I am inspired by the books to start homeschooling. It’s been hard to find inspiration past few days coz I’ve been stuck at home.

Sophie is really into dress up so when I saw this at the markets last week, I knew I had to get it for her.

This is her doing her hula dance!

I think if she could, she would want to wear this everyday!

School is almost over! In fact, graduation night is tomorrow!

Being staff on a DTS has been quite an adventure, it’s not been an easy walk at all but it’s so encouraging to see how my one on ones have been stretched and have grown!

The next phase is outreach and we’ll be leaving for Vanuatu on Sunday. We’re leading a team of 7 adults (including ourselves) and 6 kids. The kids are mostly under 4! In the past I would have thought - what on earth can young families do on outreach?!? But having been on the last FMS trip, I saw that it is possible and families are SO NEEDED to shine in this world where many struggle to really understand what a family really is. Granted that it’s true that most of the time we’ll be running after our kids but still by just being there, we are showing an example of Christian family life and values that can be non-existent in some cultures.

A few ministry opportunities are open for us - e.g youth work, children ministry, running a mini-DTS, prisons ministry and possible building and construction work.

We’re looking forward to going back to Vanuatu. Miss the people there. This time, we’ll be there for 7 weeks. Pls continue to pray for grace, courage and strength for us. Also pray that Sophie will transit easily.

We had quite an intense week with Mark Parker and God last week & we all needed some time out. So back to Tauranga we went with some of the other students.

And the weather is turning so it’s really looking much sunnier! Woo hoo!

Over the weekend, our family was on weekend duty. What that meant was, we were part of a team to prepare dinner for the base as well as do all the clean up in the kitchen and main hall. There is a rotation for all the families and we only have to do it for two weekends throughout the lecture phase. It’s really not that frequent at all.

Last weekend, James and I decided that we would take the initiative to cook Chinese food! Most times it’s the school staff that will initiate the menu and we just help out in the preparation but this time, our school leader let us choose the menu. OF COURSE WE CHOSE RICE coz we only have rice once a week! Hahaha…

So together with 3 other girls, we cooked garlic oyster sauce chicken in the oven and stir-fried veggies served with rice. YUMS!

It was CRAZY! So stress! Never done it before. But my super husband is amazing. He never fails to surprise me with what he can do.

We followed a recipe book for the chicken. For the veggies, he just mixed a whole jar of black stuff that included oyster sauce and peanut butter (!). I had no idea what went into it because I was busy frying the veggies while he did the sauce. Oh… but so shiok to smell the fried garlic and onions, plus the smell of sesame oil that we took for granted back home. I loved doing the frying. I so miss that!

Well, it turned out to be a winner! We had great reviews, thank God! For us, we were just glad that it turned out edible! Hahaha…

P/s OH! Forgot to mention where Sophie was coz she is not allowed in the kitchen. We arranged with another family to babysit her and we would babysit their kids when it was their turn to cook. Worked out really well.

Here’s a picture of the cafe as is…. it’s continually under construction.

The kids LOVE it! Funny how everyone appreciates it more than Sophie. Hee but she loves it coz she gets friends coming over to play with it all the time.

Chilling with her baby friends

Originally uploaded by jamesandailing

I just uploaded some new pictures on our flickr site. Check it out.

Here are some key words from the past few days:-  friends, pack, sell, rent, buy books, shopping, Christmas, dinner, pack, parents in law, haircut, parties, friends, massage, pedicure, post office, bank, away in the manger, presents, cell, prayer……………… No time to blog lah…

Woo hoo! I’m so happy! The mag (Seasons of Life) is finally off to print and I can breathe once again!

The weekend was a particularly stressful one coz we had to change designer halfway and she had to work thru the night to finish up yesterday.

Ok I must admit I do enjoy the adreneline rush that comes with stress but can be ugly to the people close to me. Argh. James has one final project to complete by today and then both of us will be able to sit back and dream about our upcoming trip! I’m just starting to think we’re going away for 1 whole mth and we have totally no plan except for flight tickets and lodging.

It’s going to be a good week

I’m really caught up with a few things at the moment - rushing mag to print PLUS a whole week full of birthday celebrations - my mum’s, MIL’s and Sophie’s!

Soph’s got people coming all the way to our house to deliver presents! Way spoilt! (Note to self: time for no 2 before too much attention kills her! Argh!) But we’ve been so blessed by the company of good friends over the week, more to come. Ok, more about that later. Back to work.

Sophie watched Rainbow Fish by iTheatre on Sat together with her Sept baby friends.

I’ve heard a lot about it in the past because it’s a local production and it has been performed at Church of our Saviour’s a couple of times. But I’ve never watched it. After watching it and reading up, I found out that it was originally a collaboration between All Good Gifts Ltd and iTheatre, which meant that it had Christian influence on its script. Ah… that explained why some of the songs sounded Christian.

It was good - James and I enjoyed it very much. Sophie was a bit scared of the dark in the beginning but once it started, she was so engrossed and even asked to sit in her own seat on a booster seat after a while! It was an hour long but it captured her attention.

Halfway thru the show she turned to me and said her fav was the starfish and when the octopus came out, she said she liked it too. Looks like she’s got her own view on stuff now, maybe a movie critic in time!

But the best part?!?! Her little time with DN before the show. They sat next to each other and had a moment. You gotta check out DN’s blog to see the pictures!

P/s There are some craft related to the book that we’re planning to do. Here’s the reference - DLTK website.

James decided that we’re off TV this week, as a family. (!?!?) How was I going to cook without our good ole faithful Barney? What if I needed a nap? Who’s going to entertain our lil one? And no Gossip girl this week (Btw the new season is back! And it’s good!)?

Anyway we survived the first day.

This morning, after we came home from Mums Group, I went to cook lunch while James entertained Sophie…. ok more like he read her to sleep… serious! She fell asleep in his arms while he was reading to to her! First time I saw something like that. So funny! I think she must have been tired out by her busy social life!

After lunch, I crashed and James took Sophie out to run errands.  They were out for a long time and in the end, we had dinner with my in laws so Sophie had zilch TV today. Cool!

What about us? I’ve been busy on my com and even managed to tidy up the house a bit. James’ busy with his new toys- he got some new camera lens. Yep, so far so good.