It's almost 2012!

But first, a post about Chinese New Year.

Next year, CNY is early, in January. As usual, we tend to do a big hoo
ha! It's part of my effort to keep the tradition and make sure my kids
enjoy it as much as we do. We've been away the past 3 CNYs. First CNY
away, we forgot! So the next two, we always made an effort to get
decorated, cook a lot, eat a lot and share a lot. Everything!

So I was SO excited when I saw these books on Chinese New Year
displayed at KidsBooks today. KidsBooks is our fav bookstore and it's
only a short walk from our place. It's a bookstore just for kids!
Brilliant kids selection. How awesome that they would bring out these
books to display in anticipation of CNY!

We got two books.

One for Sophie - Runaway Wok. It's a funny story about a magic wok
that brought all the riches and yummy food from the selfish rich
family to the generous poor family on New Year's eve. A real
heartwarming story.

One for Levi - Lucky New Year. Although there are many traditions about CNY that are superstitious and we don't believe in them but I think it's still fun to share them with the kiddos. This lil interactive book tells about all the traditions. Even has a animal horoscope that you can turn to check the years. And a huge pop up dragon at the end. Levi LOVES it. I'm just afraid he's going to rip the dim sum page apart coz you can open up the dim sum covers to see what's inside. And this boy is all about food. Oops. 

I'm really looking forward to CNY!

How did we spend Christmas?

On Christmas eve, we went to North Van with our friends. Part of the
fun was taking the sea bus. It's a bit like a bus that travels on
water, like a ferry. You enter it like the MRT. It's part of the local
transit so we can use the same tickets for the bus and trains.

Lonsdale Market at North Vancouver

View of Vancouver City from North Van

Came back to mainland and attended the candlelight service

After service, we had Christmas dinner at a.................. noisy
Chinese restaurant! With our Japanese friends. We ate A LOT. I didn't
manage to get a picture (busy eating ah) but the table was full of
food. We were just so glad to share food with another family so we can
try more dishes. :)

All of us opened a present each when we got home and shooed the kids to bed.

Christmas morning - all of us got to open all our presents before church.

After church, we tried to look for a place for lunch but everything
was closed. Finally we found this kitsch Vietnamese restaurant on the
way home. The best part, they had a TV and it was showing the
Christmas parade live from Disneyland! What a treat. Ha, we don't have
TV and we all love Disneyland so it was a treat.

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out at home playing with new
toys. Very nice.

Oooo our church's Marriage Course is open to public! Subject to availability.

So if you are keen, pls contact St. John's St. Margaret's Church,
Singapore. It's at Dover Ave.

Here's what it says on the church website:

The Marriage Course 2012/1
Dates : Feb 7 to Mar 27 (8 Tue)
Time : 7.00 pm to 9.45 pm at Bethel Auditorium
Register : by 25 Dec 2011 (Sun) at Info Desk
Course Fee : $200 per couple

For more details, please email: flm@sjsm.org.sg

It's starting in Feb so register soon.

It's really fun to do as a couple because it's like a date night.
James and I were always quite excited coz we would put the kids to bed
and then hop over to the lecture hall on the base, holding hands.
Cookies and snacks will be served. It's a video teaching so the lights
will be dimmed. All quite romantic. Ha!

So go go go!

I read Metrodad's post about explaining Christmas to his six year old.
Must be so hard for a new age dad, trying not to get into the
commercialization of Christmas yet not wholly believing in Jesus. So
what's left of Christmas?

I meant to post this video earlier. One of the best I've seen on FB about Christmas. It kinda explains Christmas and the nativity scene and the many misconceptions we have. So funny.

Enjoy!

It's time for Week 2 of Family 101! I almost forgot. And of course
many times last week I forgot to put FOCUSED ATTENTION to practice. It
was a great constant reminder tho. I think the days when I just let go
of my own agenda and just went along with the kids, things just seemed
so much easier and more fun. How did it go for you?

Week 2: MARRIAGE TIME

Ah.............. this is the second most important thing that we still
try to keep to since the first FMS.

James and I keep Thursday nights for our "date" night. Well, it's
really hard here because we can't go out unless we find a babysitter.
But we try to watch a movie together or just look into each others'
eyes and talk - can you imagine how hard that is?!?! Strange right?
The reality is we don't! We talk to each other over things, facing
each other's backs and most frequently, typing on our computers! Eeks.

So so, on Thursday nights, we put aside some time (I know, pathetic
that it needs to be planned) but but.... that's reality. (P/s this is
James' contribution: - it's not pathetic, like everything else that
you treasure in your life, you need to put time and effort into it and
plan for it so why not marriage?)

James has been awesome in finding the best movies for us to watch
together. We watched Dirty Dancing (if you are younger than 25, it's
not what you think) together on my birthday and recently, we watched
Back to the Future 1 & 2! ha ole sch. Dirty Dancing was my fav movie
in the 80s, I think I watched it 7 times. James got it specially for
us to watch together! So sweet. Yep, it's about doing special things
and making memories together, aside from the kiddos.

There are some boundaries to this "date"
night.................................. one most important rule is if
we are out, we CANNOT run errands, it's a date! and second rule is
(and I constantly break this one) no talking about the kids!

I think this has done wonders for our marriage. We learnt this from
the Marriage Course by Nicky and Sila Lee. It's a really really good
marriage enrichment course and if you find one near you, do join it! I
know our home church (St. John's St Margaret's Church) runs it, not
sure if it's open to public. This course helped to heal our marriage
and bring it to a different level. The 6 weeks of marriage prep course
only gave us a peek into marriage and we made SO many mistakes along
the way. It's a great course to do especially after 5 years of
marriage especially if you struggle a lot in your marriage.

