Owen's Sweet and Silly Personality, Schoolwork, and Getting Back into Our Normal Routine

Samantha: 103 Months, Week 5
Aedan: 70 Months, Week 3
Owen: 27 Months, Week 5

Sunday, January 12th was the day we left Puerto Rico, and I had a few random pictures I forgot to post. Here is a view out of our Airbnb window when we were up a little after 4:00 that morning so we could get a ride to the airport and make it through security in time to get on our flight at 7:00.

Our flight was pretty uneventful, and on our way out of New York City, we took a little detour to drive by the Statue of Liberty with the skyline in the background. I had never seen the Statue of Liberty in real life before, so it was pretty interesting. We will definitely have to take a trip to New York City sometime to see these famous, historical sites. Samantha really wants to go up inside the Statue of Liberty.

That afternoon once we drove back home, we were excitedly greeted by Samantha and Aedan who were playing outside because it was a really nice day for the middle of January. We got huge hugs, and they were excited for us to have some of the chocolate-cherry cake that they made with Ema. We also gave the kids the souvenirs we picked up for them, a set of star earrings and a necklace with purple beads for Samantha. Here she is modeling them for us. She is so beautiful, and I am amazed at how much she is growing up, both physically and personally.

We got Aedan this scratch-out drawing/sketchbook with pictures of different things from the rainforest.

We took the chance to sit and talk with Ema and Papa about how their time went and getting updated on the status of the kids and the house. They then packed up their car and hit the road so they could make it part of the way back home that night. We were super grateful for their willingness to come out and watch our kids for us. Especially with having two extra kids they didn't know, it was a huge undertaking on their part, and it was challenging for them, but Ben and I were so grateful to have this opportunity to get away on this vacation together. It was nice to feel confident that Ema and Papa would do a good job of handling the kids and holding down the fort while we were gone. We didn't have to worry, knowing that they were in good hands.

After Ema and Papa left, Ben went down to pick up our two new little ones and bring them back to our house. We were a little worried that it might be a hard transition, especially with how hard of a time the little girl gave Ema and Papa while Ben and I were gone, but everything went back to how it was before we left. She wasn't trying to test us more and definitely wasn't behaving like how she was with them, which we were glad for.

Monday was back to our normal routine with my first task being grocery shopping for the week. It's been pretty easy doing my grocery pick-up order at Walmart and then just running into the store for a few minutes to get our produce and any other random things I may have forgot to add to the order.

Here are a couple videos of Owen at lunchtime. I was trying to capture his cute little two year old voice on video and the new words he learned while we were gone. We was able to say "Puerto Rico" and even said "rainforest" and that we saw cats and birds there. It was pretty cute. His vocabulary is expanding by leaps and bounds every day. It's amazing to watch him grow and learn. This age is the best.

That afternoon my sister was asking me if I was glad to be back home, and of course, I was glad to see the kids again, but I wasn't really feeling glad to be home. Our trip was really fun, and I wasn't ready for it to end, but you obviously can't just be on vacation all the time. However, our trip did remind me how much I love traveling and I can't wait until we can do it more, both with the kids and on our own.

Here are a whole bunch of pictures of the work that had accumulated while were gone on our trip. Aedan was working on rhyming words, additions pairs, and the letter Oo.

Samantha had a spelling test, a spelling page, and a Social Studies page.

Here's some work of Aedan's work on the letter Ff, sequencing events, and more work with addition number sentences.

Samantha had some work on seeing problems and solutions in stories, as well as more spelling papers. She has really done well with spelling this year. She had never done spelling as a subject/grade before, but with her proclivity for reading, knowing how to spell words just comes naturally to her. Plus, I love seeing how beautiful her cursive handwriting is! She learned that all on her own, with very little instruction from her teachers or from me.

Here is more work from Aedan on the the beginning sound of Kk and Ff, as well as more addition sentence practice. This little boy stays busy in kindergarten! I am so pleased with how well he is doing and how much he has learned this year.

