To Make you Laugh

Ashley came downstairs this morning (ok it was a couple of days ago when I started this post) crying and I heard her outside our door.  When I came out to see what her problem was-I found her walking downstairs with her pajama pants around her ankles.  She told me she needed help fixing her pajamas.  I tried not to laugh at her through finding her "lost" panties inside the pajama pants that were around her ankles all the way down the stairs.  We couldn't believe that she hadn't fallen.  So once I found her princess panties and got her pajama pants right side out again, things were okay.

Then today, she was trying to put on a new t-shirt dress that I had bought her for Christmas-Greg went to check this time to see what was the reason for the crying.  The dress' buttons were all still buttoned but she had her arms in the sleeves and her face peeking out between 2 of the buttons.  She really prefers to get dressed all by herself but sometimes that ends up with funny results!

I promise that I will post about our Subic Bay trip and Christmas soon!  but we are trying to squeeze every drop of fun into our last hours with Grammy (Greg's mom) before she has to leave early on Friday morning!

BK Orphanage

I went to visit this orphanage that Greg's company helps support last week with 4 other Fluor wives.  It was a sweet, funny, tender, and heart wrenching experience.  I can't post pictures of the children on the internet because most of there due to family abuse situations and if someone here saw their picture they might try to go and take the child.  That alone is heartbreaking.

The children-36 of them-greeted us all-putting our hands to their foreheads-a gesture of respect for ones elders.  They sang and danced for us.  We had snacks-which you don't turn down here if someone offers you.  I had banana bread and for the first time ever-drank coconut milk, from a straw straight out of the coconut and here's the proof.


They have their own school at the orphanage and 3 teachers/classrooms with multi age group/levels in a room.  Both the oldest and youngest children at the orphanage are in 1st grade-one is a 6 year old and the other is 16 but never had much opportunity to attend school. 

The nuns who run the orphanage are so sweet and obviously care deeply for their ministry there.  The children do their own laundry, work in the garden, care for the animals-they have goats, chickens, grow melons, tomatoes, bananas, green beans, and much more.  They were cooking lunch in something that looked like an enormous wok-some kind of clam/mussel stew and plates on the tables mounded high with rice.  They don't have a traditional oven in their kitchen.

One of the ladies I went with had previously been in touch with a nun to ask about a Christmas gift for the children and had requested a new sound system-everyone in the Philippines loves to sing karaoke and dance and many are quite good!  She and her husband and children got the children their sound system-which I know they will be thrilled with.

However, we were all surprised to walk into one of the girls' bedrooms and see that they sleep on wooden beds on VERY thin grass woven mats.  We were all burdened to help get mattresses for the children.  The bedroom we saw had 2 fans and the sister told us they have to close the windows at nights to keep out the mosquitoes and snakes.  They of course do not have air conditioning.

 Merry Christmas in Tagalog-the language other than English, spoken in the Philippines-it is Maligayang Pasko!  and no I do not know how to pronounce it correctly.

 banana trees

 Sister Gemma and their nativity scene

 some of the goats that live at the orphanage too

poinsettias growing

It is just really eye opening to see all that we have and take for granted-both here and in America.  All of us who were there were challenged to really look for opportunities that God puts in our path to help others!

Christmas Decorations

 Ryan and Ashley setting up our Little People Manger scene that my mom bought for our kids in 2005-when Scott was 18 months old-a must have for Christmas for any family with children!

 This green tablecloth I found at our grocery store for really cheap (and it's Greg's favorite color).  I bought the red and green runner from a woman at the mall whose mother weaves in Baguio-a city north of Manila.  I want to visit their store when we go to Baguio.

 This is the artificial tree we bought-in October, I think.  It looked full of holes when we put it together but decorations helped it a lot!

 This is the real tree we ordered through our version of Sam's-it came from Oregon and smelled good briefly but was pretty dead when we got it.  We didn't even decorate it because we were afraid if we did, there would be no needles left on it.  Oh well-we know not to do that again next year!

 Another engineer in the family-helping Dad with the tree lights

 In Greg's family, growing up the tradition was to rotate years among the children of who put the angel on top of the tree.  We bought a new star for the top of our tree here and it was Scott's turn to put it on.

 Ryan and Scott with their robot ornaments-I bought these last year because their school's mascot was a robot-we miss you AJW friends!

 The annual feet comparison-when Scott was born I found this neat company who etches on glass and makes ornaments of baby's footprints.  We have them for all 3 of our kids and have gotten them for nieces and nephews.  Greg loves having the kids compare their feet now to their baby feet to see how tiny they used to be!

 Ryan put the angel on the kids small tree we brought from home.

 Greenery around the doorway

 When you don't have a fireplace you have to come up with someplace else to hang your stockings!

 I am really enjoying using my mom's dining room furniture in our house here-it had been in storage until we came here.  The ceramic nativity my great aunt Becky made for me when I was a child.  The glass Christmas tree was a leftover from one year when mom and I made thousands of buckeye candies for teachers and it is not really Christmas without red, green, and silver Hershey kisses-I was glad that I found them here but they were pricey so we are savoring them.

 A fabric advent calendar that I found here-thought it was fitting since we have moved around the world this year.  There is a person from the USA as well as the Philippines and many other countries.

 When I was growing up we had a certain way we decorated our tree every year.  Daddy and I put it together.  He and Mom did the lights.  Mom and I put on red satin balls.  Then we got out the "special ornaments".  Mom and I talked about where they had each come from as we hung them on the tree.  Daddy ate some of the above mentioned Hershey kisses and went to sleep in his recliner long before we were finished.  The crochet snowflake along with many others and the crochet angel on our small tree were made by my sweet Aunt Todd.  Snoopy as a Scout-the "Beagle Scout" is an ornament of Greg's.  The red curtain hook with glitter was one that I made in K-4.  The little house on the right of the picture above is from our dear friends who lived in Germany and moved back to the US just after we left-sad!

 We love to collect ornaments when we do special things and travel-this is a poor picture of a moose ornament we bought on our cruise to Alaska and the pink one is from our ride on the pink pig-Atlanta Christmas train last year.

 We also have several our kids have made or received-Ryan is in the large green one.  My dad as a child in his first pair of overalls is toward the bottom in red and green.  I have candy canes with all our kids names on them.  My 4th grade teacher cross-stitched the sleigh for me and I have many that children gave me while teaching.

 We also have a Sesame Street one-from my childhood so before the addition of Abby Cadabby and Elmo

 We have Furman and Ga Tech ornaments and scuba diving and Coca Cola drinking Santa Clauses

 and Curious George too.

 This is outside the front door-it is funny to me to put out snowman things here but they came as a set.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Office Christmas Party

The party here was quite an event!  In Greenville, (they are so dull we haven't been in years) we would go, stand around and talk in the lobby of the downtown Hyatt, looking at the Festival of Trees for a little while and then be home by 9 at the latest.  Here, because music, karaoke, and dancing are such a part of the culture a group from each division performs and there is a contest with celebrity judges, radio personalities from Manila were the hosts of the evening, we had dinner-full sit down deal for 1600 employees and spouses-dinner started at 6 and we left as soon as the "program" was over and dancing started and it was a little after midnight when we got home!  You would have laughed so hard at the performances-this year's theme was music evolution and they had groups performing songs from the 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s and 00s.  Someone was dressed as Elvis and someone else as James Brown in a red satin suit.  None of the employees in America would have gone for this activity.  People could dress up as a favorite musician or in a favorite outfit from one of the decades and their were some WILD costumes!  It was certainly an interesting party and we had fun sitting with some new friends from Chile and Australia.

Gingerbread Men times 3

I love The Gingerbread Man story and all the sequels and adaptations-Gingerbread Girl, Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby and Friends (beautiful pictures!), Gingerbread Cowboy. . .

I decided that I would make gingerbread men and decorate them with all 3 kids classes and read to them this year.  The hardest part was getting something scheduled with teachers because of so much going on right around Christmas.  It has been fun with all 3 groups-different but fun with all!

 One of my helpers-very intently working

 some of the results

 No they are not exhibiting my gingerbread for all to see at school-it was a Christmas art exhibit

 Scott's classroom-whoever wanted to could eat lunch in the classroom one day and help decorate the tree

 A really neat thing Scott's teacher does so that the kids can get to know each other better

 It had been Scott's turn this week-I took the picture below so our cousins Katie and Ian could see they were on the bulletin board eating ice cream at Grammy's house all the way in Manila

 We sat in the reading corner and we talked about the original story, about the White House in the US made of gingerbread one year, Jan Brett books, and then I read them Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends.

 1st group-beginning to decorate

 Yes you can eat the gingerbread man after I take your picture!

 Scott's teacher showing her creation

Moving on to preschool!

I was outside and heard Ashley's teacher complimenting her on her special candy cane-The children are getting ready to practice their Christmas Program dance-I know it will be entertaining!  Am not quite sure what this face is about but as usual, it makes me laugh!

 All of them appear to be doing abstract art that day-Ashley's is on the left with the line of sequins and all the stripes at the bottom but I laughed that none of them looked like an actual candy cane does.

 Dancing together!  The letter of the day was O and they made the purple octopus pictures hanging behind them.

 Don't let people take pictures of you while you read-you are always making funny faces.  I read her class only the original story and had them help me say the part "run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man" while they tapped their hands on their legs like running feet.

 Decorating their cookies

Group 3-1st graders-I read this group Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends which they seemed to enjoy in spite of their so close to Christmas antsiness!  They loved decorating and eating the cookies-as soon as they saw me, the kids started saying "are you here for cookies????"  It made me laugh.

 We read, we decorated, we ate cookies, and then we colored.  I love this little girl's snowman headband!  It is still funny to me that you can buy stuff with snowmen on it here!

 Then we colored gingerbread boys and girls to take home.  Someone even suggested cutting them out, putting them on a stick, and making puppet shows with them.

We all had a good time and I am glad that there were some gingerbread men left over because I think I have made enough of those for this year!  This is also a great gingerbread flavor recipe if you don't want to make the men to decorate-
Gingerbread White Chocolate Muffins
These are mini muffins and you really do have to bake them as long as the recipe says!Adapted from Allrecipes.com

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Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup molasses
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup hot water
• 1-12 ounce bag white chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 2 muffin pans with baking spray.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, on medium high speed, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
4. Beat in the egg until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. Mix in the molasses until incorporated.
6. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the batter, scraping down sides of the bowl as necessary.
7. Stir in the hot water.
8. Stir in the white chocolate chips.
9. Pour batter into muffin tins, filling each cup about 2/3 of the way full.
10. Bake for 20-23 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, there may be a few crumbs.
11. Allow to cool in the tins on a wire rack until completely cool. 
12. Remove muffins from pan, serve and enjoy!!