the lady with the hamburger buns

On Friday night, October 28, Josh and I were just recovering from a full week.  That day and the day before, we'd spent the afternoon at our girls' school for performances and had guests for dinner.  It was just after 9pm - the dishes were finally done, evening devotions given, prayers prayed, foreheads kissed.

For a brief moment, I kicked my feet up on the couch and thought about kicking on the computer to watch an NCIS episode with josh and chill out.

Then we heard loud, children-like noises in the hallway.  Inwardly, I groaned - thinking it could be some of the moms in my apartment complex bringing their kids over to play...or speak english...or to whip up a chocolate cake.  [The pop-in is a frequent occurence here!]  I just didn't think I was up for visitors after such a full week.

The noises were too loud to ignore, but finally the knock on our door forced us to get up and address the situation.

"TRICK OR TREAT!!" yelled a rowdy bunch of ghosts, skeletons, and witches.

I was shocked.  I'd never actually seen kids here celebrate Halloween.  They giggled with nervousness; now that they were face-to-face with the foreigners, they weren't sure if they'd done it all the right way.

We quickly recovered from our shock to greet them and talk briefly with them.  Then they held out their bags and said, "Candy?"

Strike out for eggrollmama.  I had no candy in the house.  Nothing.

EXCEPT - I did have leftover hamburger buns from dinner.  I'd accidentally doubled the recipe and made way too many.  If you all promise not to judge me, I'll tell you the truth - I totally passed around that plate of hamburger buns like it was the most normal trick-or-treating candy around.  The kids giggled and grabbed them up, digging into them before they'd even left our house.  (I guess you wouldn't want to put a hamburger bun in your candy pail anyway?!)

Yesterday afternoon, Emma was really curious about why there were trick-or-treaters at our house.  She  knows that we never celebrate Halloween and they know all our reasons why.  They were surprised at why we were so friendly to them, why we didn't say anything to them about how they shouldn't celebrate Halloween.

It was a great opportunity for us to talk to them about how we want to be welcoming to anyone who comes to our door and to use all those opportunities to plant seeds that might grow into something later. Last year in America, I decided that if we're ever in America during Halloween, we're totally setting up a fun table in our front yard with hot cocoa or cider for the adults and a great bowl of candy for kids.  We'll take pictures for families trick or treating, offer to print them and deliver to them the next day, let them sit and rest, chat, whatever.  If they're coming to us this one day of the year, I want them to know we're available the other 364 days of the year too.  A friend recommended some good reading on this very topic over at this blog.  I think it's a great place to start thinking about how He is leading you to handle the Halloween issue.  Lots of people will do it different ways and that's okay, but my only encouragement is to do whatever you do out of conviction, not tradition.  What would He have you do with the holiday?

Ironically, we didn't have any actual trick-or-treaters tonight, the 31st.  Maybe word got out that we're the Hamburger Bun house?  Or maybe Halloween is still in its infancy here, and parents won't let their kids out on a school night.

Either way, next year we'll be ready - with more than hamburger buns.

[Pictures of hamburger bun distribution not available at this time because I can't find the cord to hook my camera up to my computer!  Aargh!]

Today's tea party, tomorrow's memories

It's good to keep in mind that if I have nothing original or witty to blog about, I can always dig up some old pictures to entertain everyone.

Because Josh is gone tonight - and I always stay up way too late when he's gone - I was looking through old pictures (again). Here are some that caught my eye, for various reasons:

Our first kitchen in Asia - I'd say I've seriously upgraded since then!

First bathroom - again, serious upgrade! There wasn't room for more than one person in there, much less a wonderful bathtub like I have now!

Thanksgiving, 2007 - wow...those kids look so young!

My friend Amy LOVES Chinese food...
This is Abby at 8 months old - knowing what I do about her now, this is classic Abby.
God Bless Jessie Beans, the dog we owned for four days:

I still remember walking into my room this day and seeing my girls dressed up in my clothes:
I can't suppress a laugh when I look through the pictures from this night. Let's just say that Korean BBQ can do strange things to your sense of social norms...
Big props to the Sooners for smashing Texas a few weeks ago - but really? Why can't they win a Red River Rivalry when I'm actually at the game?
My girls and their friends, sleeping in an impromptu fort as a playdate was winding down:
This is the sign that greeted us when we first stepped off the plane to move here almost eight years ago. If you know our last name, then you know that's most definitely NOT how it's spelled. Even after 24 hours of travel, we had enough energy to laugh and stop for a picture.

It's kind of funny to think that every day we're making memories that one day I'll look back on as fondly as I do these. I recently read a quote that said, "Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." If that's so, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to rush right-before-bedtime-tea-parties:

...and be a little more available to plan playdates!

I wonder what's happening today that will be next year's memories?

getting my craft on with Martha

For someone who loves craft projects as much as I do, there's been a dearth of creative output at my house these days.  I partially blame in on lack of time, but mostly I attribute it to a lack of planning AND getting into the do what has to be done rut.  But when Emma asked me for the second day this week if we could take a break from homeschool, I knew it was time to add something a little more fun to this week.  {clearing throat} I mean, not that math and language arts isn't fun, but...

So I googled "best fall crafts", because really, fall is the best time to be crafty.  It's all those brilliant oranges and yellows and *sigh* browns.  Now I have a big fat list of easy, fall projects that I can throw into our day at a moment's notice now that I'm all quasi-organized.

The one I'm most looking forward to - the one we're totally busting out tomorrow - comes from dear old Martha Stewart. Now before you think I'm a Martha Wanna-be, I must fully disclose that today was the first time I've ever been to her website!  Promise!

The last few weeks, we've briefly touched on Human Anatomy.  This week, was the general idea that our body being made up of muscles and bones.  We've done a bit of extra investigation on the structure of the skeleton and texture of muscle and so forth.  So when I saw this picture, even though technically they say it's Halloweenish, I say it's perfect!

So cute, yeah?   I've already brought out the dried pasta.  The glue soldiers are ready and waiting orders.

We're getting our craft on tomorrow!

Dinner in three easy steps

Ok really, when is dinner done in three easy steps?

This might be a few more than 3 steps, but this has become one of our new favorite meals. If you live over here in asia-land, it's a great local substitute for Philly Cheesesteaks! (And I consider this a weekend meal, ie - a meal that can be prepared without the luxury of food prep done by my househelper!)

So, here goes.

Step 1: When you're at the store, buy some of this beef that's made for hotpot. It's already cut really thinly and is a little bit fatty, making it nice and greasy when you fry it up later on.

Step 2: When you're thinking about what you should make for dinner, throw this recipe in your breadmaker.

1 c. water

2 beaten eggs

1/3 c. PLUS 2T oil

1/4 c. sugar

1 t. salt

4 c. flour

1 1/2 t. yeast

Put this on your dough cycle, and when it's all done, divide it into 12 balls. Shape it up nice and pretty, then flatten it with the heel of your hand so it looks like a bun, not a circle. Put on a greased cookie sheet and let rise 30 min or so. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes, til it starts to brown.

You should end up with something heavenly like this:
Step 3: While your hamburger buns are in the oven, open that hotpot beef and throw it in your wok or skillet with 2T butter, depending on your love of butter and how much beef you're making. [I use about 2T for two packages of 180g meat.] Throw in sliced onions and bell pepper if you're so inclined. Saute until that beef is done cooking and you can't hold yourself back from picking little bits of food from the pan any longer.

If you're lucky, the timer on your oven will go off just around the time that your skillet produces this:
Cut open a hamburger bun, stuff it with some of this, and add a slice of cheese if you've got one around.

Invite some friends over to eat it with you, because it's just too good to eat by yourself!

Your Best Life Now

Raise your hand if you shop on Amazon. {Everyone on earth raises hand.}

Raise your hand if you can't imagine your life without Amazon. {Hands remain raised.}

Raise your hand if you assumed that moving across the world would mean living without an Amazon-like service available to you. {The curly haired mom of four kids leaves hand raised.}

Ah, yes. Taobao.com - the answer to all of Asia's need for an amazon fix.