Here's a Science Test and Math test Samantha got back. She is doing so well in school, and I love seeing her highlight, circle, and show her work on her math tests. She is such a hard worker and is always excited to show us these excellent grades that she is getting.

Aedan got this Unit 2 Benchmark Assessment paper sent home, and I was so proud to see that he was marked as Proficient in every category. We sure have smart, hard-working kids!

And here is a 100% Aedan got on his Chapter 4 Math Test. This stuff is very simple and easy for him.

That Monday night it was bath time for all five kids, and it was my turn with Aedan and Owen. It had been awhile since I was able to just sit there and watch them play and have fun together, so here are some silly pictures of these two boys in the bath that night. They are definitely a pair of goofballs together!

Here's a funny video of Samantha and Owen interacting at breakfast on Tuesday morning. She was trying to help encourage him to eat by calling him a chipmunk and asking him to eat like a chipmunk, which is what he is doing at the beginning of this video. He loves to make people laugh, so he will repeat something over and over again if he thinks it will get a laugh out of you. Then, he calls her his favorite term of endearment lately, "poo-poo pants." That boy just cracks us up. We often say he will grow up to be the class clown. (Plus, those dimples! He is just such a cute little boy.)

Tuesday morning I took the two two year olds to the Mommy and Me play gym time down in Kingston. It's always a good way to get out of the house and spend time somewhere where the boys can run around, be active, and get some energy out. I even invited some moms from Bible study to come along as well, and a couple of them showed up with their kids as well, so that was fun.

Samantha woke up with a cold that morning and had a low temperature before school that day. I was hoping it wouldn't turn into something more and told her to make sure she told her teacher if she started feeling worse or if she was developing a fever. Owen woke us up three times over night Monday into Tuesday, so I was really tired by that afternoon and also had a terrible headache. I was glad for nap time so I could just sit and relax on the couch for awhile.

Even when the little girl got home from school, I put on "My Little Pony" for her so I could relax a little bit longer before the little boys woke up and Samantha and Aedan came home from school. I included these pictures to also show how close she had to sit to the TV so she could see it. You can even see her holding her hands up to her eyes in an effort to help her see better. We couldn't wait to get to the day her eye appointment was scheduled so we could get this poor little girl the glasses she so desperately needs!

Samantha spent her time after homework but before dinner putting together her next Tinker Crate. She did pretty much all of it herself, but needed some help holding some of it together as she added other pieces on. She was so proud of the walking robot that she made all by herself!

While I was making dinner and Samantha was building her robot, Ben was in the living room wrestling with the boys (and Izzy), and we weren't paying attention to where the little girl was or what she was doing. Ben went upstairs to check on her, and she had literally dumped out every board game from our bottom shelf in the book nook area. We were pretty frustrated that she did that. All the pieces and cards were scattered and mixed together, and some of the boxes were ripped from her trying to open them. There was really no way she was going to be able to put everything back in the right box the right way, so it wouldn't have made sense to tell her to clean it up herself, so Ben basically made her sit in the chair next to him, not allowing her to play, until all the games were cleaned up. Which, not accounting for the time spent eating dinner, pretty much took up the rest of the night. Apparently this is what she does when no one is directly paying attention to her. We don't usually let her go upstairs by herself. We like for there to be someone around to kind of keep tabs on what she is doing, and now we are going to have to watch her even more carefully after the mess she made that night. She was definitely a challenge that night because that was something one of our kids would never have thought to do. We wondered how much of her behavior had to do with the doctor changing her medicine. Now that we were back home, we followed the doctor's orders to cut her morning dose of Ritalin in half, and no longer give her the afternoon dose. However, it seemed more difficult for her to make right decisions after school at our house since making this change in the medication. We are getting daily emails from her teacher at school to see how she is acting there as well so we can make an informed decision on how the change in medicine is impacting her and her ability to learn, listen, and focus.

