These guys have been with us for a few weeks now. The noise can be deafening at times, especially if there is one inside the house! The boys love collecting the exoskeletons and catching the insects. Besides the boys, I think we’ll all be happy when our cicada invasion is over….till next year.

Last week we celebrated Clara’s 9th birthday. Thursday we had the Kane family over for lunch. It was their normal day to come for piano lessons, so we added on lunch to enjoy some extra fellowship with them. Friday we had Clara’s family birthday celebration.

This was Clara’s first year to help decorate her birthday cake. She chose peanut butter frosting with chocolate cake. It came out both cute and tasty! Clara chose hotdogs, baked meals, and mac&cheese (with salad added on) as her birthday meal. I made lots of food so everyone would have enough, but it ended up that people weren’t as hungry as normal, so we had lots of leftovers. After the meal we did gifts, then cake, and then Clara’s slideshow. All Clara’s siblings were very intentional with their gifts for her, and it was sweet to watch the giving and receiving. This year we gave Clara a violin, so she can start the lessons she’s been wanting so badly. So far she’s had one lesson and is keeping up with her practicing.

Clara’s birthday always sneaks up on me after Christmas, and I’m often surprised to find out she’s going to be another year older. Clara is a girl who is full of energy and loves to have a good time. She’s made good progress in math this year, after struggling with wanting to understand, and she’s enjoying reading books. In the mornings, you’ll often find Clara playing downstairs with the younger boys, building towns and running cities. Maria, of course, loves being with Clara. We’re thankful for our sweet girl and looking forward to her year of fine and nine!

We’re busy celebrating Clara’s birthday the next two days! Love this girl!

We kicked off Clara’s birthday countdown calendar last Saturday with a morning bike ride with Daddy. It was Clara’s first time to hit the road on her bike and she did great. Other things on the calendar have been small gift, new book, “eat as much of your candy as you want from 1-4pm,” movie night, and afternoon game time with Mommy. We’re having fun celebrating Clara’s birthday!

The month has flown by and we’re getting ready to get into birthday season (March & April). Maria turned 19 months. She loves being outside with all the kids now, which makes the afternoons a bit tricky. She’s no longer content to stay upstairs while the kids play down below. She’s been healthy all month and is still waking up about 4 times each night.

We tried having a well dug again. The house we rent shares a well with 4 other house, and it runs pretty low during dry season. At the end of January the well truck came, hit sand, and decided to come back after Chinese New Year. They returned the first week of February and spent a day drilling. They got 68 meters down, hitting rock and sand along the way, when finally the sand broke through the pipe and they quit and said they won’t come back to try again.

Back in January we had a chick in our home for two days. Ezra found her Saturday morning, and Clara took care of her. She couldn’t walk and there was something wrong with her. We could only get her to drink water. I was able to get some seeds in her mouth. We put her in a box with towels and put a lamp on her for the night. I didn’t think she’d make it, but Clara was thrilled that she was still with us in the morning. And she was still alive when we got back from church. However she died Sunday afternoon in Clara’s hands. It was a very sad time for the girls. They buried Ruthie in the back yard.

Life continues to move on. Becca prints a monthly family newspaper which we enjoy reading aloud the day it’s released. Ezra is learning how to read. I’m trying to write Acts Sunday School lessons for the Jarai curriculum in any blocks of time I can find. And we’re starting to feel the heat of hot season!

Celebrating Valentine’s Day at home is so much nicer than being in an airplane like we were last year. Becca used raisins to make hearts on the oatmeal in the morning. Josh was in Ban Lung for the morning and brought back roses for the ladies and KitKats for the boys.

We made heart shaped cookies and decorated them in the morning. Each kid personalized a large heart for dessert. We made heart-shaped pizzas for supper. It takes a very long time to bake that many pizzas, as our oven only fits one pan at a time. Josh read to the kids while we waiting for the pizzas to bake. We had salad and soda along with our party meal. After eating, we exchanged cards. Everyone makes special cards to give out. It’s a fun tradition that Maria was really into this year.

For over a week there’s been a carnival in town, just a block from our house. It’s actually quite annoying, as the loud dance music goes until about midnight. We’re hoping they will end soon, but we’ve been told that as long as people continue to sign up to “khmer fight” against each other for prize money, the carnival will stay. We took the kids last Friday for the little rides. It opens at 6 every night, but doesn’t get really exciting until after 8. When we arrived, we had the carnival to ourselves. The kids enjoyed the trampolines, bounce house, and round-about rides. We ate cotton candy and caramel popcorn and arrived home before 8. It was a success! Note – in the picture Maria looks unhappy, but she really loved this ride. She was so upset when it was over.

Dad and Mom Jensen were in Cambodia the last half of the month to visit with EMU missionaries. They ended their visit with a stay at our house. We enjoyed spending time with them. One day we took a trip to a waterfall and another day Josh took his dad to see the river. Saturday morning Josh and I took a bike, while the kids played at home with Dad and Mom. Josh drove his parents 9 hours to the airport Monday morning. We had a good time together.

This week our little girl turned a year and a half! This picture says a lot to me. It was taken Sunday – fever day 11 for Maria – right after we got back from having her CBC checked. She’s on fever meds and was happy. I look very tired…the past 11+ nights left me lacking sleep. But here we are – smiling and having fun. Thankfully since Monday Maria has been fever free, and her cough mostly dried up. On Monday I also noticed Maria’s top two molars had broken through, which I’m sure added to her bad nights the past week.

After over a week and a half of a fever, it’s delightful to have our happy, little, talkative girl back. Now I just need to break her habit of waking up every few hours at night.

Usually January is a rather slow month for us – a month of recovery after the very full months of November and December. But somehow this January seems to be plugging along at full speed with no breaks. Perhaps this is because of our time in the States and being under the pressure to keep up with school, so we don’t have to go far into the summer. Or perhaps it’s the pressure of the SS curriculum we’re writing. Not sure. But we’ve been going full steam ahead!

We wrapped up our 12 Days of Christmas on January 6th with a reading of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Josh read while the kids ate cookies and drank homemade chai tea. We really enjoyed keeping Advent separate from Christmas and celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas. I think we’ll do it again next year.

Our puppy is growing and looks much better than she did when we got her. We’ve given Noel her first shot (or I should say Josh did), and she also appears to be worm-free. She’s now sleeping through the night, though this week she had 3 nights of waking up at 2am-ish.

We’re back into school – which was really tricky at first with Maria and a puppy to watch after. Maria loves to participate in school. She really thinks she’s one of the big kids. We’ve also been hit with some sort of virus. Clara started with it two days after Christmas. Almost all the kids have had it now and it includes a terrible cough and some have had fevers. The worst of it seems to last at least a week, with a lingering cough. Maria got sick this time and has had a fever for over a week (which the doctor said is typical of a few viruses). I’ve never given out so much fever-meds before. There’s been a few nights we’ve been up a lot with her. Everyday I hope that her fever will be gone….maybe tomorrow. Thankfully, when she’s on meds, she’s pretty cheerful. And I’ll be really cheerful when we’re through this!

This past week Isaiah and his friend Re set up a multi-level rope swing in our tamarind tree. It’s been great fun for all the kids. Isaiah takes it down at the end of each day, to avoid injuries or his rope disappearing.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve with a bonfire. I wasn’t planning on anyone else coming, but once the neighbor kids found out it became a bigger event than planned. We had about 10 kids show up. Thankfully I had enough marshmallows and hotdogs for everyone to roast. (I cut our very large hotdogs into thirds.) After the food we shot of explosive and fireworks, and then we sang around the fire.

We’ve been continuing with our 12 Days of Christmas. Lots of beautiful cookies being made. We also had Biah and Esther over to decorate cookies and play games.

Maria loves keeping up with all her siblings. She’s a little ham with her antics. Maria really enjoyed eating all the gingerbread decorations! Her silly smile, with chocolate still on her teeth, says it all. We have so much fun with our little girl!

We started out 12 Days of Christmas the Monday before Christmas. Day 1 – make wrapping paper and sleep next to the Christmas tree. Day 2 – Christmas Eve Celebrations. Day 3 – Christmas Day celebrations. Day 4 – baking giant ginger bread cookies and having the Kanes over for lunch. Day 5 – decorating our giant gingerbread cookies. Day 6 – Saom Kaning Christmas Evening Party. Day 7 – Saom Kaning Christmas Celebration. Day 8 – Christmas Movie. Day 9 – Christmas Cutout Cookies. Day 10 – Bonfire. Day 11 – Christmas Concert. Day 12 – Reading The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever with cookies and chai tea.

So far I really like doing the Advent?Christmas season this way. It made Advent more peaceful and now there’s lots of fun after Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve we had our traditional meal of tacos (adding chips this year), then we had cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for dessert while Josh read from our Advent book and we sang a few songs. After clean up we watched The Muppets Christmas Carol.

