Home and Away

January has been somewhat of a busy month for us this year.  With Girlchoir, ice skating, and ballet as after preschool activities, the kids have been busy.  Then Alex and I lead an Engaged Encounter retreat the first weekend, and went on the Marriage Renewal (retreat for the EE leaders!) this past weekend at Lincoln City.  The weekend between I drove the kids to and from Eugene for the day when Alex had class on Saturday.  Next weekend we're busy too (though it will be fun!), so I'm kind of looking forward to some downtime hopefully in February.

In the meantime, here are some recent photos of us all.

Alex and I in Lincoln City - had to add light to the pic, so sorry it's kind of grainy

JP sitting in a frying pan... what's for lunch, bud? ;-)

Lucia loves to bring John Paul his favorite blankie and the Thomas the Train pillow pet that was supposed to be for Magdalena on her birthday (but JP has now adopted it).  Here he is "napping" in the kitchen.  Oh, and note Lucia's ballet slippers that she wears almost daily in the house since Christmas - so excited for that ballet class!

Magdalena enjoying her Strawberry Shortcake toys - she still will take them all out and play for hours at the kitchen table.  The worst time is right before school as it is very challenging to remove her from the table to leave the house!

This is what happens when we fail to buckle the straps in JP's high chair.  We have caught him sitting on the table a few times (yikes!!)

John Paul really loves the vacuum cleaner (on or off) - such a good helper!  Oh, and never you mind that "toy" in the corner - nothing's as good as the real thing!!

Not only does he insist upon sitting in a frying pan, but John Paul threw a mini fuss-fit the other day trying to get into this doll high chair of Lucia's until we could figure out what he wanted and help him a bit... so CUTE!!