He is so sweet

There were couple mornings, Solomon came and helped without asking.



He was getting oatmeal ready for us.

He was washing dishes after breakfast.

Cartoon drawing

I checked out a cartoon drawing teaching book from library a while ago. I drew shapes for Faith and she tried to follow the steps from book and discovered her ability of drawing cartoon. I think she did a very good job for the fist time drawing cartoon animals. I liked the monkey the most. This is how she tried and tried and finally she did it (I drew an ear for her to follow and she did rest of them). It is so cute to me.

After many weeks, Solomon finally caught up with his sister. He has been trying to draw dogs for couple weeks. This past Sunday morning before church, he came to me and surprised us with this picture. He really amazed me. haha! He did not want to show his face during picture taking. I thought that he was being humble.

He introduced happily to us that his "Birthday Dog" has a birthday crown on his head. And everybody sing him "happy birthday"song. The three heart shapes are balloons as birthday present for him.

( I think the dog he draw is a lot like the dog we met at hiking not long ago. You can look at the post below "A fun hiking experience for kids")

Right after his introduction, he drew a birthday cake for his birthday dog. And he is enjoy his cake now. :9

We all thought that he was so cute and creative. I was curious that can he draw exactly the same look of dog again. Haha!! The answer is "nope!", but he keeps drawing everyday. Eventhough it does not look like one, he still calls it dog. : ) I love his never-give-up attitude and rich imagination.

A fun hiking experience for kids

We went hiking last Saturday with church friends. It was a small mountain and it took us 3 hours to walk through it. Solomon and Faith and another boy walked, talked, played, laughed, sang, observed, learned and make friends on the way. We had so much fun. Half way through, Faith started to walk with her barefoot, because of her shoes made her feet hurt. But three of them walked the whole way without help. Later that night Solomon had a high fever. I guess his little body could not handle this long hours hiking.


This mountain has built a comfortable trail for people hiking.

Solomon made a dog friend. It reminds him Grandpa Bill's dog Honey Bear.

On the way, we observed caterpillar, huge and scary spiders, and beautiful butterflies everywhere in the mountain. We also learned how to tell how many typhoon visited this mountain from leaves.

Have you ever seen this kind of fruit. It's original from Southeast Asia. Solomon said, "Ball" when he first saw it. I had only tasted it once at the church's garden where I grew up with. I could not remember whether I like the taste or not, but the texture is a lot like sweetpotato, soft and try.

I like the loud noise from cicadas, clean and fresh air in the mountain, and friendly people we met there. Kids and I also enjoy in accompany with Kao family.

look at her. She was scratching her leg. she looks funny. She is a two months "Pet" and is already huge. But she is just like a dog to her owner. Her owner descibed that when someone calls her name "A-Mei" she will respond with noise and look at the person who calls her. She likes to run too. Of course, she does not run so fast with her short legs, but looks funny to her owner family.

Bro. Kao is a elementary school's teacher. That is how he disciplines children and even when they are playing.

Puppet show

Yesterday was 10/10, Taiwan's National Day. This month is also Tainan city arts festival. As uaual, there are many indoor shows, exhibitions and free outdoor shows to enjoy with friends and families.
In the morning, we went to church watching General Conference talk. Afternoon I took kids to cultural center outdoor stage area watching puppet show. I remember vividly, when I was little, my brothers and I liked to bring out some chairs and to sit with our neighbor friends and enjoy outdoor puppet show together in front of Buddhist temple. When the show was over, usually many coins and candies would be tossed as pulling rain out from the stage. And then, there was chaos in front of the stage. Haha. fun memory. Every child included me not only enjoy the show but also had fun during catching and finding coins and candies.


These people came from every walk of life. Some of them are a dentist, a teacher, a school principal, and a sculptor... . They have passion and love for Taiwanese traditional puppet show. For this simple purpose they started a puppet club and through the club they also share the joy and introduce the beauty of taiwanese puppet show to the new generation.

Yesterday they gave each little audience a puppet and show them how to decorat with their own puppets. After the puppet show was over, these men gave a brief introduction of how to manage a puppet, ex. how to move it like walking, to wave for goodbye or hi, how to move puppet's bady for introducing itself...


Also, every child who was brave enough was welcome to come to the little stage and show what they just learned from the introduction and to make their own little puppet show.
Haha, Faith was so excited and wanted me to take her to the stage and play with the puppet in front of people. She was not shy at all. Solomon got a little bit stage fright.




The quality of my camera isn't good enough to show a clear image. At least, you can see what was going on there.

Oops, it was out of battery at that special moment. So I recorded it for couple times.

A cultural night

The play is about a group of farm animals want to catch a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The whole play they are looking for this run-away turkey. After all the chasing, they still can not catch it. At final, they eat big yellow duck instead.

