On Our Table This Week

I thought I'd do a post each week showing you what's on our table. I forget how differently we eat and  that some of you might like to see what we're eating. Maybe some of you would even like to try it out yourself. 

On our table this week.....

Kaaw Kook Kabii (Stir Fried Rice with trimmings mixed in.)

The cast of characters are: raw green mago, egg omelet, long snake beans, cucumbers, and sweet chicken. I left out the picture of our brown rice that we stir fried in shrimp paste. However, I don't even think America has shrimp paste so you can use what ever you have.... put some oil in a pot, add your cooked rice (you want it a little on the dry side), then add fish sauce or soy sauce.

You can cut out things that you don't have and add things you do have. 

First,  1. stir fry your rice

          2. slice up chicken, rub it down with sweet soy sauce and dark soy sauce. cook in some sesame 

              oil until brown. 

          3. cut all your veggies... (mangos, cucumbers, green beans)

          4. make an egg omelet by cracking a few eggs in a bowl. add some light soy sauce, some Knorr 

              chicken powder, black pepper, add oil to the skillet. you want the bottom covered with oil. 

              cook it until the edges begin to brown, then flip it. slice the egg in thin strips 

Once all of your ingredients are in separate bowels, you add your rice to your place then begin to top the rice with different toppings. YUM!

Kaaw Kook Kapii

This is my stir friend chicken with broccoli. YUMMY!! A  family favorite.

Cast of characters: 3 chicken breast, 1 head broccoli, hoisen sauce, black soy sauce, oil garlic, ginger sesame oil, Knorr chicken powder and sugar

cut your chicken up in pieces
dice your garlic
cut broccoli in pieces
rub the chicken down in a 1 Tbls of Knorr chicken seasoning powder
heat 3 Tbls sesame oil and sauté garlic and ginger for about 1 min. add the chicken
after a few minutes add broccoli. sauté
then begin to add your sauces, 2Tbls hoisen sauce, 1 Tbls of black soy sauce, and about 2 tsp sugar.

Saute until chicken is done and broccoli is the desire tenderness. Don't overdo the broccoli.

This is an absolute family favorite! Try it and tell me what you think.

Love,
Amber

Our School Room 2014

Well, I'm finally getting some pictures of our school room up. 

We've had a team from IHOP here worshipping and praying with us. It's been a busy, but very rewarding five days! 

Okay, so I'm standing at the door that enters the school room from the living room.

There are actually two doors that you can enter. There's another one on the right.

This door enters from Clinton's office/church office

I'm still using the calendar from Sparkle Box and we really love it. It's super easy to use and with the velcro you can use it over and over again each year.

My little shelf is from Ikea. It was super cheap. I think around $5. I love it.

Cayden loves to have new books displayed every week. He loves for me to read to him. This week we're reading about colors.

It's super hard for me to get him to do any school at all, but he still likes to read.  So I try to encourage it as much as possible.

Here's my sweet boy who loves to learn and loves to read! He has trouble keeping quiet and still but if I reward him with something sweet I can usually keep him on track.

I didn't realize how disorganized this looked until i saw the picture of it. lol

So this picture is really funny. If you remember, I told you that Cayden stopped being interested in his   Animal ABC's when we got to Jj Jellyfish.

He wanted to make sure I understood that he was DONE with this so he scribbled all over the card.... :(
I thought we were having so much fun?!?

This is a good view from the other door. You can see our windows. I thank God for these windows! It really keeps things nice and fresh. Having the sun shine in is so nice.

You'll notice the air con right above the window. This is our saving grace! There would be NO way we could survive in the heat without it. It's so hot that we have to run the air and the fan in order to stay cool. The coolest the air will get in the hot season is 78 F. But we're not complaining!!

You can also see the drawer caddy right behind Joseph. This system changed the way we homeschool. I was always forgetting to do some of his school. I know, it may sound weird but I get distracted very easily... i may have a bit of ADD.

And at the end of the day, I would be like, "OH, NO! we forgot to do......"

Having 10 drawer metal rolling cart with the numbers that we simply move over when the work is complete helps me stay on track. Even if we take a break in the day, I can always come right back and know what else needs to be done. GENIUS!

