our very first christmas play!

c see my Jo back there stuck between all the Chinese animals?! he was waiting so patiently for his dancing panda at the manger debut :)

and there he is on stage with the birds and bunnies and i think that is joseph behind the animals :) anyways, it was our city's first real Christmas play of the real Christmas story- every year for the past few years it is popular in this country to celebrate Christmas- to have a "Christmas party" - they sing a few songs, give out candy, wear Santa hats- i mean it is a fun party- but they do not normally do a play like we did when we grew up to act out the true meaning and history of Christmas- so this year Daddy helped write a simple play for a local English school (most kids here take extra English class somewhere to improve their English because they are tested on it all the way up to doctorate level) - anways, we have mentioned before- jo attends English class for free, sometimes Daddy helps out at the school for free and they asked him to help them learn the Christmas story and write a simple play for the students. So on Christmas day, we went to the very large park in the middle of our city and performed alongside the other English students...we think it is a great beginning to our friends here learning the true meaning of Christmas :) And of course our Mommy and Daddy were so proud of us for doing so well in front of so many people!

When Evie Joy walked on stage, the audience literally ohhhed and ahhhed!

Evie Joy as an angel! All the angels sang "Silent Night" together on stage :)

Josiah so loved singing,not shy at all!

he just can't stand still and clap and sing, he's gotta move! :)

Most of the cast :) We were confused and already undressed EJ....but you can see the angels, wise men, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, animals...

They all sang "Joy to the World" and "Jingle Bells"

A little free time so back to DANCIN!

so the last 2 nights we had some free time so we took our kids dancing :) jo was so great :) so here is a little glimpse!

little Christmas helpers & crafters

i never really am very good at getting my pictures in perfect blogging order- the top one is some of our beautiful artwork on display :) on top of the picture are our turkeys and christmas trees made out of cups; below the picture left to right-jO's Cmas tree, Evie Joy's angel is on top and Jo's on the bottom- made with their hands and feet, then their Reindeer made with hands and feet- Evie Joy's is on top, Jo's on bottom, then their robots-earlier post

angels with feet and hands, Evie Joy's is on top, Jo's on bottom

here the Reindeer with hands and feet- Jo's is on top, EJ's on bottom

We just took pictures to remember our fun crafts because i am allowing the kids to choose a craft they made and give it to people they are close to as a special gift :)

Josiah wanted to make Santas :) I couldn't find cotton balls, go figure so we used tissues :)

We made angels out of white paper plates :)

And you can see some of our Jesse Tree ornaments we made and hung on the tree every day

Oh yes and you can see our beautiful candy cane ornaments we made :)

I made 9 different kinds of rich yummy Christmas cookies and everyday Josiah would ask for Snowman cookies so we made sugar cookies just for the kids to be able to create fun shapes...

His first of many snowman cookies he ate- i love it that every time he eats one, he pretends the snowman is saying "no don't eat me, ahhhh" haha it is quite funny!

and then he says "ump bye bye snowman!"

here are some of our beautiful creations-

Some December Learning Fun!

Evie Joy loves glue! We made a wreath out of her hand cut outs. It was a little small :) But we liked it!

Daddy was gone for a few days and this was our last day without him...and we began struggling...and then pulled out some fun learning activities our friends from the states sent us and everything changed! it was so amazing! and we were so thankful!

i loved it- Jo wanted to paint a Christmas tree! I thought he did so well!

Evie Joy is more of an impressionalist or something like that :)

and we've been into styling hair- we made daddy look so pretty!

just some fun pictures of us using our animal chopsticks! we love them! here we are eating french toast with them! ha!

The door is from our Chinese class at home- We've learning about expressions so we took turns drawing on the glass door with different faces and saying what they represent in Chinese and also we practiced making those faces :) The large yellow one is "hai pa" "afraid!" can't ya tell?!

These are our jiqiren (robots) made of rectangles. We dipped sponges into paint and here you go :) We practiced our body parts in Chinese as we made them :)

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas!

Evie Joy was so excited about decorating our tree! I call it our Dollar Store Tree because we something called a wholesale market and at the wholesale market there are 2 little shops with maybe 10 baskets of Christmas decorations you would find at the Dollar Store in America. And this is all the Christmas decorations we have where we live but we are so thankful to have found them and we really like our Tree and our decorations!

as you can see the kids put a lot of the same ornaments low and together :) ha!

they love practicing and retelling the Christmas story over and over with their nativity

And here we are with our crazy busy living room :) our tree, stockings and new Christmas Veggie Tales while Mommy is baking cookies :)

We are also everyday adding to our tree ornaments we make doing the Jesse Tree Lineage of Jesus Advent study each night. WE love it! It is so fun to act out and color our ornaments and learn about the true historical meaning of Christmas! So, we'll have to post a picture later with all our handmade Jesse Tree Ornaments on it :)

Evie Joy loves being a Super Hero!