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Another care package is put together and on its way to Korea! Peter should receive it at his February visit to Eastern. And even though they don't celebrate Valentine's Day and this will arrive at the end of February, we went with a red themed package.
I found these sweat pants and thought they were super cute......and the whole darn outfit looks so comfortable.
And who wouldn't love these pjs?
Plenty of cute Spiderman stuff....and a new pair of shades.
Had to send him some Mickey Mouse love.....the kids have no idea that the reason I sent this Mickey car is because we are taking Paul and Lillie to Disney in early May. They don't know yet but they will be over the moon when they find out. Seemed appropriate to send Peter a little Mickey something too. He can join us for our next Disney trip.....
And this was a fun idea that has been circulating within the waiting parents group. A fun puzzle with shapes.....
.....with our pictures secured inside. I used Mod Podge for the very first time to affix and seal the pictures in the puzzle. I am pleased with how it turned out. I hope Peter enjoys playing with the puzzle and seeing our faces every time he pulls up a puzzle piece.
And we got a bit of good news late this week. We found out the our file has been sent over to be translated and prepped for Emigration Permit submission. I would be over the moon to announce that we were actually submitted for EP but this is a great step. There was a lot of movement late in the week from the Ministry of Health and many other families were both EP approved and more families were EP submitted. Our time will come and I know it will be perfect....but I am ready for it.
Timeframes are still tough to predict but I am hopeful we will be submitted for EP by March/April. From there it is *possible* that we would travel to meet Peter and attend court about 5-6 months later. It is still possible to at least meet him before his third birthday. Getting him home before that time is feeling a bit more unlikely but we can continue to hope and pray that it will happen.
The first graders worked hard on their inquiry projects. They worked in pairs and chose their topics. The had to create a poster and include questions with answers and then present to their classmates. Paul worked with his friend Sawyer and they worked on an inquiry project about seahorses.
The day of their presentation.....
A few weeks later Paul got to bring his poster home so we could check it out in a bit more detail. He was so proud to show up all of it.
There were 5 inquiry questions written on slips of paper based on the various parts of the seahorse.
First up was the coronet.
Does the coronet move? Yes.
Next up - the tail.
Can it hang on things? Yes.
Then the ridge.
Does the ridge move? No.
And the pouch.
Does the pouch hold babies? Yes.
Of course the snout.
Does the snout suck food? Yes.
And the back of the poster with their names on it. He was SO proud to show us his inquiry poster and it shows on his face. I am pretty proud of them for doing all of that research and working together. The researched on the computer and in books. He is really learning so much this year and it is wonderful to watch.
Paul had the opportunity to participate in the Iowa Energy basketball clinic today. We were nervous he would have to miss it as he unfortunately had to skip his weekly basketball game yesterday due to an upset stomach. I thought he might have caught the stomach bug that is going around but it passed quickly which was a good sign. He was good to go for our outing today! The kids clinic lasted about an hour and then we got to stay to watch the game as well.
Here are all of the kids listening to the coach kick off the clinic - there were so many kids participating today from our town's parks and rec department. Several coaches and players from the Energy volunteered to work with the kids in 3 stations.
First station for Paul was ball handling. Here they are lining up for their dribbling drills. He looks so small compared to the regulation height hoop and the tall basketball player!
Clearly paying close attention to the coach's instructions!
Station 2 was passing the ball. They lined up and worked on chest passes and then bounce passes. It was controlled chaos.
All smiles the entire time.
Ending station 2 with a cheer for the Energy.....once again, check out how stinking small he looks compared to the basketball player!
Station 3 was to work on shooting. Tough for the littles to shoot to regulation height but they all tried hard. Check out his great looking form.....he has come a long way from last year!
Taking a little break.....still smiling.
Lillie hung out with daddy while Paul was enjoying his skill building. They snuck away to the snack bar and she was thrilled to show me her popcorn.
The clinic wrapped up and we headed to grab our free Iowa Energy winter hats. They both wore them most of the rest of the game - as did all of the other kids that were there. It was a sea of yellow pom poms!
Pretty decent seats, right Lillie?
Me and my goofballs.
Still working on that huge bag of popcorn.....first she helped Big Daddy.....
....and then he helped her out too. Where's the Purell?
Hoping to catch the free swag they were throwing out in the stands.
I am so hungry, I could eat daddy's finger! Seriously, she ate a ton of food at the game. An entire hotdog, a few bites of soft pretzel, probably half the bag of popcorn and then some cotton candy. Good grief!
If Paul is going to sit on Dad's lap then she was taking up two seats!
We splurged and let the kids have a bag of cotton candy. It was pretty much gone in no time at all. I am not a fan but sometimes you just have to let it happen and be that cool mom.
