Migraine update

Most people know that Alan has suffered from chronic migraines ever since college. They have gotten significantly worse this year, as if they could get any worse. After a long trip to Hong Kong to see specialists, Alan is on lots of medication that is healping his migraines tremendously. Unfortunately, the medicine causes him to be extremely lethargic. It has been a semester of growing in grace towards ourselves and towards each other. Having only one migraine in six weeks is so so much better than before, when he was averaging two a week and then he even had them everyday for a spell, but but we are learning more and more what we out our hope in. We want Our desire, the treasure of our hearts to be Jesus, but often we find ourselves thinking, if only this would get better, if only he wasn't so tired, if only I knew how much longer we would have to endure this, then we would be blessed, we would be ok...seeking what He can do for us more than seeking Him in the moment. Thankfully, I think I am slowly getting to a point, after becoming so weary , that I have finally realized I am weak, finite, in need of grace, wisdom, His yoke, and Him with me right now. No longer can I smile and say, we are fine because a lot of times we are not...life is hard when a spouse is sick all the time and we still have three young kids to discipline and train, but I am learning to live passionately...meaning being ok with experiencing incredible joys, deep sadness, and everything else in between. It is unchartered territories for me, I am used to having it all together, or at least appearing that way, but I just can't continue that anymore, it's not really me, mot where my heart really is, and is not what the father wants for me or anyone. He wants me to experience Him and come to Him just as I am.

Thankful for Thanksgiving!

Hmm, so much to write about.  I guess I should update and say that we had a wonderful Thanksgiving before Christmas arrives and we have more to write about! I am blessed with an amazing husband, who, of the many many things he does well, one of those is cooking...he actually enjoys it more than I do and there have been many a night when he comes home and see me struggling in the chaos of cooking and keeping eyes on two kids and a crazy crawler and he blesses me by taking over in the kitchen. So that goes without saying, he was extremely excited for Thanksgiving.  He thought nonstop about cooking the turkey, how it would look, leftovers, you name it! The kids and I decorated and made sweet potatoe casserole, chocolate cheesecake, pumpkin chocolate chip cake, and pumpkin dip. It was a feast. We ate around 3:30, to give ourselves time while little ones were napping to finish making everything. We had plenty of time to relax, have dessert, leftovers, and play on our roof.  I am so thankful for so many things, but especially for Alan!
               

                          yummy food

                                               

                                                     doesn't Alan make a beautiful Turkey!! 

Caught!  We found him!
We constantly find this playful boy on the hunt for cords, trashcans, and toilets

Without a nap, this sweet girl fell asleep amidst  kids playing all around her at 6:00pm. Must  have been the turkey! 

me and my girl. 

So thankful for our precious family! They are gifts from the Lord. 

Perspective

I wrote this post right before Thanksgiving...
So last week was a little crazy. Alan as out of town last weekend with the Boy Scouts...yes, we have a troop in our city and since Alan was an Eagle Scout he really enjoys helping them out. One of the perks is that he takes Cameron along once a semester on one of the camp outs..to put the term loosely, if you call putting up a tent on a pile of rocks in a construction site camping. But they are out of the city, bonding, learning a lot, and Cameron is learning a lot (I hope) about servant leadership by being around the scouts.

 Then Alan left Tuesday to go out of town for work for four days, and on Saturday we finally had a birthday party for Cameron and his friend Cooper. During the midst of all that craziness, Alan might have told me we were possibly going out of town on a retreat on the 18th with  some local friends, but it did not register with me until Saturday when Alan asked me about packing. Going out of town for two days with three kids, one who is crawling around everywhere, taking Cameron out of school, right before Thanksgiving...what!?! I thought it was kind of crazy but I felt the Lord reminding me that He is bigger than our plans and HE is in control, not me. So, we went and had a good time. It actually was such a blessing to be away from home and all my "to dos" and enjoy spending time with local friends worshiping the Lord and enjoying their fellowship. I was reminded that the whole reason why we can celebrate Thanksgiving is because of Gods enormous grace and goodness to us. It is not about a perfect day, with perfect food, apartment and hosting so that people will make much of me, but so that in all things we " will give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever" (Psalm 106:1) and He will receive the glory, not me.

The kids had fun just being kids outside during our meetings.









Laura Cate had fun making new friends at meals. The boys mainly used the chopsticks to run around outside and play.



We even enjoyed playing outside on the grass. William practiced standing up and barely holding on!

