February

When it's winter we visit the indoor playground

100 crayons for 100th day. Pin that

She walks in heels better than me

I clean one room, they empty bins in another room.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Child labor

Pedicures with Grandma

65th Anniversary

Snow fort with the neighbors

Fun with Grandpa

No snow on the ground, Nate set his new hammock up. And then it snowed again

Waiting for summer

Lexi spied this toy of hers from China and was very excited to play with it 

In early February, Julia and Isaac had their 100th day of school.  Julia was supposed to attach 100 items to a shirt.  What? Teachers should not be allowed on pinterest. So she decided on 100 crayons.  We taped them on and she left a trail of crayons behind her at school.  And some ended up in her coat pocket, which I did not know, and the coat was put in the dryer. Which left red crayon on everything.  Grr- all because of the 100th day of school.

Rebecca and I attended a local IF:Gathering.  The IF conference is held in Texas, but is simulcasted around the world.  The conference has biblical teaching and encouragement for women.  It was good.

On the 6th we attended the local Korean Lunar New Year party.  Julia wore her hanbok and Lexi wore her Chinese qipao (key-peh.) We also brought along some Asian students from Hope College.  One of the students is Julia's Korean tutor.  Her name is Hyeji and she is a freshman at Hope.  She grew up around Detroit and taught at a Korean language school while in high school.  Hyeji comes twice a week.  Julia's feelings about learning Korean vacillate between enjoying it and thinking we are torturing her.  Typical response for her age. The actual Lunar New Year was on February 8.  We invited Jim and Sue Shoemaker over for dinner.  I cooked bibimbop and mandu, Korean dishes.  We had the Shoemakers participate in a Chinese new year tradition. The elders of a family give each child a red envelope with money in it.  Each child comes forward and bows to the elder before receiving the envelope.  Our kids really got into it and the Shoemakers had fun too.

We have had some snow days scattered throughout this month along with weeks of sickness.  The stomach flu and colds have made their rounds.  I won the Mom of the Year award.  Lexi had a cold and then was kind of ornery and not sleeping well for a couple weeks.  I finally took her in, convinced the Dr would say nothing was wrong.  Turns out she had a raging ear infection and couldn't hear in that ear!  Our other kids scream at night, pull their ears, etc when they have an ear infection. I wonder if living in the orphanage taught her to be stoic- crying at night doesn't really get your needs met.  Anyway, it made me sad that she had been in pain for a couple weeks, but I think I know her "sick signs" better.  Lexi has become my shadow in the past months.  She plays with Stephen, but prefers to be under my feet.  I am glad she is attaching to me, but there are struggles.  When she wakes up too early from naps or bedtime she will go back to sleep for anyone but me.  As soon as she sees me she wails because she associates me with comfort.  Which is good- most of the time.

The highlight of the month was having Grandpa DeMaster visit us for a week.  We were all happy to have him around.  He spent one on one time with each of the kids and helped Nate with projects around the house.  We did fondue while he was here which our family hasn't done in a long time!

At the end of the month, Nate and I went to Pete's wedding.  I'll write about that in my next post.