Asure Pudding

There is a traditional soup/pudding thing that is traditionally served here 40 days after the Sacrifice Feast. Most everyone makes it and serves it to their guests and neighbors. We've received a portion several times since living here. Today a friend brought a portion to us. It's very interesting. I'm not really a big fan, but Zeke raves about it.

I read online that the legend goes that once Noah's arc settled on Mount Ararat, everyone on the arc wanted to celebrate. However, most of the food was gone, so they just took everything they had left and made this sweet soup! Everyone makes it a little differently, but a sampling of what is generally found, or could be found in it goes as follows: wheat, chickpeas, white beans, rice, apricots, raisins, figs, oranges, sugar, rose water, and pomegranates. Anyone care to give it a try?

Christmas Day in pictures

Christmas Eve

Our church here always has three Christmas eve services. So far we've only been able to attend the first service which is a "family service." The past two years they have asked the kids to dress up as shepherds, angels or wise men to help tell the Christmas story. This year Zeke was a shepherd and Kaiyah was an angel.

Kaiyah wasn't really feeling her angel role. She lasted for a few minutes and then came and sat back down and took her robe off :)

Zeke did great as a shepherd and was such a big boy holding his candle during the closing candlelight song.

Sierra just enjoyed chewing on Kaiyah's angel ribbon and smiling at everyone around her . . . and trying to help the sound guy that we were sitting close to!

Merry Christmas! (A tad late)

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas, and it dawned on me today that I have failed to share December's kitchen door craft with you guys. This month we did reindeer. You can tell whose is whose, I think. Yes, mine's nose is blue for the Tigers. And no, Sierra didn't color her own, but it was a collaboration between Tami, Zeke and myself. I hope you enjoy.

And while you're here, enjoy a nice glass of eggnog. Yes, with raw eggs and everything. It's wonderful.

Tallest Building in the World...

I got to go to Dubai last week. In case you've wondered where the world's tallest building is, it's there, and this is it: It's the Burj Khalifa. Those buildings next to it are about 30 stories. It is 160 stories, and 2,717 feet tall. It's pretty tall. Read more about it here, if you're interested. Here is a picture I took of it:

Story

This is a neat/convicting story for anyone that's interested:

http://www.mikeysfunnies.com/archive/richFamily/index.html

Funnix

I've been trying to figure out what all I'm going to use for kindergarten homeschooling next year with Zeke. I found this phonics program called Funnix, and although I haven't found anyone who has actually used it before, I'm planning to give it a try. It's a CD based program and somewhat costly. However, this morning when I was looking over their information once again, they had an announcement posted that in January, they will be giving their program away for free. I assume they are trying to get more exposure, still being a relatively new program. So, if there are any other homeschooling moms out there looking for a phonics program, check out funnix.com.