Jan/Feb Misc

 I'm finally into my photos from 2021. Hooray! Here are a few of our family happenings from January and February.

Living Room Makeover

After getting new living room furniture in the fall, we installed some curtains early in the new year. We were so pleased with how the room turned out!

Drive-In Movie

We gave our kids a new experience one weekend in January since the weather was decent--we visited a drive-in movie theater. A few days prior, I let the kids pick out some movie snacks at the grocery store. I think they were just as thrilled about the candy as they were the movie! We enjoyed watching Croods 2 from the back of the van and (for Jason and me) in nearby camp chairs. What a fun memory!

Fun with Christmas gifts

Post-Christmas playtime is always more exciting with new gifts. Cody and Jaden assembled this challenging puzzle from Uncle Andy with just a little help from Mommy.

Aldey received this scissors activity book from Uncle Matt and Aunt Kim and went to town on it! She had never before used scissors except in a line, but by the end of this book she had learned how to cut around a full octopus. She absolutely loved this book and completed the whole thing in just a few days.

Sigh. Unfortunately, this is what one of our upstairs rooms looks like nearly all the time these days. Fortunately, the terrible mess means that Jaden and Cody are up to some creative fun. Even though I purchased the striped bags for them as a way to organize their stuffed animals, Jaden and Cody are always up to something new that involves their animals, which means the bags rarely get used. Typically their games/competitions/events involve some type of scorekeeping, so the new scorekeeper we got them for Christmas has been a big hit. At least we are one for two!

Adley loves her new princess tent from Uncle Jon and Aunt Chelsea! It has become a permanent fixture in our upstairs family room.

Hanging out with Friends

One day in January, our new friends needed help watching two of their kids for a day, so Adley and I got to play with Selah and her little sister. Adley sure enjoys Selah's friendship and looks forward to being in preK with her next year too!

After Christmas break, our school decided to start back up with 3 days of at-home "flex learning," instead of on-campus learning, as a way to decrease germ-spreading back at school. On one of these flex days, the kids had some playmates over whose parents work full time. After completing their school work for the day, the kids enjoyed some playtime outside. The girls made "blueberry stew" while the boys played some competitive sports.

Zoo Visit

Our family's zoo membership pass expired at the end of January, so we decided to squeeze in one more family Saturday trip to the zoo on our current membership. Jason and the boys hadn't seen the new South American Pantanal exhibit, so we especially enjoyed exploring this area.

Adley's Shenanigans

Cooking in the kitchen with Adley always involves some messy taste-testing at the end. I love her little scrunch-nose smile!

Some Sundays, Adley looks so cute in her hand-me-down dresses from friends, that I can't help snapping a few photos of her! This was one of our favorite winter outfits. :)

One day, Adley told me she wanted to create a little library in her room for me to visit. She absolutely shocked me with this Open/Closed sign she sounded out and wrote all on her own. Pretty impressive for a 3.5 year old!

Our February days in Texas often feel more like fall-- and the trees frequently lose many of their leaves then too. So crazy! So, yes, these leaf-jumping pics took place in early February. Regardless of when it happens, though, leaf jumping sure is a hit with this girl. 

Adley re-discovered this fun piano toy one day and became quite adept at following the colored dot "music" to play a variety of songs. Here are some videos of her playing Old MacDonald and London Bridge.

Letter Learning

 Even though Adley can now recognize and write each letter of the alphabet, we have continued to focus on a "letter of the week" together. We still want to complete Adley's expanding tactile letter book. Plus, we love the variety of activities that we can dive into when learning about a new letter. Here are some of the fun activities we've done recently.

Letter A

First, Adley used her Melissa and Doug animal stamps to decorate her letter A page.

Then, Adley praticed drawing arrows on small pieces of paper.

We took turns creating pathways for one another around the house with these arrows.

Adley's pathways for me were quite a bit shorter!

Another day, I taught Adley how to fold a paper airplane, and we practiced flying these around the house.

We headed to Grandpa and Grandma's house later that morning, so Adley could hang with them while Mommy got a haircut. We had Grandpa and Grandma join in on the airplane fun too!

LETTER S

Letter S was a fun one with lots of great activities. We started out with the letter sound cover page. Adley decided that she wanted to use a green dot painter for all the correct sounds and a red dot painter for all the incorrect sounds.

Then, she used star stickers to decorate her tactile letter book page.

Drawing the letter S is tricky, so we used this great worksheet for letter-writing practice.

Another day, we brought out the paint for a couple letter S activities. First, Adley made a snake by alternating colors on two different fingers.

Then, she made a book about spiders by stamping her fingerprint multiple times on each page.

After her fingerprints had dried, Adley drew 8 legs on each one to create spiders.

Her final task was counting how many spiders she had created on each page and writing in that number at the bottom. When her book was finished, Adley was so proud to "read" this book all by herself!

 Later in the week, we tried splat painting. This was so fun! We put rice into a leg of old pantyhose, dipped it into paint, and then bounced the rice ball onto paper.

One of Adley's favorite S activities was doing scavenger hunts. We started with a "shape" scavenger hunt and then, because she liked it so well, we did another one for "around the house" items.

We love our letter learning days!

Jason's Celebration

 After 4 long years of classes, Jason completed his last requirements for his SMP program in January. What a glorious occasion! Even though Jason was officially ordained as a pastor two years ago, his coursework extended another two years. He has been a VERY busy man over these four years-- writing multiple papers, reading lots of books and articles, and attending weekly online classes. He was so relieved and thrilled to finally be done!

To help Jason celebrate, one of Jason's co-workers and I coordinated a small reception for him at church. His spiritual formation team provided snacks and decorations. Everything looked so festive!

I made Chex Mix and a few of Jason's favorite desserts. I also ordered a frosted big cookie.

Jason's team organized these cute centerpieces that displayed some of his favorite Bible passages.

When people walked into the fellowship hall, this table contained notecards for people to use to write an encouraging message to Jason.

I sent out an email to the school and church staff, inviting them to come celebrate with us. We asked people not to bring gifts but instead, if they so desired, to write a poem or song to share that day. Since Jason has always loved creating random raps, songs, and poems, we figured this would be right up his alley! There wasn't a large group of people who shared, but the ones who did were quite entertaining! There was a perfect mixture of written poems, a song with a guitar, and even a creative rap by our main worship leader.

Even the kids and I sang an encouraging song called "Daddy We Are Proud of You" that I had written to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me." I was proud of how well the kids sang with me, even in front of the crowd! At the end of the program, Jason spoke a few words of thanks.  

We were honored by the presence and care of all the people who came out to support Jason. It was a fun gathering! That weekend, we hosted our family for a dinner to celebrate Jason even more. Each family group had also composed a song or poem to perform for Jason. These songs were a little longer, so the videos are too large to share, and unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the family. But, it was a wonderful evening with more creative musical messages for Jason.

We feel blessed by this wonderful group of family and friends to share in our joy!