Priceless Christmas 2012

Better late then never: Christmas post. So why and I posting this now? We just finished hosting our first Safe Families child and it brought to the forefront of my mind how nourishing to a child's development it is to be in an environment marked by peace and joy. And cuz I've been busy, aiight, and this was mostly written.
...

Bo and I challenged ourselves this year to have a priceless Christmas. We wanted it to be filled with happy family memories, but didn't think that needed to cost anything. It's not because we can't afford to, but because we didn't want to participate in a lot of the commercialism, consumerism and stress that can surround the holidays that are supposed to be characterized by peace and joy.

We are blessed to have extended family who give gifts to our children for Christmas. In fact, there generally is an abundance and outpouring of generosity throughout the year but especially for Christmas, birthdays and Chinese New Year. We truly appreciate this demonstration of love. It gives our children something tangible to enjoy while remembering a loved one who cares so much about them that they spent their hard-earned money on presents our children would like. So it's not like our children are lacking in what has become the traditional gifts of Christmas.

So how did we come to this practice of giving gifts at Christmas anyway? From a Christian perspective, I wrestled this past season with the tradition of gift giving at Christmas. Is it because the wisemen gave gifts to Jesus? But, they were scholars and from a distant land who did not know Jesus personally nor did they interact with him ever again. They gave him extravagant gifts mostly for symbolism of who he was. Is it because God gave us the gift of Jesus? That was the most perfect gift! There's no competing with that. This year, I was more reflective on what Mary's gift was to Jesus, as she was his mother. Mary is a rockstar. Her life gets completely turned upside down, and still she maintains her cool. Peaceful. Joyful. You can't buy that. You can't wrap that.

Being their mom and the #1 person around them the most, I'm in a very unique position to give my children the three priceless gifts that no one else can give as much as I can: attention, affection and appreciation (thanks, Facebook, for the inspiration). Isn't that what all kids want from their parents the most?

Starting in the month of December, I laid the attention, affection, and appreciation on thick for my kids and we experience more peace and joy in this house than ever before. People feel listened to, loved and like they have a special and unique contribution to our family and the world, so there's a whole lot more getting along and fun. It's like magic, but it does take a lot of intentionality and patience...at least for me. It was a change I wanted to make to our home life not just for Christmas, but for our lifetimes because I want my children to remember that kind of mom and that kind of home and not just what I put under the tree.

So yes, we did put gifts under the tree too, but they were few and from the heart. They had minimal cost, but lots of love went into making them.

You can kinda get an idea of the sparseness of the gifts under the three here. This includes our family gifts as well as what my side of the family gave to the children (more on that later).

Bean and I made dough for cinnamon rolls and Tey a I baked them for Christmas breakfast. He learned how to make orange icing. The secret is in the zest! 

I made Mae a button monogram. Look how cute she is saying "M."
I got the buttons cheap from  the I.D.E.A. store and some from a generous friend.

Bo drew a snowy owl for Tey. I love their expressions of awe. 

A couple months ago Bean asked me to draw him a tiger. I took 5 seconds and drew him a cartoon one in markers.  I didn't know until later that he also asked Jon to do one and the result for Christmas was this. My husband never ceases to amaze me with his talents and his dedication to our kids. 

Tey learned to read this year, so I made some  bookmarks of some of his favorite books with the scrap paper from their book jackets.  This will be a encouragement to me too to keep reading to him a bunch. 

For Bo, the younger two and I made carmel corn from Bean's Boy Scout popcorn that were just popping kernels. 

Jon helped the kids make me marshmallows

Mae is the official taste-tester. Yum...soft, pillowy, sweetness, and the marshmallows aren't bad either!!

I also made Bean a shadowbox that holds his Tae Kwon Do belts that he's earned so far (white, yellow, orange and green. I wanted him to know how proud of him I am of his hard work with that and before this they just laid in his closet. Bo made me the most delicious brownies in the world and though I've been sharing, I think I've eaten half the pan just myself. A chocolate treat is a great motivator during the day :) I think Bean spent the most money this Christmas. He bought got everyone but me used books from the Urbana Free Library Book sale.

Mae loved her new book, which was in the style of some others she has. Tey immediately started reading his book. For Bo he picked out an AWESOME vintage edition of all of John James Audobon's paintings. It was perfect because just last week as Bo was finishing his animal drawings for the kids he was contemplating what it was like for JJA to draw all those birds. 

