Christmas Morning Pictures

Here are a few pics from Christmas morning. One of the gifts EG and Jack received was a GIANT bin of dress up clothes. Andy's family had one of these and it included lots of goofy outfits that they wore throughout the years. We decided to start ours early. Thanks to all the Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles who contributed to our dress up stash. It has everything from Cowboy hats to traditional Chinese clothes to crowns and ballerina outfits! So fun! The kids had a great time digging through it and we've been doing lots of dressing up these days! Today we put on cowboy hats and rode a broom and a vacuum all around the house! The outfit below is super special because it's the traditional clothing of the Yi People, a minority group here in China. Xiao Li, our helper is Yi-they have their own language, culture, and dress. It's so interesting. You might remember we went to the Torch Festival near her hometown last year. It's a GIANT Yi People P A R T Y where each subgroup of the Yi People (there are lots) comes together to wear their traditional dress and do dances, sing, etc. Basically, a giant celebration of Yi People culture. This outfit is not from Xiao Li's subgroup, but it's as close as we could get. EG was thrilled and so was Xiao Li and her family! These clothes are actually for Jack, but EG is modeling them since they are too big for him. They are from the Bai People group and are traditional dress for men (minus the umbrella)! Hope to get some good photos of all the frilly stuff we got from America along with the Cowboy hats soon!

Here's Jack looking cute in his Mamma Nette PJs. EG's had throw up on them so she didn't get to wear hers.

On Monday, Andy came down with "the bug." He is feeling better and I'm really hoping we are done with "the bug in our stomach" as EG calls it! She also told me on Monday, "I'm not sick anymore, seeeeeee! Feel my little heart!"

Christmas Update

We hardly ever take family pictures and I am rarely in any of our pictures because I'm often the one taking them. But this Christmas, we've taken lots. I'm excited to have some good family pictures to prove that I am actually a part of this family! Check out Jack's fuzzy head! We didn't plan to be so coordinated, but it turned out great! This is actually EG's second dress of the day (Christmas Eve). EG threw up as soon as we put the first one on her. Our Christmas has been really fun and meaningful but EG is still battling some kind of stomach bug. This has been going on for a week now. We managed to spread our germs to lots of other families and most of them have been battling this same bug through the holidays. It's really strange. She gets sick then has a day or so of feeling fine and then gets sick again.

Yesterday, on Christmas day, she did great. We had a fun morning as a family and a fun afternoon with friends. Andy and I got up early did our last Advent Candle. Then we had a breakfast casserole once the kiddos got up. We did a devotional with them and then opened some gifts. Our friends came over and we exchanged gifts, had snacks and lunch, played the Wii and hung out. It was really fun. In the evening, we just hung out and I instituted a new family tradition. We all (except Jack-he's still too little) slept in the living room together. It was really fun to get all snuggled up on the couches with just the Christmas tree lights on. But in the end, we turned them off because we couldn't sleep. After that, we were all were asleep really quickly but EG woke up about 12 and threw up multiple times on me and the couch. She had a fairly high fever and threw several more times. No fun. Poor thing. I stayed with her in her room til 3 and then Andy took over. Today she seems better, but again, this bug is so strange. It's like it comes and goes. Hope to talk with American doctor this afternoon. Will let you know how we are doing.

Thankfully in the midst of all this, Jack has only thrown up once. That's really amazing. Ok, this blog really is for the grandmas. Who else in the world would want to read this? And just for the grandparents...

Hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas. We love you and miss you. And Grandpa, please do send me some pictures of your Christmas present!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Andy is home today (Christmas Eve) and tomorrow! Yippee! We are excited to celebrate together. EG is playing with her babies while wearing her Christmas PJs-thanks Mamma Nette! Your love language is buying pajamas.

We had a great time last night battling with Xiao Li and A Xin for the Wii Championship belt.

A Xin took home the prize in bowling with a 150 but Andy and I dominated them in boxing. Actually, I just barely beat Xiao Li. She's fierce. Thanks for the fun gift Tim and Kathi! We love it. After we played, Xiao Li asked if we had any red beans for her Wii injuries! HEHE!

Birthday Boy

I should have put these up last week, but here goes! Here are a few pictures from Jack's Birthday!

Wii injury

We are feeling better. Thank you for praying for us. Unfortunately, we managed to (unknowingly) spread our germs to about 6 other families while at the IF on Sunday. So now, most of our friends are sick with the same bug we've had. We're praying they will all be better and able to enjoy the Christmas festivities.

