Happy Thanksgiving!

To friends and family,

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope you all have a wonderful day full of turkey, pies, friends, and goodwill because you will need the extra calories and goodwill if you decide the hit the stores tomorrow. Seriously, if you haven't taken the time to tell those people that mean something to you that they do indeed mean something (and yes, I am talking about something good!) do it today. Time passes so quickly and honestly, are you really going to have time to write that meaningful of a message on your Christmas cards? Personally, you are lucky if I write all the names of everyone in our family instead of "The Bracken"! So, Thank you for reading this blog and for being my friends even after you read it and to all the KUPC people who read this: I LOVE YOU! You mean a lot to be because you give me a creative outlet (through this blog) that I need to keep from becoming a dull little girl. Okay, not little. Especially after everything I ate today. But you get the idea. God bless you all!

P.S. The picture above is of the little pumpkin cakes I made for Thanksgiving.

The headless saints and other funnies

As you may already know, I am one of the teachers for the 6 years old and under class. We always have tons of funny things happen in our class, but Evita and I usually manage to somehow keep the class going and not laugh. That was not the case a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember the lesson she was teaching, but she had given all of the children two finger puppets each. (She had made these, just like all of the puppets we use in our class.) Well, she had the Jesus Puppet and he prayed for all the other puppets. Some of the puppets were sick and some were old and some just had a nasty cough. Well, of course, after "Jesus" prayed for them, they got better. Or so we would have wished. As she continued her story, one of the kids suddenly held up her puppet and it's head had fallen off! Something about having just prayed for them and then the puppet's head falling off just hit us as being so funny. Evita and I lost it laughing. Then the other kids realized they could take the heads off and ALL of the puppets lost their heads! Poor Evita! She gave up on the lesson because we couldn't stop laughing and just collected the puppets and their heads. On days like that, it is best to just go to snack time. Here's a picture of the puppets with their heads reattached:

Show me!

The other day someone gave Abigail some stickers and didn't give any to Ethan. Which is perfectly fine, in theory. Ethan wanted Abbey to share and she didn't want to share her stickers because "I only have 8, momma". I thought we had the issue settled, but in typical sibling fashion, the next day Abbey pulled out her stickers and started showing them to Ethan. Then when he wanted one, she firmly denied him. Well, since the rule is that you can't tease, we told Abbey that if she showed the stickers to Ethan, she had to give him one. This sounded great to Ethan, because in the middle of the discussion, he immediately began yelling, "Show me, show me!" And the yellow smiley face sticker goes to the yelling brother. Case solved.

Abbey's Birthday Party

This year, I had this great idea. We always have family celebrations for birthdays, but thought it would be fun to have some of Abbey's little friends come over. It started out as a simple idea. A little princess party, a few snacks with the cake, maybe a game or two and that's it. However, it grew faster than the Veggie Tales' Fib from outer space. Abbey went into church on Sunday inviting everyone to come to her party. (Note to self, next time plan a surprise party.) And so you can see how it grew from there. I also had this dream of making her a castle cake. Ethan had a dog cake on his birthday and she wanted a castle. I didn't sleep the night before the party, but she had a castle. Here's a picture:

I had also read somewhere about this idea of making sugar cookies on skewers and the end result looks like wands. It sounded great, but I had no idea how long it would take to make them. However, I was really pleased with the end results.

And please don't forget the castle for all the kids to color and decorate!

Overall, it was loads of work, but she was really happy. I doubt I will have the energy for another one for about 6 more years.

Catching up.

Hello to everyone of my dear friends that reads this and has wondered if I was dead or alive. I am alive. This month hit our household like a runaway train and I now have a great admiration for bloggers that stay faithful. I mainly appreciate them because I have been reading their blogs instead of writing mine! But, I am happy to say that a writing spirit is on me and I am going to use it before I lose it. Before we get to the stories, here is a little of the latest news. Abbey is now six years old! (There will be a blog more about that!). The last English home group swelled to 33 people. Abbey has started kindergarten and Ethan and I are still adjusting. We had a wonderful leaders retreat last weekend and a teenage girl got baptized on Sunday. She had previously gotten the Holy Ghost at our ladies conference. The temperatures have dropped to the glorious land of the low 70's and I am lovin' it! We are hoping that it will hold out through the holidays so we do not have to turn on the air conditioners while we drink our hot chocolate. So, now that you are caught up, on to the details!

The mystery of Air Conditioners is solved...

Where we got our first electric bill after moving back to Taiwan, Chris took one look and started issuing edicts. Our relatively comfortable life of not sweating had come to an end. One of the ways to off-set the cost was and still is to turn off the a/c in the middle of the night after the room has cooled down. Also, right after we moved in, the a/c in the kids room broke. It started out sounding like a B-52 bomber was flying by their window. In the final death throes, it sounded like the B-52 bomber had landed outside of their window. Our most kind landlady replaced it with a new one. We didn't tell the kids that we were turning off their a/c in the middle of the night, we just did it. So, Abbey started to notice that there was a problem. She came and told us that her a/c was broken again. When I ask what was wrong, she said that it kept turning off and making her hot! I let her in on the secret and told her that it wasn't broken, but that BaBa had been sneaking in at night and turning it off. A couple of nights later I was in their room tucking them in when the a/c clicked off (It is set to turn off when it reaches the desired temp and turn on when the room heats back up.). Keep in mind that the lights were still on. Abbey heard her a/c turn off and said, "See! BaBa already sneaked again!". Yep, BaBa and his cloak of invisibility strikes again!

The Holy Ghost is for everyone... almost

Last Sunday, in Sunday School, our lesson was about receiving the Holy Ghost and how is it for everyone. Evita (one of the best Sunday School teachers in the whole wide world! Check out her blog of our Sunday School here ->http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/kupc-evita ) had made a big tree and put it on the wall. Then she had apples with faces of different people on them. The object was to ask the children if "grandmas with curly hair could get the Holy Ghost" or "girls with green eyes could get the Holy Ghost". Then the students would take turns putting the apples on the tree. A great visual lesson! Well, remember that everything in our class is bilingual. She is talking in Chinese and I am repeating after her in English. So, Evita excitedly says, "Can Aunts get the Holy Ghost?" and I say it in English. All the kids are shouting "YES!" except one. Ethan turned around and with an incredulous look said, "Ants can't get the Holy Ghost!" To which I replied, "Little ants can't, but aunts like Aunt Anna or Aunt Charlene can."
"Oh, okay. YES! Aunts can get the Holy Ghost!" Ethan then shouted to Teacher Evita. Maybe in the English language, we need to come up with or steal a few new words to make everything a little more clearer!