9/28 was Confucius birthday. Confucius was a great teacher from the ancient China and had great influence upon Chinese moral thinking. Every year around his birthday, a series of culture activities were held at Confucius Temple. This year we stayed up a little bit late watching this children story play. It was a great educational play for children. We ran into our neighbor friend who has a almost 4 year-old girl like to play with Faith and Solomon. They got so excited when they saw each other. So we stood next to them and got lucky to find some chairs for children to stand a little bit taller to see the show.

This story is about a baby bear asks mommy bear, "Is Spring coming yet?". Mommy bear answers, "When the flower blossoms, and butterflies, bees, and birds are flying all over the fields. It means Spring is here."

Please note that how these little audiences respond to the show.

Moon Festival

According to the lunar calender, 8/15 is Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival. It is Taiwan national holiday and is a lot like Thanksgiving to Taiwanese. It is David's and my favorite holiday in Taiwan. But this year seemed too quiet for our little family. We watched movies, went to church for watching the General Relief Society conference, visited my grandparents, and played with firecrackers. Usually we would have BBQ at church every year for Moon Festival, but this year. It was because of the General Conference.

Little Red Riding Hood

Couple weeks ago I read the first time to my kids this famous fairy tale. They learned a lesson which is do not tell a stranger where they head to or any tetails about themself, but the gospel and introduce their mother to the person. People here like to ask them many questions and even touch their faces. It is because they look so different from others. As well, they are too cute. So I thought it is important to teach them to be aware of strangers. But it is also important to be friendly and kind to others when I am arround them.
Today, we were going to read the fifth time of this story. Faith suggested to role play instead of reading. So we did it with simple costumes we had.

Faith acted as: Little Red Riding Hood,
the grandmother (before she is swallowed), and the hunter
Solomon acted as: the mother of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf , and the grandmonther (at the end)
I was the narrator and the photographer, and I am a faithful audience of their play.


Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape she wears.

One day, her mother ask her to deliver food to her sick grandma. Also, she was remainded not to linger in the woods, but go directly to her grandma's home.


As the girl walks in the woods, a wolf sees her and wants to eat her but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches the girl, she naively tells him where she is going.


He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does.



In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl.

He swaollows the grandmother whole, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother.

When the girl arrives, she notices he looks very strange to be her grandma.

In most retelling, this eventually culminates with Little Red Riding Hood saying, " My, what big teeth you have!"

To which the wolf replies, "The better to eat you with."

The girl tries to flee for her life. Unfortunately, the wolf swallows her whole, too.

A hunter, however comes to the rescue,

cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed.

He fills the wolf's body with heavy stones, (haha, Faith forgot to put a ball underneath Solomon's cloth before she sewed on his tummy.)

which drown him when he falls into a well. (sorry, Solomon did not understand "drown" when I read this part. So he did not fall into the well which is the chairs to the left without the cushions on top of them)

Finally, the girl gives food to her sick grandma and enjoy the food together before she gose home.

The end.

Thank you for watching!!

A difficult project for children

Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman, and printmaker. He is not the only artist in the family. His father was post-impressionism painter and his brother was also a sculptor.


He observed people busy walking on streets and attempted to creat renditions of his models the way he saw them, and the way he thought they ought to be seen. He once said that he was sculpting not the human figure, but "the shadow that is cast".

A period of time his sculptures were just like the picture above. They were about 20cm tall. Later, he made a big change on his works. He remained the style but the sizes were a lot taller.

Cat

This project was too difficult for them to finish. Faith was only able to learned and to do part of the first part. Then, I finished rest of it for her. It was fun for me. Solomon just played whatever he liked with wire and also played with the project dog which I made.

The first part of project: making a shape with wire. This is a ballerina.

The first part: a dog

The second part of project: wraping it with aluminum foil.

I made a cat, a dog, and a ballerina.

This is Faith's unfinished project. I finished for her.

Pointed & Printed painting

Georges Pierre Seurat was a Frech painter. He was pointillsiom painter. His most famous painting was " A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"(The picture below).


His painting filled with tons of tiny and detached strokes of pure color. This time we were trying to creat a picture with lots of dots.


With this project, we used cotton as paint brush.


She was imitating the fish from the book.


A red fish


We picked couple different shapes of leaves from my mom's little garden. We painted with colors on leaves. And then, printed on paper.



Solomon also had fun with coloring on leaves. He liked hands printing the most.

This is Faith's try out. She was very patient on this project.

I have also done one for Faith. I called it "Ballerina Faith".

Faith and Solomon liked my work so much.

After admiring my work, Faith got so excited and also did another picture just like mine.

Faith is older enough now to understand, to imitate, and later to make her own picture. She is learning and growing so much.

I really enjoy teaching children at home. It makes me happy.

Experience different painting style

I have found couple art teaching books. We have been learning how to appreciate fine arts and to imitate the way artist draws.


