A little Thailand update

Here's a quick update on our Thailand trip. 

One of the first nights, we learned to cook a little pad thai. Here's Kim looking like a Thai cooking school brochure picture.

  We headed to Maesa Elephant Park. The kids had a blast.

We have a pool at the house we're staying at and the kids are in it at least 5 hours a day.

Cousins.

Uncle Casey and Selah

Makaria and I riding our elephant. The driver of our elephant took my camera and did his own little photo shoot while we tried to fend for ourselves on the back of a pachyderm.

Malachi hangin' with the elephant.

Selah's turn.

After the elephants did their paintings. It's pretty amazing to watch these elephants paint flowers, mountains, and landscape.

A Buddhist Monk snapping a picture with his Smartphone.

At Huay Kaew waterfall.

That's it for now!

I'm excited about...

I'm totally not excited about iridescence. Although if you're choosing between chiffon and iridescence, then I'd be excited about it. Chiffon is ok for princess costumes and bitter bridesmaids dresses, but not much else. 

I am though excited that our family will be going out of country for a few weeks. We've got some things to take care .

One of them being sleep. 

I'm going to purposely try not to blog much while we're there because I want to pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. I want to hide and avoid responsibilities. Although we will be with my sister and her family and when that happens, a blog will inevitably need to be posted.

BUT, I do have exciting news that I'm not sharing yet. This news does not require a moving van or peeing on a stick. 

I'll keep you posted.

Meeting our Neighbors

We met our downstairs neighbors last week.

We met our downstairs neighbors last week because my two youngest decided to de-clutter their room by throwing things out their window during rest time.

I discovered this little organizational technique when our apartment managers came upstairs and said they could see a little white hand and then a little black hand peeking out the bottom of their windowsill.  Down 3 stories, they had tossed a huge comforter, a large crocheted blanket, two full baskets of laundry, 15 books, a dozen pieces of Chinese homework and rocks out the window.  I meant to get a picture, but I was so angry at the time that I let it go.  But here's the re-enactment of the pile we brought up afterwards.

We were picking underwear and socks out of their trees.

I'm sure they are chomping at the bits, waiting to invite us over for dinner.  I won't hold my breath.

Reformation Day 2011-John Calvin

We had our annual Reformation Day celebration. Last year was Luther, this year we celebrated John Calvin. Since he was born in France, but did a majority of ministry time in Switzerland, we had a hodge podge of foods for dinner. 

Swiss Zopf bread

French Tourtiere (this was super good)

French green beans

Swiss glazed carrots 

Swiss Aargau carrot cake

The kids composed a newscast theme song on Garage Band. As the song played, John Calvin and I walked in for his interview. Malachi covered the first half of his life. He ended as Calvin decided to switch to studying law.

We took a short break while we switched costumes and out came Selah. She continued the interview and then went on to explain TULIP. She concluded by telling of how Calvin was riddled by sickness for most of his life. 

As we ended the interview, she left the stage and I told about his dying in the arms of his friend, Theodore Beza.

Then it was on to play "Pin the petal on the TULIP." Everyone was blindfolded and spun around. 

Yes, that is a shirt thrown over some of the older kids. We are very serious about cheating during our game. 

After we finished up, we had carrot cake and hung out for a bit. We had a blast celebrating with everyone. 

And now for next year...

Homemade Butterfingers

I almost cried when a friend gave me candy corns because it was the holy grail left in my recipe for homemade butterfingers. The recipe came from here. Her pictures are way less ghetto than mine, so feel free to head over there to take a look. 

You'll need a 16 oz. bag of candy corn

1 c. peanut butter

chocolate bars (the recipe calls 16 oz. candy coating, but I don't have candy coating, so I just melted Dove bars)

Stick the candy corn in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Take them out and stir. Then, put them back in for 15 seconds at a time and stir. This took about 2 minutes total for me. Who knew you could melt candy corn?! 

Then add 1 c. peanut butter to the candy corn and stir it up.