For some reason, Samantha was having a rough morning on Wednesday. She fell down the stairs and got some pretty big bruises on her legs. It took awhile of me holding her and her crying before she could calm down enough to continue getting ready for school. She is usually a lot more clumsy when she is tired, so I asked her if she was doing okay and she said she was fine. I wondered if maybe she was starting to not feel well or something since she had a slight temperature on Tuesday morning and a cold, but nothing more came of it than that. I just felt bad for her starting off her day in such a sad, painful way.

That morning it was going to be warmer out than usual for mid-January, and all the snow was gone, so I decided to take the boys outside to play for awhile. This is another reason why I'm grateful that we don't live in the U.P. anymore. It's January, and the snow is all gone! It's not piled up three feet or more all around us. It was so wonderful to get some fresh air and to play together on our swing set. The boys even ate their snack sitting on the little play house on our patio. After enjoying this time outside, it made me long for spring time to come. I would be totally fine with winter being over now! I know there is more cold and snow to come, but it's nice to have these breaks every once in awhile, and we thoroughly enjoyed our play time outside.

I took a picture of the kids' tree house because they apparently found branches and logs with which to decorate the inside, and I had never noticed it before. I love to see their creativity play out.

After eating lunch and putting the little boy down for his nap, I put Owen down for his nap. I have the privilege of watching my little boy fall asleep in my arms every day. I love that he still falls asleep with me, and I will continue rocking him to sleep for as long as he will let me. Who knows how much longer that will be, so every once in awhile I will snap a few pictures of him to help me remember these sweet times. Oh my heart, sometimes I wish they could stay little forever. Owen is at such a sweet, funny stage right now. His personality is just blossoming. He can carry on conversations so well, and I'm amazed at how much he already knows and perceives when he's not even a two and a half yet. He is a funny little boy who loves to laugh and have fun, and he never hesitates to lean in for a hug and say, "Love you Mommy." 

After getting Owen down for his nap, I had laundry to put away and Ben and I got a few important calls and messages. Ben told me that our dear friends, the Brashers, asked if they could stay with us at the end of June, which would be so much fun, and he also said that he got an email asking if he would be willing to do AP grading in Utah again. We also found out that the little girl's school called her doctor regarding putting her medicine dose back up to where it was because it wasn't working taking away the afternoon dose. We were going to give it one more day and call the doctor ourselves to tell him the same things, so they beat us to it, and were glad that we were all on the same page. I also got a call saying that she was unbuckling herself and others in the van  so they have to put a special buckle cover on her seatbelt now, as well as the ones around her so she can no longer unbuckle the seatbelts. Never a dull moment with that little girl! Then, Izzy barked at the van driver when he dropped off the little girl, and her barking ended up waking Owen up, which was not fun. so it wasn't the most relaxing or productive afternoon for me.

When Aedan got home from school, he asked right away if we had an avocado. He learned about an experiment at school where you could grow an avocado from another avocado. I don't think this is exactly what they meant, but he was pretty insistent, so he got an avocado out of the refrigerator, stuck a whole bunch of toothpicks in it, and put it in a cup of water. We put it on the windowsill, and we are supposed to wait and see if it will grow. I just thought it was cute how excited he was to tell me all about this and to try the experiment on his own at home.

With it being Wednesday night, our kids all went to AWANA, but since our two new little ones, particularly the girl, can't handle going, either Ben or I stays home with them. On this night there was a PTA meeting at the kids' school, so I went to that while Ben stayed home. The meetings are usually short and sweet, which is nice, and we feel it's important to try to be involved in our kids' school. In fact, they even talked to me about joining a committee for something called Reading is Fundamental, so I have to touch base with the lady that is in charge of it right now to get more in-depth information. Ben said that the little girl did much better at home that night than the night before. He said he thinks downtime is good for her, and it probably helped that she was getting more one-on-one attention than she was the previous night when she tore apart all our game boxes.