We're really excited about Christmas. I feel like the past couple weeks have been a blur-we've all been sick and things just seemed really busy but this week we've been able to slow down a little and kinda "soak in" the meaning of Christmas. I read this great devotional today about why Jesus came-FOR PEOPLE like me-MESSED UP, sick with sin, in need of a healer, a redeemer. I don't know why I so easily forget that. Just when I am feeling really crappy about my sin, God tenderly reminds me that my sin is in fact a huge problem but that Jesus came to save people like me. Thanks Lord for that sweet reminder.

Tonight, I looked under our tree and saw a few gifts with my Mom's handwriting on them. We got a package from them this week and Andy opened it and stuck all the gifts under the tree. I knew they were there, but something about seeing my Mom's own handwriting on them just made me feel closer to home. Thanks Mom, Dan and Katie and all the Huffmans for taking the time and energy and money to send us gifts. Just seeing your handwriting warms my heart and makes me feel so loved. Thank You.

THIS IS A GREAT STORY that I just have to share with you (with Andy's permission of course!) So, Andy's parents bought us a Wii for Christmas. We weren't expecting it at all, but we're really excited about it and super thankful. We are looking forward to lots of friendly competition with each other and our friends here.

So, last night we got it up and running for the first time and Andy beat me at every game we played. In the middle of the night, he woke up and told me his neck and shoulder were hurting from playing the Wii. (He was really into it) So he told me he was going to take some Tylenol. He didn't even turn on the light-he just opened the drawer in his bedside table, pulled out the Tylenol bottle and popped three into his mouth. We were both back to sleep within minutes. (maybe seconds for me) This morning, he woke up and told me his neck and shoulder were still really bothering him. He decided to take some more Tylenol and went to get the same bottle out of his bedside table. He came back and said, "You've gotta see this! No wonder I'm not feeling any better!" He showed me the Tylenol bottle and it was full of little red beans-not Tylenol. (Here's the story-Jack loves to shake things and hear the noise they make. Every time I pull out any kind of medicine, Jack is obsessed with shaking it. I figured it wasn't very safe to let him play with medicine bottles so I filled an empty Tylenol bottle with little red beans for him to shake! OOPS!) So in the middle of the night, Andy had popped three red beans into his mouth and went right back to sleep! HEHE. We both had a good, hard laugh about it. Now that he's got some real pain killer in his system, he's feeling much better. We are taking on Xiao Li and A Xin tonight in a game of bowling and maybe racing. We'll offer them some red beans if either of them gets injured! We're also making Kathi's Chocolate Thumbprints tonight. So fun. Hope you have a great Christmas.

Can't Shake It

Our family can't seem to shake the sickness hovering over/in? our house. Two weeks ago I was in bed for 2 days. This week EG got sick-ironically, from going to the doctor, I think. She had to get a test done which came back clear but while she was there I am pretty sure she picked up a nasty virus. She threw up all day on Friday and into the night. Thought we were in the clear when Saturday and Sunday no one was sick. Then on the way to dinner Sunday night, Jackie lost his cookies in the stroller. No fun for us and for the people in the restaurant. He's better today but now Andy's in bed with a fever and feeling nauseous. No fun. Hoping we will all be better by Christmas. Please pray for us.

Pics for Grandparents

We've been trying to get some good photos of EG and Jack together for our parents. We just can't seem to make it happen. Either one of them is looking away, or screaming, or they are blurry or something else is wrong. This is our best one yet. They are both wearing Christmas gear, both smiling and both in front of the tree. I tried to crop this so it was just more of their heads BUT, if I do that, then you realize Jack's face is blurry, he has a runny nose, EG has face paint on the side of her face and Jack's right ear somehow looks blazing bright yellow when I crop it and make them bigger. I think his ear, which he gets honestly from the Madden clan, was right in front of a light on the tree. So you can almost see it through his ear. Weird. Anyway, this is the best we've got, Grandparents! Here's the bright ear, runny nose, blurry face, face paint up close...

Happy Birthday Jack

On a snowy day back in December of 2008...A sweet little boy made his entrance into the world... Jack Alexander Huffman. I love you. All day I've been thinking back to this time one year ago. I was thankful you'd waited 'til your due date to arrive. I was busy trying to get lots done before you came. And labor and delivery went really smoothly. We were so happy to meet you. Being a part of God's creating a person, creating you, Jackie Boya, has been one of the highest privileges in my life. You were really quiet as a newborn and I'd sometimes almost forget you were in our house. Around month 3 or 4, you turned into a smiley, bubbly little guy-a delight. Around month 8, you started to crawl and by 11 months, you were tottering all over the place. These days, you're not nearly as quiet as those newborn days! You are busy exploring and making your presence known with your man noises most of the time. You smile easily, have a contagious laugh that gets our whole family going and you're by far the best snuggler of the four of us. You're affectionate. I LOVE that about you. You lean in for kisses from time to time, as if you need a reminder that someone loves you. You are loved dear Son, more than a lifetime of kisses could express.

