Advent Calendar and other Christmas decor

Well, it's still *technically* Advent, but I was really hoping to post this closer to the beginning of Advent than now! Silly slow internet...

While we were living in Langley, BC, Canada, I noticed that my friend Kristin had strung together beautiful Advent calendars for each of her girls.  Hers were made out of fancy paper and fashioned into cones that held goodies for each day.  It reminded me of a childhood Christmas when my relatives living in Germany had sent me and my siblings each a cardboard calendar with a little chocolate behind each little door.  I know they're pretty widely available now, but at the time, it was the only one I had ever seen.  I remember going with my parents to my neighbors house... Mrs. Vogel was from Germany and translated the writing for us.  It was a wonderful little memory!

So I started dreaming about one that I could make or buy for my family.  Paper doesn't tend to travel well and I figured that over time it would look worn and crinkled.  But I found some cute ones (like the ones here and here) and started to formulate a plan... I would KNIT my Advent Calendar!  Only... I don't know how to knit.  But I was not deterred.  One of our colleagues on our team here in Mpanda is particularly crafty and I knew that knitting was one of her fortes.  So I started talking with her.  She actually came up with an initial pattern and brought out some of the supplies. 

We worked off and on for a couple months as she taught me to knit.  I already knew how to crochet, so it seemed to come pretty easily.  Then I think it was August when we started doing the mittens in earnest.  It was exciting and the mittens were turning out really cute!  We looked up how to embroider the numbers and I had to learn how to make i-cord (to hang them from).  I also experimented with how I wanted to attach the mittens and ended up doing a braid.  I tried tassles and pompoms, but wasn't happy with either.  I figured I could always add them later if I so desire!  And the finished product....

And a close up showing our special Christmas mitten...

I'm so happy with it!  I put a little chocolate inside each mitten along with a slip of paper where I'd written a special Advent activity.  Advent is my favorite holiday, and between decorating, baking, hosting (Christmas party!), making paper snowflakes, watching Christmas movies, listening to Handel's Messiah, and more, we have really been enjoying Advent this year! 

Here are a few other pictures of our Christmas decor.  This is the Fisher Price Little People (read: OK to be played with!!) Nativity Set.  We've had it since Micaiah's first Christmas and have enjoyed letting Micaiah act out the Christmas story.

 Our advent wreath.  This year I kept it simple. 

Our stockings (we wouldn't normally have a Jesus stocking, but it was sent as a craft, and Micaiah has decided that she wants to write a note to Jesus this year)...

Our oragami Christmas tree (in the background of this one-- sorry, I cut off the star!).  This came out in a care package from our family while we were still living in Musoma...

And our regular Christmas tree...

I love Advent.  Only a few more days until Christmas!!


-JLR

Thanksgiving 2012

We have a lot to be thankful for.  Despite feeling a bit more melancholy than usual lately, Thanksgiving is a welcomed reminder to think through all the blessings the Lord has given to our family.  This year we each wrote a couple things every day in November and by Thanksgiving had a very full "Thankfulness Jar."  It was refreshing to read through all the things we had named-- ranging from favorite movies and games to having electricity (Micaiah's!) and good mosquito nets to our family and friends around the world.  God has provided and we praise Him.

Last year we had Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves.  We shared a meal with our househelper and gardener at lunch, but our dinner was just us.  So this year one of the things we were especially thankful for was having friends to share our holiday with!  Granted no one who came was American, but we really enjoy sharing our customs and traditions with our expat friends!  And having just come off UK week, it was good to get re-settled in our American traditions. :)

A full table this year...

Micaiah and I decorated using some things that were left behind by other missionaries.  We also did place cards that were little turkeys-- Micaiah really enjoys crafts, so it was a lot of fun! 

Our place settings and all the food!

Some Thanksgiving decor left by the Langs that I think originally came from other missionaries in Mbeya.

Not sure what this pose was...

The meal consisted of two chickens (that despite my boiling-roasting methods were unfortunately still a bit chewy), mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, carrots, corn, and homemade applesauce (both regular and cran-apple, thanks to some craisins that Ally brought us in July!).  For dessert we had pumpkin bars, apple pie, and homemade banana ice cream.  I was definitely missing turkey this year, but all in all it was a good meal and we enjoyed our Thanksgiving holiday.

-JLR

Scorpion sighting

The starts of the rains (late October, but picking up momentum in November) brings a variety of critters out of the ground.  We had this little visitor in mid-November.  We also had kumbi-kumbi (plump termites that local people like to fry up as a snack), one snake in the yard/garden, a variety of beetles, and a ton of flies.  If it ends up being the same as last year, hopefully these guests are mostly limited to the beginning of the rainy season and shouldn't be bothering us too much longer. 

Some friends (THANK YOU!!!) sent us a small UV flashlight which makes scorpions easy-to-spot.  Their exoskeletons glow in the dark!  We were able to try it on this one and have given the flashlight to our night guard to use in the yard/garden at night.  We've also heard that chickens are expert scorpion hunters, so maybe that's why we haven't seen more.  Last year we had 3-4 (only 1 inside) and so far this is the only one we've seen (also inside).

Thankfully scorpions are pretty easy to kill-- a basic old navy flip flop took care of this one!  A word to the wise... don't ever use a hammer to kill a scorpion.  We made that mistake in Musoma and the scorpion exploded!  We were finding bits of exoskeleton for days! 

A good reminder to wear shoes in the house, though.  Especially in the evenings!

-JLR

UK Week

(side note: I have another 2-3 posts in the works as soon as the internet will cooperate and load pictures.  Keep checking back for new stuff in the next week or so!)

North America.... check.  South America... check.  As I started to plan for our unit on Europe I noticed a little problem.... they forgot the UK!  Well, not forgot completely, but it wasn't one of the 3-5 main countries we'd focus on.  Since we are on an international team and more than half of the expats in our little town hold British passports, we decided it was worth a bit extra planning.  Not to mention that we spent more than three weeks in the UK (London, Oxford and a little village in between!) in 2009 and have such fond memories of our time there.

My friend Cat helped me brainstorm some additional activities and we came up with some good stuff.  We had extra activities in geography, maths (yes, they use an [s], art, music, vocabulary, literature, and cooking.  Some of my favorites were the 34 terms we collected and made a matching game.  Things like the boot (trunk) or bonnet (hood) of the car.  Or plaiting (braiding) your hair. 

We picked a book by E. Nesbit as our read-aloud for the week.  The Railway Children.  Have you read it?  There's also a film (movie) to go with it.  So we planned a UK dinner-and-a-movie night.  Cat came over and helped Micaiah make Toad in the Hole (sausages cooked in a batter).  We filled out the meal with some mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, and baked beans.  They also made scones, which we served with jam for pudding (dessert).  It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed discussing some of the things we learned that week with all of our guests!  

The challenge spelling word we picked was "monarchy."  This was the sentence Olly and Cat helped us come up with. :)

Cat gave Micaiah some heart-shaped UK flag earrings.  Micaiah loved them!

Using scales to measure flour.  It's not a normal thing for Americans-- usually we use cups to measure flour, not grams or pounds. But it made for a very good math(s) lesson!

She loved mixing the scones dough with her hands!

A little light kneading... nothing this girly can't handle. :)

Working with Cat to make scones and Toad in the Hole.

Our UK night party with our friends in Mpanda.

This is what Toad in the Hole looks like.  It's normally made with proper sausages, but we substituted hot dogs... gotta make do with what we can find here!

-JLR

Canada Unit

This week we started our Canada unit, and Micaiah was really excited!  We lived in Langley, BC for almost two years while Tim finished his MA in Linguistics (2009-2011).  Consequently we have a lot of friends and a great church family there!  So in honor of the first day of our Canada unit, Micaiah wore her special shirt.  We talked about hockey, maple syrup (a conversation stemming from a discussion about the flag), sang the Canadian national anthem, talked about the loonies/toonies, learned the provinces/territories, and discussed some of the special wildlife (like bears and moose) in parts of Canada.  We even talked in exaggerated Canadian accents!  The only other thing I would have done if I'd had the ingredients was make some Nanaimo Bars ... mmm...

