A day of blessing...food, friends, love and laughter.

It is around this time of year when I feel the most homesick. Especially when I skype call with my loving, cuddly, affectionate family to find them all in a ball of laughter on the floor tickling each other! I could not contain my emotions as I welled up with tears just watching and/or hearing the joy....without me. That is just what I love about my family though....we are all either in college or out, yet we still love to be with (let alone cuddle!) each other. Yes, even my 20 year old brother Ethan with his sisters. Yet while I sit here briefly reminiscing on the blessing of my tight knit family, I can't leave out the blessing of what He has given me right now....in THIS season of my life.

There is nothing better than to have a husband who not only loves me and helps around the house, but actually knows more than I do about cooking/baking! Thank you Becky Evans for all of your many years with your son....he definitely benefits from it (and so do I). Below I have documented a bit of our Thanksgiving preparations before we headed off to join our side dishes with many others!

Remember my post about making jaozi at our landlords house? Well we were finally able to use that idea! We had left over apple filling and pie crust from the apple pie, so we decided to turn them into little jaozi's (dumplings)! We simply whipped out our little jaozi-making tool and began!

Does this table setting not look amazing?!? Thanks Amber and Rachael for all of your hard work in preparing & hosting for us. This was such a fun time of fellowship, laughter, and constantly doing the whole "'excuse me pardon me" when we were slipping by for 2nd and 3rd helpings. Good thing I was thinking ahead and wore a baggy sweater....saving room for dessert.

After we finished eating, we all sat around to watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and then Home Alone! Such a relaxing night.

Seeing this little guy at our Thanksgiving meal made me want to just burst out into tears. Two weeks ago this Monday he had heart surgery. Praise Him that he recovered quickly and is back to his normal giggly self. And he is even saying "Mama" now! So adorable!

Now it's time to start putting away the fall decorations and getting the garland, tree, and lights all around. Crank up that Christmas music!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

A few "snips" too short

So I went to go get my hair "trimmed" the other night...

This being my third time in China to get my hair cut, I should not have been so naive to the predictable pattern that would play out (as it does for every haircut). In my butchered vocabulary of hair salon terms, I hand gestured my way through saying "I want it cut.....but not too short.....longer in the front, and a little bit shorter in the back." Then I just sat there crossing my fingers trying to focus on other things until he tapped on my shoulder and asked me a question. There is one thing though, that I noticed about this "inverted bob" kind of hair style. The back is always going to be altered by how short you cut the front piece....pretty common right? But then that means your whole hair cut is based off of just ONE snip! And that one snip was what made this whole haircut the way it is....

(SNIP) "Oh.....uhh.....actually.....I didn't want it.....that.......short........nevermind...."

It's in those moments that you take a big swallow and start envisioning what you can do to "make this work". I guess for this winter season I will be in scarf heaven since my neck is now completely bare. Oh well...it will grow.

Nervously ready for him to start and make the first cut...little do I know...

So far so good....he hasn't taken that neck thing off yet, so I can't really see how far my hair is from my shoulders.

Oh dear!!!!! All I could think of was ("My neck!!!")

I guess I can work with this.....maybe.

Good thing is that hair always will grow back.....phew!