Jin Family

Okay, so this is probably the calm before the storm, but for now our home school supplementing is actually really leisurely. M's drawing of the water cycleSo, home school always takes a lot

It's been unusually warm here these past few weeks, and we have really enjoyed being outside! Making a train down the slideOne reason we've been outside more is that G needs a lot

We're getting there, slowly but surely! He wanted a headbandWell, it has been an adventure. I can hardly believe we're all still alive. But we are making progress! In the beginning, we could

We usually have a party for Easter and invite a lot of the kids' friends, but given the survival stage thing (see previous post), I thought we should maybe do something more chill

Well, we are very excited to have finally completed our adoption and to have three kids! But oh my goodness, we are exhausted. But how can you not love such cuteness?First of

After last week's post, I realized that I hadn't shared anything about his very big personality! Enjoying small legosWell, it wasn't long after we got him that we realized HE IS HYSTERICAL. I

Well, after we got back home, we heard from our adoption agency that it was only going to be a few weeks before we could go pick up our son! After we matched

You didn't think we went to the US without camping, did you? Of course not! There's nothing like waking up outside, drinking a cup of coffee and cooking breakfast on a camp stove!

Of course everyone's favorite part of being in the US is hanging out with people we love! One of the major disadvantages of our trip this year as opposed to the trip last

We got to go to Space Center Houston for the first time with the kids this year! For some totally random reason, M has decided she wants to be an astronaut when she

One of the kids' favorite things to do while in the States is to go to the zoo. Which I guess is because we used to have a membership and we literally went

We didn't spend very long in the US before we visited my favorite place on earth. If you've known me long enough, you'll know that, of course, I'm talking about the house in

We're in the States! Actually, we've been here for 7 weeks already, but we've been so busy that I haven't blogged about a single thing from our trip. Sorry. Although I suppose since

Ooops I forgot to post about our actual Christmas morning... On Christmas Eve, we decorated cookies with friends, which is always a blast. I've discovered that instead of adding vanilla to the icing,

Although most of our visitors prefer to come during the summer time, we had some very loving friends who were willing to make the trek at the end of December this year! First

Some of my expat friends told me they had a serious Christmas candy itch, and since I have the biggest oven, they wanted me to host a baking party. It's hard to say

Is putting up the tree together more fun? Or Christmas morning? It's a real toss up. Maybe it's just us, but I just LOVE the afternoon we spend every year getting the house

Well, it's that time of year. Around Thanksgiving, we always start to get a little tired of being here. First of all, Thanksgiving is kind of a hard time to be away from

It's late for a first snow here, but it snowed for three days straight, which means it actually stuck! It's so dry here that although it's cold enough to snow, it only does

Since H was gone this past weekend for a wedding, I took the opportunity to hang out with some single friends! Now, there's a cultural difference here. Because my single friends here are

Well, it's been a while since I talked about the art and learning we've been doing this semester, so I thought it was time for an update! First of all, I somehow miraculously

We've been experimenting with our not-so-new pizza stone lately, and our latest thing is to have people over to make their own personal size pizzas! We brought the pizza stone (it's actually a

We had a successful birthday party for M this weekend! The whole kid-birthday-party thing has been a bit of a learning curve for me. I mean, I think we had a few (mostly)

After getting back from the States, we had a half week of what would have been normal life, except that a three day water outage (yes, three days) resulted in school being cancelled.

On the last day of the second week of school, we got word that my grandmother in the States unexpectedly passed away. So the kids and I bought flights and went back for