to see if they still play with it once the novelty wears off. We also got a bean bag. Orin calls it a swimming pool and likes to jump in. The problem is that he HAS to take his clothes off every time. The first time he did it he told me he was taking his clothes off because he didn't want to get in trouble for jumping in the pool and getting them all wet. It was so funny I had to help him take them off. Micaiah who has to copy Orin in everything now does it too. I'll get a picture up later.

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Our Nightly Entertainment

Do all kids get this crazy at night or just ours? It seems like right before bedtime that Orin and Micaiah start having the most fun together. Actually, this doesn't happen every night, but it's fun when it does.

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Our JesseTree

I finally printed out the pictures for the Jesse Tree. We made them into ornaments and started doing the devotionals. I'm a little behind posting this. I think the kids like it. Well, Orin will listen to the devotional but Micaiah usually walks away to play with something else and then returns to hang up the ornament. It might be better if I found actual books with pictures for the story for each day. We've not been incredibly consistent either so we usually do 2 per day instead of 1 since we're a little behind. I really hope Orin is getting something out of it. I'd really like to try to do it every year.

At first we were making the ornament for that day right before we hung it up. It became a problem since I'd often forget until right at bedtime and then I'd have to take out the markers, scissors, glue, etc... and then we'd spend 15 minutes making it. So we decided to just make them all and we just read the devotional and hang them on the tree each night.

Have I mentioned that Orin's favorite color is pink? Any time we have to pick something with a color, he'll pick the pink one. He colored every single picture pink and didn't want any other color on it. He's pretty good at coloring in the lines, but when I pointed out to try to stay inside the lines, he made it a game and made sure to color outside the lines.

I then had them rub glue on the back of the paper.
I had pre-cut the construction paper and let them place the pictures onto it. They certainly aren't perfectly centered but I think it gives them more character.
I forgot to get a picture of them punching the holes in the ornaments. Orin liked doing it at first, but it was pretty difficult (we have an old hole punch) so Damien ended up doing many of them. I let Orin string the ribbon through the hole and then I tied a knot.
Here are a few finished ornaments.
Micaiah's turn to hang one.
Orin hanging his ornament. For some reason, these are easier to hang than the other ornaments on our tree so they've been able to put them all on. So at this point, they are spread out all along the bottom of our tree. It's pretty cute.

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Bethlehem Revisited

Last year we went to 'Bethlehem Walk' in Maryland. It was a recreation of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth. As I recall we were somewhat disappointed by it. We had heard so much about it but it wasn't what we expected. First of all, it was inside. All of the animals were fake. As well as pretty much everything else. Well someone told us about something called 'Bethlehem Revisited' down in Waxahachie, TX (about 35 minutes south of us). They said it was really good. Damien was pretty skeptical, but I convinced him to try it anyway. Well, it was totally amazing. It was outside in a large field. There were actual buildings set up everywhere. I was amazed at how real they tried to make it. For example, there were people actually stomping on grapes to make juice. There was someone weaving baskets, someone making nets, a blacksmith, etc... There were different little shops with all sorts of things. The best part was that it was free - they took donations of course. They said it took about $25,000 each year to put it together. We'll definitely go back next year.

I think we petted the chickens about 10 times!
This lady and child were actually making bread in this hearth. Someone else was mixing the dough. There was a tray of fresh bread sitting out for us to sample and some rosemary honey to dip it in. Yum.
This was definitely the kids favorite part. We stayed there for 10 minutes listening to this guy talk about and play the instruments. We heard his entire spiel.
Orin petting the goats and sheep.
He was pretending he was baby Jesus lying in the manger.
One of the stops had different herbs. Orin was letting Caiah smell the rosemary.
Orin helping to mill the grain (or something like that).
Micaiah's favorite part.

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Random Fun Stuff

My mother-in-law has one of those fake candles. Have you ever seen them? It looks like a candle from the outside but there is a battery that lights up the flame. Well, when we were there for Christmas, Micaiah fell in love with it. I mentioned that he loves candles, right? We must have sung 'Happy Birthday' 20 times and then blew out the candle while we were there. I would flip the switch to turn it off as they blew. They were amazed. Last week I got one of those $10 dollar off coupons from J.C. Penny's. I love those things. It's like getting $10 in the mail. If possible, I always try to go and get something for $10. On Thursday the kids and I went but I just couldn't find anything that looked good. Then I spotted it. A fake candle for $10! I knew it would be a hit. They totally love it. Even better, this one has a little sensor and you can blow on the candle and it will go dark. We've sung happy birthday a million times in the past couple of days. We sing it to Jesus every time to practice for Christmas.

The kids were brushing their teeth in the bath and Orin got the idea to start brushing the animal's teeth. I thought it was so cute I had to take pictures.








So my Christmas present was a new, tiny, inexpensive digital camera. I've already gotten it because it was on sale on Black Friday. The main reason I wanted it was because I wanted a camera to keep in my purse all of the time. I can't think of how many time's I've thought, "I wish I had a camera right now!" So here are my first pictures where I actually had a camera to capture the fun. We were having breakfast at Denny's. Don't worry, we don't normally let the child eat butter with a knife. But we were distracted and he was already in the midst when we caught him. The second picture was also at Denny's. Orin hit his head on the table. I made Damien take a picture - Orin wasn't so thrilled about it so this was the only one we got.


We hadn't been to the library in a couple of weeks so it was time to go get a bunch of books. I love the library. I love that the kids love the library. I never thought I would read so many different kinds of kids books. This is one of my favorite ones from this batch. I so want my boys to be friends. They have so much fun together sometimes. But they also sometimes fight like brothers too. I want them to know how special it is to have a brother - especially one so close in age. I just pray that as they grow they really will be friends.



We made some fun Christmas Wreaths that I saw on this site. It was fun, but a lot of work to prepare. I got a few colors of cheap felt and cut them into squares. I don't have very good scissors so it took forever. I just did it while watching TV. Then I had to put some slits into each of them. I should have made sure to make the slits big to make it easier to slide onto the pipe cleaner. It was difficult, even for me.

I was surprised at how well Micaiah did. He was able to get some on, and others he would try and ask me to help if it didn't work. I think it was just luck as to weather or not he got the pipe cleaner lined up correctly with the hole.
Happy to have gotten one on! Eventually he gave up and I finished it for him.


I lined up the pile of felt squares so that they could try to do the colors in order. Orin did great. He went through each color in order. Micaiah didn't really get it. :-)



I was so proud of Orin. He would get frustrated but with a little encouragement kept going. With almost 50 squares it took him a while. I helped him with the last few (I held the pipe cleaner and he put the felt on).
I think he was excited with the end product. The entire time we were doing it he wasn't sure what we were making. When we were done, he liked rubbing it all over his face and said it was so soft. He also said it was a Popsicle and pretended to lick it.
We put Micaiah's around the door. Festive!

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