Joy from January

I know, I'm working my way backward! Making up for missing months!

Cora turned 6...whoa! She is a super girl. She's definitely getting into the goofiness of this age, but is as delightful as ever. She still loves books and is learning to read in Spanish. She is a great big sister - very attentive to her baby sister and often comments at how fun it is having a baby sister and how cute she is!

Cora requested a giant chocolate chip cookie cake for one party...

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and a repeat of last year's rainbow cake for another. (The cake itself was actually rainbow layers.)

We made Cora find her birthday present by doing a hunt following clues planted around the house and apartment building. "Go to the place where dirty clothes get clean..."

A big new bike was her surprise! She learned to ride it quickly, but the small space in the basement makes her a little uneasy - too many things to run into. It will be good to have warmer weather to practice outside.

This is from about the middle of January, when Addie turned 7 months old, thus the "7" on her shirt. 

We celebrated Cora and Brad's birthdays with our seminary friends with a pinata party in our basement. Cora's choice on the pinata!

January started a streak of multiple heavy snow storms and ended with 5 snow days through March. This snow day we pulled out an old bed sheet that had worn so thin there were holes in it and the kids went to town painting and decorating it to be used for making forts.

Two significant memories from January: I taught an interim class at Calvin College, Spanish 121. It was insanely busy and a good, stretching experience for me, but I'm glad it was only for 3 weeks! Brad was home with the kids for 2 of the 3 weeks, so we had a complete role reversal during that time. Brad's interim class was a trip to Angola - the state penitentiary prison in Louisiana for one week. He interacted with felons-turned-pastors in the prison and came back with many stories of the power of the Gospel of Christ to change people's hearts and lives, and even the entire climate of a state prison. They'll probably be used as illustrations in some of his sermons!