...
Months later, looking back, I'm so glad we challenged ourselves to do this. We can see the HUGE positive results for our family dynamic, which has helped prepare us to be available to share our peace and joy with another child, if only for a couple weeks. Hosting a Safe Families child reminded me the importance of loving and secure relationships in the lives of children, regardless of amount of their possessions or toys. 

Bite!

There are at least two circumstances in which I find my children to be undeniable adorable. One is after a long tiring day of mommy working really hard and they are all peacefully sleeping. Can I get an AMEN? 

The second is when they are eating, especially when they are feeding each other. 

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

As is our family tradition, every birthday is celebrated with a special birthday breakfast, usually picnic style in the bedroom of the birthday person. This Christmas we extended it to a celebrate the birth of Christ...all warm and cozy in front our fireplace. And today, you guess it, our family enjoyed a special breakfast (for dinner) in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. around the dinner table. In addition to the delicious food pictured below, we enjoyed some fun conversation inspired by the food, which was inspired by this important holiday.

It has come to be expected by our kids that birthday breakfasts include cinnamon rolls (we usually for the Pillsbury kind with orange glaze). Because this is now a staple celebratory pastry and I really want to reduce the amount of processed foods we eat, it was on of my bucket list of recipes to learn for this year. I followed this recipe and love the use of orange juice and orange zest. Buh-bye Pillsbury.

With some of the leftover juice, I sprinkled it on our fruit salad. We usually do one very "fun" fruit for birthday breakfast (like mango), but a fruit salad teaches us a lot about appreciation of diversity. The different shapes, colors, textures, and tastes of all the fruit are what makes fruit salad so great! I didn't  mention this to the kids, but it makes me cringe to hear the US referred to as "the melting pot." It sounds like we're all supposed to be exactly the same...kinda like if you pureed my fruit salad. Then you can't appreciate all the unique things that each fruit contributes!

Next going clockwise is a fried egg. You've probably heard of the children's activity where you show them a brown egg and a white egg and talk about how we make look different on the outside, but inside we're all the same.  I can see this going wrong...another "We're-all-the-same" "Our-differences-don't-matter" type-thing. In my opinion, differences do matter, and we should recognize them and appreciate them. So we did. Quite simply, different hens make different eggs, as do ducks, geese, etc. Then Bo transitioned to the more complex issue of judging by first appearances and also brought in MLK's famous quote, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." We couldn't tell much difference between the two hen eggs based on what was on the inside. The colors and sizes were slightly different, but both kinds were good enough to eat. Once we cooked them, we couldn't tell which was which too, but everyone gladly ate what they were served.

Lastly, we had bacon. We made no significant connection there. It's just another special treat for a special day!

In a future posts, I'll review what we have been doing for the past week or so to teach about Dr. Martin Luther King and also emphasize of the importance of this national holiday. I hope you had a great day off, if you did! If you didn't do something meaningful to you or to your family in honor of MLK yet, I encourage you to do it. It's not too late! It doesn't need to be grand either. Let's just somehow recognize the impact Dr. King has had on this country and the civil rights movement. Let me know how you celebrated too! I like getting new ideas.

Little Whine, Lots of Wine...Lots of Whine, LOTS of Wine

There are two instances in which wine are necessary in the evening after the kids go to bed. The first is when so much seems to have gone wrong, I wonder if I'm doing anything right, and I just need a break. The other instance, like today, is when most everything seems to fall into place, or at least I can see fruits of my labor, and it calls for celebration. Luckily we have more of those days like today, especially this week and last week. So, after the kids were in bed, I poured myself a Riesling, and remembered the happy moments.

The weather was gorgeous today, so all of us spent a lot of time outside. I didn't even wear a jacket! Usually if it's pretty cold, I'll just send the boys out and I'll stay with Mei inside watching from the window. She was thrilled to be outside and was especially excited to finally get her hands on the lawnmower she always sees her brothers play. He also seemed like she was intentionally kicking a ball around, but I dunno. 

Another great moment was that at lunch my boys actually ate rice. Bo made a curry dish with chicken, eggplant, and bamboo shoots. The boys ate it, but weren't thrilled about it. But they ate RICE! Being 1/4 Chinese, it's kind of an embarrassment that they don't usually eat it. Well, the funny part was that Tey then made himself a spinach salad with cheese and cranberries because he didn't want to finish his lunch and I told him I wasn't making anything else until after I had fed Mei-Mei. I tell you, he's my little chef!  

