Lessons, Misunderstandings, Etc.

Sarah's Craft from her school today...Boite aux Lettres for St. Nicolas


Nathan's Pattern Homework Reads: "My pattern comes from a sarape from Mexico. I chose this pattern because they are common in Texas where I was born. My pattern is often seen in restaurants and homes in Texas. My grandma is a Mexican American." (Because it is an International school, they often tie in an international flavor to their work and they were to choose a pattern typical to where they are from...all I have to say is homework had to be so much harder before Google came along).



We had big beautiful snowflakes today.

Girls coloring while Nathan worked on his homework.

Nathan and his friend, Garret, after the soccer tournament on Saturday. It was cold, but at least it wasn't raining/snowing!

December already!? We are busy. Some of us are not well. Some of us are recovering. Unfortunately the one who is on his way to Germany right now is not amongst the recovering. We added an extra special prayer for Daddy to get better tonight. (These kids did that all on their own---we couldn't ask for better behaved children these days. And we are not threatening that Santa or St. Nicolas/Sinter Klaas are watching at all. They are just great kids).
A few years ago, I heard Maria Shriver say that her parents taught them about giving back to others by not only teaching them about buying canned goods and non perishables and then donating them to needy families, but also by having them "sacrifice" as children by giving up a meal and having cereal instead. I love this idea and decided this year to suggest it to my kids. We had every intention of going to the supermarket together and having them choose the canned goods to go to the shelter our church donates to, but I found myself with just the girls (Daddy and Nathan were at soccer) on Hannah's birthday purchasing the donations along with last minute party supplies. Not at all what I had in mind. We did talk about what we were donating and Hannah did participate in picking some things out before she started whining and complaining that her feet her and then freaking out when it was snowing/sleeting really hard when we finally rushed to the car.

That night we did not have cereal for dinner. It was Hannah's birthday after all. The following day it didn't work out either and before you know it, a week had passed and we still had not put our plan into action. Well, last night I was not feeling well and as I stood in the kitchen mumbling about what we should have for dinner, our oldest two children decided they would like to "give up" their dinner for the people who don't have enough to eat. Nathan even suggested that we give up our dinner more than once to show how thankful we are about how much we have. I am so impressed that he really gets it. These are great kids. I was sure they would be incredibly hungry this morning, but they were fine. (They did have cereal, don't worry I'm not sending my children to bed without any food!)

Here in Belgium children are preparing for the arrival of St. Nicolas/Sinter Klaas this weekend. Our kids are learning about this in school as Nathan did last year, but I find it interesting that they haven't really completely caught on to what he might do for them or at least they aren't going around speaking about their expectations. Last year we sort of ignored it all together except for the company party (which will happen this Sunday) and they were okay with that. I'm trying to pay close attention to make sure they haven't been told that he will be here and then have them wake up disappointed. (Their school encourages us to embrace this event as part of teaching them about the culture which I am fine with, I just feel like we are trying to teach our kids about giving back and not about presents, presents, presents so another guy going around giving toys out in December doesn't really help that case). So yesterday when I heard Hannah talking about St. Nicolas I listened closely. I could have sworn she said that her teacher told her she needed to give St. Nicolas her Belgium address. I chuckled to myself as I thought this clever teacher was trying to explain that St. Nicolas comes to Belgium and Santa Claus goes to the US so Hannah must have misunderstood that the teacher meant for her to give Santa Claus her Belgium address. The conversation went on for several minutes, including some time with me (unsuccessfully) trying to get her to repeat our address back to me, before I realized we were not talking about the same thing.

All she was trying to say was that she had put in her order for a "Belle dress" (Belle's dress up gown from Beauty and the Beast) with both Santa Claus and St. Nicolas and she was sure that one of them would figure out a way to get it here. (I hate to break it to her, but Santa Claus is having a bit of difficulty getting that particular item at this point in time). As we discovered at her birthday party, she gets caught up in the excitement of any gift so I'm sure he'll be forgiven if it doesn't quite work out. We can always blame St. Nicolas. Just kidding.

The etc in the title relates to our little germ spreader. The one who seems to have something running at all times in fall and winter and occasionally likes to share her ailments with others. As do her siblings, she loves to draw and color. We often find her sitting at the little table either on her own or with one of the others coloring and drawing like mad. She will run up to us as the older two do to show us her finished project with little explanations that only she can understand. Last night while Nathan was working hard on his homework, I caught the girls sitting side by side coloring. Note our littlest person is coloring with a different hand than her sister uses. We watch her use her left hand to hold her forks and spoons and now we find that she seems to use it most often for her art. She appears to have the TSE lefty gene. I know she's young, but we'll see.

She decided today that she would like to see how our living room walls might look with green and blue stripes and squiggles. Lucky for us, she chose a private space behind a door and the magic eraser almost erased the whole incident. At this point it wasn't even surprising. I'm actually amazed it took her this long. I did say we couldn't ask for better behaved children, didn't I? Well, I should add age appropriately well behaved children. She is almost 2. We do leave markers lying around unattended. We did let her entertain herself since she opted not to take a nap this afternoon. Our bad.