Booked!

It's official (as far as I am concerned): we will leave this place! We booked our airline tickets home, WOO HOO!!!!!! We leave July 6, 2008, exactly one year to the day of our arrival. Weeping tears of inexplicable joy....

100th Day of Kindergarten

Today was Andrew's 100th day of Kindergarten. The students had to bring in a bag of 100 things (Andrew brought 100 marshmallows), then they had a special snack and later did all sorts of fun counting games and activities. This is a picture of Andrew at snack time with his "girlfriend" Alexandra on the right. I love his teacher, she always takes pictures of the kids and emails them to the parents. It's so nice because on a day like today when the other two are sick, I can still see all the special activities they do throughout the day.

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day didn't exactly go as planned this year. Andrew made his sweetheart a special homemade card which he lost somewhere at school. He was totally crying when he told me about it, it was so sad! So, we made her another one and all was well.

Ainsley came home at lunch time with 2 dozen irises for me and then crawled right into bed with the flu. He wasn't seen again until Friday morning.

Friday night, Josh comes down with the same thing and has been sick ever since.

So, I am slowly going stircrazy from being trapped in the house and my hands are so cracked and dry from washing them CONSTANTLY. But, as long as Madeline doesn't get sick, it's worth it.

Madeline - 11 months old

Peek-a-boo!

Too fast, too fast, it's going by too fast! Tomorrow our darling girl is 11 months old! She has been a bundle of fun this month, getting into all sorts of things.

Here is her infamous fish face. She loves the kissing noise it makes. Last week she was showing it off to the poor ladies behind us in church.

Here she is crawling through the tunnel that attaches to the boys' tent:

Yesterday, her first top tooth cut through. I so love the can opener look! And, earlier this week, she stood up on her own in the middle of the room, not holding on to anything. Madeline has also started "dancing" this month, which involves her bouncing to the music. It's very sweet.

I got this super cute pink outfit for Madeline at my baby shower and have been waiting, waiting, waiting for it to fit. I love it! And, here she is with Big Brother Joshie and the musical table from Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Dudek. It was supposed to have been a Christmas present, but long story short, Grandma has finally learned don't buy from Sears!

Shopping in Seoul . . .

was a bust :( A group of us girls went to a huge market called Dongdaemun. It is normally open 24 hours but it was closed! Such a tragedy! I was kidless and prepared to buy. Oh well, guess I'll just have to make another trip up there! Most stores were closed the week previous to Lunar New Year and we figured the festivities would be over by Saturday, but we were wrong.

We did walk around yet another Korean mall. It is a high rise building but the inside is just like an open warehouse and all the stores are just stalls all crammed next to each other. Just like everything else in Seoul it was PACKED. Seoul is just wall to wall people, it's insane.

Book meme

My friend, Lynn, tagged me for this book meme.



The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages.)

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people.



This excerpt is from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:



"And Rebeca did take a casual look toward the wall and was paralyzed with stupor, barely able to react and wave good-bye to Arcadio. Arcadio answered her the same way. At that instant the smoking mouths of the rifles were aimed at him and letter by letter he heard they encyclicals that Melquiades had chanted and he heard the lost steps of Santa Sofia de la Piedad, a virgin, in the classroom, and in his nose he felt the same icy hardness that had drawn his attention in the nostrils of the corpse of Remedios."



Basically, Rebeca is watching this man Arcadio being executed by a firing squad for his participation in the Liberal party. The last run on sentence is typical of much of the book. The sentences get so long, you start to forget what you were reading about in the first place. It just makes it hard to read. I am TRYING to finish this book although I really just want to quit.



So, now I get to tag my friend, Kristine, a fellow Shelfari junkie and blogger :)

Order up!

One Joshie and Andrew sandwich with a Maddie on top:

Superbowl Monday

No, you read that right, it's Superbowl Monday here. And, it's in the morning. So, for the Superbowl party we went to (thanks to the Bliss family for hosting), it was breakfast: pancakes, potato casserole, OJ, all your breakfast favorites. A wee bit different. (I still think the West Coast has the best time zone since the parties are during the day. In England, it was the middle of the night which sucks and on the East Coast you're up all night.) Here are the guys watching the game:

The girls finally get a spot on the couch (to watch the halftime show):

And, did I mention, no Superbowl commercials?!

I personally spent most of my time talking and looking at scrapbooking catalogs. I did manage to see the big play at the end giving the Giants the win. Heartbreaking for the Patriots. I, of course, don't care about football and only love the Superbowl for the food, so it was it was a great morning! Here is a picture of Lynn and I making our list of scrapbook supplies to order: