C turned 10

Oh wow, how time flies.  C turned 10 today.   I remember he was a tough baby.  He had trouble sleeping and eating.  When most infants sleep, he would always be awake making me so tired.  I remember getting on my knees with H, praying and asking for God's help to care for and raise C.  Look at him now; healthy and thriving.  It's emotional for me mainly because I only have 8 more years with him and I am not sure whether I did a good job this past decade.  If I can turn back time, I would do so many things differently.

Everyone needs someone in their life to believe in them and tell them how precious and valuable they are.  Encouraging words goes a long way.  So I took this opportunity to give C a special blessing.  Here is a blessing from a mother's heart.

C's 10 Years Old Blessing

C, you are my son and I love you with all my heart.  I can’t believe you have now reached double-digits in age and are no longer a little boy.  You are becoming a young man, capable of doing whatever you put your mind to.   You have a smart and inquisitive mind, always asking questions about how things work, and that’s how you can do those slide puzzles in no time at all.  I love your strong sense of right and wrong, and your desire to always choose the right path.  You don't ever have to feel like you are not good enough because God has uniquely gifted you with all that you need to succeed.  He has planned for you to do amazing things with your life.  You will grow up one day to be a leader of integrity who is honest and caring, whom God will use to show His love to the world.  I am very proud that you try your best and persevere in areas where you are weak in.  It’s easy for people who are good at something to keep doing it.  Extraordinary people are those who keep trying when things are hard and don’t give up.  Today, I bless you with all the blessings of love, peace, joy, and wisdom that the Lord promised in His holy word.  As you begin your journey of becoming a man, I want to give you this special gift as a symbol of your growth toward independence.  You are an amazing boy and I am blessed to be your mother.

My gift to him was a personalized apron and a cookbook.  Beside encouraging him to love the Lord with all his heart, it's my job to train him for the real world.  I want him to be a blessing to himself, those around him, and especially his future wife and family.  So that means, he needs to know how to cook a little and also do some household chores.  I have been teaching him how to cook and make simple meals.  Because he is older now, he will have the privilege to handle a small part of our household budget and will also have to do his own laundry. 

The Benefit of Memorizing Verses

Christmas is such a crazy time of the year.  I love celebrating the birth of Christ, but there are so many things to do, gifts to buy, cookies to bake, and people to appreciate.  No matter how busy, I normally like to keep our Christmas traditions.  So that when the kids are grown, they can think back to the time they were at home and the things we did together to celebrate and honor the birth of our Savior.  I also want them to appreciate the true meaning of Christmas and to think beyond to the gifts to the Giver of all gifts.

One thing we do leading up to Christmas is a similar version of the Advent calendar.  I use this book The Advent Jesse Tree.  It has 25 devotions, one for each day in December.  It starts with creation and includes significant stories from Old Testament, pointing to and prophesizing of the Savior, to the birth of Christ.  And it also suggest an ornament to go along with each devotion.  We have been doing this for 4 years now.  Prior to starting, I have collected and made ornaments for these devotions.  So every night in December, we read a devotion and talked about it's role in God's plan for the human race.  Then the kids, guess which ornament goes with that devotion and get to put it on the tree.  The boys loved guessing and K have started to like digging through my box of special ornaments too.  If I don't like a certain ornament, the boys would keep an eye out for it through out the year or even help make me another one.  Sometime life gets hectic and we skip a devotion or two, but the boys would always want to make it up.

Today's devotion was about Isaiah the prophet foretold that God would send a Savior to the world.  He is the Prince of Peace which one day will bring us lasting peace.  The verse to read was Isaiah 9:6-7.  I started to reach for the Bible and turn to Isaiah, but J and then later C, started reciting the the verse to me.
For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
They said it's a verse they learned in Awana.  I thought they just memorized it quickly for the prize, I didn't think they actually can recall it based on the reference.  WOW! I was so impressed.  They memorized more verses than me now.  I am so thankful that they are hiding God's word in their heart.  I pray that God would use those verses in their heart and mind to help them in the future and draw them closer to Himself.