I love the look on her face. It just cracks me up. Oh, and that is Paul's basketball coach sitting right behind us. Nice guy and nice family.
It was a long afternoon and when we got home we were all pretty tired. Lille crashed in the car. Paul had a quick snack and then went to bed. Jason and I are yawing like crazy. We had so much fun today. We are lucky to have access to these kinds of events for the kids.
Paul decided he wanted to play basketball again this year through our parks and rec department. He landed on a team of 9 kids with a super nice coach. He is on the Trailblazers this year and they wear black shirts! He had his first practice and game last weekend. Jason took him while the girls stayed home and received texts throughout to keep us updated. He had lots of fun but clearly we need to practice during the week.
Jason decided he should tuck his shirt into his shorts....not a good look in my opinion but he clearly seemed excited about it.
Always so much enthusiasm!
I love the look on his face in this one - almost like "oh no, don't pass it to me!"
Taking a shot....he didn't make a basket this time around but he did shoot a few times.
We are glad he wants to continue to try different team sports and we have such a nice program through our town. This one only lasts 6 weeks and is just on Saturdays.
At Paul's last annual visit to see his pediatrician, the eye test portion of his visit didn't go so well. We weren't sure if he was just messing around or if there was really an issue so they recommended he visit an optometrist. We took him in the early summer and their testing equipment indicated he had an astigmatism. Which really means he sees fine near and far but everything is just a little fuzzy around the edges. This is the same optometrist that I see so I know her pretty well and we decided to wait 6 months to see if anything changed. That put us at another visit over winter break. Prior to our repeat visit, Paul had been having frequent headaches so we pretty much knew that it was time for glasses. Our visit confirmed that! We had to wait until after January 1st to actually purchase the glasses and you would have thought we were waiting for Santa to come - Paul was so excited it was sort of bizarre.
It is sort of tough to find glasses the both fit the size of his face and work with his lack of a nose bridge. Oh, and we didn't want to spend a fortune since it is likely they will get lost, scratched or broken. We are hopeful that they will last a while since we have gone through the rules over and over about these glasses. We found a set of frames that seemed to work well on his face and ordered one set that was navy and the other brown tortoise shell. He LOVES these glasses. The woman struggled to get them fitted correctly when we stopped in to pick them up so we are hopeful these will work. We can always have them adjusted again if needed.
The nice part is that he doesn't have to wear them all the time to be able to see. Which means we don't have to worry about them when he is outside playing or participating in gym or sport activity. That should help with their longevity.
While I would prefer he didn't have to wear glasses at all, if he has to then I am pretty glad that he looks so cute. I think he looks a bit like Clark Kent which he thinks is cool since he is a big superhero fan. Speaking of....I found some cool superhero hard glasses cases for him to help him want to keep them in the case when they aren't on his face!
We spent New Year's Eve with our good friends the Lenhardt Family again this year. Last year we hosted at our house and made homemade pizza. This year we spent our evening at their place and ate way too much yummy smoked meat and accompanying side dishes. It was a low key night which is just as we like it.
The kids were excited when we told them they could stay up past their normal bedtime. We are pretty rigid about bedtimes around here so this is big stuff. They knew going in that if they had good behavior then we would stay as late as 9pm! And that was just what we did.....both slept a bit later this morning and had quiet time after lunch but so far we aren't seeing horrible aftermath of the lesser amount of sleep. I suppose since we have spent much of the day watching the Rose Parade and Pokemon and Scooby Doo, maybe that explains the good behavior. Sometimes holidays mean that normal rules have to go out the window.
The kids had plenty of fun racing between the downstairs play room and Kingston's bedroom upstairs. Lillie was putting her basketball skills to good use and learned to slam dunk the ball!
Paul played ping pong with Amber.....
And then there were hats....you MUST have party hats on New Year's Eve!
Lillie preferred her party crown. Such a funny change from the year before when she refused to put it on.
We bought sparkling apple juice for the kids - this has NOT been a hit in the past but we thought we would try again. Paul and Kingston loved it and Lillie was not a fan of the bubbles.....hence her pouty face.
Much happier when we replaced her sparkling apple juice with milk.
At some point a sombrero came out.
And then we headed home....everyone had a great time and we are so glad to have such great friends that live so close to us. We slept in a little this morning and then I made homemade blueberry and banana pancakes this morning (repeat recipe from Christmas Day). Lillie had to get her party crown back on and added some New Year's beads along with it! Evidently a good party continues right through breakfast.
The Marchik Family had a pretty great 2014 filled with some life changing decisions. We look forward to 2015 for continued blessings to our family as we hope that the life changing decisions we made come to fruition.....and Peter JeeHoon comes home.
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