Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Blessings


The best and most wonderful blessing this month is that my father-in-law has put his faith in our Lord Jesus and he was baptised in a beautiful and moving family service last week. Our family give thanks and praises to God for this awesome blessing!  Despite being hospitalised again for a few days in late September, he is steadily on the mend health-wise too. So thankful.
The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: 

 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 

 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Numbers 6:24-26


I will be making a photobook of this significant occasion and plan to give a copy to each of the seven families in the family. Hoping I can make the book as beautiful and meaningful as the occasion has been!

More Blessings of the Everyday

Daily life can be mundane or ordinary, but it is a glimpse of our lives at this point, and I love looking for the beauty and fun and funny and interesting, and recording them - I do love looking back, and maybe one day my children or grandchildren might too!

Project 365 for August
Daily life pictures include fresh fish at the market, solid colored T shirts that J insists on, household cleaning supplies (that iphone picture was for my shopping list), our new ikea battery-operated milk frother, visiting grandpa at the hospital, and more. I really liked the word art by Jen Wilson 'Open your arms and welcome the joy of today'!

A lot of days in the 2nd half of August was spent bringing home and sorting through boxes of stuff we had in storage, a lot of purging and reminiscing, I might blog about this some time. What does it mean for a hardcore memory keeper to purge, downsize and simplify? It was tough but necessary!

Project 365 for September
Are we in October already? Where has the time gone?
Well, it appears that in September we visited the Comic Convention, watched a movie, had friends over, visited grandma (my mom), caught some bollywood filming action near my office during lunch break, played games, enjoyed delicious mooncakes during the mid-autumn season, and played more games.
And won a recycling bin design contest, met friends to celebrate my belated birthday, enjoyed the Great outdoors, caught some of the Singapore F1 action (without tickets), spent time with grandpa at the hospital, chanced met Ryan at the bus stop on our way home, made a homemade Shogi chess board...So that's where our time went!

Project Life - September 
I selected the stories I wanted to tell, to amplify in Project Life for Sept - only 1 double page spread with an insert. First up, the Comic-Convention that the boys attended, that sparked off all things geeky at home, hehe

I spent a wonerful morning with R at his school boarding open house - he opened up and shared so much about school and friends with me, pure magic from mommy's point of view!

Just some random stories, a favorite photo taken on my morning commute, Our favourite coffee brews, and story of Ryan reading all the Harry Potter books in a week.(He never did want to read them in the past, and suddenly he starts and reads through in a week!)

More pictures of time spent with family and friends, all part of this months' many joys!
Linking up at The Mom Creative - head there for lots of inspiration!!

Beijing Pages
I continue to chug along on my Beijing album, it's now nearly two years from that trip  . The next few layouts were from days we spent in the vicinity of ancient PingYao, full of old city walls, buildings and estates, all grey and beige-y, so I used primarily black backgrounds. Very striking I must say!

We visited the House of Wang - a formidable homestead of a powerful and wealthy family, that started as a bean curd maker, and grew rich and eventually made it to become important officials in the Qing Court. The family lived here for like 14 generations, and built home after home as the family grew, all living together within this giant complex. The descendants lived here till the 90s when it was converted to heritage site. The homes were well preserved, most furniture and paintings were left as they were. We found out many stories, like the one where daughters when they turn 13 will be escorted to an upstairs bedroom, never to come out until they are married usually around 14 or 15!! We also saw the Royal Decree - a decree/instructions from the Emperor himself to the family, with his Emperor's Seal - in chinese tradition, the emperor's words are sacred law, it has been known that if the emperor asked you to kill yourself, you would. So to receive such a Decree was high honour, the family kept it for a couple centuries!
We also visited nearby Zhangbi village, a village with an underground fortress set up in the 14th century by invading Mongul armies, who later settled here with their families when the Yuan dynasty flourished. Our English speaking guide was a descendant from these Mongolian people and still lives in the village! They consider themselves chinese now and were very happy to see that we overseas chinese are still able to speak the language and are proud of our heritage. Incidentally I have been told that in my ancestry on my father's side, I had a Mongolian great, great, great grandmother! 
And finally a layout to remember almost totally authentically original guesthouse in the old city that we stayed in. Way cool!
This is now available as part of Template Pack 7 in the store. Thanks for your interest!


22 comments:

  1. What WONDERFUL news about your father-in-law! I'm so glad he's getting well, but it's a completely different special kind of wonderful when one late in life accepts our Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior! Absolutely overjoyed for all of you!!!! May God bless his journey as he gets to know our marvelous loving God and may his example encourage other family members to do the same.

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    1. Thank you Lynette! It's so nice to hear from you! Yes He watches over all of us and it is wonderful to Know you share our joy.

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  2. Congratulations to your father-in-law and welcome to the family. :)
    Thank you for the template!

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  3. Congratulations to your fil and welcome to the family!!!! So exciting!

    Thank you for the template!

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    1. Thanks Tammy, it's very exciting indeed!

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  4. I rejoice with you in the salvation of your father-in-law! I enjoyed the layout of his baptism. My 75-year old brother is terminally ill with cancer, and he has not yet reached that decision. We just returned from an 1100 mile round-trip visit with him, and I am sad to say that he is not experiencing that peace that passes all understanding and that is his for the asking. But prayers continue for him that he spend eternity with Jesus where he will receive the ultimate healing. Thank you, as always, for your generosity in sharing your wonderful templates so freely.

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    1. Thank you grannymike. We rejoice for the miracle of my father-in-law's faith & baptism that only God can bring about. Sending up prayers for your brother too.

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    2. Thank you, Yin. I appreciate your prayers.

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  5. Very cool! Thank you!

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  6. What a joy to read about your father-in-love! Praise God!

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  7. Wonderful news about your father-in-Love. Praise God for this blessing.

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  8. Wonderful news! Thank you for sharing that joyful bit of life, as well as the template!

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  9. Wonderful news about your father-in-law. Rejoicing.
    Thanks for the wonderful template.

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  10. You had me at "Faith in the Lord" and "baptism"! How awesomely wonderful!! Rejoicing over here in NC!!!

    Love your PL...as always, an inspiration to me!

    Your Beijing album is going to be such a family heirloom..very interesting about the 13 yo girls not being seen until marriage.

    Have a great week! Hugs!!

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    1. Hello Tracey, so wonderful that you share the joy of our faith and always blesses me with your words of encouragement! Keep well too!

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  11. Heather DreithOctober 25, 2013

    So glad to hear about your father-in-law coming to Christ. I am thankful to have come across your blog...and thank you for the lovely template.

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  12. Hope your father-in-law is still on the road to recovery. How special the picture are of his baptism. I don't believe there are any of mine. I'll have to ask the lady whose pool it was. Perhaps she does.

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  13. Yin, where did you get the letters on these layouts? I think they are quite awesome.

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    1. All the ones on the Beijing layouts are by Karrah Fredricks from The Lilypad store. I love them and use them all the time!

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  14. I accidentally purchased 326 and 327 and already have it. Would it be possible to download another set instead? Thanks, Annalese Thorpe

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    1. Hi Annalese, of course! I've sent you an email to your yahoo email address. If you don't receive it, please email me at yindgs @ yahoo dot com dot sg (remove spaces) thanks!

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