18 years

Tomorrow will mark 18 years since Mat and I went on our first date. I can't believe how much time has past - where did it go? As you know from my last post, our first date movie was "Silence of the Lambs". To our defense - we lived in a small town, were both in the high school musical (which was going on this particular day), so we had very limited hours, and choices, of movie to see! When you are 15/16 years old, there aren't a lot of things you can do. But we had fun. We didn't go alone on this first date. Another couple went with us. But after this first movie, we continued to see movies every weekend for years until Mat went off to college. (He was older - he went first!) But at that time of our first date, I had just recently met Mat's family. He is one of 5 children of which he is the oldest. After 18 years, I can truly say I love his brothers and sisters very much and can't imagine having better sisters and brother! I have known Mat and his brother and sisters over half their life, and I feel truly lucky to have them in my life. So happy anniversary to my true love! It has been a wonderful 18 years.

A blog I follow - AnyMommy - wrote this terrific article about having "forced twins". Since that is what Mat and I have, this article (and her blog) have really been helpful to us. Here is the link to the Article: Forced Twins

There are a lot of days that are really hard. Even though Cainan and Finley aren't biologically related, they are only 30 days apart. Our life is no different than if they were biological twins. They will always be in school together, and we will deal with the same issues parents with twins deal with. They love each other just as much as they fight each other. One line in the article really hit me: "I cried tears of joy when I saw our unusual choice of building a family work". We feel that way a lot of times. We doubt our decision many days - are we being fair to Cainan or Finley? Are Cainan's behavior related to adoption or being our second 2 1/2 year old? Would Finley be less "Finley" if she didn't have a "forced twin"? Questions we may never be able to answer, BUT knowing that I have Stacey (AnyMommy) who shares the EXACT situation (forced boy/girl twins) I feel better. The only people that get you are people who have your same situation.

Arlington is sick again. She has a fever this time and has been on the couch all day. I looked in her throat when she said "my neck hurts" and her tonsils look swollen. UGH! Always on a weekend. I think our walk in clinic is open on Sundays, so we will be heading there tomorrow to make sure it isn't strep. It is going around, I want to make sure. Poor girl. Here is her "bed" for the day:
Finley also woke up with a cold. No fever, just a runny nose. They have been having a rough couple of months. Hopefully it will stay just a cold and not turn into something bigger. Finley has also done AWESOME this week with potty training. She has continued to wear underwear each day to school and here at home. She is just in a pull up for nap and overnight. Yay! I did have it out with the daycare yesterday because she wet her self on a few occasions at school. There was one period where they didn't take her for 4 hours!!! Of course she isn't going to make it. They have only 6 kids in her class, and there is NO excuse for them not taking her to the potty at least every two hours. Arlington's old preschool had 18 kids to 2 adults and they manage to potty train her (and the other 17 kids) without problems. I am just going to have to stay on top of them. Finley is the ONLY one that is potty training right now, so they really have no excuse.

Cainan is doing well. Hopefully he stays healthy. I have good news to report that his learning of his colors is coming along!! He has picked up a few new ones and has been consistently remembering him. All the credit for that goes to Mat who every day and every night before bed is working with him constantly on colors. It has been hard work and it is finally starting to pay off. His potty training is still slow, of course. I am not going to harass the school about him yet. One kid at a time. But here at home today he has successfully gone once and has been dry almost all day except for nap. I still HATE potty training. A lot.

We hung a ton of pictures around our house today. It is looking GOOD! I took a few pictures. Here is one of our new clock.


And one of our family tree wall. This is a neat wall that we had in our last house. From our grandparents we were able to get pictures of our great grandparents, and in some instances our great-great and great-great-great grandparents, and hung them up. The sign on the wall says "Home is where our story begins". A gift from my beautiful sister in law Carrie (check our her blog at Hicks Family Five)

I found the babies in our family room today like this:
Don't they look cute? They aren't fighting - they are sharing the same beanbag, and having fun! This moment deserved a picture.

Even cuter (and funnier) was the way I found Arlington asleep in our bed last night:

She is a hoot. This girl can sleep anywhere, anytime, any position. I have a ton of funny pictures of her sleeping because comfort is not an issue when it comes to this girl falling asleep. I wish I could sleep that well.

Arlington had fun Kindergarten homework this weekend. She brought home an empty jar and had to fill it with 15 things (or less) that would fit in the jar. Here is what she chose:


Superheroes. She had gone though the book being put together by her classmates and was trying to find something that wasn't done yet. Plus, she loves superheroes about as much as she loves being a princess. She had to fill the jar, then draw a picture of all the things she put in the jar. This took awhile since she didn't chose something that was repeditively the same. She drew each superhero. It was fun.
Arlington also read the book "Green Eggs and Ham" all by herself. It is fun to watch her read like that!

Girl Scout cookies were also delivered today. Yum. A huge reason for Arlington to be in Girl Scouts is because the cookies are so yummy. Just kidding. Sort of. The boxes have gotten remarkably smaller over the years, yet the cost keeps getting higher. Hmm...

Work was really busy the rest of this week. The kids were back to their old tricks because 6 of our teachers were in conferences for two days getting ready for this years standardized tests. So out of 14 classroom teachers, 6 of them had subs!! So I saw 50 kids on Wednesday and Thursday. Worse than that, I saw them all in about 4 hours because both of those days were shortened office hours for me due to meetings. But it was fine. If days like that are few and far between rather than routine, I am fine with that. I did get tough on a few kids. I was doing a handwashing class and I get a call from the main office stating they have two kids their that had stomach aches. My rule while I am out of the office - unless they are bleeding profusely or have already thrown up - they can't come. So I asked "have they thrown up?" Of course they haven't. Back to class. My boss was so proud of me. PLUS -there was only about 20 minutes left in the school day. UGH.

Enjoy a few pictures and I will see you Tuesday. Hopefully by then everyone will be happy!