Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Animal Sort and Match Game (Free Printable)

Matching pairs of characters

This January, we're learning about Chinese New Year. This is one more twist on the Chinese Animal Memory Game. For this activity, I also used the Chinese Zodiac Memory Game from here, which is basically just the pictures of twelve animals that correspond to the Chinese calendar. I also made Chinese character cards and English word cards for this activity. I made free printable cards with English words, Chinese characters and pinyin, and different combinations of the three to make it easier for anyone else who wanted to do this activity. They are available to you in A4 size and traditional Letter size PDFs. Your could just use this for an animal themed activity as well and take out any animals you don't want or need.

I also used some large flashcards that we already had with characters on one side and a picture, character, pinyin, and English on the other for them to sort and match, too. However, you could just as easily use only the small printable cards for matching.

Matching everything to pictures

Instead of playing this like a traditional memory game where you turn the card face down, leave all of the cards face up. Have a straight line at the top or bottom of cards that the child is supposed to find the other match too. You can do this with just the same pairs, like pictures and pictures, or different pairs, like pictures and words. Or you can have one complete set across the top and try to match all other depictions of the same animal, like a picture row across the top with all other forms of words to sort and match to the right picture mixed up below.

You can do this activity so many ways. Just choose which items you want to match (pictures to pictures, pictures to characters, pictures to everything, etc.) and print off the sheets you want. You could print these on regular paper and tape them onto cardboard like I did here, or you could simply print all of the sheets you want on cardstock that is thick and colorful enough that you could see through the backs.

The boys had fun with this activity. This one was a lot better for Andrew (2) than the other versions we tried. I think the actual memory game part of the others is still a little too hard for him at this point, but matching is fairly easy. He could easily match all of the pictures on his own and a couple of English words like cat and dog that he can read without difficulty. Andrew doesn't know any characters yet and couldn't figure out which ones were the same, so Aaron had to help him with those. This was still a good game for Aaron (3 1/2) and together with the other memory games we played, he learned four characters that he didn't know when we started in about 10 minutes. We'll have to do more of this type of game to help him learn more characters. I think with using the English card set only, this would be good practice for a child still learning to read English animal names as well.

Family Fridays: Helpful Hands

Grating ’tatoes

Aaron and Andrew are getting to be really useful boys around the house. Lately, they have been able to learn how to help even more, and (most of the time) they really like helping mom and dad with little jobs. Both boys have gotten into SuperTuxKart (the Linux penguin racing game), and Aaron in particular wants to race at everything now. This is helping finish his jobs much quicker, especially if we set the timer like when we pick up toys at the end of the night.

There are lots of other little jobs they can help with now too. Together, they can set the table and clear dishes. They can help Dad wipe the moisture off of the windows in the morning to keep it from getting too humid in here. Both boys can help stack cloth diaper wipes into pretty neat piles now, and Aaron is even able to fold simple things like cloth diapers and handkerchiefs. Aaron is also really good at hanging up small things like handkerchiefs, socks, and underwear on our clip hangers so I can hang them out to dry on the line.

Probably their favorite thing to help with though is cooking. They love to help me bake up a treat or get a meal they like ready. Aaron could almost make eggs by himself now, except for getting the eggs out of the high refrigerator, and turning on the stove (which he isn't allowed to do). He already knows all of the steps though.

Clipping up the laundry

None of us are always thrilled about any of these chores—we're all human and get tired and grumpy or would just rather be doing something more fun. I and my boys are no exception. But I am thankful that for the most part they genuinely do want to help us. Sometimes we reward their helpfulness by doing something fun right afterwards, letting them know that if they don't help us do the things we have to do, we won't have enough time left to play. I really hope that if we keep working together as a family and rewarding them with fun times (like reading storybooks, playing, or eating something we've made) that they'll keep some of the desire to help us as they get older and even more useful.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Animal, Characters, and Words Memory Game (Free Printable)

This month, we're learning about Chinese New Year. This is a different twist on the Chinese Animal Memory Game. For this activity, I also used the Chinese Zodiac Memory Game from here, which is basically just the pictures of twelve animals that correspond to the Chinese calendar. I also made Chinese character cards and English word cards for this activity. I made free printable cards with English words, Chinese characters and pinyin, and different combinations of the three to make it easier for anyone else who wanted to do this activity. They are available to you in A4 size and traditional Letter size PDFs. Your could just use this for an animal themed activity as well and take out any animals you don't want or need.

You can do this activity so many ways. Just choose which items you want to match (pictures to pictures, pictures to characters, characters to characters, characters to English, etc.), print off the sheets you want, and play as a normal memory game.You could print these on regular paper and tape them onto cardboard like I did here, or you could simple print all of the sheets you want on cardstock that is thick and colorful enough that you can't see through the backs.

The boys had fun with this activity. It was a little too hard for Andrew (2), but he liked trying. This was a better challenge for Aaron (3 1/2) than the first memory game, and he learned four characters that he didn't know when we started in about 10 minutes. We'll have to do more of this type of game to help him learn more characters. I think with using the English card set only, this would be good practice for a child still learning to read English animal names as well.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Animal Memory Game

For this activity, I used the Chinese Zodiac Memory Game from here, which is basically just the pictures of twelve animals that correspond to the Chinese calendar. I just printed out two sheets of animals, cut them out, and tapes them onto colored cardboard that I upcycled.

You could just use this game for an animal unit study also, and even just take out the dragon if you don't like them. Actually, starting with smaller sets of animals is easier for young children than trying to do all twelve at first anyway. It seems easier to start smaller and add pairs as they (usually even more quickly than adults) master the game.

We actually did a bunch of variations on this activity, but the most basic way to play is like any memory game. Turn several pairs of cards face down, mix them up, and arrange them in a grid. Now have the player turn over cards two at a time, trying to find a matching pair. If the player doesn't turn over a matching pair they should try to remember what cards are where but return them face down. Then it is either another player's turn to turn two over to try to find a match or, if only one person is playing, the same player can just keep playing until he finds all of the matches himself.

The boys had fun with this activity. It was a little too hard for Andrew (2) and almost to easy for Aaron (3 1/2), but Aaron has been playing and mastering memory games for quite a while. I'll share more variations on this game soon.

Handcrafted Wedding Favors: Delicate Crocheted Bookmarks

Another of my favorite wedding favors that we gave away at our wedding were these beautiful crocheted bookmarks. I can crochet, but since I was already sewing my wedding dress and doing a lot of other project for the wedding in about six months time, I asked my grandma to crochet these for us.

My grandma is so sweet and graciously agreed. I found some free patterns online and gave them to my grandma along with ribbon in our wedding colors. I think she actually had all of the crochet cotton she need already, as many of her friends would give her balls that they no longer wanted, and bookmarks take so little material. My grandma is so fast at crocheting that she said she just did a few each evening and was done with the entire 200 in no time.

This was another really inexpensive wedding favor that can be easily customized to fit the style of your wedding. Crochet pattern central has a lot of bookmark patterns for free, and many other site to as well. The materials to make the bookmarks can be purchased very inexpensively, especially if you watch for the frequent sales and coupons that crafting and hobby store usually offer. Picking patterns and colors that go along with the rest of your wedding can make this wedding favor uniquely yours and give guests something both beautiful and useful to remember your wedding by.

Mandarin Mondays: Happy New Year (新年快乐)!

Huge lantern

Happy New Year! (xīnnián kuàilè!, 新年快乐！)

Yesterday was the official start of Spring Festival (Chūn jié, 春节), which is Chinese new year. This is the year of the dragon (lóng, 龙). Dragons, lanterns (dēng lóng, 灯笼), and other red (hóng sè, 红色) and yellow (huáng sè, 黄色) decorations are all over the city now.