Another Christmas Tradition

On Christmas day, we normally see what goodies we have in our stocking.  Then, we read the story of Jesus' birth.  After that, we usually dress up as wisemen to play Find Baby Jesus.  Since we were all tired from all the staying up late.  We slept in and didn't pay the game.  But the boys kept asking about it, so perhaps we will have to make up for it.  In the afternoon, the boys and I baked and decorated cookies.  We made 26 plus cookies and I thought for sure we have to give some away.  How can we finish?  When they were hot out of the oven 6 were gone before the batch of cookies even had time to cool.  Now, it is only two days after Christmas and all the cookies are gone.  Sugar cookies with all the butter are super yummy.

Christmas 2012

Christmas is one of my favorite time of the year, so I like to make a big deal out of it.  We have so many fun traditions to help us remember why we celebrate Chrismas.  Instead of counting down with an advent calendar, one of our tradition is counting down to Christmas using the Advent Jesse tree devotion.  The Jesse tree is the family tree of Jesus.  There are 25 stories from the Bible to go along with each day in December until Christmas.  It begins with creation and goes through the old testament until the birth of Christ following the genelogy of Jesus.  Everyday we read a devotional and then hang up the coordinating ornament.  The kids love to dig through and find the ornament that coordinate with the story.  When we skip a day for any reason, we must make it up because they want to hang up all the ornaments. 

My family usually have our feast on Christmas Eve.  This year we had hot pot because the weather has been sooo cold.  And I love baking in the winter.  Now that I have time, I tried to make our family's favorite apple pie.  I love warm apple pie with cold vanilla ice cream.  My pie was a hit with the boys, H, and my extended family.  I must make it again.   But sad to say, my pie did not meet Master Chef's standards.  I didn't have enough apples, the apple was slightly over cooked, and the crust cracked, but the taste was right on.  I am usually my worst critic.  Since this is my first time, I can make a better one next week.  My sister is out of the country and not with us this year.  C said that Christmas is not the same without Yiyi.  We miss ya Yiyi!

Christmas Tradition Cont.

Christmas is our family's most favorite time of the year.  For the kids I am sure it's because they get gifts.  But for me it's a time for tradition, giving, and focusing on Christ as the most precious gift to us.  Ever since Caleb can walk and play hide-and-seek, we have established the family tradition of reading through the Christmas story and acting it out on Christmas day.  Then we play find baby Jesus.  Someone would hide the doll and we dressed up as wisemen to find Jesus.  I love any opportunities to direct the boys' attention away from gifts and to Christ.  We didn't get anywhere during the break, but had lots of rest and fun at home.

Right after we put our tree up after Thanksgiving, Mui-mui started to not want to nap.  She would cry hysterically every time we put her down to sleep, during the day time and at night.  H's theory is that the Christmas decoration triggered some memories from the most traumatic part of her life.  We brought her home last Christmas.  It was a lot for a baby to go through having been removed from what she is used to.  She spent a few weeks of crying herself to sleep.  At one point, she climbed out of her crib multiple times because she just didn't want to nap.  The crib is pretty high, but she managed to get both her legs out and just jump.  She is very strong willed and determined.  Now her sleep is much better.  She is willing to sleep at night.  But still fights her nap.  She will sleep if I put her down, but won't do it for the nanny.  She has to sit next to her until she falls asleep. 

First time Mui-mui trims the tree.  She loves getting into my fragile box of ornaments.  Makes me nervous.

J is getting too big to sit on my lap.  But he is still my bebe.

Leading the way to Jesus.

My cute wisemen.

First Halloween

This is Mui-mui's first Halloween. We dressed her in the Mak family costume made by K's mom. All Mak kids wore it. Can you recognize who is who?

