Roadtripping!

We are officially Texans y'all!  Well, I don't know if we're actually official yet.  Are we residents if we live in a hotel? ;)  We arrived today and settled in to our little studio hotel room.  We have a kitchenette, plenty of room for a pac-n-play, and C is quite comfy on the pull-out sofa.  The boys are excited to get in the outdoor pool tomorrow...and since it was 101 degrees today, I'm pretty sure it will be warm enough to swim.  Ha!  Tomorrow morning we are meeting our realtor and have four homes to look at.  Hopefully all four of them will still be on the market tomorrow!  The week hubby and I were in town everything was moving so quickly.  Fingers crossed! 

We took four days to make the drive from Maryland.  The army pays for your hotel stays based on mileage and according to their calculations...that's how long it was supposed to take us.  It's a use it or lose it situation so even though we could have driven more each day we chose to milk the government and get all of our free hotel stays. ;)  We only had to do about 6 hours of driving each day so we made some fun stops along the way.  The first was in Chattanooga, TN where we spent the afternoon at the aquarium.

They were too cute walking around hand in hand. 

The touch tank.  Definitely my favorite part of the day...thanks in part to that girl in the pink shorts.  She was so eager to reach one of those rays she fell face first into that touch tank.  Soaking wet from her waist up.  You don't know the willpower it took to wait until she walked away to start laughing.  

Shark cage!

Petting the legless lizard.

I love lil' peanut holding his hand out in this picture all "let me hold it lady."

The highlight for the boys was the water play area outside the aquarium.  They totally loved it...more than the actual aquarium I think.  And by the way, it was free.  Hindsight is 20/20.  Next time we save our admission fee and just play outside. :)

There is nothing like four days in the car with your kiddos to remind you how much you love them. ;)  Why can't I have one of those limo windows in my car?!?  In all seriousness though, I love these boys!  They are loud and obnoxious and sometimes just plain gross...boys!  But, they are also silly and fun and sweet and they really do bring me so much joy!  I'm so glad they are mine!!!

A year together

It is not easy.  It's sometimes really, really hard.  But, oh my word...am I ever grateful for this little boy and the opportunity adoption has given me to be his mama.  Mostly it feels like he has always been with us.  But, there are times when I'm reminded just how little time a year is.  Like now, with strangers traipsing in and out of our house and our belongings all in boxes and any sense of routine thrown out the window...these are things that lil' peanut doesn't understand.  And things he can't make sense of don't sit well with him.  He's only been with us for a year, which isn't really all that long to develop a sense of security.  And this big life change of moving is really unsettling for him.  We see it in his tearfulness and anger during the day and his fearful wakings in the middle of the night.  

Sweet boy.  When you are hopping around the house or doing somersaults (a newly acquired skill)...when your face lights up when you see your big brother...when you do a little happy dance upon hearing the garage door and exclaim "Daddy home"...when you wrap your arms around my neck and rest your head on my shoulder at bedtime...when you do all these things and more it's easy to forget how much you've gone through in your short little life and all the big, big feelings you may have swirling around in your tiny heart.  Time is a good friend of ours in this journey.  And I pray that with the continued passing of time you will feel more and more settled and secure.

Lil' peanut is fast approaching his 3rd birthday!  His language skills continue to grow.  He will repeat anything and everything.  He puts together 3-5 word sentences regularly and will actually respond appropriately when asked questions.  It's very cute when he and C have little conversations.

"Do you want to go upstairs?"

"Um, yeah."

"You want to play pokemon?"

"Play pokemon."

"Mom!  We're going upstairs to play pokemon."

"Play pokemon Ker-Ker ustairs."

"I'm Pikachu."

"Pichu."

"No, I'm Pikachu.  You can be Squirtle, ok?"

"Okay!"



He still loves to 'go.'  Anywhere really, he doesn't care.  His favorite toys are still 'things that go.'  Cars, trucks, trains, planes and tractors.  My dad took them to a little farm while hubby and I were in TX and lil' peanut has told us over and over again about the "tractor clark farm."  He won't eat everything we put in front of him, but he still wins most adventurous eater by a landslide compared to C.  He is still cautious in new situations and gets overwhelmed in large groups.  Even when we are among a small group of friends he can usually be found doing his own thing.  We might have an introvert on our hands.

He decided a couple of months ago that he wanted to use the potty.  Completely on his own.  We had the trip to KS coming up and our big move and I had no intentions of saying goodbye to the diapers.  But, telling my kid to "just go in your diaper" when he asked to use the potty wasn't really making me feel like a stellar parent...so into pull-ups we went.  If I had initiated this whole thing he would have gone straight into undies, but my heart wasn't completely in it. ;)  Plus, do we want him in underwear on our cross country road trip to TX?  Um, no.  To my surprise, he has done great.  Maybe a couple of accidents in the last two months (usually after a long ride in the car or when we didn't have ready access to a potty).  In fact, I was all ready to say that he was officially potty trained when I started writing this post a couple days ago.  Since then he's had more accidents in the last two days then this whole time.  I told you my poor baby is stressed about this move.

