Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Happy Tuesday

Happy Tuesday everyone! I don't know why we can't celebrate just a regular day, right? Truth is, I am running out of ideas for blog post titles!

Not much has been happening at our humble abode. Same old, same old. We had a nice weekend. We went plant shopping to replace some of our old plants in our backyard. I finally convinced Mat to remove a vine that had one foot in the grave due to a frost we had a few weeks ago. I hated that thing anyway. We saw some things we liked, but are still shopping around for the right thing. In Florida there aren't a lot of choices for plants that grow in extreme heat. They have about 30 kinds of "Florida hearty" plants, and that is about it. As I walk around our neighborhood, around Lowes, etc., I only see a few choices. There aren't a lot of flower choices, to be honest. Most things are just boring green.

Anyway, we did that, and then went out to lunch on Sunday. We try to go at least twice a month, out to lunch as a family, usually on a Sunday. To be honest, are kids are well behaved when it comes to restaurants, so that hasn't ever been a problem. this week we chose TGIFridays. Yum.

Monday began my official first day as a SAHM. It went pretty well! We started the day with Cainan's 6 month evaluation by the social worker. See, China requires a 6 month and 12 month visit from the social worker to make sure things are going well. Cainan will be home six months on February 13th. Our agency requests the social worker comes to the house about 1 month before that time so that the social worker has time to write her report and submit it to our agency so that it gets to China on time. The visit went very well. She was here about 1 hour, and she was pleased with all of Cainan's progress and everything that has been going on for him since he came home. Arlington was in school, so only the two babies were here, and they played nicely while the social worker visited.

I have also begun cooking more! For those of you who know me, it will probably snow here in Florida now that I have said that. I DON'T cook. I don't like it and I am not good at it. But I made a resolution to try harder. So I am keeping up with it so far! What are we, two weeks in? Not bad I must say! Each night we have a meal together, and that is really nice. So far, so good.

Arlington is just going to school in the mornings now, and that seems to be working out well. The babies are happy to see her when she gets home. We spend the time while the babies are napping with her taking a small rest, and then working on her workbooks. I took her to the store the other day after it rained, and we were watching for a rainbow, which we see often after a rainstorm. We spotted one, and she watched it the whole way to the store. We did our shopping and came out, and I said to her, "do you remember where we parked?" she said, "by the rainbow". Great. She is so funny. too bad that landmark was gone by the time we came out of the store!
And she has gone from recognizing 13 written words to 42! Quite a jump just from last week! We do it every day, and each day she adds several more words. She has picked it up pretty quickly.

Finley is doing well. Her new words are "cookie" "car", "not nice". She is funny. I think she is the happiest to not be going to school. Even when I take Arlington, she wants me to carry her, because she thinks I am going to leave her there. I know she liked it, she just didn't like being left by mommy.

Cainan is doing great too. Now we have more time to work on his therapy stuff. We try to do a little each day. He and Finley have been playing nicely together. I am trying to get down a routine. He didn't have speech therapy today - it got moved to Thursday. I think she will be pleased to learn that he is drinking from a straw. He too has learned to do a front roll. Anytime you grab him around the waist, now, he immediately tucks himself to roll.

so, I didn't take any pictures over the last couple of days. The camera batteries were charging, and I didn't get to take any. BUT I did take a little bit of video, so I posted that below. Don't worry - it is only like 3 minutes long. I mostly wanted to tape Cainan trying out his words. Finley wasn't as cooperative with parroting what I was asking her to say!

Enjoy! Make sure you have your sound on

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have R E A L L Y S L O W dial up service, so it may be this time next week before I get to watch the video, but thanks bunches. Nanny

Anonymous said...

Jen and Mat,You have beautiful children!  I am so happy to see them all coming along so well.  I'm sure it's sometimes very difficult to take care of all of them and their many needs....but I'm sure it's also very worth it!  I think of you all often!  Take care!  Becky (Basinger) Ritenour