The week before Spring Festival was very busy in the city. Everyone was buying new clothes, gifts, special food, and lots of fireworks. Going to the store was like shopping on the day after thanksgiving in the States...all week long. Bringing gifts, food, and money in red envelopes back to the family celebrations is very important here for this festival. People from the city were stocking up before they would travel, and people came in from the countryside to do their holiday shopping too.

Now that the festival has started though, most shops have closed down and the streets are nearly empty. Everyone who is able to has traveled back to the hometown of their oldest living relative. There they will celebrate for several days giving gifts and enjoying family dinners. Not returning home at this time will mean you are considered a bad son or daughter. Our family is wishing we were adapting to the culture and returning home now too, but travel is crazy now with everyone trying to travel at once. So I guess we're bad children right now.

But now that many people have left the city, it is quite quiet. That is, except for the massive amount of firecrackers (biān pào, 鞭炮) and fireworks (yān huā, 烟花) going off almost all of the time. Last night (the actual evening of their new year day, instead of new years eve like we celebrate in the West) they lit off tons of fireworks at midnight and periodically all throughout the night into the morning. Literally at midnight our windows shook, but the boys managed to sleep through it just fine. The boys actually love to watch the fireworks and get really excited when they are awake to see them. We can see a lot from our back porch as the fire department lights a bunch off each night, and we are right behind them.

Fireworks for sale

Update:
We learned later that we were kind of confused on the dates. The actual New Year's day this year was January 23, but the festival starts New Year's Eve, so people refer to this as the start of the holiday. So anyway, the biggest firework day is the New Year's Eve night into the New Year's Day.

It will be interesting to see what else this quiet/noisy week holds here. Hope you all are have a great week and have a happy new year!

Family Fridays: Our Ever Changing "Routine"

We always enjoy a good book

This was Nate's first week off of classes for winter break. We have been enjoying a little extra time together, but are working on extra projects too. So some of our daily routines are changing, but some are staying the same.

One of the most consistent routines we have right now is our "Morning Routine." Every morning the boys wake up and ask for granola. They apparently need granola to be civil in the morning. Even if I am planning on making pancakes or hash browns they feel they need to have at least a little granola to start the day off right. Now both boys can get their own bowl and spoon, which is helpful.

While their eating their granola, I usually read a chapter of the Word and a couple of its stories to them. We also practice their memory verses and do a few English and Chinese flashcards. Then the boys take their bowls to the sink and run off to play. Then I clean up the granola mess.

January Unit Study Fun

The middle of our days are the most varied right now, changing a lot from day to day. Sometimes we do snack and school later, sometimes we do extra unit study activities for the month, and sometimes we just work and play together as a family. The boys have been playing a lot more jump-on-Daddy games lately.

We also have a pretty consistent "Evening Routine" before bed that is working pretty well for us now. First, we set a fifteen minute timer, and the boys pick up the toys, while mom and dad work on cleaning up anything else that needs attention before bedtime. It was taking the boys a really long time to pick up their toys, until we started setting the timer. Aaron is old enough now that he understands the concept really well and he loves beating the clock. It has become like a video game to him. Who needs a Wii?

Apple pie in July

After things are back in general order, if we have beaten the clock, we have a small treat while Daddy reads the Word to the family. We've found that saving dessert until later and using it as a reward for picking up (and as something to do quietly while daddy is reading) to work really well for us right now. After we're done reading, the boys run their dishes to the sink and then run around the apartment a few times playing games with Daddy to burn off any sugar energy they've ingested

Getting ready for bed, Christmas Eve

Then we settle back down again, brush teeth, and get ready for bed. Then we all cuddle together in our bed and sing and pray together. It's a sweet way to wind down and spend time together.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Window Decorations Coloring

The boys received window crayons and markers for Christmas, and I think they are a really cool way to practice coloring and writing in a new and interesting way. And all you have to do to take down these decorations is wipe them off.