He still loves his big brother, but he is way less tolerant than he used to be.  When he first came home he took pretty much anything C dished out.  Now sometimes C will accidentally brush his shoulder or look at him for too long and lil' peanut unleashes the banshee cry.  Oh man, the screaming.  It must stop. ;)  We spend a lot of time practicing using our words these days.  He can be so silly and he daily gets the whole family laughing with his antics.  It's hard not to giggle after you tell him he's going to be all done with dinner if he throws his cup on the floor again and he responds with a huge smile and exclaims "Ohhhhtaaaay!"

I can hardly believe that tomorrow it will have been one year since we met our precious boy for the first time.  What an incredible day.  This little boy of ours is resilient.  He is strong.  He is quirky and silly, stubborn, affectionate, and joyful.  This little boy is ours.  I am so thankful for that.

Babysitting

 

We got the fun privilege of getting to watch Baby Carter for a few hours the other day.  I had no shortage of little helpers.  In fact, I barely get to hold that sweet baby!  C just adores this little guy.  He alternated between being super helpful and wanting to "play baby." ;)  Seeing your giant 6 year old lying on the floor pretending to cry next to a tiny newborn who is actually crying is pretty comical.


This was lil' peanut's first time meeting Baby Carter.  His first reaction?  He came downstairs from napping to discover an empty carseat in the middle of the room.  He looked from it to the couch where C was holding Carter a few times.  Then he got the biggest grin on his face, ran full throttle toward our little guest, stopped about a foot in front of C and the baby, pointed his tush right at them and let one rip!  Then he and C fell into hysterical fits of laughter.  I'm not sure if the toot was meant for C or Baby Carter.  Oh, boys and their potty humor!  After his little introduction, lil' peanut wanted "my turn, my turn" with the baby.  If someone else was holding him, he was not a happy camper.  I think one of our biggest problems when baby brother arrives will be C and lil' peanut fighting over who gets to hold him!  Not a bad problem to have, I guess.

Lil' peanut hasn't asked for a bottle in months, but boy did he want one as soon as he saw me pull one out for the baby.  He sat for a minute and drank some but then he was over it.  He willingly handed the bottle over when hubby said that if he wanted to drink it he needed to sit with Mommy or Daddy.  (I don't mind him still taking a bottle, but only if it's promoting attachment/bonding...don't want my almost three year old just roaming around the house with a bottle hanging out of his mouth.)  It was pretty clear that he only wanted one because the baby was getting one vs. wanting some special time with Mom or Dad.  Even C got in on it and asked for a bottle.  Hubby actually gave him one but then he refused to drink out of it! 

I'm glad this little guy arrived in time for us to spend a bit of time with him before we move...wish it was more though!  He's a sweetie.

Last Day of Kindergarten

I have been a bad blogger the last couple of weeks!  Hubby and I just got back from TX a few days ago where we attempted (and might I add failed!) to secure a house to live in.  Sigh.  We only had one week there and things didn't move fast enough on the first house we put an offer on and just when we thought we were good to go for house #2 a pesky TX windstorm insurance issue got in our way.  So, in about a week we will call hotels home until the army stops paying for that (14 days!) and then who knows?!  We will *hopefully* get a contract on a house shortly after we get to town, but if that doesn't look promising into a rental we will go. 

 

The boys spent all that time with Papa and they loved it!  I think my dad had fun too, but I'm also sure he was ready to collapse into his own bed and sleep past 6 am!  I'm so glad he came out to stay with the boys.  We learned a few things that will be helpful when we get back down there and resume the house hunt, but the trip did feel pretty fruitless.  I can't imagine how frustrating it would have been to have done all that AND drug the boys all that way.  Now they just have to endure one road trip to get down there...which thankfully we can take our time with since based on the mileage the army authorized us 4 days for travel! 

 

Things are pretty crazy this week and next!  Hopefully I'll get my camera out and get some new pictures up, but in the meantime, here are the rest of the pictures I took on C's last full day of kindergarten.  Hard to believe how big he is getting.  The missing front teeth only serve to make him look even older!

Kindergarten Graduate!

 

Wow time flies!

September 2012

 

June 2013



Mommy Loves You!

Welcome Baby Carter

C loved holding my cousin's baby at the reunion and he got even more baby snuggling in this weekend as we welcomed Grace's new little one.  I took dinner over on Friday by myself and C was pretty bummed that I got to meet baby Carter before he did.  Grace was kind enough to let me stop by again the next day, this time with C.  On the way over he told me that baby Carter was going to be live bait for all the people who wanted to hold him.  They had the pool and sprinkler set up, so C and the girls played outside for a couple of hours while I monopolized the baby. ;)  After the big kids came inside, C finally got his turn to hold "the youngest baby I've ever held.  He's only 4 days old, but when I hold my own baby brother he will be the youngest baby I've ever held because he'll only be like 4 minutes old."

 

He picked out a musical seahorse all by himself and was so excited to give it to Carter.  Even after he was done holding him he made sure Grace was holding the seahorse next to Carter.  She tried to set it down a couple of times and C kept finding it and giving it back.  Ha!

I love that these two have almost the same expression in this picture.  I can't believe they were 2 and 3 when we met and now look at those two big kids taking care of a baby. :)

Baby Carter is precious!  I'm so glad I get to have a little bit of time soaking him up before we move.  I told Grace she'll probably see more of me this month than she has in the last year.  Can't resist a new baby!