Tonight we had the opportunity to eat at a friend of my Fathers. Ken and his wife recently moved here with their son from Canada, but they are originally from China.

As many of you know, my parents are currently living in China and we had the opportunity to visit them in Beijing this past summer. We met Ken and his family when they first got here this summer and they are the nicest people!

My parents are in town and so we were all invited over to eat tonight. I am always worried when we are invited as a family bringing all the kids. Not that they are not well behaved or anything, but that people really stress about having that many people over and really go way out of their way for us when they don’t need to at all. We are SUPER easy going and my kids eat anything and are really flexible. Give them a plate and some mac and cheese, point to the floor to sit, and they are perfectly happy!

Kens wife must have spent days cooking about 15 different authentic Chinese dishes. They were GORGEOUS! Plus she made pork and cabbage dumplings, that 2 of my kids will be dreaming about for weeks. They don’t eat many sweets in China and so she had bought a dessert from the store and kept apologizing for it! We also all took our shoes off when we walked in and they had sandals for us to wear. My girls will all wear matching socks next time they go out the door I am sure! 🙂

What a fun night! I love it when my kids get to try new things and have the chance to experience new food and cultures.

(Photo Credit)

Yesterday really sucked. Today sucks just as bad. I am on the internet and connected to social media all day everyday. I try and avoid any story associated with something bad happening to a child, I don’t handle it well at all and will let it affect me for days. Obviously, you can not ignore what happened yesterday, nor should you really. But personally, I don’t want details, I don’t need to hear that it is already bad enough.

As humans we don’t need guns or knifes to hurt each other. We are unfortunately capable of doing it with words and actions as well. We have a problem as a society that these things are happening. I have a guess as to why, but those are my personal feelings, and I am sure that we all feel differently about a lot of things.

What can we do?

This week, we are going to focus on serving as a family. Personally, Paul and I have adopted a few families for Christmas and we are going to pour our hearts even more into it. We have talked to our older kids, a lot in the past 24 hours. We asked them to find some things that they can do to feel positive and make a difference. We told them to ask for help if they needed it. I need to stay busy. This doesn’t mean forgetting what happened, but I will let it ruin the day for my family if I dwell on what has happened.

(Photo Credit – Paige Ivanovsky – 20 minutes ago!)

There is so much good in the world that goes unnoticed. Today I was blessed with seeing a series of 26 Moments that Restored our Faith in Humanity This Year 2012, I just sobbed all the way through. I silently added to the list the AMAZING things that I have personally been able to witness this year. Plus, I thought back to all the random acts of kindness that my family has been blessed with.

Five years ago in a Walmart parking lot a woman watched Paul and I load our kids in our car. She walked up to me and introduced herself, and handed me $20. She said, ” I don’t think you NEED this $20, I just want you to have it. Take your beautiful children out for ice cream on me. I have a very sick little granddaughter and your kids reminded me of her, she lives out of state.” I cried and she cried and we hugged. There isn’t a week that goes by in 5 years that I have not thought about her.

We have a good friend who every Christmas Eve dresses up as Santa and makes a drive by to some families they know. My kids HIGHLIGHT of Christmas Eve is hoping he comes by! He knows their names and hands them candy canes and reindeer food. I am sure his wife needs him home wrapping presents, he has little kids himself. But he does this as a service for other families. This might seem like a little thing, but it is such a blessing to others.

My husband is a great example to me of someone who gives and gives, not wanting anything in return. I bet more then 100 times he has purchased the groceries of someone in line in front of him, hoping to help them out some. He has bought gas for people at the pump who worried about paying for it. He has bought breakfast more then once for someone in military gear, or an older person alone. Paul once pulled our car over along a busy road, jumped out grabbed my stroller from the back, walked over and set it up for a woman struggling to carry a sleeping child and groceries as she was walking down the street.

This week we will remember all the times we have been blessed by our readers thoughtful emails and comments. By the notes home from our kids teachers telling us how good our kids had been that week. And all the other wonderful things that we see each day.

If you need something to keep you going today, I suggest taking a look at these 26 stories, and finding something you can do to make a difference in someones life, no matter small YOU think it might be.

I just want to show you something really sad. This is what I found in my purse today.

Nothing.

Else.

To.

Say….

Seriously? I go to the store today and get Rhodes Rolls, you know the already made frozen balls of dough that you unthaw and bake and are melt in your mouth good.

Well, we were in a hurry to leave and so I tossed everything into the fridge and figured I would unload the canned stuff when we got home.

I just walked into the kitchen 5 hours later, and find the Rhodes Rolls unthawed, in the bag, on the floor?!

I guess we are all having 64 rolls and butter for a late Sunday night snack!

Has anyone else done this?

I am just writing to let you know that if you think your Monday has been a little crazy you are not alone.

The picture you see above is looking through my playroom door where I had taken the knob off trying to rescue the kids this morning after they locked themselves in the playroom.

Let’s rewind…

I had a ton to do today. I was working in the office almost directly under the playroom upstairs, I can hear the kids playing really well for a long time. I was so relieved because I had a LOT to do and was glad they were playing and not watching TV in the other room. I could hear the train table get moved out from the wall so they were building a new track. It was quiet for a little bit and I could hear my 4 year old yelling for me. I went upstairs.

“We are stuck!”

“Well unlock the door.” I say

“We have been trying to.” The 4 year old explains because it appears he has appointed himself as leader at this point. The other kids are 3 and 2, so I am sure he just told them he was in charge.

“Turn the little round lock part the other way” I try and explain.

” I yam” ( sorry I had to add his little lisp in there, the story is much better if you can hear him talk!) he says and I can feel the knob and it seems that he is doing the right thing.

I run downstairs to get a screwdriver to take the knob off. I take the knob off and with the screwdriver am trying to get it unlocked. It is NOT going anywhere. Paul was downtown and I considered leaving them in the room until he got home. They were perfectly happy and I could always drop fruit snacks through the hole in the door 😉

” I have to go potty” the 4 year old squirmed, and my vision of a quiet morning with kids locked in the play room was gone. I could not take the hinges off the door as they were inside, so I recalled my days  of sneaking out a 2nd story window and wondered if I could get in there. I had to get the 4 year old to open the blinds, and unlock the window. This was a 15 minute task. Plus I had to keep telling him it was ok to stand on the furniture and the girls play kitchen.

I climbed up on the bunk beds in the room over and went out that window. I briefly considered changing my clothes in case I fell off the roof. I wouldn’t want any of our cute Woodlands firefighters to have to rescue me in workout pants. But I figured jeans and heels would have been too much 🙂 I did grab my phone though in case I had to make a call as I was falling off the roof. You never know…

After much breaking and entering, and more instructing a 4 year old how to pop a screen out, I decided I had to reason to worry this child would ever be a cat burglar.

They were obviously extremely worried they would be stuck in the playroom forever. The 2 littlest couldn’t stop giggling watching me climb in through the window and I am considering they did it on purpose just to watch me practice yoga at their amusement.

Then of course I had to have the “never climb out or in a window” talk because of the awesome example I had just set.

The door handle is staying this way until Paul can fix it when he gets home. It took me another 10 minutes once inside the playroom to get the lock to move enough to get it undone and open the door.

Then they refused to leave the room. I thought that is why I climbed out on the roof to  get your guys out, and now you are perfectly happy to stay in the playroom?

Finally, I begged them to watch TV for a minute so I could make sure there were no windows open or anyway they could shut the door again. Sheesh kids these days, they would rather play than watch TV. 🙂

Happy Monday!