Checking In...

Maybe there's someone out there who still reads this : ) If so, I heartily apologize for the neglect the blog has gotten. Right now I'm going to blame it on trying to get all my grading and lesson planning done while the children are sleeping, which leaves little time for fun online stuff (I do still read everyone else's though!). But I am going to try to post here occasionally at least, in case anyone wants to see the kiddos. And if you haven't already, you can find me on facebook, I'm much better at posting pics and stuff up there.

We are doing pretty well around here! We may have a white Christmas for the first time since we left NY! The kids are super-excited for Christmas (even though the youngest 2 are terrified of Santa and have requested that he leave their gifts in the driveway).

Lia is doing really well. Her adoption was finalized in September (it is a very low-key process here, so no fun judge pics : ( She has been home for almost 7 months! We recently had her 18 month check-up and she is in the 45% percentile for weight (!) and the 40th for height. So much for our tiny peanut, she may catch up to Jack. She is a girl who is always on the go and knows what she wants and when she wants it (we are actually looking forward to when she can actually tell us exactly what that is since it is still sometimes a guessing game for us!). She is talking a lot more though. Some favorites- 'ten to' (Thank you) and yuck (stuck). She talks all day long about whoever is not there (which means I hear about Daddy all day long!). She is starting to fight her naps (when we tell her it's time for night-night she screams 'Noooooo'- another of her favorite words) which is not so fun. The girl is FEISTY! Also, we are super-impressed with her immune system (I probably just jinxed us) since she almost never gets the colds and viruses going around (even the ones her brothers get)! She loves all things girly (purses, phones, shoes, socks with bows, baby dolls, etc.) and is a HUGE Dora fan- she sings the song all day!

The boys are loving winter- they've gotten to sled and build a snowman (we have had a very unusual early snow) and love all the Christmas parties and craziness. Jack is an old man toddler. He says the craziest, funniest, deep things and then throws the HUGEST temper tantrums. I am really hoping he doesn't teach these to Lia (but then again, she has a temper all her own! God forbid if those two ever team up on me). He is going to be three next month which makes me sad, but he has always seemed so much older than he is, that it's also surprising to me sometimes that he's still only two!

Gavin is such a big boy (they celebrated his six and a half year old birthday at school yesterday- his teacher does half birthdays for the summer b-day kids). He loves space and dinosaurs and all things mysterious and unexplainable. This makes for very interesting conversations with me, his very unscience-y and completely unconcerned with how things work mother! He is forever asking how many planets have been found (I have no idea), what a particular planet is made of or which was the fiercest dinosaur (again, no earthly idea!).

I wish we had a better local community of adoptive parents, my searches have turned up little other than regret that we don't live about seventy miles further east, where both the Indian and adoptive communities are much larger. But otherwise we're doing so well and know that we are so lucky in how easily Lia has blended into our family.

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday and all of you waiting are in my thoughts as I remember last year when we were in those shoes at Christmas- hang in there!