To help the boys learn about the different decorations and symbols used to celebrate Chinese New Year (known here as Spring Festival), I let the boys color some window decorations of their own. Red lanterns, red tassels, and the animal (2012 is the year of the dragon) to represent the new year are traditional decorations of this festival.

To do this activity, I just outlined some lanterns on the window one day and a dragon/dinosaur another day. Then I gave the boys each a yellow and red marker or crayon and let them color away. Decorations for Spring Festival are traditionally red and yellow. At the end of the day, we just washed the window off with vinegar water window cleaner, and we have a fresh canvas for new drawings.

We are talking to our boys about what these decorations traditionally mean here, and I think this is another easy activity to aid this discussion.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Coloring Chinese New Year Decorations

To help the boys learn about the different decorations and symbols used to celebrate Chinese New Year (known here as Spring Festival), I let the boys color some paper decorations of their own. We are talking to our boys about how we don't want to buy or put up a lot of real decorations for this holiday. (Chinese people think their pretty red decorations can keep bad luck away and bring good luck.) But this was a fun activity to help them understand a lot of the decorations going up all over.

Red lanterns, red tassels, and the animal to represent the new year are traditional decorations of this festival. This year is the year of the dragon, so there are dragons everywhere. Since they are everywhere here, we've been talking to the boys about how the stories with dragons in them could have come from people talking about dinosaurs, just using a different name. The boys love dinosaurs.

This activity is pretty simple. I just printed off some coloring sheets and gave the boys a bunch of red and yellow crayons, colored pencils, and markers. Red and yellow are the colors of their traditional decorations here. While we all colored, I talked to them about the decorations and what they mean, as well as the Chinese characters on some of the lanterns we colored and what they mean. I think this activity is a great way to discuss these decorations and the meaning behind them.

In case anyone is curious, the characters on the lanterns we colored mean "love" (ài, 爱) and "peace" (hépíng, 和平).

January Unit Study: Chinese New Year

I didn't blog much about our November and December school with the boys since we did less "official school." We had a wonderful time when my parents visited and celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas. We did a lot of special stuff together to get ready for, celebrate, and focus on the real meaning of the holidays, and those we're our "unit studies" for those months. There are so many things I appreciate about home schooling, but I think one of the best is how easily life and learning blend naturally through the day. And if we're too busy to do to much of anything, reading the Bible and spending time together as a family is plenty of learning for our little guys.

Anyway, we've already started doing some extra activities in January to learn even more about China and about Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is actually not called that in China. They call it Spring Festival. But it is China's biggest holiday. We're talking a bit about the origin of this festival and things they do to celebrate it with our boys. We're using some printouts from abcteach.com about China and Chinese New Year. We may also try some of these and other crafts. We also get to experience a lot of things like the amount of fireworks being lit off in a city first hand this year. I'll be writing more about individual activities and the celebration in general in the next few weeks.

Mandarin Mondays: Spring Festival (春节)

Spring Festival (Chūn jié, 春节), known as Chinese New Year in the West, does not officially begin until the evening of January 21st, but the preparations are already gearing up. All of the stores have special gifts on display. People are buying special food and gifts to take back on their journey to their hometowns. Everyone is cleaning their houses top to bottom to rid them of bad luck and decorating them with lots of red decorations to bring in good luck, and most women have new hairdos to start out the new year on the right foot.

And perhaps the part of the celebration that Spring Festival is most famous for, the fireworks (yān huā, 烟花) have already begun. People have already begun setting off firecrackers (fàng biān pào, 放鞭炮) and lighting off fireworks (fàng yān huā, 放烟花) throughout the day and into the night. It is a little noisy now, but I'm guessing next week will be really noisy. This will be our first Spring Festival in China, and I think it will be an interesting experience to see all of the celebrations that go along with their biggest holiday. I'll be writing more about the festival over the next few weeks.

