Even Santa came to the CMIS Christmas Concert!

We got to attend our first CMIS Christmas Concert. Every time we have a new experience here it's always fun and interesting. The athletic direction (who is one of Orin's good friend's dad) made a great Santa.

Lots of yummy food before the concert. Right after I took this Micaiah spilled his entire drink on me, my purse and Sora's blanket. Ugh.

This is blurry but it's such a good representation of these boys.

Singing time! He was so INTO it. He sang loud the whole time. It was cute because I noticed one time when he messed up he got embarrassed and looked around to see if anyone noticed.

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Tree makeover

Having an artificial tree for the 2nd time in my 33 years (the first time was last year - our first Christmas in Chiang Mai) still feels strange. We were given this tree from friends last year. It's a pretty sad tree. But we were amazed how much better it looked with lights and ornaments. I truly feel like we're making over our tree. We did this about a month ago, but this month has been crazy so I'm just now getting a chance to post it. I've been working a lot as well as still taking Thai a few days a week. But a month late is better than never - gotta post it so it can go in my blog book!

The boys had fun going through our ornaments. We don't have many but it's still amazing how excited they were to find the stuff they remembered from last year.

They got out their beloved "gold boy." They've asked about him many times over the year to make sure we still had him for Christmas. :)

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Your typical Santa Letter?

For Art class Orin's teacher had them write a letter to Santa. This was Orin's first time doing it...maybe that's why he went a little crazy with his requests. Maybe it's because he knows it won't actually be going to Santa so he decide to ask for things that he knows he would never get. Either way, I had laugh when he explained it to me. 

Oh, and there has never been an Apple product in this house so I have no idea where that is coming from. And a nutcracker? Can you even get one of those? And this child is obsessed with getting gold. His career goal at this point consists of being a miner...so he can "get as much gold as he wants."

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November Random Pics

This woman wanted to take a picture with Micaiah and Ronald. Glad the kids usually are happy to accommodate when people ask.

After that they wanted to have a photo shoot.

Silly Boy.

I think Ronald tooted.

For Micaiah's birthday, we waited until Cars2 came out in Thailand and then brought two of his friends with us to watch it. So much fun! Then we went to Swensen's to eat ice cream. It was a great afternoon.

About two weeks after Chiang Mai flooded, this suddenly popped up along the river by our house. Uh, a little late. Maybe they were practicing for next year?

It's amazing the way we think differently from the culture here. Seriously, I think in the US we'd get arrested for child endangerment. Here it's just not something that enters their mind. They love their kids as much as people in the West - safety is just not something they equate with showing love to them.

"Don't make me excite." Uh, ok, I'll try not do do that.

I love all of the things people carry on motorbikes!

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I love this part of my job

I went with Orin’s class on a field trip recently. I love being able to do these kinds of things. Orin's class had just finished their study of the 5 senses. We went to a local park and the kids all walked around, each time using a different sense to observe things, and then journaling about it. It’s a nice time to get to know some of the other parents and get to know his teacher a little better as well. 

Obviously this time they were using the sense of "touch."

Then onto some other fun things. Helping the kids to follow directions.

Then time for lunch. Wow, when Thai parents send food, they REALLY send food! I couldn't believe how much food we had. It was a fun day.

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