Pour it out on a pan and form into into a rectangle. Or a rhombus. Or a pentagon. That way, you can justify this being a homeschool lesson. The recipe calls for using parchment paper, but I didn't have that either. So, wax paper it was. I put mine in the fridge for about an hour. The mistake I made was not cutting them about 30 minutes in. I then needed a hacksaw to cut them up.

Here's the candy corn and peanut butter. Don't feel the pressure to buy one with Chinese characters on it.  That's just the world I live in. I used creamy because in my 10 year old head, I remember Butterfingers not actually having peanuts in them. 

I took 6 bars of dark chocolate and melted them. I burned them a little, but I still managed to throw down 6 or 7 of these. No love lost here. My friend used milk chocolate and said they were great too.

Mine are not at all pretty because of the putting in the fridge too long incident, but I will say that these were wonderful. So take all those candy corns from your kid's Halloween stash and tell them it's for the greater good that they donate these to you. It can double as a homeschool lesson on socialism. 

Do I have to run around?

If you know my husband, have met my husband, or seen my husband stand in line at Starbucks, you will know this post confirms that our oldest son does indeed share his DNA.

It was a beautiful day and I forced lovingly sent my kids outside. This is his idea of "playing outside."

Tex, Tiger, Lao Hu the Kitten

A few of you know that I've had a friend here who got rid of her unborn baby this week. It's a long story and probably shouldn't be shared in it's entirety on this here blog. But, I will say that the Lord did something fun for me. I say fun for me because my husband shot me a look the second he laid eyes on my little gift of grace.

As I walked out my door and into the stairwell to walk outside, I saw him. It was as if he was looking up at me and saying "Yes! You can rescue me! Your friend's baby is gone, but I am RIGHT HERE!" 

I picked him up, turned around and brought him home. I knocked on the door and met my husband who looked at me and said "Carrie, don't even think about it."We have both decided that we have more on our plate that we can handle already, so the cat needs to find another family. But on the heels of the situation with my friend, I was certainly not going to abandon it. I would rather sleep outside with it bundled on a park bench than let it go outside without a mother cat or a home. 

 Long story short, we have taken the cat in for the weekend and will give it up for adoption on Monday to a loving friend and home. I have to say that giving it up was hard. I know it's for the best, but my compassion strings were playing a loud tune. My poor husband got pummeled by the snowball of emotion that started tumbling about two weeks ago. While as a couple, we had made the rational decision that a pet isn't a good idea for our family right now, but that didn't matter when I looked into this sweet kitten's eyes. 

I was frustrated that we had to give him up and the first night, that I rolled over in bed and said in a rather non-submissive tone "Sometimes compassion isn't rational." 

It just isn't.

While I still believe that statement is true, I am also thankful for a husband that knows we have limitations that have to be considered. If I weren't married to him, I'd be that old lady with 16 kids, 85 cats and a collection of porcelain hummingbirds shoved into my china cabinet. 

"Anorectal" Ads Dripping with Immaturity

If you are offended at potty humor in any way, shape or form, skip this post.  It's dripping with immaturity and inappropriateness. I just couldn't help it. 

As I walked home from dropping the kids off from school, my peripherals stumbled upon this beauty.  Just your typical "Anorectal Hospital" ad.  

Apparently this ancient cauldron has not yet seen the "Anorectal" doctors, because he is still leaking.  

He is still leaking hot lava.

I shivered, laughed, shivered again and then took the picture.  The vividness of this picture was effective in it's not so subtle message that "anorectal" problems can plague us all. 

Worldview Perspective

A little worldview perspective for you on a Wednesday morning.

Lennon vs. Lenin

While sitting down with Selah, her Chinese textbook and a friend, a mounting cultural conversation happened.  

"Mom, who's Lennon?"

Thinking to myself "How do I describe John Lennon to a 9 year-old girl who has no concept of boy bands, pop music and cultural icons?"  I paused.

