bye january!

 
 

as opposed to many other times of year, i'm just never sad to see january go...  i'm looking forward to some fun things in february, and then to spring (!!). but despite the general dreariness, we've had a good beginning to 2019 in london. here's some tidbits of life lately...

 

ian is currently on a five day, six city business trip in europe. we miss him like crazy when he is away (and we are so happy that's not very often).

moses and i continue to love, love, love joy school. this month's unit for our group has been the joy of the earth and that's been good to focus on during a time of year when there's not naturally a lot of joy for the earth in the air ;) moses has developed some great friendships with his joy school classmates and is learning so much.
the other day after the joy school kids left our house (it was my turn to be the teacher), moses sat at our front window and hollered, "asher, claire, come back! i want to say i love you to you guys!" <3

 
^^ a little peek at gabey's new teeth coming in on top, and this is the face moses gives if you ask him to give "the biggest smile ever." haha. ^^

i hosted book club last night. i was in a book club that kind of fizzled out the second half of last year, so i decided to take initiative to resurrect it. because i haven't read many books in the past few years and miss reading ... a group of friends reading along with me is so motivating to make the time for books! this month i got to choose the book and we read  a place for us, which was recommended to me by my sister. i was really moved by this book and finished it two days ago with tears rolling down my cheeks. our discussion last night about it was so, so great ... and i was pretty proud of the simple but pretty and delicious food spread i prepared :)

 

gabriel is getting more mobile by the minute and four teeth just popped through his top gums! he's eating, sleeping, and growing a lot lately. he's even moved up to the second percentile in weight - hooray! still our tiny baby but hopefully he'll keep up the percentile climbing.

ian recently took on a new volunteer position at church -- he is now a counselor to the bishop of the congregation of young single adults that meets here in london. this is an opportunity to grow and serve that we are taking on as a family ... and it's both exciting and overwhelming.

marathon training is going well, although my hip and knee have given me some trouble lately - some kind of it band issue. (how am i old enough to say something like that, haha?!) i've been listening to podcasts while i run (i've been so gripped by this one and this one keeps me up on news out of my home country). it's a treat to be able to run when it's not dark on saturdays -- every weekday i run around 6am when it's pitch black outside!

a couple of weekends ago, ian and i had a little "staycation." we left the boys with some friends for 24 hours and went to a really lovely hotel that we could use points to book. we plowed through a list of things we had been needing to talk about, went on a long run together along the thames, lazed about in hotel robes, had some fun meals out, watched a movie in bed, slept in, and just enjoyed being together. we missed the boys, but it was great to miss them ;)


^^ our hotel is that lit-up-blue building, which used to be london's city hall! we could see into the london eye pods from our room's window. we maaay have hooked up my phone (with the app for our video monitor) to the big screen so we could spy on moses sleeping while we kicked up our feet in our plush robes. haha. ^^

moses and gabriel adore each other, and seeing them laugh together is one of the very greatest joys i've ever experienced.

we had a great family day at the zoo last saturday. moses has been listening to this toddler song that says, "we're going to the zoo; we can stay all day," and he has been asking us so sweetly for a few weeks, "can we please go to the zoo, and stay all day?" so we made it happen :) we're always so impressed by how active the animals at the london zoo seem. all four of us had a blast.

 
 


i love my life. even and especially in midst of the january blues.