Christmas Tree Hallelujah

Sunday night we put up the Christmas tree and decorated it. It was magic as we played Christmas music and laid out the nativity sets we've collected. So much fun! Afterward we turned out the lights and drank hot chocolate with candy canes as the kids danced to the Hallelujah chorus.

2010 Walk-A-Thon

Emma did a great job this year on the Walk-A-Thon fundraising for Blue Dragon and East Meets West Foundation. These organizations provide food and shelter for poor children, and heart surgeries for needy children in Vietnam.

Because of Veterans Day, Christian was able to go and cheer Emma on. He marked laps on the kids arms as they ran past.

Emma's class was broken into small groups to make it easier to mark laps on their arms.

Emma completed 11 laps around the track and ran or jogged the whole way! This year Emma was able to raise $163 with her results. We are so proud of you Emma!

Super Kids

On Saturday morning, I heard little feet tip toeing down the hall. I looked up from my bed and was surprised to see two super heroes on a special spying mission. They were hush-hush and wanted to surprise daddy.

Primary Program

So, we had our primary program yesterday and the kids did so well! I am so pleased with how well they did, and I consider it a miracle considering our rehearsal the week before was chaos at best.

The most funny part, however was after the program was finished and the closing prayer was being said, MY SON, ducked under the sacrament table cloth and started eating the sacrament bread! Christian just about died and gave a serious threatening stare / warning with his eyes. Even despite the warning, Alexander persisted in grabbing bits of bread and eating them. Oh, this wasn't such a fun game when the meeting was over! I am holding onto him in the picture while he is squirming out of my hands and onto the floor.

Hello again...

Someone said that posting a blog is like creating a journal entry. Writing on Facebook is like saying something that is on your mind in one or two sentences. I just started Facebooking last week and I love it because it is so easy. That said, I still want to keep up on our blog. So, here is my effort to do a better job on updating our blog.

Above is Alexander using my bundt pan as his costume in a "fashion show" that he and Emma were having in their pajamas. He was marching around the house using the bundt as a sort of megaphone, boy was it loud! Emma was wearing her butterfly wings, crown and butterfly scepter in her costume. I guess puzzles were a part of the show too.

One morning last week, I thought it was amazing that the kids weren't up earlier. I waited until 7:00 and then went downstairs to wake up the sleeping munchkins. Emma's room was empty, so I checked Xander's and this is what I saw...see below photo.

Emma was dressed in a Taekwondo outfit and Xander was in his batman gear and she was reading him "The Rooftop Mystery." I turned right around and went back upstairs to get the camera. I love it!

Xander is a boys' boy. He loves his trucks and cars. He often parks his cars on his bed all in a line. It's so cute. Whenever we check on him, we remove the cars, toys and books in his bed because he moves around a lot while he sleeps. Our cute booter boy.

Our apartment needed new A/C units because our current units drip all over everything, quit working for no reason, and make noise like a hamster running around inside a wheel, etc. So, we have moved to a new apartment down the hall for two weeks so that they can do the work they need to do. This is what our house looked like after they prepped the area. Above is our kitchen, below is our living room. We put all of our things on one side of the room and they used a staple gun and tape to put the tarps into place. I have a feeling the work will be messy.

I had to crawl under the tarp to get some things today and it was pretty tricky. I cooked and baked all last week to freeze some dinners to make life easier for us in temporary housing. I didn't want to have to take all of my spices, cooking tools, sauces, etc. with me. So, let's hope it all works out okay and I didn't leave too many necessary items buried in corners under the tarps.

Daddy's Birthday

Yes, Happy Birthday to Christian...but first, some favorite photos of late.

It is all I can do but hold my gags down while looking at this photo! She is having SUCH a good time I love her expression and hate what she is playing with! What is it with kids and toilets?!?

Yeah, we finally got a picture of Emma and Hillary from the other angle, which shows both of them much better.

Xander discovered how to use the translation equipment at church and last Sunday he was speaking and singing into the microphone and listening to himself in the headphones. You can see his concentration - he is very focused on what he is doing.

And now for the birthday daddy - we had 3 blue candles and 6 white candles on the cake to represent the big 36. We didn't want to create a torch or anything ; ) I made two small cake rounds with the extra cake batter - pictured above. This recipe made a LOT! I ended up taking over half of the big the carrot cake into his work today to share with co-workers.

I made special arrangements at the Halia (a Singaporian restaurant) for dinner. He was embarrassed when the staff came out singing "happy birthday to Mr. Christian" - good! Goal accomplished! We had a wonderful dinner and every bite was culinary perfection - yum!

Meet Secretary Clinton

Hillary Clinton came to Hanoi for the ASEAN Conference today. We got to have a special "meet and greet" with her. We'll post more pics as we receive them. It's kind of hard to smile and say cheese and take a picture at the same time. She gave a nice speech and was very genuine. It was a pleasure to meet her.

She stopped to talk with Emma directly and asked for her name. We don't quite have a good pic of this yet, but you can see the top of Emma's head.

Xander was so excited about seeing "Mary Clinton" - I guess "Hillary" is a little hard to say. Although he was looking forward to the event, I guess waiting in place so long wore him out. By the end, he wanted NOTHING to do with all the photos that were being taken. He's sitting on the stairs to the side of me.

While the Secretary was speaking, he was bit of a pill too. He wanted to go see Daddy, so I let him go through the crowd behind me to get to Christian - standing just 2 people back. When he saw Christian, he took off running and made a loop around the crowd, and ran in front of everyone to get back to me on the front row. I just about died!!! A security nightmare! The Secret Service are SO tight about events like this and monitor every move.

Playing "Go Fish" waiting for the Secretary to arrive.

It was POURING rain on the ride over to the hotel. I told the kids to be prepared to huddle underneath the umbrella as we ran across the street. It was so sweet, a cute Vietnamese woman saw me pulling my kids one by one out of the car and she smiled really big, scooped up Xander, tucked him under her rain poncho and told me that she would help me bring him to the hotel. She was still sitting there after the event when we came back to the car. The sun was shining and she was still smiling. I am very grateful for her kindness. Xander kept asking where her rain poncho was.

Another very funny thing that happened today was that I accidentally got locked into Xander's room tonight with all the kids!!! We were STUCK in there for 5 hours waiting for Christian to come home and open the door. We had finished our bedtime routine and I asked Emma to go get one more book, when we realized that the door was locked! I tried to pick the lock for a long while, I tried to find the key in the closet for a long while, I read stories for a long while, turned off the lights and told make-believe stories for a long while. Xander finally fell asleep after 3 hours, Emma zonked out after 4, and little Anneliese kept trying to nestle down, but couldn't get comfy. She was a trooper though and kept playing with toys in between her times of trying to fall asleep. After I post this entry, I'm going online to learn how to pick a lock! A skill that could be quite useful. We HAD a key in the room, but Xander found it and put it somewhere. Christian was busy with the Secretary's visit and couldn't come home until after the events of the day were finished - quite late. I still can't believe we were locked in there for so long!!!