February Fun

February was a quick and wonderful month! 

I started meeting with these ladies weekly and have enjoyed what we're learning together. 

Madelyn is doing a lot of work on her handwriting skills and making strides. 

She learned all of her letters and sounds this month. We played this alphabet game a lot and Ezra was so sweet to join. 

Madelyn loves to help me in the kitchen and is excited she can use scissors now to cut the tips of the green beans off. 

For the Super Bowl we had friends over and made some great food. The game was kind of boring but the fellowship was great. I wore my Cowboys shirt because I'm always a Cowboys fan.. even when they don't make the cut. 

Madelyn is SO social. She has a lot of friends from school. The girl with the headband is named Charvi. She lives in our neighborhood and we have gone to her house and met her at the park for playing. 

Ezra played in another golf tournament. He isn't quite as good as the other kids because they take coaching every day after school but he has a lot of fun! 

He played with these two girls in his age bracket. They were sweet. 

He had some great shots. His drives and chipping are very good and just needs to work on putting now. 

For Valentines week we did a really fun craft from Pinterest. 

On Valentines day, we did another craft, had heart themed meals and I made our annual chocolate fondue. I cut up fruit to dip though because we are trying to eat healthier as a family. 

Our sweet friend Aniaya turned 5. She is one of my best friend's daughter and truly precious! 

We love playing outside when the weather is good! 

The kids have been so great at working hard even after school. Ezra has been learning to read and making incredible progress. Madelyn is going to be skipping a grade to enter straight into preschool this coming year so we've been playing catchup to prepare her. We're moving her upward to put her in the right grade by American standards instead of Indian standards. 

We have a little arcade/bowling alley in the mall. The other day they were running a special where you could play every arcade game and a round a bowling for $7! The kids took turns and had a blast! 

I started a 100 book reading challenge with Ezra in which he progresses in book difficulty so that by the end he will be at a 2nd grade reading level. He should finish before he is done with Kindergarten. This guy works hard and is a great student! I'm so proud of him! 

I love how much Madelyn looks like me. She is my tiny best friend. :) 

It's so easy to forget to take selfies of just us two, but I love the way this one turned out. The flowers behind us are my favorite! 

The weather is getting better which means we're back to playing in the park more and more. Madelyn loves the elephant slide. 

Ezra is more into playing soccer. 

Meetings, homeschool fun, friends, crafts and playing outside.. that about sums up our February. I am so very thankful for this life we live. It is so much more abundantly joyful and amazing than I thought was possible. We serve a great God! 

January Memories

The last couple of years I have been really bad at consistently updating our blog but as we went back to the States this past Christmas I heard over and over from others how they loved keeping up with us through this blog so I am determined to do better at month by month updates of our family fun and memories we're making. 

To start with this is the front of our house and I've been intending to paint the pots one uniform color since we moved in back in June and I finally got around to it. It looks beautiful and gives the front a very put together look. 

I brought back a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) workbook full of ideas and problem solving dialogue for Ezra because he is very interested in STEM. We do one project every weekend and he LOVES IT! This is him making a paper jet that would fly 10 feet. 

The kids are so cute in their winter uniforms. I still get so giddy at how sweet they are in matching uniforms. 

I try to have a "special movie night" once a week. We used to bake something that correlated to a movie we watched that night but we're eating very healthy as a family now a days so now I'm finding crafts we can do that go with the movie of the night instead. I found this cute penguin idea off of Pinterest to go with Happy Feet. The kids really enjoy crafts so they love our new "special movie night" just as much as cookies. 

Our neighbors and dear friends have enrolled their daughter in Madelyn's class which means we get to see each other after school each day and even play in the park for a bit. 

This is the kids on a hunt for rocks which they then painted. I try to do something "fun" with them everyday. 

We love our precious friends! They go to our church and live down the street from us! So thankful to be back in town together. 

I took this adorable picture of Madelyn and her friends in sunday school class. I help/teach each week and she was totally not paying attention. But, she was SO CUTE with her friends that I couldn't complain. 

