Celebrating the Year of the Dog

We had a FUN time celebrating Chinese New Year with friends. 

We are so blessed to have some friends who have helped us to celebrate Faith's culture well for the past few years by inviting us over for Chinese New Year and by showing us around our local Asian grocery store. 

This year, my friend's mom and dad were here visiting from China and helped prepare a traditional Chinese dinner. They helped the kids make dumplings, too. 

Faith's dumpling skins turned out perfectly flat and round every time! She is a natural! 

They were delicious! One of them had a red m&m in it for luck. Gabe found the chocolate! 

My friend's dad was a chef - so we were spoiled with a lovely and very tasty dinner all made by hand! 

There were gifts for each child and red envelopes with money, too! 

Brandon read a few stories about Chinese New Year and we did a paper cutting craft. 

We even watched the Chinese New Year special - well, parts of the 5 and a half hour show including some Chinese Opera. 

We left the celebration with full bellies and happy hearts, ready for the year of the dog. 

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year 2018!

Happy Chinese New Year from our little Faith! 

Happy Valentine's Day 2018

Nothing can separate us from 

the love of God.

 Romans 8:39

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Grand Prix 2018

One of our favorite AWANA activities is the Grand Prix! 

We buy our car kits in November and start working on them mid-January. 

Our church sets up a workshop and makes wood working tools available to cut, shape and sand the cars. The kids all bring their designs with them to the workshop.

Daddy does a lot of the cutting - thankfully. 

This year we surprised PopPop with a car that the kids and I designed just for him. 

The next step is to paint and decorate the cars. 

They check the cars in the week before the race. They have to weigh no more than 5 ounces and meet other race criteria. 

Mig made a Minecraft Creeper and Faith made a rainbow car. 

Selah's is the watermelon. 

Byron's car is the red one, PopPop's is behind Byron's - the green with pin stripes, and Gabes is next to the red car. He modpodged the lyrics and music to the Cubby's theme song on his because he leads the Cubby's during their music time and plays the theme each week on his keyboard. 

They line up with their cars and watch as they race down a track. 

Faith won 1st place in the Sparks group for craftsmanship. 

Selah won 3rd place AWANA theme for the T and T group (her car had the fruit of the spirits listed on top).

PopPop won 3rd place speed for the Trek, Journey and Adult group! 

Byron's car won 1st place speed for his group. He had a class that morning, so Faith accepted his award. 

PopPop also won 1st place Craftsmanship! 

Gabe won 1st place AWANA Theme! 

We all had FUN!

Here is a video of the race. Enjoy!