Road trip

Mommy's girl. Not sure why she made this face. :)
I bought some kid chopsticks online and Isaac loves them! He wants them at every meal.
Caleb eating cereal with his chopsticks.
Pretty ballerina!

Building with blocks at the museum
Supper at Chuck E. Cheese!
Isaac sitting with Nate's Grandma DeMaster (she's 98!)
Family picture with Grandma
Julia with Nate's Grandma VanStelle
On our way home!

This past weekend we took a road trip. We drove to my grandparent's house in Wheaton on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately they were out of town for the weekend, but they were kind enough to let us stay at their house. On Saturday we went to the children's museum in Naperville. We all had a great time. We took naps back at the house and went to Chuck E Cheese for supper. As always, that place was crazy, but we actually had fun. :) On Sunday morning we drove to Sheboygan, WI and had lunch at Nate's aunt and uncle's house with other relatives. They were kind enough to watch the kids so Nate and I could visit Grandma DeMaster. She lives in a retirement home and her room is small. It would have been very stressful to bring the kids with. :) We then went to my aunt and uncle's house for supper. After that we went to a birthday party for Nate's Great-Aunt who turned 100! Nate's Grandma and Great-Aunt really enjoyed watching our kids run around. They loved to look at Isaac and stroke his cheeks and hands. Amazingly Isaac just stood there and let them. Although he was kind of spacing out, like "I'm pretending this isn't happening. " :) The kids were quite tired by Sunday evening, so we didn't last long at the party. We then went back to my aunt and uncle's house to sleep. I think we crammed too much into Sunday. For some reason kids do not switch time zones easily! They went to bed late every night, but still woke up super early. But, that is my only complaint of the weekend. On Monday morning we had breakfast with Nate's Grandma VanStelle and Aunt Linda. We then drove home. Overall the weekend went so well! The kids were healthy and travelled well. We turned Julia's carseat around and she did great in the car. I think she just feels better when she can see us. Now we are back home and back into our routine!

I'm published (kind of!)

Check out this link to Bethany's South Korea blog where they shared my thoughts about our trip to Korea. The Korean program has had the option of having your child escorted to the states or the parents traveling to Korea. Bethany is changing the requirements this year and asking all families to travel, so they are sharing stories from families who have traveled recently.

http://www.bethany.org/blogs/koreablog.nsf

Julia update

I don't always do a great job of writing things down about the kids' growth and changes. When filling out babybooks, etc I often go back to the blog for information. :) So, sorry if you don't find this overly interesting!

Julia just keeps growing! I'm curious to see how much she has grown at her 1 year check-up. (Her birthday is March 9.) She stands alone for a couple seconds and walks pretty well when we walk with her. She seems to understand the words "no" and "come here." We love the faces she makes at us. I also love how she shakes her whole body in excitement when we come to pick her up. She still enjoys most food. She is my first child that loves to eat green beans! I also wonder if she is starting to wean herself from the bottle. She is less interested in drinking the bottle and we hate to waste formula- it's expensive! I gave her milk the other day in a sippy cup. She drank some sips and made funny faces. She didn't drink much of it, but she didn't seem to hate it. I'm so nervous she is going to have a food allergy. I pray about it alot and ask God that if she does have an allergy, can it be the same as Isaac's?? I bought a new (used) baby carrier for Julia and I don't use it as much as I thought I would- which is good. She's happy just crawling around. I usually use the carrier during the hour before supper. And all of the Moms reading this just smiled in understanding. :) I wish she would be done with this phase of cleaning my floors! If there is a speck, she will find it and eat it. Yuck. We don't hear her grieving much anymore. If she is feeling sick and really upset she will cry, "Umma." We love listening to her baby babbles and watching her grow everyday!

Isaac had some funny sayings the other day. I was driving in the car with Isaac and he was talking about the garbage truck. I thought I was making the appropriate sounds to show I was listening until Isaac yelled, "Talk! Mommy, talk to me!" Ok, I got the message. :) We then went to a friend's house. They have a dog that had spilled dog food over the floor. Isaac said, "Doggy made a mess. Doggy go in time-out." So cute.