I also have 2 of the Ikea  Trofast Storage Systems. I loove them! You can do so much with them. I used to have them labeled but the labels fell off and I haven't made new ones.

I store my phonics cards, calendar time cards, different manipulatives,  puzzles, spare folders, card stock, art supplies and more in these drawers! They're wonderful!!

If you don't have any you must purchase them as soon as possible. I promise you your life will never be the same!

I didn't get a picture of behind my black chair, but it's the white board and my craft table. I'll try to get one next time.

I hope you enjoyed a tour of our International School room all the way in Thailand.

I bet it looks similar to yours.

Love you!
Amber

Our Baby's Engaged

Sorry for the quality for these photos, but what can I say... I'm having to get to know Sydney via text messaging and photos that they send. We're an International family. 

It's the best I've got. 

So our precious son moved to Nashville a year ago. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done sending him there all alone. 

By the sheer grace and faithfulness of God he was able to stay with BRSM grads that Clinton went to school with way back in 1999! 

Clinton flew back with him, helped him buy a car, and then drove with him to TN from TX, took him to his first job interview at Starbucks, got him registered in school, and helped him find his way around town.

They spend two wonderful weeks together.

Clinton boarded the plane knowing that Chase got the job and was settled in. We were now having to trust God big time... all of us. 

It wasn't long before we started hearing him talk about a girl named Sydney. She's a Christian, Mama.  They soon became good friends and Sydney's family took Chase in and loved on him and fed him. Oh God is good!

I remember saying, "Chase, be careful how much time you spend with this girl. You marry your best friend." That was no where in his head at the time. School and work and learning how to cope in America were taking all of his brain power.

Her family and her friendship were a very safe place for him being an MK that had spent more of his life in Thailand than in America. (we moved here when he was 9). They consistently loved on him, and read the Word with him, and encouraged him in the Lord.

On his 21st birthday, the whole family took him out for dinner and this is the picture he sent me. I remember thinking, "Just friends? It would be hard to be 'just' friends with a girl this cute!"

It wasn't long after, that he sent me a text with a picture attached. The text said, "Mamma, I'm in love."
The picture was the one below of her asleep on his shoulder. They were watching a movie at her house and she had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder.

He text me this picture and said, "Mama, I'm in love."

To make a long story short. Chase asked her father if he could court her in August.

On Valentines Day, at an Ice Skating rink that they had all to themselves, he asked her to marry him! He had them play the song by Train called, Marry Me as he sang it to her.

My baby's getting married and God has given him a precious young woman in Sydney.  My heart is so full of the goodness of God.

Sydney, I don't know if you'll ever see this post or not but I just wanted to say to you, "Welcome to our family. We are so happy that God has brought you into our son's life. You are a treasure."


Love,
Amber~

Some Oldies but Goodies

These are from April 2013, but since my last post for 2013 was in March, I thought I'd post a few of my favorite pictures from last year. 

I mean  you all missed out on a whole year of our life. 

Did you miss us?

Did you even know we were gone?

I'm gonna pretend you did and flood you with posts and pictures.  

This is such a Cayden picture! Mouth wide open. Making a loud obnoxious noise and irritating the FIRE out of Chandler.

Chan doesn't look too annoyed here, but I had to put the camera down to get Cayden off of him as he was screaming his head off.

This is typical Joseph. Always smiling. I love you, Joe.

And my baby. I mean really!!!

Look at that perfect baby!

Chandler Triumph, I'm so glad you were born.

Love,
Amber

What's Been Going On This last year??

In December 2008, God moved us from a tiny 900 sq. ft. house to this house! It was a blessing from God in a time of great pain and sorrow. I wrote a post about what was going on in my life back in 2009, you can read it here I had just had a miscarriage and felt like I was in a fish bowl. After taking in several street children, the small house was caving in on me. God was so good to give it to us for just the right amount of time.

The Big House

I brought home two babies in this house, saw a son married in this house, finalized an adoption in this house, and sent a son off to college in this house. I have very fond memories and am so grateful to God for letting us stay there as long as He did.