We recently allowed her to have a lollipop. She loved it so now she knows what candy is. There was a parade and trick-or-treating at the boys' school. I brought Mui along. At first she didn't know what we were doing. I showed her how to go up to people to get candy. After seeing what she can get, she knew how to spot people who are giving out candies and she made her way up to them. With her cute look people would give her candies first.

Pumpkin Patch

We visited the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin and some fall decorations. This was our third year going to G&M Farm in Livermore. It became one of our family's favorite tradition. We spent a couple of hours there and had a picnic lunch on site. Family with kids should definitely go, I am sure your kids will love it. We will head back to the farm next October. You are welcome to join us at our 4th annual pumpkin patch extravaganza in 2009. It will be the first week of October, so mark your calendar.

There were many fun things for kids to do at the farm. The boys worked their way through tunnels and dead ends in the hay maze.

The pony rides and cow train were popular kids' attractions. Picking out the perfect pumpkin was not as easy as it seem. Since all the pumpkins cost the same, we wanted the biggest and most perfect one.

This year the farm added a play structure and a corn box. What's a corn box? It's like sand box, but instead of sand, it's filled with corn. The boys loved it. They liked digging in it, being bury in it, and making snow angels. Oh no, corn angels.

Look, yi yi, the boys wanted to take this picture just for you.

Caleb said, "Where are my legs, yi yi?"

Easter 2008

Egg hunt at Kennedy Park in San Leandro.
















This year Caleb actually found some eggs with stuff inside. Last year, he only found chocolate mini eggs.




















Unlike Caleb, Joshie wanted to go on ALL the rides.

Joshua's First Christmas Tree Decorating

We first decorated a small tree for the mantel.

Joshie, AKA Dai-dai, loves balls. The ornaments looked just like balls. He broke 3 instantly.

Then Dai-dai, finally got the idea that it suppose to go on the tree.

Pumpkin Patch, October 2007

It's a little late, but since I have not posted any pictures of the boys I thought I would go back in time. This is our second year going to the pumpkin patch in Livermore.

Pumpkin patch.

Cow train.

Hay maze.

Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas! It's my favorite time of the year and I hope that my boys will come to love this time of the year not for the gifts, but for what it truly means and for the times we get to spend together as a family. We have decided to start a few traditions to make Christmas a meaningful and memorable time. Together as a family, we read the story of Christ's birth and then acted out what we read. After that we played hide-and-seek to look for the hidden baby Jesus. We then wrapped up our celebration of Christ's birth by making Christmas cookies.

We, as wise men bearing gifts, followed the star in search of baby Jesus, who was born King of the Jews and Savior to ALL.
The Star led us to the baby, who was really Elmo.
Caleb decided that instead of decorating the cookies, it is more efficient if he just eat the candy decorations and watch other people do the hard work.So where was Joshua during all this? He was asleep most of the time, but this is what he looks like now.

First Christmas Tree

Yesterday we drove around town to pick out a Christmas tree. Our intension was to get a 6 foot tree. But when we got to this one Christmas tree place that had little trees, Caleb was drawn to those little tree right away. Since it's still early in the season there wasn't any tree in our size because the little they had was sold out. So we left and said that we will go back next week. But on the way home Caleb kept asking why we didn't buy the little tree. He wanted to bring the little tree home. He continued to ask for it even when we got home. I then realized that I wanted the big tree to fulfill my own desire to have a real Christmas tree and not for Caleb. So Hebron and I decided to go back and get him the little tree. Even at this age he knows what he likes and what he wants. For Halloween we took Caleb to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin. Caleb picked out a small pumpkin (not those tiny one) that he can carry. All the pumpkins was the same price and as Chinese parent, I wanted to get the biggest one. So I told him to put the small one back and we got the biggest one we can find. After we got home I felt so bad about making him put it back because he really liked that pumpkin. He kept asking for it. So that's why we went back this time for his little Christmas tree. To him that was the perfect tree. So here he is touching and hugging the tree.Caleb helped putting the tree in water and decorating it. Here's how the decorated tree look like. We had a lot of fun. We love our little tree. Does it look like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree?