Chinese New Year with a Korean Addition

I thought it would be fun to celebrate Chinese New Year with an Oriental Dinner. I was just going to have Pot Stickers and a chicken stir fry. I mentioned this to Randy and he got very excited about the idea, and decided to do some additions of his own. He decided to stop by a Korean store and buy some of his favorite foods from his mission and chopsticks too.

Marianne became very good at eating with her chop sticks. No one wanted to try any of Randy's extra food. I've tried the kimchi (fermented cabbage) before, and didn't need to do it again. It smells so strong. Like something went bad in the fridge. Randy says the whole country smells that way.

He did want me to try the squid. I've had some sort of squid before and liked it. This one smelled and tasted too fishy. He said it wasn't exactly what he wanted, and that this was probably a garnish. He didn't make me try the Gochujang (Red pepper paste) again. It is just down right spicy. He also bought himself a separate curry meal to have tomorrow. He'll be having fun all week eating his leftovers. (Seeing this picture, I definitely need a haircut.)

Julene had the hardest time with her chopsticks but she could finally pick up a pot sticker. The children sure thought the chopsticks were a real treat and made the meal extra special. Sometimes it doesn't take much to make things special.

Randy also brought home a package to make Hoduk, a dessert he used to get from vendors on the streets in Pusan. They are like scones with cinnamon and brown sugar inside, but more flat. The directions were all in Korean, so Randy spent quite a while with his dictionary to decipher. Janae and Nathan thought he should be able to read Korean fluently. "Dad, didn't you live there for 2 years?" With only a few mistakes he was able to make them for us. These were the hit of the evening. They were delicious. The children will be requesting these again.

Randy then showed us pictures from his misssion. Janae and Nathan were very interested and asked lots of good questions. Marianne asked "Where's your mom, Daddy?" At her age she is a little worried about growing up and going places without her Mom and Dad. She says she is going to live with us forever. Lucky us.

Ice Skating

We went ice skating on Saturday. Janae had been requesting to go for a while. Nathan got to go last week with his cub scout den, but now it was time for the entire family.

Except Randy and Jared. Randy got his stitches out last week from his final elbow surgery where they removed all the hardware from his arm. Randy wanted to keep the hardware so he could see it. I was surprised how big and long some of the screws were that they put in. He is very pleased to be finally on the down hill side of his recovery. He still needs to be careful with his arm and needs to build up gradually to lifting heavier things (like Jared). So Randy got to spend the afternoon pushing Jared around in the stroller and watch us all try to ice skate.

Nathan does a little shuffling step on the ice. I bet his legs get tired. I don't know if I ever saw him actually glide, but he was all over the place. Janae was still cautious and kept looking at her feet. I think she was oblivious to everything going on around her. Close to the end of our session I had a chance to take her around the rink. she was afraid of the speed at first, but became comfortable and wanted to try going that fast on her own. Too bad I didn't get the opportunity to do that with her earlier. Julene was very excited and went on the ice even before I was ready to go with her. I held her hands as we went around. She has really good balance. She hardly ever wanted to take a break. Even though my ankles were tired from holding her up. They had some walker type devices for young skaters to use, but there wasn't enough for the demand that day. We were able to get to share one later on. (Thanks Rob and Kaitlyn) Marianne was only going to skate if she got a walker, plus her skates were too uncomfortable for her. I think she just had ankle socks. I should have thought about that before hand. So, she spent most of her time watching with Randy and Jared. She eventually got a turn with a walker and didn't want to leave either.

We had a great time and everyone is asking when we can go again. Maybe we should go when the weather warms up and everyone else wants to be outside. This outing was a lot better than last year's, when Julene fell on a bench and got a cut by her eye that required stitches. (She was most concerned about the blood that got all over her pink coat.) Needless to say everyone warned her not to run on the benches.

Piles

There is probably a pile in every room of my house that needs to be taken care of. All through December I kept telling my self, "I'll deal with it after the New Year." Well, the new year is hear. Now all those piles seem a little overwhelming. This is when my discouraged perfectionist side kicks in. I think that the job is too big, and I won't have enough time to complete. So, then I don't even do a little bit.

For my New Year's resolution, I'm going to Just Begin. Like they say, starting is the hardest part. Already I have gotten rid of some of the piles, and it didn't take as long as I thought it would. It is such a gratifying feeling to accomplish something that has been nagging me for a long time. But it seems each time that I look at the next pile, I have to fight the discouragement and Just Begin.

She's 6

Our Marianne turned 6 today! She has been so excited as you would expect. She knows that her birthday is after Christmas and has been looking forward since we saw the first Christmas decorations. She was excited about her friend party. I don't usually do two friend parties in a row, but she didn't want to do any of the other activities suggested. She is our true sociable middle child. We had 7 of her friends come. We just played party games, but at this age they just eat it up. We also decorated snowman cupcakes and had a little treasure hunt to find our party favors. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of energy (8 girls, a big brother, big sister, little sister, and a baby.) Too bad we couldn't go outside.

Marianne and Julene helped me put up decorations. Jared sure loved the balloons. He is doing so good at sitting up now, and can roll all over the place. It surprises me how far he moves from where I put him down. He will be ready for the gate sooner than I would like. I did my unofficial weighing of him, and he came out at 19 lbs for a 7 1/2 month old. I am still surprised at how big he is.

Sunbeam

Julene has been so excited to become a sunbeam. There was a primary activity on Saturday so the children could meet their new teachers. She kept asking me if she got to go too. There were a few times last year when she felt very left out, but now she is officially apart of Primary. She skipped around the Cultural Hall, there was happiness coming through every part of her body. She was ready last year because her birthday is in February, but she got to be Queen in Nursery just like Marianne whose birthday is in January.

It was hard waiting for our new 2:00 schedule. I've already started counting down the weeks until we're at 9:00. Randy and I were talking about how much we hated it, and he remembered a convert say she didn't care what time church was. She was just so happy to go and would go at anytime.

I've been busy shoveling as much as 3 times a day this past week, but I missed later today and now there is a hill where the snowplow pushed the snow from the street in front of the driveway. It's become too could now to move, so I will just have to keep on going when I back out. The children have made a fort but are trying for an igloo in the back yard. All the snow piled up next to the driveway is sure fun to climb, hide behind and jump from.