24 adults, 32 children (that’s 56 total (!) if you’re counting…) and lots and lots and lots of work fun!

At Matthew’s request, we put together a Lego-themed party, complete with several homemade Lego-themed favors (in home-sewn favor bags), homemade Lego cakes, Lego party games, and even a homemade Lego-brick pinata!  We pulled together a lot of great ideas from the Internet and went crazy for the past couple weeks putting this together.  We’ll try to put up a post soon with some details on some of the fun stuff we made for the party.

To top it off, we reserved a local park and were blessed with fantastic weather, all adding up to a wonderful party for everyone!

Two days later, Lois and I are still trying to recover from the preparations and execution of this gig; but it was so worth it, knowing that Matthew (and our guests) had a blast!

Happy Birthday, Matthew!  You have been and continue to be an amazing blessing in our lives and we love you lots!!!

Here are some photos from the festivities…

Yummy cupcakes with Lego-heads attached:

25 pounds of pulled pork plus fixings:

Game 1 — “Guess the number of Lego bricks in the jar”:

Most of the children at the party lined up in preparation for group games:

Tossing legos into bowls (aka Lego carnival game):

The “hit” of the party, the homemade Lego brick pinata (get it? “hit?” ha ha ha):

Kids and adults alike took turns trying to bust it open:

Including the birthday boy…

And a few parents!

And even yours truly, taking the final swings before it finally broke open…

The yummy birthday cake made up like a Lego brick (note: it’s a bit tricky to light candles in breezy weather):

And finally, a gratuitous photo of our adorable 3.5-month-old Nathaniel with a couple of his doting grandparents:

I am pleased to introduce you to Nathaniel Luke Ding, born @11:33p on 1/5/12 in Los Gatos, CA.  Measured in at 8lbs 1oz and 20inches.

Somewhere along the way, we discovered that Kraft’s “Mac & Cheese” had a bit of disclaimer: they didn’t really use cheese but a “cheese product.”

So we decided to try store-brands: Wal-Mart, Costco’s Kirkland Signature, etc. with real cheese.  And they were better.

But not by far.

And somewhere (farther) along the same way, we thought: “Macaroni is just pasta.  Cheese is just… cheese.”  How hard could it be to make this dish from scratch?

Tonight, I tried my hand at it, following the famous Pioneer Woman’s recipe for baked macaroni and cheese.

How did it turn out?  Well first, the quantitative evidence:

1. I had a great time cooking it; for the first time preparing a roux and tempering an egg (click through to the above recipe if you don’t know what I’m talking about).
2. I liked eating it.  But then, I cooked it, I’m prejudiced.  But I would actually choose to eat this – not just when I was desperate for something quick & easy.
3. Our youngest daughter asked for three servings.  Unless it’s loaded with sugar, she never asks for three servings!  Gonna do this one again! (Never mind that she kinda had a sparse lunch.)

Qualitatively speaking, it wasn’t bad either (in other words, “presentation is everything”) — we added our own flair with panko bread crumbs on top:

Digging into the third serving!  Did I mention that it was her third serving???

His answer focused not on a particular method (e.g., homeschooling vs. public school), but on our mindset and goals.  I appreciate how he points out that every method has its own potential challenges and pitfalls.  Ultimately, he offers a brief yet helpful reminder that no matter what our choice in educational models, there is no “foolproof” and “easy” method that removes the importance of involved parents who are committed to teaching their children to know and follow Jesus.

Check it out:

• Marriage requires a kind of death. Though this is required for both husband and wife, the wife dies in a unique way. She takes a new name, and she has a new calling. This is what scares some women off, despite their desire for marriage and children.
• Another snare lies in the whole concept of falling in love. Hollywood is not a trustworthy instructor in how to conduct a relationship. Yet many of our assumptions about love come from Cinderella and all her descendants.
• A woman is free to marry whomever she likes, so long as it is in the Lord. If he is a Christian, a woman is free to marry him. Or not. She doesn’t have to have lofty reasons for saying no. She can say no because she doesn’t like his nose or his taste in music. She is a free woman. But she ought to at least consider some of these things I’ve mentioned, in case she is exercising her freedom in a way even she would say is contradictory: “He’s everything I want, and yet I don’t want.”

Read the whole thing.

A couple of minutes ago, my two-year-old daughter came up the stairs with a pair of scissors in hand and I found a lock of hair by her foot.

I picked her up.

And found another lock.  And another.  And still another.

Then I looked more closely at her hair and saw the damage.

Sigh. . . . self-application of scissors is definitely not the preferred method for giving a toddler a haircut.

Life is undoubtedly filled with adventures with little ones.  Now I have to go figure out how to cover her little head.

Of course this got me thinking.  Are my boys just born nerdy?  Or can reading be cultivated?  I read in the recent news that reading has been declining, which is no news actually, especially in boys.  In order to appeal to boys, authors write about gross and inappropriate topics such as bodily functions and sounds.  I was flabbergasted, but not surprised.  So, how do we cultivate a generation who loves to read?  I have several thoughts.

I firmly believe that a love for reading is firmly modeled by the parents.  Children are led by examples.  If they see that their parents spend a lot time fishing, playing ball, or watching TV, most likely they will model after their parents’ interests.  Likewise, if parents value reading by modeling it, most likely their children will like to read.  Both my husband and I are readers and we have books lying about in the house.  We also talk about the books we read and pass them along to friends.  Our kids see all of this.