Life can get so stressful that our relationships become just
mechanical and useful. Takes trust to let that go and just enjoy the
ones that God has gifted us with. Enjoy your dates and share your date
ideas with me!!

Ooo I've seen pictures these beautiful Christmas markets on other
people's blogs and heard of raclettes (thanks to best friend who lives
in France). Finally we got to see and taste them for ourselves! (P/s
Pris, it's a German Christmas market!)

I saw this giant walking gingerbread girl and LOL.

Sophie decorated her own snowman.

James and I had a lovely malt drink in the cold. BEST!

Looked at lovely Christmas decorations

Attempted a family photo. This was our best one.

The raclette. Oh so smelly, oh so good. The kids ate most of it. James
and I had pork knuckles instead. Yums!

The sign said German pasta but we didn't taste it. Looks like angmoh
zichar, I said. :)

After that, we walked downtown a little.

And took a bus home. It was only 7pm. :) It gets pretty dark by 4pm these days.

A few days before Christmas, James managed to buy at tree off
Craigslist with lights!

Up it goes!

Kids watching anxiously...

Finally our own tree and presents!

And Sophie made her own lil cowgirl decoration :)

Blessed Christmas to you and your household!

Our garden blooms (summer in NZ)

Family Ministries School (FMS) 2011 Begins!, YWAM NZ

Feb

Chinese New Year celebrations, YWAM NZ

Mums and babes on staff, YWAM NZ

Mar

Baby weaning time, NZ

Last few weeks of FMS, YWAM NZ

Apr

Graduation, YWAM NZ

Titoki, a break before we leave NZ, Whakatane, NZ

May

Our friends came to join us for holiday in South Island, NZ

Beautiful, NZ

June

Home sweet home, happy Mama, Singapore

Teaching about love, Da Li, China

Jul

Happy happy Anniversary to us - first time away on our own @ Malacca, Malaysia

Hanging out at Universal Studios, Sentosa, Singapore

Aug

Last few days with family and friends, Singapore

First day, Starbucks, Vancouver

Sept

James starts school at Regent College. Warm Beach Retreat, Washington, US

Sophie is 5! Levi also turned 1.

Oct

Enjoying our new home and the shelves that James built

Enjoying the seasons

Nov

Started homeschooling proper in Sept and Sophie is writing well!

Hosted dinner after a week of tests

Dec

Levi's dedication

Making new friends, celebrating Christmas

In a year, we traveled to 6 different countries - NZ, Singapore,
China, Malaysia, Canada, US (minus the kids in Malaysia). We must have
packed and unpacked our bags more than 10 times. We led a school, left
YWAM, moved house, we relocated to a new city, bought another home,
settled in a new church, started grad school, made new friends, began
homeschooling proper, one of us even started to walk and talk! :) What
huge milestones!

I thank God for the grace that He has given us to sustain the
transitions. He is good and faithful. He has provided each step of the
way. I think of the Israelites making their way to the promised land
(that has been our reading the past few mths with Sophie). I think of
the times when we doubted and God showed up. I think of the days when
I think I can't do this anymore, he lifts my eyes to see. He
constantly reminds me that He is the reason. Apart from him, I can do
nothing. In him, I have all that I need. As much as we want to serve
and give him all the glory and change the world, I'm starting to
think, this journey has been about my Father teaching me that he loves
me, he can be relied on and that he wants to mould me. I think he's
giving his little lamp here (me!) a good scrub so that it can shine
brighter. Being all over the world, living in community, being in
constant change, small spaces, having to make new friends etc has been
part of his tools to sharpen me. Nope, not the easiest but extremely
effective in bringing out the motivations of the heart.

I scribbled a little song when we moved here and stuck it to the fridge door:
"Little by little
One step at a time
He's changing our hearts
And renewing our minds
Teaching us how to be patient and kind
Little by little
One step at a time"

I think, I too, like Sophie want to learn to be a princess, patient,
kind and generous. Just like my heavenly Father.

Thank you for being part of our journey, reading my rumblings,
encouraging and praying for us. We really treasure your prayers as
James continues his studies, I continue homeschooling and being home
with the kids, Sophie and Levi as they grow.

May the Lord bless you and your household and we wish you a blessed
Christmas and a wonderful New Year!! He is the reason.

Before I forget, Levi is walking! At 15 mths! Same as Sophie.

Although from experience, I'm not in a hurry for him to be walking but
still it's SO CUTE to see them walking! A bit wobbly at the moment but
oh the look on his face, full of pride of his own achievement, thrills
me to bits.

Sophie is starting to show some gifting in this area! What you see up
till this point is her own idea and work. Oh, I helped with the dress
(made out of an old sock with a hole that I never did patch up) and
gave her the idea for the eyes.

James helped sew the nose and hat. Check out the lil comb she cut out.
Smurfette needs a comb right? :)

I think she made it coz she missed Smurfette. She left it at a
friend's house a while back and we haven't had time to go get it back.
But our friend came by to drop it off today.

And guess what? Sophie gave the one she made to another friend coz she
said she already had one. I love her big generous heart. She prayed
today (actually she made a wish, coz she wanted to throw a coin into a
wishing well like everyone else but James made her pray instead) that
she will become a princess with a kind and generous heart. Will you
pls pray with her? May the Lord grant her a big and generous heart to
love and serve as He does.