First off let me just say that I think this has been the best year of my life. The kids are all at great ages and things are much easier than last year. A family is such a blessing and I try to stay in the moment as often as I can. Mary Sue and I watch these kids age in front of our eyes and we wish freezing time was an option. Now I am just sonding old. Mary Sue and the kids were up north for most of the summer and I was able to be with them for about half of the time.
First things first - Paul has gone from a crying twirp to a toddler since the last post. He was probably our most difficult baby. He cried a lot. Up until about 8 months he was a 'Mama's boy' despite having the full attention of 3 older siblings. You never know how adding a new baby will change the mood or tone of the family. It has made our core so much stronger. We just all enjoy sitting around and giggling at Paul. There is no envy or attempts for attention. The kids just adore Paul and this really surprised me. I never would have guessed how smooth adding a new baby could have gone.
Paul was a little late to walk when compared with our others - about 15 months. You wouldn't guess it now. He went from cautious to crazy in only a few weeks. He is just one of the gang now. Paul has some interesting quirks. Until recently, he would only sleep with little dog stuffed animals. He had about 5 of these and he clearly knew the difference between dogs and any other animal and wanted nothing to do with them. When he sees dogs, stuffed, in pictures, or real ones, he starts going voof - voof. He is also fascinated by birds. He signs for them and says ber. Most of his words sound like that; ba (milk), ba (ball, but he usually says ohhhh when saying ball), etc. Now Paul is absolutely fascinated with balls. You can see him taking his ball for a walk in his baby stroller in one of the videos below. When we put Paul in teh car he has to have at least one ball in his lap, usually a basketball. Despite being loyal to his Mom, Paul has been transformed to a daddy's boy. He says Dada all day while I am at worki. We think he believes I play basketball for a living. 'Dada vroom vroom ba ba'.
Adelina has thrived in the last few years. She is now in kindergarten and loves school. She is making friends and always comes home with a smile and a story. We have shared with Adelina earlier this year that she was adopted. There were questions about her birth Mom, Aleesia. We explained that how we were led to foster and were blessed to have her added to our family. We now celebrate her adoption in January, Adoption Day. Certainly there will be more questions as she ages but we just offer her love for now. Adelina is just one of the family and it has been that way since she arrived. She and Paul were dedicated at our church together last year. It was a tearful event. Our pastor read from my blog post when she first arrived and it touched us. She enjoys coloring, playing on the computer, snuggling, and goofing off. She has a contagious laugh and if you start giggling she will join you even when there is nothing to laugh at. Adelina was named the 'Star Dolphin' in her class a few weeks ago.
Lexi is also in kindergarten. She was picked by her teacher as the 'Citizen of the month'. Lexi is doing quite well with reading. She took a strong interest over the summer and can now read independently. Lexi is our most cautious child. She avoids trouble and thinks things through before jumping in with both feet. Lexi can sit for a long time and just color. She ignores the noise around her and just gets focused. I tried to pick her up and throw her on the bed the other day and it struck me just how big she had become. She is tall and strong but she and Adelina are still my little girls. Lexi also likes to swim and go to the beach.
Tyler has really grown in the last year. He is an excellent reader and an absolute math whiz. We worked on triple digit subtraction over the summer and he now grasps the concept of multiplication and division. In the past year he has gone from comletely uninterested in sports to a sports fanatic. He asks me every day who won what game last night. This all started about 10 months ago when I took him to a HS basketball game. He got caught up in the emotion of the game and was hooked. Then we went to a minor league hockey game and the same thing. This year we were luck enough to go to two Phillies games. Now he is a huge fan and was really interested in the penant race and now the playoffs. We just finished his first basketball league. He is determined and athletic. We are starting another one this week. It as a 7 and 8 year old league so he will be challenged but will learn a lot.
Here are some insights to our past year. The videos are at the bottom. If you click the arrow they will play. Turn on your speakers!