Reading out loud as a family has many benefits.  We really like listening to stories and we started this practice over two years ago, and with some ups and downs, we’re back up again being more committed to have daily family reading.  Both my husband and I realize that having one of us read out loud can get quite tiring very quickly.  I find that after a whole day of homeschooling, I really don’t have enough voice to read out loud at night.  We are very thankful that we’re able to find a lot of good audio books at our library where we can check them out electronically, download them, and listen on our ipod or computer.  This definitely solves the tired voice problem!  Once we get sucked in to listening to a great book, the kids clamor for more and ask if we can listen to it in the car when we’re out running an errand.  It’s well understood that we will not listen to a book if someone is missing because none of us want to miss out.

I believe in reading good books, not just any books.  I once had a conversation with someone telling her that there are good books and bad books.  She looked at me funny and said “really”?  I want to look back at her and say “really?” for saying “really?”  To this person, the act of reading is good so it doesn’t matter what kind of books you read.   We strive to read books that teach good character, books that have a deeper meaning, books that are intricately woven together, and books that have a good story line.  I am fond of Lamplighter books whose motto is “Building character one story at a time.”  We read Teddy’s Button long time ago, and from time to time I still bring this book up whenever we’re faced with a sin issue in one of the children.  I remind the children to fight their sin from within, just like Teddy who’s enlisted in the Lord’s army in fighting sin.  How valuable it is to be able to bring up a story we read to teach character.

We also think it can be valuable to read books that might not be explicitly (or implicitly) Christian; but whose story lines nevertheless contain many themes that are valuable for the cultivation of imagination and virtue.  Tolkien greatly disapproved of those who considered his Lord of the Rings trilogy an allegory.  And it certainly contains elements of evil and fantasy that some Christians might consider inappropriate.  But it also elevates heroism, sacrifice and nobility in a fashion that is awesome fuel for considering in light of Scripture, the gospel, etc.  So, we also strive to read widely — with discernment — so as to give ourselves and our children a broad literary vocabulary from which to understand the world we live in, and speak the gospel into that world.

For various reasons (economical, cultural, upbringing), that tree was actually a plasticized replica of a tree purchased on sale after Christmas at Sears a number of years ago.

So “put up” = unbox, sort, assemble and decorate.  This is all we have known, and all our children have ever known (sad, we know).

This year, however, just as we were about to start the annual process of getting out the “tree” from the garage.  But just then, Evers remembered that in the process of disassembling the tree last year, the base had broken!  And no spare parts were then available from the manufacturer.   What to do?  What a let down!  Instead of mourning our loss, we decided to do something different.  How about getting a real tree?  But definitely not from Home Depot or Lowe’s parking lot.  How about we cut one down and haul it home (something we’d read about in books but never had actually seen someone do in person)?

Adventurous and spontaneous family that we are, we headed out within the hour to start a new Christmas tradition!

We drove up into the mountains to a tree farm, and it was a beautiful sunny day for it.  We passed by several Christmas tree farms as we drove up and up the mountain.  We saw many cars coming down with Christmas trees on their rooftops.  What a new experience for us to behold.  We had never done this before.  I felt like I had missed some sort of memo about getting a Christmas tree from a real tree farm versus a parking lot with pre-cut trees (let alone Sears’ clearance aisle after Christmas).  We finally made it up to the tree farm of our choice, which was the highest point you could go up.  How exciting it was for us to see a huge crowd there, just hanging out.  Some were even BBQ’ing and having a picnic.  Oh boy, I felt I had missed out all my life!  After we got some free hot cocoa and apple cider the farm provided, off we went to search for the perfect tree.

We had so much fun looking for the one, and the kids had a great time wandering around.  They each hauled around a tree branch of their own.

Finally, after about 10 minutes, we found the perfect tree!  Here we posed in front of it before sawing it down to take it home.

Daddy had the honor of cutting it down.  Our friends helped too!

Strapping the tree onto our rooftop and driving it home.  We made sure our eldest got off the roof before we started driving again.

Setting it up in our living room.

Here is our beautiful and nicely decorated tree.  I love looking at it!

We are proud owners of a real Christmas tree and we absolutely love it!  We are so not going back to owning a fake tree; thus, henceforth, we will be adopting this tree hunting, cutting, and hauling as our Christmas tradition.  Next year we’ll bring our own BBQ and make a picnic out of it.

We stayed at the West Cliff Inn, a bed and breakfast situated in an historic landmark building that was renovated a few years ago. It was a beautiful three-story house, with classic Victorian stylings and amazing high ceilings.  That we stayed on a Sunday night in the fall (off-season) meant that we also got nearly half-off their normal rate, which was great!

Here are a few photos of the house, common area, and our bedroom (which was very comfortable, including a terrific jetted spa tub and marble shower):

From our bedroom on the third floor, we had a great view of the famous Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (in the distance on the left) and Wharf, both day and night:

After checking into the hotel and getting a bit of rest, we decided to stroll down to the wharf.  While there, we saw a lot of folks fishing, great ocean and seaside scenery, a number of sea lions hanging out (under the dock), and even took advantage of the evening light to take a couple of portraits of ourselves:

The next day (Monday), we wrapped up our trip with a drive up scenic Highway 1 and a visit to the picturesque Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

(mandatory goofy shot below)