Random January

January happened a long time ago, don't ya think?

Well here we are anyway.

Random stuff from January.

I couldn't get enough of these kids on bikes in the middle of January:

Haven has taken over every aspect of shopping that she can. She gets all our food out of our carts (yes carts because shopping carts here are miniature) and puts it up for scanning, signs my signature when she catches me in time, and then gets all our food out of the delivery box at home and lays it out for me to put away.

Haven is such a wonderful shopping companion. She's always so pleasant when we're shopping. She stays right with me and chats and makes people smile and helps me with Claire.

When Glenda was here we visited the park across the street from the Church (Lou Lim Ioc Garden) so she could check it out. It's a really neat place.

Magnolias blooming in January (though even here they got some frostbite - it's been actually a pretty cold winter here off and on).

There was a display in the park with stuff from Nepal. This clothing was made from bark:

We loved watching this woman weave:

Glenda and I saw "The House of Dancing Water" when she was here. It was an awesome water / acrobat / dance / motorcycle show. Loved it and loved our date.

 It's been fun to hang out with these littles during the day:

It's been awesome to watch Jozie learn to read things around her and to be able to communicate in writing. I found this request on my desk one night:

Please next time I want pink! paper. Answer here> example: ok (circled) no

...regarding this:

We've started a monthly babysitting swap with our neighbors and it's awesome. The kids LOVE having a "lateover" with their friends. Here we are at dinner one day:

We spend a lot of Sunday mornings on Facetime these days. Here we are spending time with Grandma B when she was in Utah:

You may not remember our roof saga, but our patio table and grill ended up down by an old folks' home behind our apartment building. We were so disappointed to not be able to use them here, but it warms my heart when I see the table in use. This group was having a birthday party for their elderly relative:

Haven and I are still loving "home school." We made these rainbows for Spanish School one day:

Jozie and Haven are into gang signs these days. Usually it's the "I love you" sign but Haven likes to throw in random stuff she comes up with to keep people guessing. And yeah that's eyeshadow on Haven. They have two friends with makeup who are always hooking them up.

I love this next pic. I love the wind blowing through Claire's hair as she tears down the track. :) She actually drove this on her own a bit. I was pretty proud. This is a public park, which is cool. It costs something like $.75 for 15 minutes.

I decided we could use some "good manners" help around here, so we have a list on the wall of good and bad manners and a digital marble jar to keep us in line. I love the help of games to help us do better.

One of the prizes

Ok there's January for you! The one thing these pictures don't represent well is that it has been dang cold here, a lot!! The lowest it's been has probably been mid-40's but when you live in a cement box surrounded by tile, in nearly 100% humidity, and your only hope of warmth is a space heater and a couple radiant heaters, it's co-o-o-o-old! And I left our best winter stuff in Utah dang it! Anyway, we're looking forward to some warmer temps now and have been thankful for the breaks when we had some warm weeks as well.