First Month of School

Can't believe one month was gone since school started! We are in an exciting stage. In Andy's words "Now every day is my favorite day: Monday through Friday are my favorite days because they are school days; Saturday is my favorite day because I got to play soccer; and Sunday we go to church and eat dumplings! Yay!" For Emily, her favorite day is Sunday because "we go to church in the morning, eat lunch, take a short nap, go to FriendSpeak and small group. It goes by so fast!" I agree with them. When the days go so fast, we are having fun!

This school year we had extra activities for the kids. Emily joined American Heritage Girl in McKinney. I am the Unit leader assistant for her group (Tenderheart). We meets every other Tuesdays. She already learned so much. Here is the lap folder we made to prepare for her joining award.

She attended the National service Day project "Free To Be A Blessing". I was in the lady's retreat at church that weekend. So David had to take her and Andy to the conference. They made birthday kits for the food pantry.

 

Andy joined the TrailLife. It meets every Tuesday at our church. He really enjoyed all the learning and activities. 

 Andy also started playing soccer. He was scared before his first game. But after he cried out his fear, he hopped out of the car and got in his team. He was dancing and jumping all through the game. And he made one score! He was so proud of himself!

 (See him dancing? He is number 10)

 We also went to the Upward Basketball sportsmanship training at our church. It was free for our church members and NTCA students. Both kids enjoyed it very much. They got to play with some of their old friends too! I was impressed by what they did over there.

 

As far as school, Andy and Emily loved it! Andy's teacher told me every time how happy she was to have Andy in her class. She told me many times that Andy was a leader in class. So by the end of September at the school-wide Colt Roundup meeting, Andy got Rising Star award from his class. We sat at the wrong side of the auditorium so we didn't get a picture of him receiving the award. We are so proud of him!

  

 Andy was so serious about his homework. Even when he was sick at home, he made sure his homework was done correctly and completely.

 September 27th is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. This year I made the mooncakes from the scratch (with organic flour, organic red beans, organic date sugar, organic shredded coconut, and black sesame powder). It is probably the healthiest mooncakes ever. And they tasted so good! I made around 35 pieces (100 g each). They are almost all gone.

 We shared them with our FriendSpeak readers. They all loved it!

 On the same day, Andy had his area all-boys piano recital. He was the youngest of the 33 kids in his age group at his time slot. And he did great. He was so excited to get a ribbon for it.

 Andy was so independent at school that he didn't want me to have lunch with him. He never wanted us to drop him off at his classroom either. We either stop at the entrance to the Kindergarten Hall or go ahead to drop off Emily. But Emily loves to have me to eat lunch with her or take her to her classroom. Hmm, wonder why.

 Emily is such a wonderful helper in the kitchen. She has helped me to prepare several meals and she made the breakfast for Andy when Andy was sick. I know she will be a great cook in the future!

 One day when I was reading a Bible story to the kids while they were finishing up their dinner, Emily interrupted me, "Excuse me, Mama! Kai said there is no God and I told him there IS a God and God created everything. He didn't believe me. I asked him who made everything. He said he didn't know. I said it was God. I think he doesn't go to church and didn't know God's love yet!" I was interested in hearing more. So I asked "How did you get to that topic and talk about God?" She said "One of my classmates said something like 'we don't want to do bad things because God will not like it'. Then Kai said 'there is no God'. I overheard it and walked over to Kai and told him about God." I was impressed by our quiet girl boldly telling others about God.

Andy was sick one Friday night. When he woke up in the morning, his nose started bleeding. He freaked out and started screaming. David ran to the bathroom to get the tissues for his nose. Andy cried out, "Daddy, hurry!!! P-R-A-Y-!!!" That boy put a smile on my face.