A day in the life

I want to start my post today with a few congratulations! First, I want to congratulate and announce that my sister-in-law Tricia and my brother AJ are expecting a baby boy! They found out today that their baby is a boy and we couldn't be more happy for them! Now our family is going to be tied - two girls, two boys! Of course, we have three of the four, but hey - Tricia and AJ will catch up! Ha! But we are beyond excited for them and look forward to meeting our new nephew this summer. He is going to be spoiled rotten by us because Tricia and AJ spoil our kids to no end!
Also, I want to congratulate two of our travel mates (China travel mates that is) on their upcoming adoptions! One has not officially announced yet, so I won't say anything further, but the other has! Jennifer, Andrew, kids - we are very excited for you! Congratulations to both families on the upcoming expansions on your family. This will be the second adoption for one and a third adoption for the other. I know these children are very lucky to be joining such wonderful, loving families.

Well the week ended in success! All the kids are still alive after my first official week as a stay at home mom. I call that a success! We had a busy week and it doesn't look like it is going to slow down any time soon.

The kids were pretty well behaved. We got into a little routine, although we still had a lot of appointments to attend to. I am hoping in the future we have more weeks where we don't have to run here at there every day or every other day. That will help. Arlington didn't have school on Friday, so they were all home that day. It actually was fine because the babies love playing with their big sister, so she was great entertainment for them. AND they all three took naps Friday afternoon, and that was great! I got some things done.

Wednesday we had a fun playdate with my friend Tracy and her little girl. She adopted a little girl from China and traveled with Mat to bring her home. We still find it amazing that someone in our China travel group lives less than 2 miles away! This was the first time I got to meet her little girl, and that was a lot of fun. Now that things have slowed down for both of our families, and I am home during the week, we are going to get together more often. We already have another playdate set up for next week - yeah! But it was nice to "compare notes" and talk about our kids and parenting, and just have general conversation. I am glad to have a friend like that. It will help us a lot! We had a great time together and her little girl is very sweet. She is 5 months older than Cainan, so they are close in age to play. It was fun.

Thursday was speech therapy and Cainan actually said some words while we were there! We are going to start to go weekly now to speech and I think that will help him come out of his shell. He recognizes the therapist now, so that helps. She was pleased with his progress.

Friday was no school, so we did do some shopping! I was proud of myself! We went to target for just a few items and then to the library. It was nice to go out. We were gone for about 2 hours, so that took care of some of the morning. Then we just played until nap time and after that - went outside. Yes, for all of you northerners, it is in the 80s again here. We had a small break last week from the weather, but this weekend is hot again! We have been outside every day, which does help break up the day. Once the babies are a little older, too, we won't be so confined. They just don't make shopping carts for two little ones!

Today we are just hanging out at the house. Mat is at work for a few hours, so we are home playing and just relaxing. No real plans for today. Life with kids - very boring sometimes!

Arlington is doing well. Now that she knows so many words, we are working on sentences with them and she is doing well with those! She loves reading and has been having fun finding words she recognizes in her books. I hope to have her reading small books by the summer. She will love that. Arlington has always been one to chose books over toys, which I love. Better for when she goes to Harvard......

Finley is her typical bad self. Poor baby is going to get a complex. She says "car" and "house" and "sissy go?" She started making a motor noise with her mouth when she plays with cars. This week she practiced climbing our dining room chairs and sitting on our dining table! She is a little monkey.

Cainan is doing well. He is perfecting his cup and straw drinking. He loves to push the baby stroller around, but usually without the baby but some boy toy instead. I think he needs a wheelbarrow! He is perfecting the word milk, and now says "moo", "meow". He also shakes his head yes or no in response to a question - "do you want milk" for example. Before he would just do the sign for "please" or do nothing at all, and now he is answering yes or no. We are happy to see that progress!

Of, course, being out on the road each day taking Arlington to and from school I always encounter fun driving experiences. I was waiting to turn out into traffic from Target (making a right) and there was a car approaching slowly. They were in the left hand lane, and suddenly, decided they wanted to come to Target (making a right to do so), so no turn signal or warning crossed over both lanes and turned right. Wow. And one guy was talking on the cell phone while driving and decided he needed to look for something in his car. I was behind him. He was looking, talking, and driving. Never a good combo. Well, all of the sudden, he comes to a DEAD STOP on the road to look for whatever he needed to find. Right there, in the lane. I had to go around him. Everyone was honking and pulling around him, but he didn't care. He continued his conversation and digging as I drove away. Sigh. I could go on forever.

And I got something fun in the mail yesterday that was funny! Our car insurance company sent us an advertisement to buy Golf Cart insurance! How funny! You can get insurance for up to $500,000 in injury and damages while driving your golf cart around. Too much! It is funny - a lot of the "active adult" communities we have here (for the 55+ crowd) offer free golf carts if you buy/build a home in their neighborhood. So, why not insurance! Good grief.

Okay. Here are some pictures from this week. enjoy! By the way - I don't ever put the names of our friends/families children in our blog because of the fact that our blog is public and they are not our own children. I just felt that I needed to explain that!