But when you feel the cloud moving, you must go with it. Mid summer, Clinton began to feel the stirring to go back to Ban Pru, where we have our church plant.

We have a huge building (that's like a townhouse) were we have church and the upstairs wasn't being used at all.

When he first presented it to me, I was like, "Are you kidding? No way! We could never live in the upstairs of the church!! We would never have any privacy!!"

But the more I thought and prayed about it, I really felt that I was to honor him and what he was feeling and move if that's what he thought we should do. He wasn't going to push me, so the decision was really up to me.

It was going to save us a great deal of money.. the first four and a half years in "the big house" were paid for by a loving supporter, but this last year we were having to pay for it ourselves and it was a struggle. Although the rent was only $400 a month it was still more than we were used to.

Also, Clinton's heart was to be closer to our disciples and more hands on.

So be began to move.

And move.

And move.

Asian style of course. lol

He refused to get a moving truck. He wanted to save money, but after four days of moving he told me he will never do that again.

But I wouldn't dare say, "I told you so, honey."

So this was what it looked like on the side of our church/house before we moved in. But after finding several snakes Clinton decided that the land must be cleared.

After days and days of clearing and getting a digger like thingy house here, the land was cleared.

You might be wondering, "Where is the grass?" Well, there is none. Yes, you heard me. There is none. 

We live on 30 acres of concrete. This land used to be a rubber factory where they would buy rubber from the rubber farmers, process it, and load it on trucks to be sold. 

But on the bright side, our kids can ride their bikes for days and days and days. 

Here's my kitchen. Well kitchen #1. This is where I prepare the food, and wash the dishes. It's also where we eat. We pull the table out from the wall and put the kids table at the door of the bedroom (there are two bedrooms to the left of this picture) and we can fit all 11 of us. It's a tight squeeze but it works.

Preparing food takes place on that white cupboard on the right. There's about 2 ft of space to work with. It's a good thing I've been in Thailand for 13 years or I might be a little flustered about this kitchen situation.

 This is kitchen #2 and also my laundry area. This is where do the actual cooking and my laundry. It outside on the balcony. I know, you're thinking. Wow! She's so lucky! She gets to cook outside... in the rain, in the heat. Well, not all women can be as lucky as I am.

To left is the rest of the balcony which you can see in the picture below.

 Here's the front of the church in all it's glory. The top window is my living room. The door there goes into the worship area of the church and then up the stairs to my apartment.

We're currently in the process of painting the church, so I'll have those pictures soon.

I have so many more pictures to share with you, but I'll leave you with these for now. Soak it in. Then go to your kitchen, bend down and start kissing the floor, then kiss the counters, then kiss your thermostat on the wall that gives you central air, then... oh well I'l stop there.

Next, I'll share my homeschool room which is glorious and a definite plus to living here. I mean it! It's amazing. It's the nicest homeschool room I've ever had. I can't wait to share pictures with you!

Love you guys!!
Amber~

Last Week of Organized Tot School

 I have no idea what causes a tot who's moving right along week after week with school to all the sudden decide, "I'm not doing it anymore." 

That's what happened with Cayden. He's 3 years and 5 months in these photos. 

I mean, I was having SO.MUCH.FUN!! 

On this Jj Jellyfish lesson we even went to the Aquarium! I had the scavenger hunt print outs and all! I was INTO.IT. 

I love the planning, the gathering, and the teaching. I love it. I was so sad! To be honest I tried to force the Kk Kola on him but he wasn't having it. I think it was the same thing lesson after lesson that bored him. He likes change and different stuff so maybe I'll try to incorporate some different things into each lesson. I'm not really that creative which is the problem, but thank God for Pintrest. Right?!

He's recently been asking to do Tot School again. Although, he's not a tot anymore... he's a preschooler. (3yrs. 11mo). How did my baby get to be a Preschooler???

He's definitely a kinetic learner! HE lOVES sensory play!! I mean loves it! And he loves books. 

We were doing the Animal ABC's by Carrisa at 1plus1plus1

She's amazing! And her printables are so cute. She has TONS of ideas on there! 

Has your tot decided he doesn't want to do school anymore?

If so what was your strategy to get him going again?

I'd love to hear from you!