Decorating the tree

The day after Thanksgiving we put up our tree and decorated the house for Christmas. The kids were so excited to get out their ornaments.... it was like seeing favorite friends. Of course, you can't decorate the tree without Christmas cookies so Tori and I made a batch of sugar cookies. Josh was still recovering from his cold, but he perked up enough to help.

My little cookie helper

Josh digging in his box of ornaments. You can tell by looking at him that he is still not feeling 100%

Getting the tree ready

Tori finding just the right spot. Notice all of the ornaments at the bottom.

Layers and layers

很多衣服! (hen dou yifu - so many clothes)

This is just the normal amount of clothes that Tori wears every day. Her school does not have heaters (and this is really normal) so each morning we pile on the clothes. On any given day she wears: 3 shirts with a sweater or fleece on top, and then tights, 2 pairs of pants and 2 pairs of socks. Now that it has gotten colder (usually just above freezing), she keeps her coat on in the school. My very own "Christmas story kid". I often feel like the mom in that movie as it takes 10-15 minutes to get her dressed each morning. :-D

The Wedding car

A wedding is a big deal. Each culture has unique traditions that surround this important day. While there is much that I am still learning about weddings and the Chinese traditions that go along with them, there are a few modern traditions that are common. When people get married in China, they often rent cars to transport the bridal party to various places on the wedding day. The cars are decorated with flowers and ribbons. The car containing the bride also usually has extra flowers on the hood. We have nothing on the Chinese when it comes to decorating cars -- they do it right! But the thing that humors us is that in the wedding entourage is a car that proceeds the whole assembly and video tapes the whole process. This car is usually one with a sunroof (or a convertible, though the sunroof is more commonly seen) and the person doing the video is standing up and sticking out the sunroof. And yes, they even do this on the highway. Can you see the man in the first car who is the video guy? (He is a little hard to see because of the trees in the background).

感冒了!

(Gan mao le!) Caught a cold!

This has been a week of sniffles and coughing. Josh stayed home from school last Thursday (yes, Thanksgiving) complaining that his head hurt. By the afternoon, he had a fever and was coughing. By Saturday he seemed to be doing better.... just in time for Tori to start feeling icky. A couple days passed and I am not feeling so great. Becca has a cough but I wonder if she will be next. Andy is traveling so he is missing out on all the virus fun. At least you can say this, we are a family who shares well.

Ironically enough, one of the lessons we are covering this week in class is "I have a cold". I can now write all kind of random characters like: snot (actually my book calls it nasal mucus) 鼻涕, cough 咳嗽, and headache 头疼. I must confess these are HARD characters!

Hopefully, next week will bring better health....

Thankful Turkeys

Last Sunday, we did a family craft to talk about what we are thankful for. We each made a turkey on each feather we wrote some thing for which we are thankful. Here is what the Wilcoxen are thankful for (these are in no particular order):

Andy:

Family

Airplanes

My job

Family vacations

People who are patient with me

Skype

Jesus

Health

Friends who love us

Church

Our life in China

Sarah

Becca, Josh, and Tori

Sarah:

Our good health

Becca, Josh and Tori

Andy

Family time

Xiao Lu Ayi

Life in China

Our wonderful family

Friends (near and far)

Date nights

Small group

Visitors

God's love

Opportunity to go to school

Becca:

Peanut butter

Mom

Josh

Jesus 

School

House 

Friends

Food

Tori

Dad

Josh:

Friends

School

Family vacation

Food

Family

Meat

Grandparents

Honey

Jesus

Tori:

Grandma

Daddy

Tori

My room

Josh

Mommy

Grandpa

Becca

My house

We truly have so much to be thankful for!

Thanksgiving #1

Last year, we celebrated Thanksgiving at a friend's house, but this year we will be celebrating 3 (yes, that is right 3) Thanksgivings at OUR HOUSE. Gracious, what was I thinking? But all of our celebrating will be done on other days than the actual day, because Thanksgiving is just another day here in China: Andy has to work, the kids have school, and I have classes. In fact, on Thanksgiving evening we will be eating Chinese food because I will be teaching English in the afternoon. :-)

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving on Tuesday and had friends over to our house. I skipped classes so that I could prepare. While people contributed food, I made the bulk of the traditional fare. We had  corn bread pudding, mashed potatoes, stuffing, dao dou (a kind of Chinese bean very similar to french-cut green beans), cranberry sauce (made from dried cranberries), pumpkin & apple pies, sweet potato casserole, and of course turkey. Since nothing comes from a can, box or bag, it takes a bit of time to prepare. For the first time, I made a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin! 

There was a total of 25 people (including our kids) and for many of them, this was their first Thanksgiving. I always find it surprising what people from other countries like/don't like of our traditional foods. One of the girls was at first freaked out by the cranberry sauce because she thought it was made from the blood of the turkey (I kid you not!). She tried it after much reassurances that it was a fruit and from no part of the turkey (and she really liked it). I asked one of the guys if he had eaten turkey before, and he answered, "Yeah, at Subway." Hmmm, not quite the same! And he agreed after sampling the roasted turkey yumminess. People's favorites were: cranberry sauce, corn bread pudding, turkey, and the pumpkin pie. All in all a successful Thanksgiving #1!

Some of the guys doing the dishes after the meal. I will happily cook if other people will clean up my mess! ;-)

Doing some final preparations

One of the tables (people sitting here are from: France, India, Sierra Leone, Hong Kong, ....)

Family Photo Shoot

Over the summer when we were back in the US, I had wanted to get some family pictures taken. We have had ones done of the kids in recent years, but it had been a while since we did a whole family picture. But somehow getting that done just wasn't high on the priority list during our short time back in the summer. Andy and I asked a friend who enjoys photography if he would take some pictures of our family here. He said that he had not taken any family portraits before, but that if we were game he was willing to try. He joking said that he found this site for inspiration. We went to the park that is right by our neighborhood. I don't know about you, but I think that he did an amazing job! I think the thing I like most about the pictures is that they reflect our life right now - much more than a studio (or even a park in the US) would have.

There is this random sculpture thing in the park and we wondered if this would turn out to be an "awkward family photo" (see the link above). We decided to give it a try. Turned out to be a fun one! Though we wonder what Tori was doing....

Same sculpture from a different angle

My little man (I think he looks so much like Andy in this pic)

Now I know that I am biased, but I think that they are a really cute bunch.

The kiddos amongst some really funky trees

omigosh, is she cute or what? no one told her to pose this way.... it is all Tori.