And in case you're wondering, no, we weren't making fun... we were reminiscing about our time in Langley and it made us miss living there.  Micaiah and I both spent a good part of the morning in tears as we remembered our friends, thanked God for the time He gave us there, and prayed that we will have the opportunity to go back, visit, and catch up with them all again soon, Lord-willing.  We have been blessed to have developed such close friendships in such a short time, and we know that was a gift from God.  So this is a shout-out to any of our Langley friends if you happen to be reading this... we miss you!


-JLR
ps... if you're Canadian, what else am I missing that is essential either to your region or to Canada as a whole?  We have one more week of study and I'd love to include your ideas into our lesson plans somehow if possible!

World Cake

Homeschool is fun for a lot of reasons.  But one thing I really love is the surprise activities I randomly find mixed into our curriculum!  At the end of week two, our fine arts assignment was to bake and decorate a world cake.  It was tempting to skip it as I thought through all the work of baking a cake from scratch (no cake mixes out here) and making our own icing (which involves sifting down the super-chunky "powdered" sugar and using precious butter).  Not to mention the fact that we've cut down our sweets quite a bit, and having a cake around is just too tempting!  But I figured out a work-around for that, too. (see below) 

And honestly, I just love making edible art.  My Grandma taught me most of what I know, and the rest I've just experimented with on my own.  She sometimes struggled with a shaky hand, so as a teenager I remember going over to help her with the text... I loved those special times with Grandma! 

Micaiah chose white-on-white, our family's favorite.  One twist is that we love to add almond extract to the icing.  Growing up, I was convinced that all good icing tasted like my Grandma's, which had a heavy almond flavor.  To this day, if you tell me otherwise, I won't believe you.  Almond is the best with white cake.  Period. 

Anyway, back to our cake day...

Micaiah did all the measuring and mixing

 The cake fresh out of the oven. My original plan was do bake the cake in a bowl so we had a hemisphere to work with, but the bowl I wanted to use was cracked and the only other one I have that size is plastic.  Plus, then we'd have to decide which hemisphere is the best---North? South? East? West?  We live in the South/East but are originally from the North/West... we wouldn't want to have to choose.  So it worked out in the end.  We decided to go for a flat map, modeling it after the one in our atlas.  In retrospect we could have trimmed the top and bottom to make it closer to the right shape for this type of map, but it's only second grade...

Sorry there aren't more process pictures.  We were both consumed with the task, I suppose!  First I free-handed the outlines of all seven continents (as we reviewed them).  Micaiah wanted to fill in the continents, which is admittedly much more fun.  We did the same with the five oceans as we reviewed them. 

The final result... we did pretty well, I think!  Plus it accomplished its purpose of helping us review the continents oceans. 

 And then just for fun, we attempted a population map. Totally not accurate, but a GREAT excuse to add sprinkles!  And the oceans got blue sprinkles to help them be physical maps (showing depth)... much easier to remember the different types of maps when you have sprinkles to help you!  And no, I wasn't even going to ATTEMPT a political map!!

It tasted great!  mmmm... almond butter-cream icing.... :)  And to avoid eating it all in one sitting, after we had each had a small slice, we cut the rest into individual servings.  We separated them with small pieces of waxed paper, wrapped the whole thing up in waxed paper and plastic wrap, and popped in the freezer.  Done.  Not staring me in the face, and we could pull it out a piece or two at a time as a treat.

Not a bad way to review maps, continents, and oceans, is it?

-JLR

School-Related Posts

Welcome new readers!  If you are looking for updates about our school adventures, you can find them at the following links:

On to Second Grade!

The Chalkboard

The School Room A picture tour of the school room.
Back-to-School Excitement Some of my school-related musings...

Otherwise, feel free to look around and even glance through our archives.

Thanks for stopping by!

-JLR

Elections From Afar

One of our privileges as Americans is being able to participate in US elections, even from afar.  While the absentee ballot is notoriously not counted during the actual election (unless it is a very close race), it is still our privilege and responsibility as American citizens to have a voice and a vote in our home country.