Christmas morning we did our singing and Advent reading, and then the kids exchanged gifts. This is always a special time, since some kids give handmade gifts and all of them put a lot of thought into choosing special things. One of the things Micah gave to each sibling was a mango. The Sunday before Christmas we picked up our puppy from Saom Kaning village. Noel is about a month old. Everyone is doing a great job taking care of our new “baby.”

JD and Kim came late morning for our Christmas pageant and cinnamon rolls. Afterwards we had a time of singing. Then we enjoyed our lunch of buffalo roast, potatoes, salad, and rolls. Clara made another great apple pie for dessert!

After supper the kids gave out their homemade cards and we gave them their gifts. It was a lovely day for all.

We started Advent this year with our nightly candle lighting and singing – eight songs each night. We’re reading Jotham’s Journey (a gift from friends), and we’re really enjoying the nightly readings. We’re trying out something different this year. Instead of doing all our Christmas activities leading up to Christmas, we’re focusing more on Advent before Christmas, and then we’re going to have the 12 Days of Christmas once Christmas Day hits. Christmas will be the start of all our fun instead of the end of all our fun. I’ve been thinking about this for a few years, and so far it’s going well.

Even though we’re not “starting” Christmas yet, we did put up our tree. We had our decorating party last Sunday evening. Originally we were planning it for Friday evening, but the power was out for 12 hours and didn’t go back on until the kids were all in bed. We had a fun time Sunday evening combining Advent with tree decorating.

This past Sunday evening our church hosted a youth Christmas gathering for all the churches in our province. There were about 20 different villages represented from the Jarai, Tampuan, Khmer, Krung, and Kachok people groups. The evening started with a meal, after which there was a service. During the service, each church group got up and performed a special number for Christmas. Besides this there was general singing, a Christmas pageant, and a sermon (Josh was asked to preach this year). The program continued past 11PM. Our family only survived until a little after 10, when the announcer said the program was scheduled to stop but that the head of the committee requested that they go on another hour with singing.

Our youth wanted to perform the Christmas pageant we normally do at our church Christmas. We’ve been rehearsing with them since November 17th. The kids really had fun during our dress rehearsal with all the costumes. This year Becca was a magi and Isaiah was a sheep. Everyone did a great job this year. We plan to do the same play with the same cast for our church Christmas at the end of the month.

For 10 days in November our kids were all on even years (or months – Maria)! We’re thankful for the children God has given our family.

Thanksgiving Day we had an evening celebration. It took a while to cook everything in the oven, since I could only cook one item at a time, so we didn’t eat until close to 7. After our meal we had a time of singing, Scripture reading, and thanksgiving. Clara made an apple pie for dessert.

This past weekend, Micah worked on one of his birthday presents. He did a great job painting and is a great dinosaur!

This week we celebrated Becca’s 15th birthday. We started the celebrating about two weeks ago with Becca’s birthday countdown calendar. This year’s calendar had a Dickens theme. Each day had questions about Dickens with the answers and surprises inside the doors. Becca’s birthday movie was The Sound of Music, the first time for our family to watch it together. Other treats included gifts, fresh squeezed orange juice, and snacks.

On Becca’s birthday Isaiah shaped her eggs in a special way. In the morning we took pictures, and Becca decorated her cake – with peanut butter frosting. In the afternoon I did a birthday salon for Becca on the back porch. In the evening, we all dressed up for Becca’s birthday dinner of tacos and chips (I made chips from corn tortillas). After dinner we headed downstairs to do a Jane Austen era dance. Everyone enjoyed it, minus two of our boys. After the dancing we returned upstairs for cake, gifts, and a slideshow of Becca’s past 15 years.

Gift-giving is always fun. Becca’s siblings were quite excited about giving their gifts to her. It’s so fun to watch their joy in giving. Becca’s special gift this year was receiving her great great grandma Hanyen’s high school ring. My great grandma gave it to me when I was a young teenage. Two other gifts were Jane Austen books that I received 24 years ago from my grandparents.

It’s a delight to watch Becca grow as a young lady. This year she is in high school and is doing well with the academic challenges it is presenting. She loves her family and Cambodia and others. She’s grown in her desires to be a help and in finding creative ways to help her siblings. Recently she’s started a Young Ladies Society with her sisters. Becca loves to read and write. Some of her favorite authors are Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. We very thankful for our dear daughter and can’t imagine life without her. We love you Becca!