January! (and a backlog of photos for future posts)

Its been a good and beautiful busy time for us, and I'm excited that I have made a list and checked it twice... putting "write a blog post" this week. AND ITS HAPPENING!

We are deep into Winter here in Niagara, with the beginning of January leaving about 8 inches of snow. NO missed days of school. (SK was home for the holidays)... and we spent lots of time shovelling, building forts, and generally being a typical Canadian family.

Our tenant moved out after Christmas, leaving us with the two rooms downstairs again. After some calls, I managed to extend out home to 2 lovely Korean homestay boys for 7 weeks. We are one week into their visit, and we are all getting comfortable with one another. Still learning our home rules, and to speak English only while home, but... hey. These two boys are doing really really well, given that they are so far from home, in a new country, eating new food, time zones, culture, etc. I cannot complain at all.

SK lost his first tooth as well. Very exciting, as this little gem held on for a solid month before finally wiggling free.

We have been very mindful of his sensitivity, and have been working to be compassionate, mirroring parents. His ability to communicate with us, emotionally, is outstanding. I am very proud of him. He knows himself very well. Its actually pretty incredible.

Jennifer Kolari, who wrote "connected parenting" is heading up this change in our parenting skills. As everyone, we are life long learners, and I am thankful our son sees that we are imperfect, and always learning how to be better parents. He is incredible with his sister too. Their bond is so beautiful.

HK is budding her first teeth, and we are still wading into the waters of baby-led weaning and solids introductions. Lots of advice from lots of friends and professionals, so we are sifting. She is not able to sit-up unassisted quite yet (so almost there), but LOVES family dinner time, where she perches herself on her daddy's lap and is socially enjoying the table. We've got a VERY busy little lady. She wants to be involved in everything, and takes LOTS of opportunity to express her personality.

I am so thankful to our friends who have our best interests in mind, and I am SO thankful for God's grace in to many areas of our lives. More to come on the holidays, new traditions, some back-blogging from this last summer's harvest (incredible abundance in our garden this past summer.... must post!) and more international-student adventures.

I also did get around to putting those bottles to use (a blog from before) and I used them for this years canning exchange. Will blog about that too. :)