And the Best Part is... Cleaning Up?!

Living in a farming community on the outskirts of Beijing means that we get to enjoy the harvests of some of the food items that Beijing is famous for! Watermelon and peach season are about over, which means that it's time for peanuts and soybeans! Amy, our foster home manager, gathered up some plants for the children to pick from on her way to work the other day. 

Gloria is our preschool teacher. Learning outside is so much fun!

The kids really enjoyed getting a close-up look at all of the plants. Lucy is a curious little girl who can't wait to get her hands on any new thing...

Wendy gets the hang of new things pretty quick. It's amazing how far she's come since she came... now she runs around and does just about everything!

Lena's condition is quite dangerous and her heart defect complex and at this point inoperable. However, she wanted to learn how to pop the seed pods just like the big kids!

Jonathan loves to run around the backyard and be busy. He's not always the most talkative little guy but he's always got something going on!

Colton and Wendy were efficient peanut-crackers. They are both in the same class during the day and you should hear them speak English! 

After the bean and peanut cracking, the littler kids had to go back inside to have their bottles and the older kids returned to preschool. Rebecca noticed our gardener starting to clean up and she joined right in!

Brendan, one of our new arrivals, happily joined her and she showed him how to put the leaves into the dust-pan like the good big sister she is.

Eventually, Adam, our gardener (and Isaac) came to inspect their work and get the leaves put away. Rebecca thought that jumping on them would help the clean-up go faster.

Sometimes, the best part of an activity is cleaning up. What about your kids?