Happy New Year! (xīnnián kuàilè!, 新年快乐！)

Handcrafted Wedding Favors: Happy Tears Handkerchiefs

In searching for ideas to incorporate into our wedding, I found so many wedding favors that I loved that we actually had quite a few different wedding favors given out at our wedding. But we hardly spent any money on them because we chose to make most of them ourselves (with lots of help from our wonderful family). One of my favorites is this handkerchief for happy tears.

To go with our wedding colors, we choose to make two different sets of handkerchiefs one in lavender (for women) and one in silver gray (for men). We didn't think the guys would really like the lavender ones that much, but you could just choose one more neutral color to simplify things as well.

I had bought a lot of white fabric really inexpensively to use for making table cloths and decorating for the wedding, so I just used a little of this to sew the handkerchiefs. Since I wanted to make 200 of these, I made this a pretty quick sewing project. I cut 9 inch squares out of white muslin. Then I folded the edge over about 1/4 inch over as I was sewing and zigzagged around all sides in contracting thread. When I zigzagged, I sewed very close to the edge allowing the needle to go over the edge every other zigzag. I thought this was a quick way to finish the edges nicely with a decorative touch.

If you had more time, folding the edges over twice would probably look slightly nicer and last a little longer. But even though the edges had a few loose threads that came off the first few washes, we are still using the extra handkerchiefs on a daily basis more than 4 years after our wedding. There were quite a few left over, so as an added bonus, we now have a lot of cloth hankies to use instead of Kleenex, and they are holding up great.

If you could find a great deal on small handkerchiefs you could eliminate the sewing step entirely if you wished. Or you could find someone else who like to sew and wanted to do this a wedding gift or for a reasonable price.

For the next step, we enlisted the help of two of our grandmothers. My husband had created a special letter, kind of like a combined monogram that was an A (for Anna) and a N (for Nate) together. You could of course just use a regular monogram or other small symbol as well. This special letter was used in many things for our wedding, and we asked our grandmothers to embroider it in the corner of each handkerchief. I gave each one completed handkerchief, and the pattern to fit in the corner and trace on each handkerchief. I think our grandmothers were actually quite happy to help and be apart of our wedding in this way.

Lastly, we folded each handkerchief so all points pointed in, with the embroidered corner on top. We made our own wedding programs that had pockets in the front and back for favors, so on the front pocket we had printed the message "For happy tears." Alternately, you could print this message on a small piece of card stock and tie it onto the handkerchief with a ribbon.

A Handcrafted Wedding Series

I liked making things myself long before I was a mom. As we prepared to be married, my husband-to-be and I wanted our wedding to be extremely special, but not extremely expensive. We wanted our wedding to be be about all God has done for us and how He brought us together as part of the plan for our lives. We wanted to make it clear that we were fully committed to this covenant and plan on keeping our vows for life. We wanted our wedding to be remembered for these things, not that we had spent a lot of money for a huge party one day.

So, we set about figuring out how to make our wedding fantastically frugal. We were able to incorporate so many personal touches by doing much of the work ourselves, with a lot of help from friends and family. Remembering our wedding day is such a joy because we were able to have a ceremony and reception so perfect for us, without spending a ton of money.

As I have time, I am going to be writing A Handcrafted Wedding Series. It is my hope that others might be inspired to created their own uniquely fantastic and frugal wedding. I will try to keep this page updated with all the wedding related posts.

Wedding Favors

• A Handkerchief For Happy Tears
• Delicate Crocheted Bookmarks

DIY Cookie Puzzles

I thought that cookie puzzles sounded like a really cute stocking stuffer, but they could also make a sweet Valentine, Easter present, party favor, or small gift for any other occasion. When we were making sugar cookies together, I cut out a few huge heart shapes. Then I simply cut these large cookies into a few pieces using a butter knife. I separated the pieces slightly and then baked the cookies as usual. Putting colored sugar on top before you bake them or frosting them after they have been baked and cooled would be cute as well. Varying the shapes and colors used could make these appropriate for any occasion. I simply wrapped these in plastic wrap, but you could package them up in cut cellophane bags, small boxes, or small cookie tins too.

Family Fridays: Finished Already?

Nate finished his second semester of Mandarin classes today. It is kind of hard to believe. The last time we lived on this side of the world time seemed to crawl by—this time it's flying. Maybe its Andrew's fault. Time has been flying every since he was born. I think I'm still in shock that he is two years old already.

We're so thankful for all own friends here and how we've been able to settle into life here easier this time. We're looking forward to a little break before Nate starts classes again. There is Chinese New Year (a.k.a Spring Festival here) starting soon. Then we'll be doing a little extra English teaching. After that one of Nate's friends that he's known since elementary school is coming to visit.

I'm thinking time won't seem to slow down anytime soon. I guess that's okay.

DIY Oreo Truffles Pops

Kids seem to think everything is better when it comes on a stick, and sometimes this keeps both them and their food slightly cleaner. So for some pretty easy stocking stuffers, I took a few of the Oreo Truffles that I had made and made them into Oreo Truffle Pops. I simply made up a batch of Oreo Truffles and then poked a stick into the bottom. Actually, I used some of the tiny straws that sometimes come with our bags of milk here because I am cheap and have no idea where to buy lollipop sticks here. But if you happen to have a Michaels or Hobby Lobby nearby, you should be able to buy actual lollipop sticks if you want to.

You could also try inserting the stick before freezing the chocolate filling and then dipping them in chocolate. Then you can poke the stick into a piece of styrofoam to hold it upright while it drys, similar to cake pops. This would make them more round but a little more tricky to work with. My little kids don't care if their chocolate lollipop has a flat bottom or not, so I just went the easy route of inserting the stick after they had already been coated in chocolate and hardened.

Wrap in cellophane or plastic wrap, and tie with a pretty twist tie or ribbon, and you will have a beautiful stocking stuffer, Valentines treat, party favor, or small sweet gift for any other occasion.

DIY Oreo Truffles

Oreo truffles are being seen all over blogland, so you may have already seen these before. But the reason they are such a hit is because they both incredibly easy and incredibly delicious. If you haven't tried to make these yet, you really should. They are amazing. I made these and some other chocolate candies for Christmas gifts, but they would also be perfect for Valentine's Day or any other day. Every day is sweeter with chocolate.

Homemade Oreo Truffle Recipe

• 1 package Oreos
• 8 oz cream cheese (softened)
• 1 bag of chocolate chips (to melt for dipping)

1. Blend the Oreos in blender, or crush into very fine crumbs in a plastic bag with a rolling pin.
2. In a mixing bowl, blend together softened cream cheese and the Oreo crumbs.
3. Roll into quarter sized balls.
4. Place in freezer to chill for at least 15 minutes or more; this helps them stay together better when dipping in melted chocolate.
5. Melt chocolate in medium saucepan or a double boiler over low heat stirring occasionally until completely melted and smooth.
6. Dip each Oreo ball in melted chocolate and place on waxed paper, tin foil, or silicone mat to harden.
7. Store in the refrigerator or freezer.

This recipe makes about 3 dozen truffles. If you want to save any for the future or to give away, you should probably hide them in the back of the freezer, or you will eat them all right away. Or maybe that is just what I had to do.

DIY Pumpkin Butter

Since pumpkins are still in season here (read that: really cheap and easy to get), I thought I try pumpkin butter as my first DIY project for 2012. I looked at a few different pumpkin butter recipes but ended up coming up with my own very simple recipe. I really like how it turned out though; it tastes like spreadable pumpkin pie to me. Pumpkin butter is great on muffins and toast, and I would imagine it would be fabulous on homemade bagels.