As it was getting closer to dinner time, both boys were getting hungry. I heated them up a bowl of peas to share (just before then they were squabbling upstairs, so this was my plan to encourage them to get along). Sneaky Mommy! They had fun. Here's a pic, but I can't get the video to load for now. :( Wouldn't you know, Tey then made himself another spinach salad after this pea extravaganza!

After dinner we went on a night hike as a whole family. The weather was perfect and it was quite an adventure finding a spot to see the full moon rise over the eastern horizon. The kids were so excited when we finally reached a good viewing sight and right there before us was a big orange moon. No joke, it was like Christmas and the kids were thrilled. I was thrilled!

There's the moon, right over Mei's stroller, looking like a street lamp.

Our camera doesn't do it justice. It was just stunning. We also identified several constellations and are learning more and more each day. I'm glad we squeezed this night walk in today because a cold front is on it's way in. It might be months before we see another full moon as crisp as this.

I now raise a glass to myself for a job well done today. And to my hubby who is putting the kids to bed. Tey is whining about something. Ok, screaming about something. Good thing I'm off duty :)

How to Eat a Thin Mint

My husband once told me that he really appreciates how well I stand my ground being convinced that I am right and building a solid case even when I am completely wrong. I'm blessed he has patience for that character flaw or else our marriage would be in trouble.

This is one of those cases where I will not stand down and this time I really know that I'm right. Thin Mints are the BEST Girl Scout Cookie ever baked.

Even if you have tasted one before and still do not agree with the above statement, I'm pretty sure it's because you have likely not eaten said cookie in the proper way.

The best way to enjoy a Thin Mint is to enhance the mintiness of the cookie and to reduce its crunchiness. How you ask?

Step 1: Before eating, your Thin Mints should be chilled. The cool temperature of the cookie enhances the cool minty flavor. Cool, huh?

Before you proceed, know that the following steps must be carried out with exact precision or else you will be disappointed with the cookie by your own fault and I still rightly get to make my assertion that Thin Mints are, in fact, the best Girl Scout Cookie.

Step 2: Gently nibble off just the slightest amount of chocolate edge of the Thin Mint and continue around about 1/2 of the circumference of the cookie. This will expose the inner cookie.

Step 3: Using a pair of chopsticks, hold the Thin Mint with the exposed cookie part upright and then lower into a glass of milk until completely submerged (you can also use your fingers, but then they too will be chilled). You should see bubbles rising to the top of the milk. This is a sign that your once crunchy cookie is slowly but surely becoming soggy.

Step 4: Once the bubbles stop forming, it is likely that your cookie is now filled with milk. The chocolate rim edge that you left on the bottom half will hold all of this soggy goodness in place. Lift the cookie out of the milk and eat. You can thank me later.

If done correctly, the outer chocolate shell will crack when bitten and the soggy cookie will ooze out. If not done correctly, your soggy cookie will fall apart making a mess of your milk and you'll have to drink the dredges later. If you drop your whole cookie in your milk you can hopefully rescue it carefully without obliterating the delicate cookie and also quickly enough so that is doesn't completely dissolve in your milk. Another note, if when eating the cookie, you realize that you have sadly reached a part that is still crunchy and not perfectly soggy, you can resubmerge the Thin Mint. If your cookie is too soggy however, and falls apart, there is little you can do to salvage it except helplessly watch it become soggier and soggier. Err on the side of crunchy because you can always make it soggy with a few extra submersions.

So, now that Girl Scout Cookie season is upon us, support your local troop by buying a box of Thin Mints, trying out this method of eating it and let me know how it goes. I'm willing to field questions and also promise to have an open mind to those of you *might* disagree.

UPDATE: As requested, I made a video tutorial about how to do this. I didn't think it was that hard.

Trying New Things

Perhaps nothing scares me more about being a SAHM than taking all my kids shopping. 

You've seen it before at the grocery store: Mom is trying to accomplish a simple task of getting food bought but her kid is crying, throwing a tantrum, running away, pulling stuff off the shelves or otherwise foiling her plans. When you have three kids, my thinking is that the chances of this happening are three times more likely. I may be wrong, but I have not been eager to test that hypothesis.  

