We had a lovely day celebrating Christmas. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll post about all our Christmas happenings. It’s a very full time of year for all the Jarai churches. and by the end of the season we’ll have attended over eight different village church events.
One special Christmas tradition we have is singing carols every evening after supper. Each night a different child gets to light and blow out the candles. Typically everyone gets to choose a carol to sing. It’s one of our favorite parts of the season.
This week Josh was gone Monday-Thursday to Phnom Penh, so we had to find some extra things to do! Monday night the kids had a big sleep-over next to the Christmas tree. (The tricky part is putting up mosquito nets.) Ezra and I slept in our own beds, but I did stay up and participate in all the party activities!
Last Sunday we had our Bible Club Christmas party. We started off with cookie decorating. Then we did singing and the Christmas story. We finished the event with three different water games. Everyone was very muddy by the time we were done! (Pictures taken by Jeff Davis.)
Today we celebrate Ezra’s 4 month birthday. Right after Ezra’s 3 month birthday, he started sleeping through the night. This has been a sweet gift to me, since the extra sleep is a great help for my daylight hours. Part of Ezra’s sleeping is due to his love for sucking his fingers…or hands. He just loves sucking on his fingers and it’s so cute so watch. He sometimes gags himself as he tries to get as many fingers as possible in his mouth. (After I wrote this post, Ezra decided to stop sleeping through the night. He’s been up at 2am every night this week.)
Ezra has started laughing and I could just listen to it all day. He usually ends by spitting up, very much like Isaiah did when he was a baby. It’s always amusing to see what he finds funny. The other day he kept laughing when I was practicing speaking Jarai to him. When I called Josh in to try, Ezra stopped laughing and listen very intently. I guess that tells you something about my ability to speak Jarai!
Last Friday we decorated for Christmas. We all had a fun time and the kids were so excited to put everything put. Clara got the honor of putting the star on the tree.
We took the kid’s picture in front of the tree. Josh told everyone to “make a Clara face!” I’m sure you can figure out which picture that is. Clara is the master of making grumpy faces during picture taking.
Becca made a huge clown pinata. We were planning just to have a round balloon shaped pinata, but somehow it evolved into a clown and we were both very pleased with it. Becca requested a horse brownie cake.
We played pin the tail-on-the-horse, did the pinata, sang our Khmer Bible verse songs, and had cake. Our friends brought stuff to face paint and were kept busy the entire party painting kids’ faces or arms. We’re so thankful that the Hodgsons could come. They were a big help with the party and with Clara (Ezra slept through the entire party).
The pictures to the right and left are of our friends from our church.
The best part of the day was Becca’s delight at the end of the day. She was so happy with how everything turned out and that was the best present for me!
