We have a great view of Venus and Jupiter this month from our kitchen window, as they set around 7PM. This week we tried to use the telescope to look. We got a good view of the moon, but the planets were harder to get.

While Josh was trying to get the planets in the sights, the kids and I goofed around with the camera.

We had our traditional family Valentine’s Day party Tuesday night. Making 6 heart-shaped pizzas and one regular is quite a production. I had the little boys use round cake pans for theirs.

For dinner we had pizza, salad, and lemonade. After dinner we cleaned up and then had to wait for the swarms of flying termites to die down before we could turn the lights back on to continue the party. We had a 20-minute afternoon rain, unusual for this time of year, and it stirred up the termites for swarm mating. In the morning I made heart-cut-out-cookies with the little boys and we decorated them after dinner for dessert.

After we finished, eating the 4 older kids read an original story they have been working on. It was composed of 4 pages – each folded in half. Each kid wrote one side of each page for a 16-page story – the pattern was Isaiah, Clara, Anna, and then Becca. Quite an interesting progression of events during each “page.” After that we exchanged cards, and then Josh continued our tradition of his reading a book about St Valentine.

Josh bough roses for me from Ban Lung and had them delivered by taxi van. He bought each of the girls a pink rose and chocolate bars for the boys.

Right at the beginning of the Christmas season, my electric piano died. It was a very sad day for me because it meant no beautiful Christmas music and no easy fix. We were able to send the piano to Phnom Penh and a good friend took it to a repairman who said the parts were no longer replaceable, due to the age and make of the piano. Sadness. We had an old mini keyboard that floated us through the holiday season, but that soon began to have troubles.

So back in January, my dear husband decided to take the night-bus for the first time and travel to Phnom Penh to buy us a new piano. He left on a Monday evening and was home Wednesday morning with a lovely, better than I would have hoped, new electric piano. We used Christmas money, given to us from supporting churches, to buy the piano. It’s so wonderful to have a working piano in our home again. Four of our children take piano lessons – plus I teach four other children of co-workers piano lessons – so this piano gets lots of use. It’s also what I use when I’m working on tunes for Bible verse songs. We’re so thankful that the Lord provided our family a new piano. I’m so glad to have a working instrument back in our home. And the kids have had many hours of fun playing in the huge box!!

January is always a recovery month for me – and I don’t take many pictures. I always try to get one family picture, but since it’s the one month without a family holiday I struggle to get one. This blurry picture is the best we could get.

Random January stuff: The kids went across the street to help Davi peel and cut her cassava. Besides that we are working on finishing our last 5 weeks of the school year. I also try to prepare for the next year during this time, so I’m not doing school stuff all during our summer break.

Last week I moved Micah into the kids’ room. He’s so happy to be in the same room as his siblings, where all the evening action is going on, instead of being alone in our dark bedroom…listening to everyone else be put to bed. We’re also potty training Micah – dry season is a great time to do it, since anything wet dries in a day.