Eventually this needed to be done and today was the day. I bribed the boys with promise of letting them each choose one fruit, whatever they wanted and we would eat it as soon as we got home. They were thrilled about this idea. I don't know if it was the free reign of the produce section or the immediacy of eating what they chose that was most exciting. Either way, they clearly felt it was a good incentive for them to use inside voices and stay close to me at the store. No doubt about it, I will be using this tactic again, possibly every time we go to the grocery store.

It was Tey who spotted the star fruit and asked what it was. I told him, and added the disclaimer that I had never had it before. With no hesitation, that was what he chose. Bean, who can be indecisive when faced with so many great choices for something new and usually relies on recommendations, also went along with this idea. 

At home we quickly devoured the two beautiful, juicy, not so sweet, super delicious star fruit, which left us wanting more. Even Mei-Mei, who is generally reluctant about new fruits (or any fruits for that matter), ate all that the boys were willing to share with her. Tey, in particular, was very generous with his. 

I'm so glad we were in a "trying new things" mood today. Because I finally dared taking all three kids to the store, now I am more confident about needing to do it again in the future. In addition, the kids dared to try a new fruit, it turned out to be AMAZING, and now will likely a new staple treat on our shopping list. As a new SAHM, these mini-accomplishments can really add up to help make this transition seem like it has more smooth spots than rough patches. I thrive on these moments.

Food Guide Pyramid, You will be Ignored Today

Today we defied all rules and recommendations about using sugars and fats sparingly.

Our gingerbread house

Homemade Corndogs

Hush Puppies

Mei-Mei polished off her corndog, no hush puppies for you!

Christmas Eve

Today was a bit busier cuz we had to (not really had to, but it was nice to) prep for church and Bo was playing in the band so he had to leave by 1pm. Luck would have it that Tey didn't nap and Mei didn't take her second nap. Really it was a miracle we were all ready and sane to get to church before 4pm and that I squeezed in a shower. MIRACLE!

Church was amazing. It was extremely worshipful and I really connected with our savior and celebrated his miraculous birth. I'm praying that my kids felt like they were worshipping too, cuz they rocked out their Christmas show! Tey is in the white collared shirt on the left and Bean is in the red checked collared shirt on the right.


Then we headed our for Chinese. My mom's side is Chinese, so no, we're not copying a Christmas Story. Chinese people each Chinese food on Christmas! This is 4 years know that our church family has joined us in continuing this tradition when my nuclear family is away from our extended biological family for the holidays (now with 3 kids, it's easier for us to meet up with my mom's side of the family over the summer).

It is tradition for us to do Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve. We're pretty practical when it comes to stuffing them. The kids got new toothbrushes, some flossers, toothpaste, a couple play animals, a small candy cane, a dreidel, a sticker sheet, and a small Heifer International bank to collect for that charity. 

What are your traditions for Christmas Eve?

Christmas Eve Eve

Yay! Friday! Finally, Bo was off from work and we had plenty of fun celebrating Christmas Eve Eve. I dunno what anyone else does regularly on this day, but we've got have a couple great new traditions in the making.

To start the morning off we all got bundled up and headed outside. I can't believe we were out there for about an hour and a half! Here we are seeing if we all touch hands and hug the tree. I'm thinking by springtime we can get Mei involved and it's a done deal.

We also needed to prep a bit for our contribution to the Christmas meal on Sunday. Bo took Bean to the grocery story and returned home with an impulse buy of crab legs. I'm not complaining :) (though they did freak me out at first when I was unloading the groceries). It was Bean's idea (can you tell how excited he is to eat ferocious crab legs) and Bo went along cuz they were on sale. Everyone is happy. Yum!

For one of the desserts that we are bringing to Christmas, Bo wanted to make the flourless chocolate cake that we used to be famous for. I mean really, you can never go wrong with something made of just eggs, butter, and chocolate! Here the boys are beating 9 eggs. Yes, that is the volume of just 9 eggs!

Tey, my little chef, learning the proper way to mix the eggs and chocolate to keep it frothy and light. The kid just loves to help in the kitchen.

Take a look at this: so good, you could just take a bite...of the cake, I mean. ;)

We wrapped the day up with "A Muppet Family Christmas." Seriously, it's THE best kid's secular Christmas movie ever. It has the Muppets, plus Sesame Street, plus Fraggle Rock. And they all sing. 'Nuff said.

I realized that last year when we watched this, Bean was also pants-less. Maybe this is a new tradition too! Not so sure how well that will go over when I they are teenagers.