Family Pictures

Okay, really, I was not wanting this post to be long. I was thinking I will post a few of the pictures that we had taken at the beginning of December, but as I started to load them it was going so fast! Honestly, I was taking like 5-10 seconds to load 5 pictures at a time. So, now you can see more pictures.
We had a friend of a friend take these pictures. She did not let us pay her at all. She put together a nice book and had some other things made for us. All we had to pay for was the price of having the book and other items printed. She are so happy with they way everything turned out! We thought a lot of them turned out great! Kenya had a blast and really enjoyed it.
Thanks so much Echo!!!

Interesting Morning View!

This is a picture of what we see often here. (Not the scenery, but the chickens in a basket on a bike.)

So, this morning Kenya and I were coming home from the school after eating breakfast and we saw something interesting. Sure enough, their was a man who had a basket of chicken on his bike. He was stopped in the alley way on our way home from school. It gets even better. He was plucking/scraping feathers off of a fresh kill.

This is how it was...

It appeared that a women had stopped him while he was riding somewhere and asked for one of his chickens. So, he had killed it right then and by the time we walked by he was taking the feathers off and the women was just waiting for her FRESH meat. They sure like all their food fresh here in China!

A Merry Christmas! 2010

THREE DAYS AND COUNTING...

On the 22nd we continued with the fourth installment of baking cookies! Daddy was actually there to decorate! At lunch time we had a few 12th graders over as well as the Rosengren teachers to share in the "yummy goodness". Lois did an amazing job on the frosting! It was seriously as if it were made with some substance that forced you to want more of it! Oh yeah...it was....Sugar!


TWO DAYS TO GO...

After classes on Thursday the foreign teachers were to meet in the courtyard for a ceremony put on by the students in International section.
After a little ado the students began to swarm us and shower us with gifts and cards of all kinds!
They gave us a blasted chair to put the gifts on when they should have given us wheel barrows!

Once we had many students help us transport our gifts to the office and then home, we went to a Christmas get-together put on by the other American teachers.



That night Lois and I went through and read our legions of cards and organized our gifts under the tree!
We got more gifts in one Christmas than ever before! This is excluding the gifts sent from our families in the States.




ONE DAY LEFT...CHRISTMAS EVE

The morning of Christmas Eve was a nice warm-up for Christmas day.
According to our tradition we opened a gift on Christmas Eve. However, because there were so many we decided to open more than just one!






For the life of us we could not figure out what these nice traditional garbs were even for because they definitely weren't going to fit Kenya. We later read that they are nice, traditional wear for wine bottles! We will never get to use them...unless we get some apple cider bottles or a couple of 2-liter bottles of something. Either way the look way cool!

We topped off Christmas Eve with pizza and a Christmas movie.
Here are the stockings after Santa Claus came!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!


In the video Kenya says she didn't have fun on the slide, but every time she watches the video she corrects herself and says, "Yes!"

After going down her new slide, the first thing Kenya did was bust open her stocking and dig in to a taste chocolate Santa! Now that's a great way to say thanks!

Did you notice that Kenya is now wearing a pink dress over her pj's? Yeah, as soon as she opened this gift she repeatedly said, "Mama, I want it on!"
Contents of all our stockings.

Everyone thinks I'm addicted to peanut butter cups, but look at Kenya!
She's so much fun!

Later our student and friend, Pascal came over for lunch and to share some of the Christmas celebration.
Our nanny and friend, Amy, also joined us.
Amy hand-made these scarves for us! They are really soft and warm!





CHRISTMAS DINNER!

So we went out to dinner to the biggest buffet we've ever been to because it was cheaper to do that than to make our own Christmas dinner. We went to the Four Seas International Restaurant.

We did have to wait an hour before we ate, but kept busy. Kenya got to see (Papa) Santa on Christmas! All Santas are Papa because Grandpa Evans looks like Santa and the reverse.

We had some good reading to entertain us too!
Here's our place mat/map for the buffet. It's not to scale, but it gives you the general idea. There is so much food to choose from! There french fries are amazing and we did eat a good portion of those.
There was a little playground right next to our seat for Kenya to play on. The restaurant gave all the kids party hats, masks, and fancy, wrapped kit kat, and a toy whistle hammer thing.
Some nice dining music was played and often times Christmas songs.
There were way more pics to take of the buffet, but the batteries died. There was a "Kids Corner" that should have been named "Candy Corner" because it had all kinds of sweets there! Everything from ice cream to cotton candy and more!


We had a very, merry Christmas! Thank you to everyone who got us gifts, Christmas cards and letters and such. We did everything we could to make it feel like Christmas here in China and it worked. And with help from others we didn't even care that it wasn't a white Christmas. You helped to make it feel the way it always should--filled with the Christmas Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ! Merry Christmas to all and a we wish you a Happy New Year!

My Little Singer

These are all songs Kenya can sing.
I Am a Child of God.
Popcorn Popping
I Love to See the Temple.
Silent Night
Santa Clause is Coming to Town.
When Christmas Comes to Town.
Teach Me to Walk In the Light.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
Jingle Bells
Joy to the World.
The Hello Song
Happy Birthday
Small One.

And a few Chinese children's songs

I am sure there are more. She loves to sing and learns new songs so quickly. She loves to sing and dance.

On a few other notes, here are some other things Kenya can do.

When asked, "How do you write you name?" she replies, "K E N Y A" She forgets the E sometimes. (She has been doing this for several months now and I just always forget to post it!)

She can count to 13 in English and 10 in Chinese.

She loves putting her toys to sleep and changing their diapers. She is going to be a big help someday when her siblings come along.

Christmas Sunday!

Thank you Aunt Kira for sending a Christmas dress for Kenya! It looks great. She actually has worn it for the last 3 weeks, but each week she gets cuter! I must say, I thought she looked adorable today and she got many compliments!

Here is daddy and Kenya on the way to church. Whenever daddy puts on his suit Kenya says, "Daddy handsome!" and boy is she right! He looks great!
Here is some more cookie making today.



So, we had a family home evening with some of the other Americans that live close to us in the evening. It was fun and Kenya enjoyed it because there was a lot of singing. We sang Christmas songs and then did a Nativity. Robert got to play Joseph and I was a narrator and reader of scriptures. Here are some pictures of the fun!




This last picture you can see that it was getting late and Kenya was tired. But of course once we got home she was awake as every and wanting to play and sing some more.