Irresistable

Playing in the Park with Daniel, Age 2

Playing in the Park with Margaret, Age 4

James Turns Seven

James turned seven on April 1st. My April Fool's joke was saran wrapping his closet shut. He wanted strawberry pie for his birthday "cake". He also wanted to have relay races on the tennis court near our home. His favorite gift was either the "Game of Life" from Nana or the Nerf machine gun from Daddy.
Here are wonderful things about James:

1. James loves games. His new found love this year is the computer game, "Age of Mythology". He also loves the game of "Risk" and "Life" and "Monopoly". This year he has learned how to play "Great Scott" with the Rook cards. He also loves the Wii.

2. He loves TaeKwonDo and is currently a red belt working hard to earn his black belt.

3. He is learning how to read in Korean.

4. His kitchen job is sweeping and loading the dishwasher.

5. He loves wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

6. He loves to earn money. He often asks me what he can do to earn money and when I put him off, he finds something he can sell and before I know it he's down on the street "earning" money.

7. He loves to shoot guns and to kick balls.

8. He loves to put Daniel to bed by reading him stories. Daniel loves this, too.

9. He is reading The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien with Daddy.

10. He loves numbers. If the clock has a number pattern (like 1234 or 444) he gets very excited.

11. He is good at math (I think this is related to his love of numbers).

12. He is good at the Piano, right now he is working on the piece, Fir Elise.

13. He is a very consciencious student, he does his homework independently and scores high on his tests.

14. He is always on time (make that early).

15. He is fast. Very fast.

16. He loves a challenge. Every once in a while, I will challenge James to read a book. Before I know it, he has finished the book. He is determined. He loves a goal and like I said earlier, he is fast. His favorite books right now are "The ABC Mysteries".

17. He believes in prayer. One day we came home from church and he started to break out into these huge hives all over his body. The hives were huge. Bigger than a fifty cent piece. I couldn't help but act a bit alarmed as I looked at his body. He could see that I was worried and he began to worry too. He looked at me with wide eyes and said, "please pray for me". Another time, Margaret started to choke at the table. There was a hustle and bustle to help her and I caught out of the corner of my eye, James' eyes closed, his head bowed, and his lips moving reverently. He was praying.

Margaret Goes to School

Margaret started school in March. She goes to Bethel Preschool (the same Korean preschool that James attended two years ago.) She loved it at first, but her enthusiasm for it has waned with time. After going happily the first two weeks of school, she suddenly refused to get on the bus. She complained that it was "boring". What a dilemma. We thought about it and changed her schedule from going everyday to three times a week. This has worked well and she goes without complaining now and even has a smile most days.

When September comes, my hope is that she will go everyday. I hope by then she has picked up a little bit of the language and made some friends.

First Day of School 2011

In Korea, school starts the first week of March, after a long winter break that goes through January and February. "Plan A" was to have the children go to one year of Korean school. After spending last summer in Utah, the children missed two months of school, so we all agreed that they should go for two more months and complete a full "year"of school. They still struggle with the language and we are hoping that a few more months will make a difference. Well, "Plan B" got complicated, because Gracie went to Middle School. That meant she had to buy uniforms, cut her hair a certain length, and take school very seriously. We were up for the challenge and we bought her two uniforms. (When we bought her the uniforms the sales clerk looked at us in disbelief, like she'd never sold to a Caucasian student before. I don't think she ever has). After two months of middle school life, which included Gracie getting home from school at 5 p.m. everyday and spending at least two days in detention per week, I decided to talk to her homeroom teacher. During this conference I asked, "Does, Gracie understand 10% of what is being taught?" (I chose 10% because I thought it was conservative and I hoped that she would assure me that she understood more than that). She looked thoughtful for a moment and then answered, "I don't think she understands that much." I think my jaw dropped. We withdrew Gracie the next day. She is now working with BYU online middle school courses and has a personal math teacher/tutor. It has been nice to be with her during the day. She is learning how to make bread. She loves to cook, so we do some "cooking classes". She also is training her puppy as part of her English writing project.
The other children have done a little better with "Plan B". James has a teacher that has been very open-minded and allowed him to have a personal tutor come into class during the Korean hour. This has helped and he is learning how to read Korean. Because James teacher allowed a tutor, Miriam's and Anna's teachers have also allowed tutor sessions during the school day. We are making progress, although it is slow.

Jim took the children over to school on their first day. He came back with tears in his eyes. I said, "It's tough isn't it?" I don't think he understood it until then. It is tough. It's just so different. And they seem so alone, and so brave, and so different.

A Tale of Two Dogs

In February I found myself dog sitting a spoiled housedog for two months. We thought it might help Kipboom overcome his dog aggression, and two dogs cannot possibly be that much more work than one, right? Wrong. The dogs hated each other. I counted the days until we had only one dog again.
One day, while the girls were on the roof cleaning, they started playing with a ball with Kipboom. Something triggered the dogs to start fighting (I think it was the ball--they both wanted it). Miriam, acting heorically tried to break the dogs up. She ended up getting a nasty bite right above the knee. The bite was very deep, but could not be stitched because of the risk of infection. She now has two ugly scars on her left leg. We don't know which dog bit her. It all happened so fast. I like to think it wasn't our dog, but we'll never know.
Rule #1: Don't ever get a dog.
Rule #2: If you break rule #1, don't ever think that dogsitting is the same thing as a playdate for your dog.