Tis the Season...for strawberries and meat products?

For Strawberries? Well, in our part of the world it is! There are many things I love about the month of December in America but one thing missing is fresh strawberries. Because of our mild climate, we have incredible produce almost year round. And we have two strawberry seasons-one in spring/summer and one in Dec/Jan! They just started to come out and we've been eating lots of them! We have yogurt delivered to our home everyday along with our milk so we've been making a lot of yummy smoothies. During peach season, I froze a bunch in anticipation of this season. So we've been using peaches, strawberries, bananas, and frozen blueberries (a new find for our city!) and yogurt to make all kinds of delicious smoothies! (Makes me think of you Carmen, every time I make them. You are so healthy!) Xiao Li loves them. It might be her love language.

And speaking of food being a love language-nothing speaks love to Andy like good meat products. If he could only choose one food to eat for the rest of his life, it would definitely be some sort of meat! We can get all the basics here-chicken, pork, beef. Pork is the meat of choice in this country and usually turns out great no matter how you cook it. I've had recent success with beef, as I've been using my Dutch oven and the Pressure Cooker. But i still put ground pork in place of ground beef in most recipes. So with those basics, you can do a lot. I learned to make homemade sausage a while back, which is surprisingly easy. David and Andy had both been talking about Italian sausage (you know in links) and I asked Xiao Li about making it here. In our city, the winter is sausage making time. Chinese people buy their meat and take it to the sausage making shop at the market. They pick their flavor-you can choose several, among which Spicy Italian is sadly missing!-and then the sausage maker grinds with meat, mixes it with the spices and stuffs the meat into casings and hangs out to preserve. After I did a lot of reading online, I learned that the meat and the casing being really cold is really important in the process-I guess even more so if you hang out of your window and let them preserve. So it makes sense they only make them in the winter here.

So, I found a recipe online, got the meat, made my own Italian spice mixture, and then Xiao Li took it to the sausage shop! Next thing you know we have 7 lbs of Italian Sausage ready to be consumed by all the meat loving men in my life. I actually didn't love it but Andy and David did. We froze ours as it's not the kind that preserves. Andy wants me to load up the freezer with other varieties of Italian sausage but I'm busy loading it up with strawberries!

Decorating

EG helping pull out the fake tree.

Me busting a hole in the super cheaply made coffee table while decorating. We had moved it to serve as a barricade so Jack couldn't get to the tree while we were decorating. I tried to step over and my knee went right through! EG decorating the tree for her room.

Our tree in all it's glory. Notice the middle section of the tree is looking poorly lit. We used two different brands of lights and this was the result. We still love it!

Same Spot

Here we are at a local park in March '08. I was just pregnant with Jack. And here we are again at the same spot in the park December '09:

Our Christmas Card

We decided not to spend the money to send out a card this year. So here's our Christmas photo via blog!

Getting ready for Christmas!

I love our home at Christmas. I love getting up early to read and turning on the Christmas tree. I love staying up late and talking with Andy by the Christmas tree lights. I love rehanging ornaments every day after my kids pull them off. Ok, not really that part. Most of all, I love this season because it give me the chance to focus my heart on Jesus and the hope that I have because he came.

I read something recently that talked about the discipline of Celebration-not as an excuse to just overindulge ourselves, but to really be light hearted, filled with joy, and to purposely set out to enjoy God and his good gifts. My heart needs to celebrate. In tbe monotony of daily life, the trials that we are facing, and the struggles we have with our own sin, it's so good to pull back and be reminded why we can joy on this earth and hope for the future. So that's what we're setting out to do this season!

Xiao Li and I stayed up late last Friday and made all kinds of treats! We made the Huffman Family peanut butter balls, coconut balls and almond bark pretzels with sprinkles. Next on the list is sausage balls.

We put less lights on our tree than normal. Mainly because we decorated it with kids so we needed to be speedy. But also because we don't really have the power to support the "Huffman gazillion lights on a tree standard." But it still looks beautiful! Last time we decorated it up to standard, we couldn't run our heaters while the tree was on!