I have been so inconsistent with exercise lately, and I really want to be better about it. On Wednesday night I tried logging into my Beach Body Account, but it didn't work because we have a different credit card number. I didn't want to mess around with figuring it out, so I did a Pilates workout from The Balanced Life Sisterhood, instead. It was a legs and core workout, so it was a good one. I have been having mixed feelings about continuing with the Beach Body workouts because I felt a little bit discouraged by them. It was really hard for me to keep up with a lot of the moves and I had to modify or slow down a lot of the time, which I know is okay, but it's just hard for me to have the motivation to do something that I feel like is too hard for me. Part of me was thinking about still exercising but just going back and doing Pilates with The Balanced Life program that I was doing before, at least until I can get more consistent and maybe gain more muscle strength and endurance. I found myself enjoying and looking forward to Pilates a lot more. I found it challenging, but not discouraging, and I enjoy Robin Long's personality. It's just her on the beach. There's no crazy music or gym setting. There aren't any other people working out with her, and she doesn't wear low-cut, revealing clothing, which is less distracting to me when I feel dissatisfied with the way that I look. I want to do a workout program that is encouraging to me in my goals to be healthy and balanced, and I think right now, in the phase of life I am in and with the level of fitness that I am at, that Pilates may be the better choice.

On Thursday morning we had a meeting set up at our house with a lady that is helping our new little girl with some of her issues in relation to behavioral therapy and medication. She came to our house to drop off some medication and stayed to talk to us for a few minutes about how she is doing and what issues we see with her. Ben wanted to stay to be a part of the meeting as well, so I took advantage of the fact that he was home and we only had the two little boys, to start taking down the Christmas lights outside. I needed his help moving the extension ladder around the front of the house, and I was able to get all the lights down before the lady came to our house for the meeting.

Then, I got a call from a mom and lady from church named Erica. She invited the boys and me to come over to her house for a spontaneous play date that morning. I wasn't sure if we could swing going over to someone's house, as it was already after 10:00, and she lived a good distance away, but I didn't want to turn down the chance to get together with someone when they were actually the ones inviting me. The boys ended up having a good time playing with new toys, in a new environment, and with new friends. Erica and I had a good time talking and getting to know each other better, especially as we both moved to Pennsylvania from out of state and were relatively new to the area. She was an easy person to talk to, and I'm glad we decided to make the trip to play. We stayed through lunch, which I was grateful for, but it was a bit challenging trying to keep both boys awake when we left at 12:40. They were both definitely ready for naps as we drove about 35 minutes to get back home.

Owen just kept waking up that afternoon, even though he was tired. I held him and got him back to sleep three different times, with him waking up as soon as I tried to lay him down in his crib. I ended up sitting in his room holding him asleep in my lap in the glider for a long time, almost half an hour, figuring it would be better to hold him and let him actually nap instead of continue to lay him down and have him wake up. I did have to lay him down when the little girl got home from school, but miraculously, he actually stayed asleep that time, and ended up sleeping for quite awhile longer. I have no idea what the problem was and why he kept waking up so much, but I was glad he at least went back to sleep again, even if it took all afternoon.

Here is some work Aedan brought home from school, working with letters and simple addition problems.

Here's an order of events paragraph Samantha wrote in response to a story they were reading in class, using transitional words in the paragraph.

And here's a 100% she got on the test over that story, as well as a spelling paper.

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Aedan continues to do work on recognizing sight words and how they can be used in a sentence, number pairs for 5, 6, 7, and 8, and work with the letter Oo.

Our typical Thursday routine is to go to Bible study in the morning, and then come back home for lunch and nap time. The boys enjoy going to the coffee shop and playing with kids, and it is an amazing time for me to be around other moms, talk about the Bible, and just get to talk about life while not having kids underfoot or interrupting you all the time.