Always something new

Life has been pretty busy here on the home front. Alan has been out of town all week and it is a tough, long day getting Cameron ready for school and out the door by myself at 7:00 a.m.! I am so thankful for neighbors that have kids that can walk him to the bus stop and bring him home.  William seems to be doing new things everyday. Monday he stood up without holding on for the first time. He does it so fast though I have not been able to get a picture, but I am trying. He is a speed-racer crawler and the first place he zooms off to is the bathroom if the door isn't closed. He goes straight for the toilet everytime!  Yuck, yuck, yuck.  He keeps me on my toes and washing his hands a lot.  Yesterday he started pointing at things and saying some form of a word, and today he ate spaghetti all by himself for the first time!  William also suddenly dropped his morning nap...well technically I guess I dropped it for him. He went a few days without falling asleep like he usually does in the afternoon, so I started pushing him through lunch without his morning nap and now he takes one long afternoon nap.  I am so glad it was an easy transition..sometimes they flip flop back and forth or are tired at 11:00 a.m. and it can be tricky.  What an easy guy we have been blessed with (it makes up for his first 6 months when he was colicky and he,  nor Alan and I slept at all! ).  He is such a happy, snuggly, fun guy.  So now, I have two kiddos running/crawling around all morning, which is an adjustment, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.  I will try to get some pictures of William  if he slows down long enough!

Bike Ride

At the beginning of the trail...William is in a seat on the back of my bike but you cant see him :(

Cameron is leading the way

Laura Cate is along for the ride and loving it! 

William not so sure how he feels about his first car seat experience

It is not always easy to get out of the city as a family. It seems like it takes an act of Congress to figure things out.  With a country full  of families with only one child, it seems doing anything with more than that is challenging.  But this past weekend, as some family fun time in honor of Cameron, we went with some friends on a bike great ride.   It was such a great day.  We really don't do this very often...ok, actually, we have never been on a bike ride here with our kids outside the city.  It was delightful to be outside, away from cars, people, and smog, and normal life.   We rented bikes with seats for William and Laura Cate for a whopping 75 cents each and Cameron rode on a bike we brought.  William sat with me and even took a leisurely nap. Laura Cate rode with Alan and enjoyed the sites. Cameron raced ahead and lead the way with his friends and their dad.  We even had a picnic lunch. The trail...which is very entrepreneurial...a family rents decent bikes and you can take them along a 20 km trail that weaves through farms, by houses, and lots and lots of flowers. To our surprise, we saw just a few people. Getting out to  the trail was about an hour ride in a rented van, but it was worth every penny.  On our way home, I told Alan it filled my social cup, my need to be outdoors cup, my desire to do fun things as a family cup, my enjoyment of exercise cup...Thank you Lord for giving us such a special day!

HALLOWEEN!

We had such a great time dressing up and being with our friends.  Thankfully, here, they don't know much about the holiday, so we can get away with doing whatever we want and not feel weird....well we actually feel weird and different all the time, so dressing up our kids and walking around with buckets doesn't cause anymore strange looks than us walking down their street with our usual three kids...anymore than one and they think you are crazy! 

Cameron had lots of costume changes before settling on a transformer. Laura Cate fell in love with a long sleeve pink princess gown her Gran C sent, and William was our faithful Pumpkin that each of the other kids wore when they were one. It has gotten lots of wear, so this might have been its last showing :( 

Our newest pumpkin! 

Our friend Sonya had a great idea to go to the shops outside our gate and give them candy to pass out...they obliged and loved seeing lots of cute foreign kids come by.  Afterwards we gathered on a rooftop and had treats and the kids watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown...it was so fun doing something just for the kids.  At one point Laura Cate had all her candy spread out around her so she could check it all out...Cameron just dove into his, not particular about what he got...so fun to see their little personalities show up in even the little things.  

serious heros

cute kids

all ready to go! 

who can't hang out candy and talk on the phone?

a busy shop on Halloween! 

beautiful princesses!

our fam  outside our apartment complex

popcorn 

and a great movie!

and Laura Cate surrounded by friends and candy! 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Book Character Day

 Cameron's school has Book Character Day every year on October 31.  I love it!  Such a creative idea and a fun excuse for the kids to wear costumes all day long!  Cameron learned a lot as he and I went back and forth over what a "character" from a book is...the idea was someone they like from a novel/chapter book...it is not from a seek and find, or his Star Wars Encyclopedia. He wanted to be the soldier from Toy Story, but we did not have the book to go with it. At the last minute we chose to be Walter Lee from The Apple and the Arrow...such a great book. A must read for boys about bravery, courage, and love. Unfortunately, I am not creative but we were able to borrow an outfit to make it work!

Here he is! ...He is supposed to have an apple on his head, but  somehow he forgot.....hmmm

Laura Cate came with me and got to dress up too!

Cameron on stage

I read a story to his class and of course Laura Cate wanted to sit with her brother.

our little Tiger

Tonight we are doing our own sort of trick or treating with other expats here and  will post more pictures.  

Cameron's 7th Birthday!

