January in Review

Our January days mostly consisted of homeschooling, Girl Scouts, gymnastics, a homeschool P.E. class that started up in January, some video chatting with family in the States, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of our new pets, Snowflake, Squeaky, and Whiskers (the bunny we got for Christmas and the two guinea pigs we got shortly thereafter). On Christmas day we were happy to find out that we are going to have another baby at the end of the summer. We're all very happy about it, but it also means that I spent January feeling very tired and doing a lot of gagging. I'll be going in for the first ultrasound soon, and hopefully we'll come away with a good picture so the new little one can make his/her first appearance on the blog.

Here are some pictures of some of the things that happened in January.

I went to check on the kids before I went to bed one night, and I thought it was SO cute the way my boy was hugging his little doggy, which he has named Brown... very fitting.  The dog actually belonged to me or my brother when we were little... we had two... gifts from our Grandma. Anyway, I had to grab the camera and take a pic. My girl looked adorable too, snuggled up with her current favorite stuffed animal, a little unicorn.

Ahh... so peaceful. At times like this, it's hard to believe that they can drive me so bonkers during the day. :)

We went ice skating twice during January. It was so much fun! Last time we went was last winter in Korea, and before that I hadn't been ice skating in years. The kiddos loved it too. They got to use some big penguins for the first hour, and after that, they were on their own. Grammy is actually pretty good at ice skating and she taught the boy to do some spins. He loved practicing his spins after that. Baby boy got to wander around with Daddy and eat snacks while the rest of us skated. Poor Hub has some really flat feet and the skates really hurt, so he took over babysitting duty. Hence the lack of pictures of him.

1 The happy girl stopping for a picture.

2 Grammy teaching the boy to spin.

3 Me and my girl with Grammy and my boy in the background.

4 Grammy caught mid-almost fall.

5 Me and my boy.

6 Baby boy peeking through the wall.

7 The girl and Grammy.

Baby boy loves to help me vacuum. Hub snapped a picture of baby boy and I vacuuming one day last month.

We had some really great weather in January. There were several days when it felt like spring. It was a really nice break from winter after all the snow we had in December. The snow is fun and all, but I was really ready for some sunshine and to be able to go somewhere without having to spend fifteen minutes scraping the car first. One evening, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a walk through our village.

1 Setting out.

2 We made it to the edge of the village.

3 Checking out some German construction. Most homes here are built with cinderblocks with a wooden roof. I like how simple they are.

Somebody had drawn some fun pictures on the street.

(Guess I didn't really need to number those pics.)

View of sunset from the village.

All through January, baby boy could often be found wearing boots, carrying a blanket and a bowl. He loves to put on shoes... his and anyone else's. He also loves to eat and is constantly asking for "deeoh" (cereal), or some other snack. I often give him bowls of dry cereal to eat, and of course, he doesn't want to sit down to eat it... I feel like a spend a large portion of my time sweeping these days. He also loved to wear his sister's blue hat, and I think he was pretty proud when he learned to put it on all by himself.

And now that February is almost half over, I have completed my second blog post of 2011. I think I should probably try to not let entire months go by without any posts from now on. :) We'll see.