Have you ever wondered what it is like to participate in a presidential election from the other side of the world?  Well, it is not without its challenges, that's for sure!  There are the obvious practicalities of receiving our absentee ballots in time and/or when to send our replacement ballots if (let's face it *when*) those ballots don't arrive.  We want to wait as long as we can to send them in so we know the most about each candidate and can make informed decisions.  But we also are working with a less-than-reliable mail system where things *might* arrive in 3-4 weeks... Then there's the issue of who to vote for.  Finding the best information and trustworthy sources on the web can be difficult to say the least.  Let's just say we've learned a lot about bias... 

But it can also be a welcomed relief.  We are not constantly inundated with manipulative advertising and campaign ads.  We can read platforms in their entirety and not be swayed by emotions or by what everyone else around us is thinking.  If that sounds more like a down-side than an up-side, be comforted by the fact that technology still enables us to be connected and we hear our fair share of both fact and opinion via the internet, especially facebook. 

But. We. Can. Turn. It. Off. 

I feel sorry for those of you who can't escape it!  Because let's face it, at the end of the day, some things are more important than politics.  Especially when politics incite the kind of anger, hatred, mudslinging, and division that make you stop loving your neighbor.

-JLR
ps.. I do not endorse or affirm any one party or candidate.  I do have my leanings, but unless you've actually taken the time to have an intelligent conversation with me, you may not be able to discern where I stand on ALL issues or which issues are most important to me.  But one that should be obvious... I live in a different country... so how the US relates and interacts with the world is more pragmatic for me than for most US citizens!

Back to School Excitement

I'm going to come right out and say how much I loved school.  It may sound strange to some of you, but I think there might be a few of you out there who were the same.  You might be a back-to-school nerd (like me) if...

...you perused the circulars from various discount stores (Target, Walmart, etc.) for weeks in July and August looking for the best sales and coolest gear.
...you found any excuse to walk past (and pick up a few goodies) at the local discount stores (Target, Walmart, etc.) and couldn't pass up a deal where notebooks, notebook paper, glue, scissors, pens/pencils, or crayons were an exceptionally low price.
...the aforementioned section of Target, Walmart, etc. made you feel at peace and was actually a "fun" place to go spend some time.
...you were excited about meeting your teacher at the classic ice cream social.
...you were excited when the bus company put out its routes.
...you "practiced" getting up early for school and figured out how early you'd need to get up to get everything done and still make it to the bus on time.
...you had a "first day of school outfit" with new shoes (white keds that were never white for long...), and your best clothes.
...you packed your lunch the night before.
...you couldn't wait to see where your desk would be and where you'd keep all of your school supplies.
...you always got a bit nervous when the teacher took attendance-- wondering if he/she would say your name right.  (and being overjoyed if they did!)
...you color-coded your binders/notebooks/folders by subject... red was always math for some reason and blue was almost always for science.  The others varied each year based on what subjects I was taking and what was on sale at the local discount stores (Target, Walmart, etc.)

Does this sound like you?  It was definitely me.  And while living in Tanzania has curbed my living-at-Target-during-back-to-school-sales appetite, I don't know that that's an entirely bad thing.  I was still really excited when Tim brought home two bags filled with binders, dividers, folders, paper, and chalk.  Not quite the same, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  :)

-JLR

The School Room

Our school room (schoolroom, school-room??) is a small, two-doored internal room with an awkward screened window facing the hallway.  I'm guessing it's one of those situations where it was originally an external wall (the window has bars on it!!), but at some point an addition was made onto the house, making it... quirky.

Since it's small (two twin-sized beds might fit next to each other in the small space..), we have turned it into a school room.  It's perfect for that function!  It gives us some space to work and unpack all our crafts and books without creating a disaster-zone in the main part of the house.

We moved into this house last October and were part-way through the school-year already.  So the room was functional for first grade, but not pretty.  One of my goals for this summer was to turn it into "The Schoolroom."  I really think it worked, too!

And now for all those pictures I've been trying to post...