Homemade Pumpkin Butter Recipe

• 8 cups pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar (or up to 3 cups depending on your personal taste, but we thought 1 1/2 cups was plenty sweet)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• dash (about 1/8 of a teaspoon) of cloves (optional)
• dash (about 1/8 of a teaspoon) of ginger (optional)

1. Place all ingredients in a crock pot or large stock pot.
2. Stir to combine.
3. Bring to a very low boil and simmer for 30 minutes to up to 2 hours.
4. When you can stand a wooden spoon up in the center of the pot and all of the flavors have combined nicely, remove from heat, and let cool.
5. Store in jars (or other airtight containers) in the refrigerator, or freeze for later use.

This recipe yielded about 7 cups of pumpkin butter for me.

Mandarin Mondays:像

Because of my new goals for studying Mandarin, I've been listening to a lot more ChinesePod lessons. This past week I listened to one about the word xiàng (像) which means to resemble. While we don't hear this phrase quite as much as people asking if the boys are twins (shuāng bāo tāi, 双胞胎), we are often also told, "Your baby really looks like you." In Chinese you would say, "Nǐ de bǎobǎo hěn xiàng nǐ (你的宝宝很像你)."

I think that Andrew's eyes (yǎn jīng, 眼睛) look like mine, but his nose (bí zǐ, 鼻子) and mouth (zuǐba, 嘴巴) more closely resemble his father (tā bàba, 他爸爸).

Do you agree?
Nǐ tóngyì ma?
你同意吗？

Personal Goals 2012

All this week I've been talking about things I want to be intentional about trying to do in 2012. I've shared about my Mandarin goals, DIY projects I want to try, some of my goals in my family relationships, and the last area I am going to share about today is my personal growth goals.

In 2012 I'd like to:

• Try some more natural face and hair cleansing products
• Do some stomach exercises several times a week (I'm in decent shape and our lifestyle gives me quite a bit of exercise naturally, except for my stomach muscles which I really do need to work on)
• Continue to exercise my brain by:
• learning more Mandarin
• reading at least l book a month
• doing 1-2 RN CEU hours each month
• blogging several times a week
• My editor/husband wants me to go through a grammar course we have, so I am going to try to complete it by the end of this year. Refreshing my knowledge in grammar should help my writing, but it will also help me in teaching our boys in years to come.

My hope in sharing these goals is mainly that I'll be more motivated to work on them throughout the year. Blogging is good for me because I tend to do a better job of recording our lives when I want to share it with others. I tend to be to lazy to journal consistently for just myself, but if He wills, I'll try to give an update here at the end of the year how these goals went.

Family Fridays: Family Goals 2012

I've been talking all this week about setting goals for 2012. Here are a few things I want to be intentionally trying to do throughout my days this next year.

In thinking about my role as His child this year:

• I want to continue to make my own daily reading a priority
• I want to continue to make reading to my children and as a family a priority
• I want to increase my memorization and relearn some of the verses I have forgotten
• I want to be more intentional about daily talking to my Father about my husband and children
• I and my husband want to carve out more time to study the Word deeper without the kids

In thinking about my role as a wife, mother, and homemaker (in addition to the above goals) this year:

• I want to be more intentional about fulfilling all these roles with a joyful heart
• I want to continue to make reading books to the boys everyday a priority
• I and my husband want to consistently have the boys help with the small chores they are now able to assist with
• I want to be more intentional about making sure that I take some time to just play with the boys, at least a little daily, and for longer periods with my undivided attention at least weekly

12 Food DIY Projects to Attempt for 2012

Recently, I've talked about some of the projects that I attempted in 2011 and how I am using this first week of the new year to set some goals for 2012. One area I am obviously passionate about and want to keep challenging myself in is DIY projects, hence this blog. I also think that this is a good way to encourage creativity, try to be a life long learner, and possibly cultivate new skills. So I came up with 12 DIY projects that I really want to try in 2012. This list is all food items, but I chose a variety of different types of food. Here they are in no particular order:

• Homemade Pop-tarts
• Strawberry Freezer Jam
• Pita Bread
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Apple Butter
• Potato Chips
• Pumpkin Butter
• Cottage Cheese
• Thousand Island Dressing
• Teriyaki Sauce
• Homemade Doughnuts
• Chicken Broth From Scratch

These are all things that I've never done before and a few I've wanted to try for quite a while. I'll be blogging about my attempts at these projects throughout the year.

