January Things

 January started with a birthday celebration for Moriah. Moriah has been a part of our life for a year now. Her smile, sparkly eyes and overall health is a testament to the work our Lord has been doing in her life. I'm excited to see what this year holds for her! Moriah chose lemon for her dessert. I had never had a lemon Smith Island Cake, but let me tell you, it was delicious!

Back to school with some new screen time limits. I went into this change with the expectation of some pretty big meltdowns, but instead these three have been cooperative and happy. I was telling someone yesterday how thankful I am for Josiah's cooperative spirit. He is just about 18 and could have really pushed back against having the same screen limits that his 11 year old brother has. Not for even a second did he push back. 

Josiah and friends have been able to play disc golf just about every week. Some weeks it's the coldest day that works for everyone, but that doesn't stop them!

This month we have added Audrey and Henry to our Thursday afternoons. They go to Homeschool Gym with Isaiah while Josiah and Anna finish up school. When we get home Henry is glued to Josiah!

Aliza started the year off by going to Cross Con in Louisville, KY with a group of young adults from church. They took four cars and drove themselves. She was in a car with a driver I trusted and I knew she would keep the energy level high for the (11 hour) trip. I'll admit that I did check her location on the travel days. Cross Con had a live stream and I enjoyed listening to the sermons and main breakout sessions. I watched them delayed so that I could speed up the speaking!

We had a good evening celebrating my Dad's birthday. It must have been an extra dark night. There were multiple mishaps among the cousins during Manhunt. 

As soon as she got home, Aliza had her first of 3 weekends at camp during the month of January. She is working for the winter youth retreats. Since she had just gotten home and was very tired, we dropped her off on our way to West Virginia. The timing worked out well so that we got to be with Karen for her birthday.  

Karen had some bananas that needed to be used and asked if I had a banana bread recipe I used. I do and she had the Joanna Gaines cookbook that it is in, so I made it. There is nothing healthy about this banana bread and not what Karen was expecting. However, it was yummy and turned out perfectly!

And then we picked Aliza up again. It actually worked out really well. I'm glad we could do that for her this time. 

A priority this month has been figuring out how to best help Anna with math. We've had some good days and some not-so-good days. I'm hopeful that we are finding a new rhythm. 

Jeremy gave me encouragement cards for Christmas and so far they have been quite timely. After a few days with high emotion and hard conversations, this one was just what I needed. 

It's been a while since I've read a Charles Martin book. Last weekend was pretty quiet and was just the right time for one of his books. 

 Josiah has high school transcripts requested to continue his college application process. I'll be preparing myself emotionally for the next few months for his graduation.