The Front of the Room.  I turned the awkward metal-screen-and-barred-window into a magnet board.  I glued magnets to the back of pictures, clothespins, and mini-whiteboards to create a place to hang things in the front of the room.  The front of the room also holds all our books, supplies, craft materials, and chart-paper (on the back of the door).

The Back of the Room.  We moved our repurposed-world-map-shower-curtain to the back wall.  It also has a chair for me (you can't see it well from this angle), a table for my teacher's guides and materials, the printer, etc.  You can also see part of the timeline (at the top) that starts at creation at the front of the room and goes all the way around to the chalkboard.  Micaiah and I both really enjoy seeing it (thanks My Father's World first grade!!), so we are keeping it up! 

Micaiah's books/materials.  Well, for the first day anyway.  Second grade is going to be a big leap from first grade, where she had fewer hours and fewer subjects.  We are starting the first year of the 5 year cycle by My Father's World, and it's called Exploring Countries and Cultures.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!  We're also starting handwriting and spelling this year as well as consistently/daily doing fine arts (music or art) and science.

The Chalkboard!  It was supposed to be a half-wall board, but due to dripping below my "line," we turned it into a full-length board.  We love it, and it is quickly becoming the focal point of the room!  

A close-up of part of the board.... see that little note from Micaiah?  If you can't read it, the part below "welcome to second grade" says "I'm exited" from Micaiah. :)  .... we'll be working on spelling this year (excited, not exited)... but it sure has been fun to leave each other little notes as we gear up for second grade!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the schoolroom!  

-JLR

The Chalkboard

This took me an hour and 45 minutes to load... it's likely the only one I'll have up here for some time!  But at least you can (hopefully) see part of our fun and exciting new chalkboard!  Our gardener started painting it last week.  I finished it because the drips were well outside the lines I had drawn, so instead of a board from waist up, we have a full-length, almost full-wall chalkboard!  It's bigger than I envisioned, but it's really grown on me.

Tim's family sent some beautiful wall stickers that we ended up using to decorate our chalkboard.  Laura came over and helped us arrange them and decorate our board.  Now it has a "garden scene" accented by some big butterfly wall stickers (that we got at conference) and chalk accents.  It's really cute and perfectly fits into our schoolroom! 

Of course, we expect our chalkboard to be functional, too, and I've already posted Micaiah's first spelling list for the year.  :)

-JLR

On to Second Grade...

The past few months have been crazy for us in terms of travel.  It is nice to be back in Mpanda now and healthy (a nice change, which you might appreciate if you followed our recent adventures, Wounds, part 1 and Wounds, part 2!).

The main thing I've been doing lately is preparing for homeschool.  We finished first grade with Micaiah (My Father's World) in May, and then Ally did a month of supplemental teaching with her-- sort of an extended Vacation Bible School.  You can read more about her trip on her blog or email me for a copy of her newsletter.

I also had months of records to catch up on!  We use HomeSchool Tracker Plus to log our lesson plans and hours.  Since we're from Missouri, we follow MO laws, which require 1000 hours of documented school hours (a certain portion must be in "core subjects").  HSTP is a great program, and I am indebted to a good friend in the US for her patient teaching as I learned the program!

I am nearly caught up on all of that and so we're planning for the new year!  This means changing out my bookshelves and boxing up my first grade stuff.  I've gone through the teacher's guides for the first week and prepared most of my lessons-- it's always tricky at the beginning of the school year when I'm not sure how long different subjects will take!  So we'll have to figure out some of that as we go along.

We also decided that the schoolroom needed a makeover.  It was functional but not pretty, so we spent some time envisioning how to best use the small space and moving things around accordingly.  I also got the idea from two different friends (one here in Mpanda and one in Langley, BC) to paint a chalkboard onto my wall.  It was a bit of an undertaking, but it has quickly become a great asset that is both functional/helpful and decorative!  I also discovered that on our awkward internal window (that has bars on it...), the screen is metal and strong enough to hold magnets!  So I spent some time gluing old magnets on the back of clothespins, pictures, and mini-whiteboards. 

I was hoping to post a few pictures of our schoolroom, but that will have to wait.  I'm too frustrated after sitting here for almost two hours now trying to upload them!  Our internet has been worse than ever lately!

