eggrollmama and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

Ok, well maybe that's a little dramatic.

It was actually a rather pleasant day.

Josh left this morning for some traveling, and the girls and I had Pizza Hut pizza for lunch.  (they love the stuffed crust pizza - such a treat for them!)

I snuggled with abby on the couch and read her favorite magazines - High Five, by Highlights - with her.

Silas and I giggled and laughed and we played hide-and-seek through the door of his little house toy.

When the little ones slept, the big girls and I made an incredible loaf of peanut butter chocolate chip banana bread.  It's just....incredible.  The three of us savored every bite.

Then when everyone woke up, we all bundled up to make a trip to the grocery store and dinner at KFC - a staple of life when daddy is gone.

We picked up cheese to make grilled cheeses this week; bought some yogurt for the youngest eggroll to inhale; bought some supplies for projects I wanted to cross off my to-do list this week.

Dinner at KFC went smoothly - well, smoothly enough for a mama with four little ones to feed.  There might have been a water spill or two...and an exploding packet of ketchup...but all in all, it was a pretty smooth trip.

Things were going so well, and seeing as how I was in the mood for some fun, I agreed to let the girls play in the playland at KFC for a bit.

Somewhere in the shuffle of switching tables to be closer to the playland, my fabulous blue wallet/wristlet ( a gift from eggrollmimi) got stolen.

The wallet that has my house keys.  My credit cards.  My ATM cards.  The card key to open my building.  Even my metropolitan library card - though I don't think anyone can make much use of that!

The one thing noticeably absent from my wallet?  Money.  As a few of my friends can attest, I seldom have any money on me!  There might have been a dollar or two in there, and that's about it.

Of course, I didn't discover that my wallet was gone until we were out the door and my wrist immediately felt empty.  I use it so often,  I swear there's a little indentation on my wrist.  I immediately noticed it was gone and went back, frantically looking everywhere.

No one had seen it, no one had any idea where it could be.  The sweet KFC manager asked every employee and every customer around us, but the wallet was not found.  There was nothing more I could do, so I left.

Well, I called the friends who had my spare key, and THEN I left.

Irritable, melancholy and frustrated, we walked in the door and I put the littles to bed quickly.

I unloaded the groceries and discovered that some of the yogurt for the mini-man had busted all over the other groceries.  Nice.

But now - two hours later - all the credit card companies and banks and metropolitan library systems (just kidding) have been notified.  The yogurt has been cleaned up.  My four eggroll babies are wrapped up and sleeping soundly.

I'm about to go drown my sorrows in a hot bath with a box of Ding Dongs (thanks, amy!) and a new kindle book.

That's way better than moving to Australia.

sunday night school prep

It's another Sunday night at the casa de la Eggroll and I'm here in the school room getting ready for the week ahead.  Yes, yes, I know today was January 1, but we're going to be hitting the books hard in January so we can take a worry-free trip the beach in February.  Wahoo!!

I'm so blessed that we have a dedicated school room.  I know that most people don't and they find creative ways to make the space work for them.  For us, the school room has given a great outlet to the (seemingly) unlimited creativity of my older girls.  I'm always finding treasures they've created, notes they've written, projects they're working on.  

If I don't try to tidy things up every so often, this room will get overrun by projects!  So Sunday nights are my "Spring Clean" nights in the school room.  And even though I really dislike this job - do you know how many bits of paper fall on the floor while my kids play with scissors? - I always, ALWAYS end the job with a smile on my face because of the things I find. 

For example, in tonight's cleaning alone I found:

-An invitation from Samantha to Silas to attend a sleepover where "at midnight  we will have fun movies, hot coco and please bring books!"  So sweet!

-One of Emma's homework sheets covering past and present verbs; on each sentence she's required to write "past" or "now" to describe the time of action.  On the sentences  "Christians do many things to serve God", and "I told my friends about Jesus too" - instead of writing past or now, what do you think she wrote?  Forever.  Because we should always be doing that.  Love that girl!

-A list of instructions for Emma (written by Samantha) for while she's dog-sitting her toy puppy:

1. Comb her hair with a big ponytail!

2. Dress her.

3. Put her boots on.

4. Put her on your desk.

- A chart made by both of them to detail how many times they've been to Disneyland, complete with princess stickers to mark each box.

Most of these little treasures get thrown away, but I do try to save the sweetest ones.  

In other school news, my friend Sandra encouraged to write my own math curriculum, Math-U-Eat so I thought I'd take her up on the offer!  (haha, just kidding!)  We did have another lesson of edible math the other day when it came to measurements.  Did you know gummiworms here are 2 inches long?  

 Emma knows!

