Classic

I love this picture... I love you, Mom!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Love this shot inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, 5th Ave, New York. Even with crowds of tourists milling around inside, the feeling of reverence and awe for the Creator for whom this magnificent structure was built was not lost.

She Ate A Shoe

It happened to be made of dark chocolate and filled with truffles. The best kind of shoe to eat, if you're going to be eating shoes.
She considers, and finds it satisfactory. :-)

Christmas Twosomes

I was looking through our many Christmas photos today, trying to come up with a theme of sorts. So many events and so many people, it's hard to condense them into one post. Since I've already posted about a few Christmas happenings, it's too late for one post anyway. :-)

For this post I decided on pictures of two people. Some of these I created by cropping other people out of the picture, but most of them were twosomes to begin with. They span our whole Christmas break in the US.

One niece cuddles another... Maggi and Adelaide.
Uncle Brad gives Naomi a cuddle at our birthday ice cream outing for Seth.
My dad displays the enormous scroll the Chinese painting I did somehow morphed into... I gave it to my parents to let them figure out what to do with the monstrosity!
Nannie and Pa check out the gift certificate to a B & B in Amish country their kids gave them.
Madelyn gets her cuddle time with Adelaide.
Uncle Beav and Gwen give each other a squeeze!
Madelyn and I snuggle up together for warmth in Times Square!
Emma Clare is impressed with something Seth said!
Caden, ever impressed with his older cousin, is pretty pleased with Caleb's gift to him, a cap gun.
Meredyth makes an observation while Madelyn licks the candles of her early birthday cake.
Mark uses Mindy as a human statue in our charades game.
Will and Seth at our Christmas Eve brunch together at Cracker Barrel.
Look at Gwen! Almost as tall as the tree at Rockefeller Center.
My beautiful sister and her boy.
Not sure what Caleb gave Brad, but it earned him a bear hug!
Uncle Andrew dispenses wisdom to Seth.
Last one... and, oops! There are more than two people in this one, but so cute, with Isaac trying to remember this big cousin he hadn't seen since the summer, and my mom and Gwen looking on. Love his hand on Caleb's shoulder.

Look Who Came For Christmas!

Ice Skating In Central Park

So fun to skate in the park with Uncle Justin on Saturday! Gwen's choppy way of skating/walking-on-the-ice-as-if-she-was-about-to-fall cracked us up. All those hurried little steps. :-)

Traveling Home

It's just after 6 AM and the girls are happily watching Tom & Jerry cartoons, having waited kind of patiently in bed for the last 40 minutes or so until we said it could officially be wake up time. We're in a hotel room in the heart of NYC, our body clocks still on Shanghai time. Uncle Justin and Aunt Mary live here now, and we're so excited to have the next few days here with them before heading on to Cleveland for Christmas.

We flew in last night with a magnificent view of Lady Liberty and all the glittering lights of Manhattan. I had already shed a few tears as we were landing in Chicago after the first leg of our trip. Even after all the times we've done this trip, coming back to the US never fails to evoke emotion. The immigration procedure video that American Airlines shows on the flight even brought a few tears to my eyes, with it's "Welcome the the United States" message. But the view of New York- spectacular! What a welcome!

The last week in Shanghai was packed full. Basketball games, small group Christmas party, youth Christmas worship night, our own family Christmas celebration and all that entails, studying and final exams, and taking care of little Michael in addition. Michael left for his holiday healing home on Wednesday, and then we were all about packing and all the little details required when leaving the country for a couple of weeks.

Can I admit that I actually relish the "long plane", as Gwen calls the Shanghai-Chicago flight? There's something about settling into the seat that will be my home for the next 13+ hours that is satisfying, probably because of all the effort that comes before finally coming the the point of actually being able to sit there. This particular flight yesterday was especially good... it didn't leave until around 6:30 in the evening, so we all ended up sleeping the better part of the flight. Piece of cake, this trans-Pacific flight. After taking it nearly 30 times, we've got it down.

Our cab driver from La Guardia into the city was from Bangladesh. Only been in the US for a handful of years. He was a friendly guy, chatting us up in pretty good English about life in China and what we liked about it. I loved that he was from Bangladesh... isn't that just like America? A land of people from everywhere.

Sure feels good to be sitting on this hotel bed, waiting for the sun to come up over the city. Looking forward to all that's coming over the next few weeks in America.

Some Christmas Photo Attempts...

We had fun last weekend trying to get a family portrait for Christmas cards. Seth had about five minutes to spend with us before he needed to be somewhere else, so he didn't do anymore than the bare minimum whole group shots. Don't you love his attempt at a creative pose in the photo below?

Christmas is Coming...

We attended a Christmas brunch for Baobei at a hotel yesterday... fun to dress up! I was pleased that Gwen could still wear this Santa dress for the third year in a row. :-)

Preparations~ we have our tree decorated and a pretty table arrangement of fresh pine and other greens, made by the Boy Scouts, on our table. I've shopped, both online and here in the markets. Madelyn made some cookies on Saturday and I'm going to a cookie exchange on Friday. We've talked about taking a family picture to send with a Christmas letter, but we haven't done anything about that yet. We've been playing our old favorite Christmas recording, Amy Grant's "Tennesse Christmas." The girls both have Christmas concerts in the next week, and Seth has a middle school Christmas dance on Friday. The girls and I have read some of our Christmas books and today we watched a Christmas dvd after school together. We're counting down the days until we head back to US to be with our families for the holiday break, especially Caleb, who has been working like crazy and needs a break from school!

The first Advent candle was lit in church on Sunday, and scriptures from Isaiah read.
"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,
And the government will be on His shoulders.
And He will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

There are so many things to do to "prepare" for Christmas, so many activities to take part in. I feel like I was good at providing meaningful things for our family to do when the children were all young, things that pointed us to Jesus, the real reason for Christmas.

Now that our family encompasses all these different ages, I'm not sure what our Advent season should look like. I can still shop and bake and play Christmas music. But how can I bring JESUS to our time of preparation?

I'd love your ideas, for all ages of children as well as adults. What Advent ideas work in your family and remind you all of the reason for the season?