Mandarin Mondays: 学习

So this first week of the new year. I'm thinking a lot about what I want to do in the coming year, and what He would have me do. One of the areas I've been thinking about is my study (xué xí, 学习) of Chinese. I am perfectly okay with the fact that my husband is progressing faster along with learning Mandarin because he goes to school two hours a day, five days a week to study it. I am still continually seeing progress at understanding and speaking, so I am okay with learning a little slower because I cannot devote as much undivided attention to it at this time. However, I want to be a little more intentional and push myself a little more in this important area. I have a lot of good resources I've started to use, but I this year I want to complete some of these.

We also want to be a little more consistent in exposing the boys to Mandarin. We're not expecting them to be fluent by a certain age or anything, but we want to make sure that they are at least getting a lot of practice in listening to this difficult tonal language, at this age where language learning is still quite natural for them.

Since I do blog about our Mandarin learning, I'm going to share my personal goals in this area, if only for personal accountability. Perhaps someone else may want to look into these Mandarin resources as well. I've tried to be fairly specific and break my goals into bite-sized pieces since that is the only way to eat an elephant (or fish head as is more likely here) or any other difficult task. If life completely changes and these goals become completely unrealistic, I'll be okay with that too, but for right now, this seems like a very doable amount of study and a way to challenge myself in a good way.

Week Day Goals

• Listen to 2 or more ChinesePod lessons

Weekly Goals

• Work through 1 chapter of Learning Chinese Characters
• Work through 1 chapter of Chinese Language Learning for Foreigners
• Write 1 Mandarin Monday post about something I've been learning

Goals for 2012

• Listen to all ChinesePod lessons we have downloaded through lower intermediate level
• Finish Learning Chinese Characters Book
• Finish Chinese Language Learning for Foreigners Books 1 and 2
• 50 Mandarin Monday posts

For working with the boys I just have a couple of goals.

Week Day Goals

• Go through about 20 Chinese picture flashcards
• Listen to at least 1 short ChinesePod newbie lesson

Goal for 2012

• Have the boys listen to all appropriate ChinesePod lessons at the newbie level

Again, our goal is not to try to force our boys into fluency but just try to make sure they are consistently exposed so they don't develop language blocks that would make it hard for them to learn later. We may try to find other ways to increase their exposure in natural settings here as well.

So, those are my goals for Mandarin learning in 2012. Hopefully, I will see a lot of progress this year and maybe prevent Alzheimer's later in life too.

New Year's Goals

With the new year upon us, I've been thinking a lot about how I spend my time, what I want to do this next year, and most importantly what He wants me to do in the new year with the time He gives me. I have been reading a lot about setting goals, living our best life story for His glory, and I love this idea of a new years planning retreat.

A Proverb that I have really been struck with recently is "Where there is no vision the people perish" (29:18). I think that He is telling us here that having clear direction and vision for the future is critical and we are always to be pressing on towards the mark that He wants for each of our lives.

Now, He is definitely in control of all things and my life circumstances could completely change in the coming year in ways that I have no idea about right now. And that is okay. I don't don't what the future holds; only He does. So, I am not trying to set some sort of new years resolutions that I want to strive my hardest to keep in my own right but to take a little time to really look at what I believe He wants for me and how best to use the time I'm given in the coming year.

So, while I'm not going to do a full planning retreat, I am going to be spending small bits of time throughout this first week of the year thinking and praying about the coming year. My husband and I also want to talk together about family goals and goals for the boys schooling.

The first step in this process that I did on this first day of the new year, was to think about the different areas in my life and different roles I have. This will help me break down goals into different categories and bite sized pieces to make them more reachable. I will be sharing about some areas that I'm setting new years goals in and a few of my goals throughout the week.