 And we're starting Silas on a reading curriculum too, because it's never too early to foster a love of reading.

(ha! again, only kidding - but aren't those pics of him with the book too cute?!)

Hope your New Year's Day was fun and filled with anticipation of how God will be faithful to you in this coming year!  Who can imagine what He might have for us?  Let our faith in His goodness bring Him glory today!

the wonder of Christmas

Leaving riches without number

born within a cattle stall; 

This the everlasting wonder:

Christ was born the Lord of All!

Always Be Prepared - the hamburger bun lady strikes again

What a week it's already been for us!  Everything was building up to Friday where we'd go to the girls school in the morning for a Christmas activity, and then have a Christmas party at our home Friday evening.  

As we carefully considered where we wanted to invest our time and energies this Christmas season, we decided on those two main activities.  Both of them involved big groups of people getting to hear the good news of great joy that will be for all people!  We had big stacks of good news waiting for little boys and girls...

 Fortunately, I had some great helpers and we made quick work of the wrapping.

 (Although there was a bit of goofing off...!)

Yesterday evening, the Halloween crew came a-knocking.  They had brought with them ornately wrapped apples as gifts for all our kids.  (Apples are a common christmas gift here!)  Since we had a HUGE stack of wrapped gifts, we gave them their own kids-version of the good news instead of hamburger buns!  I guess they weren't too turned off by the buns, though since they did actually come back!

We've made lots of christmas cakes and cookies.

And now as Christmas nears and we prepare to add the last few items to our Jesse Tree, we agree with the writer of "O Holy Night" - the weary world rejoices!

We rejoice that Christ has come, the beautiful and perfect fulfillment of the promise God made so long ago.

We rejoice that Christ came to erase the stain of original sin, to absorb the wrath of His Father, and to redeem us as brothers when there had only been a slave. (Check out the literal translation of this christmas carol on wikipedia for a fresh take.)

O, night divine!  Merry Christmas!

t'was the night before a Hong Kong visa run

and all through the house, 

all the electronic items were charging

so that on the taxi-plane-bus-customs line-bus-mtr, 

the children would be quiet as a mouse.

The End.

The warm has gone, the cold has come

This week was the first truly cold week we've had since we lived here.  It's the kind of week where I make certain I bought everything I need at the store so I don't have to go again.  The kind of week where I start thinking of hot chocolate before I'm even off the elevator to go outside.  The kind of week where fleece blankets make it all better.

In honor of the warmer days, let's take a look at some pictures from just a few days ago!

While Emma and Samantha are at local school in the mornings, Abby asks every day if we can "play school".  Sometimes this is reviewing her letters, sometimes we do crafts or other games, read books...and sometimes we go downstairs to play because I can't think of anything better to do.  

Don't let this picture fool you - she is full of all sorts of rowdy!

She loves playing on the Dora bike that my parents brought us many years ago, and can barely be pried away from the rockin rainboots they sent a few weeks ago.

 She's learned how to play with Silas a little better, though there are often issues revolving property law.  Many solutions end by determining who is screaming the loudest.  Parents of multiple children, please, PLEASE tell me that your house is as loud and chaotic as mine.

Please...?

In the "Code For Being a Little Sister", there surely must be an entry that states that it is her duty to accompany the big girls to and from school.  She loves dropping them off and dissolves in tears when I rush out the door without her.  (This usually only happens when I'm running late to get them and she doesn't have time to change out of her poor clothing choices.)

It is such a blessing that the girls school is just outside of our back gate; it's a 5 minute, door-to-door round trip walking time!  That means that even on weeks where Josh is gone and I have to wrangle everyone out the door, it can usually be done pretty quickly.  I loved this picture of all of them walking back to our house - it wasn't even staged!

And these girls are so blessed to have each other.  They really stick together and help each other out at local school, and even homeschool.  

Thankful for these kiddos, and even the noise they make.  Thankful for the long warm weather we did have.  And thankful that when cold weather rolls around, hot chocolate is available.

Brrrrrrr!

a friendly little holiday reminder

A group of local ladies I've come to love just left my house a few minutes ago.  What started as very superficial banter quickly moved to deep issues in their hearts and families.  They shared of so much disappointment, hurt, and frustration in their daily lives that my heart nearly broke just listening to them.

I was tempted just to empathically listen, but the more they talked, the more I felt an almost physical urge to share with them goodness and truth and wisdom that can change their lives.

As I sit here in my quiet living room - in my nice, cushy recliner, no less! - I can see the floors and floors of apartments across the street from me.  Most of the rooms have their lights off, but not all.  For those apartments with lights still on, I can see everything inside their home (assuming I'm looking, of course!).  And they can see what's going on in here too.