Our church is a small bilingual (Hindi/English )congregation of about 80 people that meets in a school. During the sermon, we have a children's church upstairs in a classroom. It's been a joy to serve in the children's church and the kids really love it. Their best friends are almost all from our church so Sundays are very fun! 

We really enjoy going to the driving range! 

The weather has been really cold so when a pretty day comes we take advantage. This day we went to the nature trail in town and let the kids ride their bikes while Luke and I chatted and followed. It was really sweet. 

We brought back some pretty cool new dress up clothes. 

Whenever possible the kids and I love traveling with Luke. They are so great at playing with the other kids (many of which they know well by now) and happily enjoying all the Indian snacks and food we have before and after meetings. 

I love how big Madelyn looks in this picture, hanging out with the girls on a scooter. 

This picture is adorable. Aaron is one of Ezra's best friends. 

Aniya is one of Madelyn's besties, and their mom is one of my best friends. The guys are friends too but we usually get together for playdates while they are at work. 

One day after Amina and I came back from a meeting, we picked up our kids who happen to all go to school in the same neighborhood and went to KFC for lunch. They were surprised and so delighted! 

We heard about this new playground in town. The kids definitely approved! 

We went into Delhi to see our teammates because they just had a baby. Outside the mall was this sign which "Melissa" written on it.. so I had to take a pic. 

In the fancy Delhi grocery store there were miniature carts for the kids. It was awesome! 

We took the train to and from Delhi. The kids LOVED it! 

They especially loved the chai and cookies time. 

Behind our house we love to play tennis, soccer or ride bikes. I thought this community center would be a bother because of parties in the evening but this big empty space right outside our backyard has been such an incredible blessing for our kids. 

In the community center there is a sign of numbers to call with questions. Madelyn is learning her alphabets so well now a days and is excited to read them wherever she is even in the middle of playing. 

January was a great month of getting over jet lag, meeting back up with friends and partners and getting back into our busy but wonderful life here. 

Back to India - Jan 2019

After 7 weeks in America visiting friends and families and enjoying the holidays, it was finally time to return back to India. We usually take a 3 hour flight from Austin to Newark then a 13 hour flight from Newark to Delhi, followed by a 5 hour drive through the night to our city. Its a very long trip but God was so gracious and the flights were really easy! 

The view of NYC from the sky.. so many lights and people. 

Madelyn got a little bored in her seat, but both kids stayed in their seats both flights, only getting up to go to the bathroom a few times. I'm so impressed with them. 

We arrived at Delhi still smiling and were so thankful that all our luggage made it too. We've flown internationally ALOT of times and have yet to lose our luggage on the trip, which I find surprising and am so thankful to the Lord. 

Jet lag lasted about 5 days. Its always alittle hard to get back into the groove of making meals, fixing things around the house and being productive. The kids and I have done a lot of homeschool while on break so they are still up to par with their classmates when they return. 

The kids used to share a 14 in bike but when we got back we went to a bike shop in the market and purchased them 16 and 20 in bikes. They go so much faster on their big bikes! They were very excited! 

On January 1st we had our friends over for dinner and playing. We were supposed to meet on New Year's Eve but most of our family was asleep by 6 pm so our New Year's celebration was postponed a day. 

Now that we're back in town we're having different friends stay at our house to hear how their work has been these last couple months and talk about the year to come. We also try to do a lot of fun things together to build relationships. We had 2 families in town this week and showed them how to play Rock Band, foosball and bowling. They loved all the games.  

We like to have special themed family movie nights. For our first special movie night we went to the market with the kids to buy new fish for our aquarium and then snuggled up to watch Finding Nemo. 

We went to buy the kid's school winter uniforms. Madelyn's best friend got a spot in her class over the break and we are so excited for them to get to go to school together. 

When we rented this house in July the summer heat was blazing, especially on our top floor, but we talked about what a great quiet time place it would be in the winter. 

The winter has come and it has been a great morning spot for me. 

I usually wake up really early for my quiet time and at 6 am the Muslim call to prayer sounds out into our neighborhood. Its a great reminder.