Taobao is a local website that's basically a cross between eBay and Amazon. If you need it, taobao has it. If you want it, taobao probably has it. If it's broken or poorly made, well...taobao has that too.

We dabbled in taobao a few years ago, buying the stuff most expats buy on taobao:

Thanks to taobao, pantries can get stocked easily and without trips to Hong Kong or Thailand. Because of taobao, I can make Hello Dollies, Coconut Cream Cake, and eat Cheetos while I drink a coke from America.

The next level of taobao experience came when we started buying household appliances, like a waffle maker and this breadmaker:
But it's only been after this recent move that we became Level 3 Taobao VIP members. Why, you ask? Because taobao has provided us with things like this:
and this (minus the baby, of course):
We even bought our heaters for this winter from taobao. Cheaper than buying locally and much better selection:
When we nearly fried our American-voltage Wii adapter, Josh checked. Sure enough, taobao supplied what we needed to make our Wii function cross-culturally.
When my mac power cord got fried in the wall the week we moved into our home, taobao had a replacement at my door in three days.

When the hinges of Josh's computer monitor snapped, eBay was selling replacement hinges for $70. Taobao had them at our house in less than a week for $5.

I found this great chalkboard contac paper last month on taobao. You can cut it to whatever size you want and stick it anywhere. LOVE IT.
But the reason I love taobao most? When the little piece of green silicone that ensures a full night's sleep goes missing, taobao delivered when every other store in town came up dry. In less than 24 hours, we were ALL sleeping peacefully again.

In the past, Josh has shared with me parts of biographies he's ready of early travelers to the areas where we've lived. Their accounts are inspirational, harrowing, and full of so much suffering and difficulty that you wonder they survived at all.

It's true that many of them didn't.

Sometimes Josh and I will wonder how our lives might be different if we took a three-month boat over instead of a 12-hour plane. If our parents were lucky to see us once after we moved here, instead of planning trips every couple of years. If a child's sickness might mean death instead of a quick flight to world-class medical care.

When I think of the many luxuries things like taobao can give us, my cheeks redden a bit when I read entries like this, from the 1930's:

When my father came back from this conference he brought

with him a little foreign food, a few soda crackers and some

cans of condensed milk, which probably saved my life, for I

was very sick and there had been no suitable food to give me.

Wow. Soda crackers and condensed milk - when I'm ordering wii adapters and cheetos with two-day delivery! Not to steal Osteen's motto, but when it comes to life overseas, we're definitely living our best life now.

the little man turns one

As I go back over some recent happenings, there's going to be lots of girl pictures coming your way, so I'm dedicating this day to Silas.

Silas - that little boy that had me all terrified about how to change a diaper. [Truthfully, I do still dread diaper changes, but not because of *all the stuff*...just because the little man tries to escape so much!]

Silas - that little boy that had me oohing and aahing at the cuteness of boy clothes. I love me some alligators and dump trucks. Remember my strong love for those alligators 12 months ago?

Silas, the boy with three sisters who will spoil him rotten for the rest of his life. It will be interesting to see how this guy turns out. This year has truly flown by, but now it's hard to imagine what our family would be like without our little guy.

Here's his room - thanks to the cute little Team Safari decals I bought in America, there's a fun touch of boyness. And yes, the pack-and-play is still going strong after being the primary bed for six years of little ones!

Silas loves taking baths, especially after new bath toys arrived in the mail from my parents!
His hair is soooo curly!
The dryer is also a major point of interest. I try to keep it closed, but if I accidentally leave it open, chances are he's got his body halfway in and is manually rotatating the thing! [I took this picture out on my patio, so the reflection in the window is the apartment complex across the street from us.]
His favorite word right now is "no". He hears it a lot at our house - even though we try not to say it, there's usually someone who's being corrected for something. We're reeeeally trying to get him to say "yes". Or "mama". Or "bath". Or pretty much anything except "dada" and "no."
He still clings to me loves it when I hold him.
I took him to this play area with his sisters a few weeks ago, and he actually looked like a little kid - not a baby.

Silas has had some new friends move into town recently. In this picture, they're obviously getting down to business! He likes having them around, but he's not so sure about other little people messing with his stuff. I was surprised to see him react this way since there's not really much in the way of personal property at our house anyway.

Speaking of getting down to business, Silas is a super picky eater. If it's bread, he's all in. If it's yogurt or some other fruit sauce thing, he'll go for it. Broccoli, carrots, pumpkin - sure, he'll humor you. Anything else and you're out of luck. Forget trying to feed him People Food. He's determined to hold his title of Family's Pickiest Eater.

Another interesting Silas tidbit - he still has no teeth. Not a single one, and just over 13 months old. Interesting...

About a month ago, our little Silas turned one. It so happened that we were leaving for Hong Kong the next day and I was ill prepared to throw him a birthday celebration of any sort, so we postponed the festivities until we returned. Two weeks later, I tried my best to overcome all my princessified, girly experience and make a birthday memory that a teenage boy wouldn't blush at.

Actually, I thought of the easiest possible cake I could make and still convince his sisters it was a legit party. I made a chocolate cake and stuck a dump truck on top of it. Crushed Rice Krispies up to make it look like a gravel road. Wrote his name and called it a cake.

I think his sisters were more excited than he was for the party.

Maybe they were just excited to have an excuse to eat cake? (I know I was!) Him being new at the birthday thing and all, they decided to help him blow out his candles. He didn't seem to mind:

But maybe he thought all the noise was a bit much?
Aaaah, but cutting the cake proved him to be a mini-eggroll. The boy loved his chocolate cake! [Yesssss!]



We love this little guy.

He toddles and shrieks and babbles and adds to the decibel level of the house.

He's sometimes grabby and often clingy.

But he smiles and laughs and will let almost anyone hold him. He loves it when Emma and Samantha whisk him away to their room to entertain him.

He gives face-plant kisses and still rests his head on my shoulder before bed.

He gulps down milk like it's an ice-cold coke on a bad day.

He waves to strangers and gives high-fives.

He's the best. We love you, Silas. Happy Birthday!

the new (and hopefully improved) eggrollmama

If anyone is still out there, I've decided to jump back on the blogwagon. I could list out my reasons for why I haven't blogged, but who wants to hear that? For once, "I'm too busy" wouldn't be at the top of the list. [We have been incredibly busy - maybe the busiest month of my life! But that's not at the heart of my blog silence.]

At the heart of my blog silence is...well, my heart. You see...

The day before Silas' first birthday, I found out I was pregnant. This was not a planned pregnancy. Ohhhh no, let me tell you - I was starting to savor the beginnings of what life with big kids would feel like. I had just weaned Silas. I had just potty trained Abby. All the baby clothes were given away, and even baby toys were becoming harder and harder to find in our house.

Yes, Josh and I had agreed on a nonproliferation treaty, if you will. [Not that I'm equating kids to nuclear weapons.] "No more babies" was the route ahead. Ha! Until that little line on the pregnancy test.

For two weeks - maybe more? - I cried. I whined. I argued and protested, totally baffled that God would think that this was the best choice for me. Certainly, I did not see it that way.

Even in the midst of this response, I knew it was sinful. A phrase from part of the Westminster Shorter Catechism kept popping up in my mind: Sin is transgression of the revealed will of God, which teaches that we are to act in perfect holiness from a heart of faith to the glory of God.

Did you catch that part? From a heart of faith! My response to this situation was not one that was full of faith in a gracious God whose aims are His glory and my good. My response was full of emotion, that was based purely on my own desires and opinions. My response was not based on the truth of Scripture, it was based on the untrustworthy source of how I feel.

I felt overwhelmed.

I felt like I was losing control.

I felt like I was tired of cleaning poo, wiping spit up, making baby food, carrying a baby on my shoulders every time I left the house, waking in the night - in all honesty, I guess you could say I was tired of the level of servanthood that being a mama to an infant requires.