Micaiah and I are both excited about starting second grade.  Hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures soon!

-JLR

Wound Update

I can't believe how many of you are following this boil adventure!  I knew there were a few crazies out there who'd be interested in hearing about the boil and my health issues and even fewer that would want to actually SEE it in pictures... well, I THOUGHT I knew, anyway.  I've gotten more hits on my past couple blog posts than I have ever gotten on any other post!  No kidding!

Ok, well, if you all are still interested, here's a bit of an update.  My neck/back are still a bit out of whack, but I keep doing my stretches and at least I'm sleeping a few more hours consecutively each night.  I still wake up plenty, but the pain doesn't keep me up for hours at a time like it had been doing.  My boil is definitely on the mend.  The crater continues to ooze pus, but this morning I noticed that it's a bit smaller.  I think it's starting to heal around the edges, which is encouraging news.  The skin around the boil is still pretty raw from all the tape and trauma of the whole fiasco, but I'm pretty sure it will improve in the coming days.  I can also see the shape of my knee again, which is nice!  There is still some swelling and general soreness, and I have a feeling it will be a few weeks before I'm fully back to normal.

The real challenge has been that Micaiah three small spots that could be boils.  They're small, and could actually just be spider bites.  So far it's been super-mild compared to mine.  We're not even positive that they are boils, but given all that I've been through, we don't want to take any chances!  So for the past three days now I've been on a cleaning rampage.  EVERYTHING is getting washed.  Floors, door knobs, door frames, bathrooms, sheets, towels, buckets.... from what I've been reading, boiling water is one of the best cleaners, so we'll be washing all our linens in boiling water for a while.  And dettol is my new best friend. :)

Any tips on how to eradicate any lingering bacteria in our house?  Any key spots that I need to be sure to check?  Light switches, door knobs.. that sort of thing?  I know that boils just sometimes happen, especially out here in the tropics.  They're super common and so many of our friends and neighbors have shown me their scars (which I could have done without in some cases...) and assured me that these are normal for this area. Even the doctor and nurse at the clinic were quick to reassure me that my massive boils were "normal."  I don't think I'd go that far, but still, it was comforting that they've seen these before and weren't phased by it.  I could have given the infection to Micaiah (especially early on before we knew what it was!), but it's also possible we just got it from a common source.  No way to tell, really.  But we're doing our best to rebuild our immune systems, get enough sleep, eat healthy food, and keep stress to a minimum (!!).

Anyway, that's the update.  Here's a picture for all you crazies out there who like to see the progress visually.

-JLR

Wounds, part 2

**DISCLAIMER** 

This post may make you violently ill!  Please do not view these pictures if you are eating or plan to be eating in the next couple hours or you might not keep your food down.  You've been warned... proceed with caution.

I'm calling this Day 1.  It is not the first day of the boil, but it's the first day I went to the clinic-- once I realized that this thing was out of control!  This is the boil.  It doesn't look like much more than a big zit in this picture, but you can see in the second that my leg is quite swollen. 

This is one of the best pictures I have of the swelling (also Day 1).  My thigh, calf, and ankle all swelled up to about twice their normal size at their largest. 

Day 2.  This is the first day it was "squeezed" at the clinic.  It hurt so bad and I could not walk on my leg-- the pain was too intense!

Day 3.  This was after it was squeezed the second day.  You can see here that there are at least three centers within the boil.

Tim dressing my wound (also Day 3).  His facial expression is completely justified-- I myself gagged everytime I looked at it!  Glad we brought those gloves and even more glad we took that First Aid/CPR class! 

Day 4.  The "tissue plug."  It was nasty.  I don't want to keep talking about it because I don't want to keep thinking about it.  Oh, and you can see my blackened toenail in this picture, too!

 

Day 6 (sorry, I apparently didn't take any pictures on Day 5).  The tissue plug came out, leaving a big crater in its wake.

 This picture shows the crater really well (also Day 6).

 

Day 7.  This is today.  I'm regaining some mobility, the swelling is starting to go down, and the crater continues to ooze greenish-yellowish goo.

Enjoy your lunch!

-JLR