January 2015

Winnie the Pooh slippers!

Making ninja stress balls for Caleb's school project

The final product and the final mess

Snowy night

Isaac learned this in school. 

We were in MI while...

they were in FL

Birthday cards

Birthday breakfast in bed

Celebrating Rebecca's 40th birthday

Hibachi restaurant for my birthday dinner- the Packers lost. Can you tell from Caleb's expression?

Reading together or arguing, hard to tell

Eating cereal and milk for the first time, I'm so proud

Selling his product at Market Day

In January, we had more snow days.  Ugh.  Caleb made good use of Christmas break and made his product for market day.  I was impressed with what his class learned about economics, how much it costs to make a product and how much to charge so you have a profit.  He happily sold out of his ninja stress balls and made a nice profit.  Julia took Saturday gymnastic classes during January and the older boys played basketball.

Julia and I started Korean language classes.  She mentioned wanting to learn Korean, so I looked into it.  We found a Korean church in Grand Rapids that has a Korean language school.  The school meets every Sunday from 1-3 pm.  The first time we went, they had us try the preschool class.  It was okay, but Julia wouldn't really learn the language.  We tried the 1st grade class, which was taught in English, but the other kids were beyond Julia's level.  The school worked to help us out and got a teacher for just Julia and I.  Julia likes and dislikes Korean language school.  She has an ear for language, so in the long run I think she will appreciate this.  But, it is challenging to sit for 2 hours and practice reading/writing Korean.  It has been hard to give up Sunday afternoons, but it is worth it.
Nate had a conference in Florida, so he flew down with Julia and dropped her off with the grandparents for a couple days.  Julia enjoyed her one on one time with Grandma.  She swam in the pool, helped Grandma babysit and delivered Meals on Wheels. Julia loves spending time with her grandparents!

I turned 36 this month.  We had a busy day on my birthday, so we celebrated the day after.  The kids had sports in the morning and I taught the foster parent class in the afternoon.  That evening we celebrated Rebecca Peterson's 40th Birthday.  It's kind of fun that my good friend and I have birthdays a day apart.  The next day, Nate helped the kids make me breakfast in bed before church.  They woke me out of a dead sleep and I had to rally quickly to look surprised and happy that they made me breakfast. Ha ha.  That night we had plans to leave Stephen with Tim/Jenny and we would go to a hibachi restaurant with the older kids.  Well, the Packers were playing so we kept delaying our departure.  We finally just had to leave for the restaurant, only to discover the restaurant had the game playing.  Unfortunately, the Packers lost their play off game.  It was hard for Caleb to recover during dinner.  But, we all enjoyed the hibachi experience and I'm thankful for another year!