And yet, the Lord was gracious to me. Instead of throwing up His hands and declaring me to be a belligerent and selfish two-year-old (which was a pretty true description of myself), He was patient, kind, and gentle. Through His word and godly teaching, He confronted me with the good and true promises He gives His children. I grudgingly started the process of letting go of how I feel and grabbing on to those promises in Scripture.

Those promises that say -

"And He is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in all things, you may have an abundance for every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:8)

"Now He who supplies seed for the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness." (2 Corinthians 9:10)

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God...For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..." (Romans 8:28-29)

The message I kept hearing from God through His word is that He is making me more like Christ. He is fulfilling His promise to conform me to the image of Christ, and one way He does that is by bringing circumstances into my life that jackhammer away at those areas that aren't Christlike. The end result will be a harvest of righteousness - and who of us doesn't want that? PLUS, He promised there would be an abundance of grace to get me through those difficult, jackhammer days.

I wish I could say I was in complete, cheerful submission to God's work in my life. That just wasn't the case. But I was making progress; I felt like each day I woke to a battle in my heart - that day, would I cater to my feelings or would I agree with and cling to the truth of Scripture? I've never felt so spiritually exhausted in my life. I was fighting for my faith, and it was messier and harder than I thought it would be.

Then, things took a turn and I started bleeding. Unusual for me, but not unusual in early pregnancy - so I decided not to worry and let it run its course. Sooner or later, I figured, something would happen that would either show that everything was ok or everything was definitely not ok.

After a week when things still hadn't cleared up and actually had seemed to increase, I decided to go to a local hospital to have things checked out. Convinced that I was miscarrying, I asked them to do an ultrasound and look for a heartbeat.

No one was more shocked than I was when they found a heartbeat. Thump-thump-thumping loud and clear on the little machine. In fact, the nurse told me that everything looked totally normal. I should get off my feet more, she advised me, but everything was fine. The emotional rollercoaster just kept going. I had seen a heartbeat; now this wasn't an inconvenience, it was a baby.

I went home, did some lunch prep for guests we were having the next day, and grabbed some books off the homeschool shelf. I called for my little ones to join me on the couch and we sat and read books. I rested more that afternoon than I had in a month.

So when I started having contractions not three hours after getting the "Everything looks great!" from the doc, my emotions had nothing left to give. Since I'd had a previous miscarriage, I knew without a doubt what was happening. Contractions are an unmistakable feeling after you've had them as much as I have.

As the day turned to night and turned into next week, it was certain that I had miscarried. We were just entering into the busiest several weeks we've perhaps ever had, so there was little time for reflection for me. In quiet moments though, it was hard to fight my guilt. If only I'd been...

But the same scriptures that convicted me and propelled me to trust the Lord when I didn't want to be pregnant became a balm to my battered soul when I was no longer pregnant.

His grace and sovereignty in my life became clearer than ever. Truthfully, it was nearly statistically impossible for me to become pregnant. Then, according to the doctors, I should not have miscarried. And yet both things happened. The only response I can have is - Lord, Your will be done.

One of the casualties of this situation has been my idea that I'm the one in charge of the course my life takes. I would publicly testify that I believe God is the one who determines our path (as *ahem* clearly shown in Scripture) but obviously that positive pregnancy test - and my reaction to it - exposed the reality that I'm not in charge. This life is not my life to plan.

The life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me...

I've got this one life - and in my reborn heart of hearts, I want to use it to glorify God. So why am I so insistent that I'm the one in charge of it all? Thankfully, that's one of those areas that's getting some love from the Lord's jackhammer.

There have been lots of heart issues being worked out in me these last several weeks. I won't go into all of the lessons I've learned, but I will share this: I pray that when the next difficulty comes along - another unplanned pregnancy or otherwise - my response will be one of faith, not feeling. Faith with no doubting. A faith that is certain of God's goodness, His ultimate sovereignty, and His unparalleled wisdom and glory.

With a faith like that, there's no room for my own grumbling. May it be, Lord. May it be.