I was lining up bullet points in my mind:

1.  British pop-star

2.  Co-founder of one of the most successful rock bands in modern music history.

3.  Prolific singer-song writer. 

On and on my mind raced.

She was still looking at her Chinese textbook when she pointed out his picture to me.  

"See, this guy...Lenin."  As in Vladamir.

Oh, THAT Lenin.  Well, he wasn't quite as cool as the Lennon I was thinking about.  Sporting similar names, slightly different lives. 

Eating Jewish Style

I love our history curriculum. I love history. I am admittedly a moron in history.

History Odyssey has several books to choose from that will add tons of hands on stuff to do with your kids. I have issues with sitting still and learning.  While  my kids do sit down and crank out worksheets everyday, I have also found that we all need a change of pace. Frequently.  They have coloring books, craft books, recipes, 3D models and links to all types of websites to give them a better understanding of what's going on.  And honestly, it helps me have a clue as to what happened in Ancient Mesopotamia.  It seems that I was busy keeping my hair sprayed bangs in place while my colleagues studied history in junior high.

We are studying Ancient Israel right now. Besides it being fascinating, it has stretched our understanding of God's grace to the Israelites as they were in slavery, wandered and finally inherited the promises of God.  

We had friends coming to our house for dinner on Wednesday, so I decided to do a reenactment of  a Passover Seder meal. Little did they know that this would require them to wear a head dress and clean our house with our children.  One of the first parts of the Passover is to clean the house of yeast.  So, I put pieces of bread on the shelves and they cleaned it.  It also gave me an excuse to not organize the bookshelf before having them over for dinner.

The boys wore turbans.  My 4 year old told me he was a Jewish pirate.  Yes, that just might be a pair of pajama pants on my husband's head.  Oh, the things he does to indulge my creative side.

We had a blast recounting the afflictions the Israelites suffered in the desert.  We then went on to celebrating the hope found in the cross and our own redemption as His children.  

Days are evil. God is not.

I walked into my house this morning filling up my mug with coffee and cream, hoping it would make sense of a world that hurts.  Maybe, just maybe, my consistent morning coffee would add security to what my eyes have seen in just this last week alone.

A friend pregnant with baby #3.  Illegal.  Baby.  Wanted by some, unwanted by many. Told to dispose of it.  It's just a baby.

A friend pregnant.  Fearful of a history spotted with miscarriages.

A young girl.  Abused by a hand supposed to comfort. A parent taking revenge on a child.  In public.



I cry.




A friend pregnant.  Surprise.  Knowing the joy.  Fearing the sacrifice.  Miscarriage.  Grieving.  Hurting.

Babies found in cans meant for trash.  Against all odds.  Found.  Survived.

Belligerent parent's heart changed. A child's plea for them.  Prayers answered. Hopes captured.


Days are deceiving.  Control is fleeting. God is hope.

What's in a Sacrifice?

Jobs says he authorized biography so his kids can know him.  

As I saw this headline, my first thought was sadness.  To live a life and realize at the end of it that your children revere you as provider...and stranger.  And then I started thinking about those few individuals that live in any given generation that sacrifice their own families in order to serve the world at large.  Whether you admire or abhor Steve Jobs, we have to sit and think through what it means to sacrifice.  Did he make billions of dollars? Yes.  But now his children are sitting with a filled bank account, but empty memories of their father.  And guys like that aren't usually doing what they are doing for the money.  They are visionaries.  Thinkers.  Motivators. World Changers.

At what point does one realize that they will have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others?

That they have been placed in such an extroordinary position that their lives will require more of them than most.


It's easy to villianize this type of person.  To say that they neglected their families and they should have been home more.  But, let us also realize that if Jobs decided to pull back, the ripple effects of his absence would be too numerous to measure. I for one am thankful for his sacrifice and hopeful that his kids will see that sacrifice and be grateful one day too.


*** As a quick sidenote:  I think that this type of extraordinary talent happens in only a handful of people in each generation.  I do not in fact endorse people using lame excuses to not be with their families.  That is all.