Now that we have our tree up and all our lovely, soft lights, I wonder how our house must look from the other side.  

As I pondered that question, my mind jumped back to the discussion with my friends tonight.  

Praise God, I don't live in darkness anymore! His light has come into my heart, and it should be prominently displayed in all my interactions with people.  

So as the holidays are in full swing over there across the ocean, here's a little friendly reminder to you all:

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.  Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

I'm thankful, even if it IS late...

My life has been crazy these days, in a good sort of way.  I  find that every year I'm busier than the last, which makes me a bit nervous to imagine myself a few years down the road.  Anyhow, I'd love to recap a bit of how my family spent the Thanksgiving holiday.  [I'll try to leave out the parts about the obscene amounts of candy corn I ate.  Seriously, I feel like I'm in detox.  Candy corn is SO addicting!]

Initially, I was interested to do a little Thanksgiving activity at my girls school - like tell the Thanksgiving story, what it means to us personally, do a little craft, bring a treat.  Then my wise husband cautioned me against doing it since I was hosting 30 people for Thanksgiving dinner.  But one day when I went to get the girls from school, Emma's teacher says to me, "We'd love to celebrate Thanksgiving with the kids, but we aren't really sure how to do it.  Would you mind giving us some ideas?"   I just couldn't say no! 

Truthfully, I was excited about hanging out with the little guys, building a bit more rapport with the teachers and hopefully giving myself some street cred so I could come back for a Christmas activity.

So, the night before Thanksgiving, instead of making pumpkin pie, I was cutting out 150 leaves for a craft I would do the next day.  [Our expat family celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday this year.]  I still have a bruise on my thumb, in case you were wondering.

On Thanksgiving morning, I accompanied my girls to school and stayed in Samantha's class.  The teacher lined up all 35 of her classmates and they sat quietly while she introduced me.  [How does she do that?! I only have four and my house is never EVER quiet!]

I started off by using one of our favorite Thanksgiving books, This is the Feast to tell the general story of thanksgiving.  I made hats for the Indians, a pilgrim dude and a pilgrim mama to help get the kids involved in the story a bit more.  

We talked about how it's easy to be thankful for things when life is good, but it's really hard to be thankful when life is difficult!  I shared with the kids about how the Pilgrims were able to be thankful even though their life was hard.  

Then they had a surprise for me!  They had prepared a Thanksgiving Day dance for me (using a very popular local song), complete with a fabulously decorated Thanksgiving Day bulletin board in the background.  Since there was no assumption that Thanksgiving had anything to do with pumpkins, fall colored leaves, gourds or the "typical" stuff, it had a nice fat heart on it.  Crack me up.  

Samantha was in the back row, but you can't see her well in this picture. 

My little pilgrim boy was inciting the masses during the girls dance.  He was pretty funny!

 I found it interesting that they closed their dance with heads bowed.  It was nice to show them how the Pilgrims used that same posture to show their thanks to God for His provision for them.

 After the dance, all the kids moved to the courtyard with me to make little indian corn crafts.  There was a nice picture of indian corn in our book and I thought would be a cheap and easy craft to do with a billion kids.  Oh wait, not a billion...just 75.  

They all had a really fun time doing the craft!  I'm not sure how much free time they have in school to do extra things like this, but I could tell they really enjoyed it.  

When I was finished with Samantha's class, I walked next door to Emma's class to do pretty much the same thing.  During the craft time, Emma was my good helper!  She passed around glue, the cutout shapes, and showed all her friends the example from the book of the indian corn.  

 Emma's class had also (surprise!) planned a special dance for me.  I did my best to act surprised.  =)  My girl Emma loves dancing time at school!

 I loved how the pilgrim dude and pilgrim mama were standing next to each other while the other kids danced!

Truly, the activity was a huge success!  The kids had a great time, the teachers really enjoyed it as well and it accomplished several purposes for me.  After the activity, I made a beeline for home and started cranking some of the yumminess that would be eaten the next day.  

When the next day arrived, my oven was put to the test in a big way!  I think it was on almost the entire day!  At one point, one of the engineers in the group came in the kitchen and stacked dishes on top of dishes to get more stuff in there.  This photo doesn't do the reality of the situation much justice, but on the bottom layer is Potatoes au Gratin with foil covered mashed potatoes stacked on top of that, followed by herbed corn, with a cookie sheet of crescent rolls stacked on top of that.

 When all was said and done, there was so much food it was a big embarrassing.  There was SO. MUCH. FOOD.  On the other hand, there were a lot of people and the food ended up feeding us the next day while we gathered together to discuss things that needed discussing.  

