January 2025

The first month of the year has come to a close. This month started off quickly and seemed to pick-up right where things left off before the holiday break. We busied ourselves with a pantry remodel for the first two weeks. Cordelia participated in her first Synchronized skating competition. We celebrated Anthony’s birthday over a few weekends with a visit from Mimi and Papa first and then a friend playdate party.

Cordelia is excelling in lots of areas. She’s doing great at school, mastering almost all her works and really growing out of material to learn. Her skating is greatly improving. Her synchro team won 2^nd place out of 4 teams at their first competition. She also moved up in her piano books at the end of the month. She also has her first official job. At the beginning of the month she advertised her services as a mother’s helper. She’s been helping one family for three weeks and is starting with a second family. Cordelia is also starting some orthodontic work this month – which hasn’t been so pleasant for her.

Anthony is doing great in school too. He’s learning the value of being proactive with his work and homework. He started his Super League soccer team. He has a good group of teammates and this league seems like a really good match for his skill level. Anthony is now 9 years old. He had a fun visit with Mimi and Papa going to Boomers. He also had a fun playdate with Ellen the following weekend.

Lydia is progressing with her school. Sometimes diligence and focus are lacking but she’s very capable when she puts her mind to it. Lydia leveled up in swim class and is now learning butterfly stroke. She’s continuing to enjoy her tumbling class.

Natalie is doing well with learning some of the letter sounds and understanding what the numbers 1-9 mean. She’s having some trouble with waiting her turn and needs to practice patience and not interrupting. Natalie is doing great in swimming and leveled up to level 5 at the end of the month. She can now do a three-year-old version of the freestyle with frequent roll-overs for breathing. But she is swimming independently without her coach having to touch her for the roll over back floats.

Alicia remains busy at work. Seems like the issues and emergency pop-ups keep coming with no break this month. She’s trying to take some of the load from her coworker who is getting pulled to support a higher priority project. She’s also trying to keep all her current tasks and projects afloat without letting them slip. At home things have also been busy with the new year start. We got the pantry back in place just in time to start the first week of school. With adjustments to the kids’ activities and bonus events, it’s been a busy month. Awana has been rolling along. Overall things have been going ok there, but it has been taking time getting things re-set for the new year. Unfortunately, one of Alicia’s key helpers is taking an extended leave starting in Feb, so that’s likely to result in some more work on Alicia’s part as well as one of the other volunteers.

Tim’s back to work was full of “hurry up and wait” days. He’s waiting for hardware and then suddenly gets asked to help with things at an urgent level. Overall, it’s not been a very relaxing start to the year. At home Tim devoted almost all of his home-time to getting the pantry redone and put together. Fortunately, that was done at the mid-point of the month. Thanks to help from Mimi and Papa, we were able to clean up the front yard and make some nice updates to it. There’s still been lots of home projects to be done but it’s settling into a more balanced level. Tim has been able to watch Anthony’s soccer games on the weekend. Tim’s also continuing to take on the teaching role for the Awana lessons.

February is bound to still be busy and full of events. We’re also likely to start hearing back from some of the schools we applied to for next school year. We’re praying for clear direction and peace in the decision for our family’s transition.

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