Then, on Thursday evenings we have small group at a home in Dallas. I took the kids to the group, as it was the first meeting back together again after taking a break over Christmas, and Ben stayed home with our two new little ones. It was snowing on and off that day, and while we were at small group, it snowed and there was some freezing rain, so when we went to leave, I couldn't get out of their neighborhood. There was a steep hill going up in the direction we usually go, and someone else's wheels were spinning trying to get up the hill. The van is so bad with getting traction on hills, as we can't even get up our own driveway, so I didn't think going that direction would work. I decided to try going left instead because I would be going downhill instead of uphill. But I didn't quite realize just how much downhill it was, since I am unfamiliar with the area still. I was going as slow as I possibly could down the hill, but I was sliding the entire time with the brake pulsing from the anti-lock brake system. I ended up pulling into a parking lot off to the left because I saw someone else doing it, and I honestly didn't think I would be able to make it down the hill without hitting something or even sliding off the road into the ditch. I didn't know what to do once I pulled in the parking lot, but all I knew is that I was so scared and I did not feel comfortable driving anymore. I called Ben to tell him what was going on, and I told him I wasn't willing to drive anymore, that it wouldn't be safe to try and get back on that road with all the kids in the car. So, he ended up coming and picking us up in the Subaru because it has four wheel drive and handles ice much better. We left the van in the parking lot with plans to go back and get it the next day. We ended up getting home really late, and by the time I was done getting the kids to bed, it was almost 10:00. I was exhausted at that point and just needed to drink some wine and then go to sleep myself.

Friday was a little bit different of a day since our two new little ones had a visit with their parents since the little girl had the day off of school. Owen and I spent some time getting things done around the house, and then Daddy came home in the middle of the day to help me get our van back after leaving it in the parking lot the night before. Since we did this right around lunchtime, Owen and I stopped for Wendy's on the way home and had a fun lunch date out together. He is such a silly, sweet little boy. He was attracting all the attention from the older people that were sitting next to us in Wendy's. You can see this personality of his in the next few pictures with his chicken nuggets and big goofy grin.

Isn't this little boy just such a sweetheart? His smile and dimples just melt my heart. Sometimes I feel like all he has to do is flash me this smile, and he can get whatever he wants. I love being able to spend my days with him.

Owen had a little trouble settling down for his nap that afternoon. It seemed like it was kind of a theme of the week to not be taking great naps. Our two new little ones were brought back home by their caseworker, and then we had a few minutes to sit and talk with her about how things have been going with our kids and how the case is progressing. We have our next court date on February 11th, and it could be for potential reunification, so we just wanted an update on how all that was going. It was good to talk with her for more than just a few minutes in passing or through texts, and we were super grateful for a good caseworker who is responsive, helpful, and on top of things.

Here is some work the kids brought home that afternoon from school. This page definitely wasn't Aedan's best coloring, silly boy.

Here is some more work on number pairs for 9 and 10 and drawing what a sentence says.

Saturday was a somewhat busy day in our house as Samantha had play practice in the morning, and then we spent the rest of the day putting Christmas decorations away and taking down our Christmas tree. It had been up for two months already, so it was about time to put it away, even if I love having it up, seeing the twinkling lights, and enjoying the festive decorations everywhere. It's been better in our new house because the tree doesn't take up so much space that it's in the way or causing us to rearrange furniture in order to fit it. However, even though the kids were a little sad about it going down, I reminded them that it wouldn't be special to have if we just left it up all year round. Samantha and Aedan were huge helpers to me in getting all the ornaments taken off and put away, as will as collecting all the other Christmas decorations around the house. It was fun to have them help and to have that shared time together.

That night as we were relaxing once the kids were in bed, I took these adorable pictures of Izzy sleeping soundly with her head propped up on the couch pillow and her feet all tucked inside one another. She was very much asleep and tired out after a busy day of keeping track of everyone in her family.

(Blog about January 12-18, 2020)