 I love this picture because it totally describes my life as an expat - all the food is stacked on nine Contico trunks that have carted our worldly belongings from here and there and back again.  It's covered with a plastic tablecloth that was sent with love from my home club, and the banner was made from leftover scrapbook paper that my awesome mother-in-law sent me years ago.  The delicious food was made from ingredients that have been procured, stocked and saved from several bigger cities and countries and nearly everything was made from scratch.  

 And since I'm always afraid there won't be enough desserts, I made sure we wouldn't run dry.  

 Have I mentioned yet about the awesome people at Crosstown?  They sent us four boxes of love, which included almost everything we'd ever need to throw the most awesome Thanksgiving ever.  They sent decorations so that my house might actually feel like a piece of autumn bliss.  They sent crafts for the kids, more crafts for the kids, plates, forks, knives...you name it.  The older kids made these little Reese's  turkeys for everyone who came - too cute, yeah?! Thanks again, crosstown - you totally blessed us this Thanksgiving!

So that was my Thanksgiving.  It was certainly different than holidays past - and yes, I found myself missing my family and my friends that might as well be family - but it was a blessing to be able to serve with those around me this year.  I've also been meditating on good truth from Piper's book, Faith in Future Grace.  Without downplaying the role that gratitude has in our lives, he shows us that looking back in gratitude at God's provision gives us confidence and faith in His power to provide all that we need in the future.  

I can surely agree.  God has been faithful to me in so many ways this year and has provided abundantly for my needs.  With great confidence in Him, I can rest assured that He'll continue doing so in the future!

Happy very late Thanksgiving!

another nugget of homeschool wisdom

With all these nuggets of homeschool wisdom I'm throwing around, you better watch out! I might start charging you for it! haha...

When school feels a little too monotonous - or too much like we're just sitting and reading or writing - I've found an easy way to jazz up our routine is to varying our spelling test method.  I like doing this because:

1. Spelling tests don't last for very long, so I'm not committing to a big project.

2. It really makes the girls feel like we've done something fun.

3. It makes me feel like I'm thinking outside the box.  Even if I'm just stealing other people's ideas, I want to feel like I'm taking a proactive approach to learning.  =)

So, here are a few spelling test ideas we've done over the last few weeks:

-The Chalkboard.  I divide it in two and let the girls choose their color of chalk.  Not sure why they like this so much; I mean, it's super simple.  I think maybe it makes them feel like they're the teacher?!

- Letter tiles.  The tiles we used were from Bananagrams, but you could use Scrabble ones and even have your kids add the letter values - then determine which spelling word has the highest point value.  [This method takes the longest though, because my kids want to separate all the letters into alphabetical order...]

 -Window markers - how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways...

-Shaving cream and cookie sheets.  We did spelling with shaving cream this week and Emma (my usually very particular girl) loved it!  After she scored perfectly on her test, I let her draw pictures for a bit.  Samantha couldn't finish fast enough - all she wanted to do was wash that stuff off! I also discovered that my husband never did this in school.  Does anyone else remember doing this in kingergarten/first grade?  I loved it!

So there you have it - my "spice it up" ideas for when school feels boring.  Feel free to make donations.  All major credit cards accepted.

nuggets of homeschool wisdom

Because math is always more fun when you get to eat the sum...

my girl is gone

The girl I refer to is not one of my three oldest children.  It's actually the youngest - the only boy I have!    Because of his curly and rather long locks, people usually assume that he's a girl - regardless of what color or style of clothes he may be wearing.  

I recently went to a show at Emma and Samantha's school and was asked so many times if he was a girl, I decided action must be taken.  The beautiful long locks must go.

I was going through some pictures from a few weeks ago and a few of them capture his curls perfectly. First of all,  I can see how people might think he's a girl:

 Sometimes, I think even Abby is jealous of his curly hair! (Ha! just kidding.)

Obviously, Abby is very thrilled about something in this picture.  Or she may be showing her extreme displeasure at some instruction I may or may not have just given her.

There's the fourth "girl" in the family again; he just looks so lovely!

Being a victim of paparazzi starts young out here:

 So...armed with a pair of safety scissors of all things - hey, I just grabbed what was close - and a toy computer to keep him occupied, I snipped here and there.  Such a pile of curls ended up on the floor!

 After the first pass, he definitely ended up more manly!  Not sure what's in his mouth at this point - probably bread or yogurt since that's all he cares to eat these days.

 I took a second pass the next day and trimmed even further.  There's lots of places where the cut isn't even and it took all of three minutes to complete, but I feel like the little girl look has gone.  A cute little man has taken her place! =)

What do you think?