Wow, it is hard to believe we have a seven year old! It seems just like yesterday that he was born and now he is such his own young man it seems, with interests, great ideas, and plans.   It is so fun to see him become the boy God created him to be and to help him grow in wisdom and stature. God has great things in store for Cameron and through him.  He is such a joyful,  thoughtful, observant, helpful, easy-going, boy who loves soccer and to run outside. We had a great day as a family celebrating him. It started off actually the night before when we took him out to dinner wherever he wanted to go. He chose a favorite Tex-Mex restaurant within walking distance. It was  a treat for all of us.  Yesterday morning he woke up to cinnamon rolls with blue frosting and some small gifts from his siblings.  After his Tuesday after-school ball games, he came home to his favorite meal...home-made chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, and cooked apples, and we topped it off with brownies and ice-cream for dessert!  During dinner we spent time telling him what we all appreciated about him and then I asked him a bunch of questions. IT was fun to learn more about him.  One of the questions was: "What did you enjoy doing this past year?"  He answered, "Books!"  I am so thankful he is enjoying books and learning to read. I let him write out the answers and one fun answer he had to "What do you like to learn in school" He wrote: 1 + 3 = 4.  (Math) :) What a fun, whitty kid! I had to do some translating, but Laura Cate said, " I am glad you go to school, Cameron, and I go too." She meant she was glad that he likes going to his school and that she gets to go see him there...oh, she is so proud of her big brother.  Cameron waited patiently to open some gifts from grandparents and us while we skyped with them. Being halfway around the world is not easy! We stayed up late and played with his newest LEGO set and ended our day together! We love you Cameron!  We are so blessed to call you our son.

Cameron enjoying his very own root beer while out to eat at Peter's for his birthday dinner

Us at dinner...Laura Cate was there but refused to get in the picture and I knew we had a limited window of time with William to do it...so, just us and our boys!

Cameron birthday morning waking up early to balloons

enjoying some dessert, soo yummy!

Cameron and Laura Cate

                         

                                    talking on the phone with Grandma and Granddad while opened their presents

us enjoying putting LEGOS together after William went down.  Even Laura Cate did a great job sorting and finding pieces for us. Of course, she loves doing whatever Cameron is doing. 

playing Monopoly as a family for the first time...Star Wars style...very fun! 

On Thursday I was able to go to his school and pass out cupcakes to his class. It was fun seeing them all together.  They sang and he helped pass out the cupcakes and then he finally sat down to his....before I insisted on another photo :) he really just wanted to eat the cupcake...come on mom!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A GREAT GUY!
 We love you Cameron Jackson. We have had seven wonderfully blessed years with you and look forward to this next year. 

Our dog (on loan)

Kopou

Some dear friends of ours went to the States for six months and were desperately looking for someone to take care of their nine year old Golden Retriever.  At first the thought never crossed our mind to take care of a dog. Actually, it did, and it was more like, "I wish I could but I cant handle having another living thing to feed, walk, and talk care of." But then we suddenly moved apartments because our lease ran out and we ended up on the top floor with a roof and grass and a fence...the previous owners had a dog, so then we decided we wanted to be a blessing to them and take their dog.  We loved her! Her name was Kopou (pronounced Copo, or cocoa as other kids called her). She was a great dog for us and the easiest doggie ever! Our kids loved to take her on walks and feed her and she was so loved.  Even baby William got excited when he saw her.  We are thankful for the time we had with her. Sadly, though,I went to check on her and and suddenly noticed something that didn't look good near her bottom :(  Alan just happened to be at home so he looked at her and we knew she needed to go to a vet.  Laura Cate kept saying, "it's ok girl, it's ok." She seemed happy and not in pain at all...just her usual self.  Unfortunately, I did not know that that would be our last time to see her.

Cameron enjoyed running with her

Kopou had a tumor and we called her owners who decided it was too hard and to put her to sleep.  We will miss her, but are so thankful for the unexpected gift she was to our family! Thank you to the Sims who let us take care of her.  She was such a great dog! We are so sad for them and know that they miss her even more than we do.  It is still sad to go on our roof and not see her running to the gate, so happy and ready to play.

lucky William was right at nose level and got lots of licks. He loved petting her ears and touching her wet nose. We took her on lots of walk (sometimes she walked me if there was a cat around). 

Laura Cate was of course fearless and enjoyed playing ball with her

October Holiday

a typical house in the countryside

Our feast! 

October Holiday is the national holiday here and we enjoyed spending time at a friend's farm house. We grilled out and they made amazing fresh curry and other cooked veggies right from their crops.  The kids had a great time climbing the mountainside and just being outside.  I guess after living here for over ten years we should consider ourselves city dwellers, but oh, we still love being outside and having the kids run around.  We saw pigs, chickens, and even picked pumpkins!  We are so thankful for our friends to be so generous with their home and food.

 

some of the kids after they came back from their hike

some of us preparing food while the kids were hiking with the other adults

Cameron and Laura Cate

A friend, different than the one actually holding the chicken,  caught one of the chickens on the farm, bought it, and took it home to eat!  I didn't see it, but I heard it was quite a sight seeing our friend running around trying to catch the chicken!