Our Adopted Family: Where did the summer go?

Wow I can't believe it is almost the end of August? How did that happen? We have had a pretty mild summer, mind you I'm not complaining...just wishing the garden wasn't so far behind this year. We may not get many tomatoes the way the nights are cooling off already.

Our life has been busy. Both the kiddos are taking swim lessons 5 days a week. With swim lessons has come weekly hair braids/twists. Or whatever I can come up with to keep her hair from knotting up completely. Swimming keeps us busy and on a pretty tight schedule to get out of the house in the morning. I have even had to start setting my alarm. Something I haven't had to do for a long time. Good practice for preschool which starts in about 1 month. More about that later.

We had a fun quick visit to Seattle to see The Wiggles. The kids had so much fun and we both enjoyed watching them, watch the show. They are still talking about Anthony getting cake in his face by Captain Feathersword. They re-enact it many times throughout the day. The drive to Seattle was no picnic. Somehow we seem to have the only two children that will not sleep on road trips. We even left at nap time so they would be tired after swimming....wrong. They stayed awake and bugged each other the whole trip.

We broke up the drive by stopping to visit friends in Washington. The Gracia's who we traveled with to Ethiopia to pick up our children were our stop on the drive up. We are forever connected to Anne-Marie and Eli sharing this life changing event of international adoption. On the way home we stopped at the Thies' house to see another Toukoul adoptive family. It was great to see them. Wish we could have visited longer. The kids had fun playing with each other and ran off some energy before they had to get back in the car for the rest of the trip in car seats.

Alec's cast is off, YES! No more blowing the cast dry after swimming and baths. This waterproof cast was amazing. He never once complained that it itched, was hot, or bothered him at all. When his cast came off as our pediatrician put it, his arm looked like an arm and didn't smell like a foot :).

More on preschool now. Yes we made the decision to start preschool this year instead of waiting one more year. Haven is going to go two days a week. I look at this as a good practice run to see what type of issues with her SPD being in school will bring out. Hoping this will help us have a game plan for when it is time for kindergarten. Alec is going to go one day a week. His class is more a play class. I think it will be good for him to get away from Haven for a little bit and play with other children. He is so social and makes friends easily. They are both going on different days so they can then have special alone time with Mom. I'm excited and sadden at the same time at this next big step of their life. Excited for all they will learn and do. Sadden that they are not babies any more. They are growing up so fast. They have been home two years in September. Seems like yesterday and forever all rolled together

Enjoy a few pictures of Seattle.