This is Jackson Pollock. He was born in Wyoming and grew up in Arizona and California. When he was young he found his interests in art. He went to New York for advanced training and became famous for painting in the abstract expressionist style. His nickname was " Jack the Dripper". His style was very new for the time. Later of his life, he simply numbered his painting without giving them the specific names. He thought that the viewers should be the one decide what the picture is according to their feelings. His paintings are still popular in museums all over the world.

Actually, I still do not know how to appreciate his painting, but feel its energy.

Later you can look at Faith and Solomon's painting from imitating Jackson's style. I have no idea how to appreciate my kids' painting either, but felt their passion for learning and exploring for new things.

This is Faith's work. It looks like dancing in the Spring to me.

She finished the first painting quickly. She contiuned to paint another style of painting. The next painting was painted by an ancient Chinese artist. He used Chinese Calligraphy as paint brush. So I gave Faith my father's chinese calligraohy to paint this cat and tree. Faith really exprienced the differences between modern western painting and ancient chinese painting.

Solomon had spent a lot of time on his work. It is pretty manly looking compare to Faith's.

He drew his own way. This is his first painting and is very powerful to me. He was also very bold on colors.

I have learned so much from these experiments with children. I love art and have never learned how to draw. It is so wonderful to learn art with children from the books. We all love it.

Book Club

I joined a book club which is formed by a group of stay-home mothers who believe in education starting from home. The children are under age of 6. These mothers share their talents and take turns to teach children. Children learn English, Chinese, play games, craft, Taiwanese, and story time. It is just once a week. Each meeting is two hours. Kids like it so much.

I just realized that Faith is very organized on things she dose. Good for her.

Musical instrument

After watching "Tarzan" so many times, we took out the things at home that we can use as musical intrument. Here is their little concert. They loved it so much. The other side of living room was full of shredded paper.

Haha, let's try some more. They had so much fun.

The Princess and the Pea

I have been doing homeschool for kids since I decided not sanding Faith to school here. The school here is all day long for the young little kids. I don't feel it is a good idea letting Faith to be at school that long. After this diction, I felt that I needed to be more serious about Faith's learning. So far, we have been doing so much fun things both indoor and outdoor. They have learned so much and enjoy doing whatever I guided. I think I like to be a homeschool mother.


These couple days we have been reading "The Princess and the pea" over and over. Faith likes it so much just because it is a story of a princess. So today, I thought it would be more fun to have them act out the story. I was a narrator and a photographer. Faith was the prince in the first half of the play. Later, she acted as the princess. Solomon was the king and later acted as the prince. You will tell their role by the customs they wear. To my surprise, they were so good at acting. Without my direction they did every action and arranged background. They even suggested to one another the role they wanted to act. Haha, it was so fun to see them do all of this.

A prince who lives in a beatiful castle with king and queen. He wants to marry a princess, but is having difficulty finding a sutable partner. He is sad and wonders where he can meet a real princess who he likes.

Therefore, he decides to leave the castle and to look for "her".

Unfortunately, something is always wrong with those he meets. He can not be certain they are real princesses. He returns home with depression. The king and the queen are even more worried about their beloved son.

One storming noght, the king hears someone is knocking on the door.

He answers the door. To his surprise, a young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince's castle.

She claims to be a princess.

Something from she attracts king. So, the king welcomes her to the castle.

The queen decides to test their unexpected guest by placing a pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds.

In the morning, the guest tells her hosts that she endured a sleepless night.

She kept awake by something hard in the bed which she is certain has bruised her.

The prince rejoices. Only a real pincess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding.

They are married and the pea is placed in the Royal Museum.

The End

Thanks for watching the play.

A school of fish

Hey! Have you ever seen a school of hungry fish? Check it out!!!


I took children to feed fish today. A school of fish just came all together and fought for couple pieces of cereal. They almost jumped on the cement. It was kind of scary.

Look at them~

They look like starving for a long long time.

The cereal we brought was totally gone. They were still waiting for more food pouring steadily down from heaven. We wished that we had brought some more with us.

They were following us for more food. Haha, It was interseting for us.

Phone call from Daddy

It is a blessing that we can receive phone call from David. I thought that he is not allowed to call us for this 5 months. When we surprisingly got his phone call on Monday very early morning we were so very happy. There was no any word that I could describe how much gratitude I had for God. I am so grateful for God giving us a greatest comfort through David at the time that we need help the most. Children have had so much to say to David, especially Solomon. Solomon has not able to adjusted himself to this new environment yet, but after received Daddy's call he has been doing so much better than before. He just wanted to make sure that Daddy still loves him and thinks of him and wants to come back to him. After that day, Solomon has been saying lots of meaningful prayers for his Daddy.
Faith said that she almost forgot how to speak English to Daddy. Her Chinese is getting better, but English is getting worse.

From now on, we are going to receive David's phone call every Monday at 4:oo am. (Taiwan time). It is also the best day of a week for us.

David/Daddy, we love you and miss you tons.