Swimming lessons!

We started swimming lessons this week at a friends pool. I'm teaching her daughter and another friends daughters and my girls while my friends watch the boys. Hannah was scared getting back into a pool that has a deep end. She likes the lake where I never forced her into the deep water. In the pool I use the whole length :-) I know she'll get used to it in a few weeks. Evie on the other hand is little miss swimmer. She's doing freestyle and backstroke now. Seriously, if I wanted to start her on a team in the fall I could. It's kind of crazy! I worked with the boys at the beach yesterday on their swimming. They're working on kicking and blowing bubbles. It should be a summer full of swimming fun!

That didn't work...

I rearranged the boys room by putting the dresser in between their cribs. Figuring that would at least stop them from moving the cribs. That it did, however they found it even easier to climb out at the dresser and crawl over to the other crib. I'm pretty sure I cannot come up with a layout that keeps the dresser out of reach of both boys. I think I'll have to take it out. And probably take the sides off their cribs and work on having them stay in their cribs during nap and night time. That will be a fun little challenge to under take. :-) I just figured I'd update you on the progress, or lack there of and let you know the boys are getting better at climbing out of their cribs!

escaped!

I put the boys down for nap today and there was lots of talking and laughing, as there normally is. Then it was quiet (better Mom?) for a few minutes so I thought they had fallen asleep. Then Little Boy Blue started to do a cry/whimper type thing so I looked in the monitor to see what was going on....and there is Little Boy Blue's crib was Green Machine. I would be crying too if my brother had crashed into my crib and was then jumping and having the time of him life! Yesterday Green Machine was showing signs of escaping, was caught in the act as a matter of fact by Daddy. Daddy surprised him and sat him back down in his crib and thought that this would stop future attempts. Apparently not. I think it's time to rearrange the boys room!

A weekend of fun

Friday we heading down to Maryland to visit my parents and see Debbie, who was in from Yemen for work. Becca and Lucas also came down for the occasion and my grandparents were there as well, so it was a full house of fun! Saturday morning, the girls, who were sleeping in Aunt Debbie's room with her decide that 5:45 am was a good time to get up, Aunt Debbie was kind enough to try and encourage them to go back to sleep, but did not have much success. The boys didn't sleep much later, so it was an early morning for all. After hanging around the house for a little bit in the morning we then headed to a local park that was lots of fun.

 There was an amazing web to climb! Huge slides to go down and a large mound for climbing.

And there was a carousel to ride!

The girls had a few minutes before everyone made it to the carousel so they knew exactly what they wanted to ride when everyone was ready.

After the park we headed for lunch which didn't work out so well for some tired little boys, so I headed out early with them and got to have some quiet time while they napped before everyone got home. The report was that everyone had fun and the girls did really well! Besides the local park Saturday morning there was a lot of time spent at the school park behind my parents house. All the kids enjoyed that one. On Friday night we got to see some of my grandparents wii skills, apparently my Grandfather is a closet wii super bowler! :-)
Sunday was a quiet morning at the park while I packed and a long trip home. The girls did absolutely amazing in the car, which was very helpful. The boys were a little more demanding, but there were no complete meltdowns or anything, so that was good.

Father's Day gifts

Last week I worked with the girls on making some Father's Day gifts for everyone we'd be seeing on Father's Day. We made chocolate legos and lego men! I put the chocolate in the molds, the girls picked out the colors and then "painted" the men for a personal touch. They had a great time and I thought it turned out good as well.

Hannah working diligently on her lego people.

Evie working hard on hers as well. 

These are Hannah's people

Here are some of Evie's, the ones Evie did you can see the faces on a little better, in the picture above you of Evie working you can kind of see her other people, they were all Christmas colored in red and green.

TPR file!

Last week they filed the termination of parental rights in court! This is just the very beginning of the adoption process, but it means it's really started now. Our prayer is that the birth parents will make the best decision for the kids and sign away their rights without going through a court hearing. It can take up to six months to get a court date for the termination hearing, so if the parents don't sign and want to contest the termination it will be a long process.
As part of our craziness last week we also had a NICU follow up appointment with the boys. It was a bit crazy and a very long day for everyone. The appointment was basically the same sort of testing that birth to three had done to see if the boys were at age level for different skills. Little Boy Blue did great, he tested 27-31 months in all areas. Green Machine didn't do so well, he tested 19-23 months. The one that really got me was that they said Green Machine tested at 19 months for gross motor skills and Little Boy Blue was 31 months for gross motor skills. The only thing that Little Boy Blue can do that Green Machine can't is jump, seriously, at the park today Green Machine was climbing things better than Little Boy Blue. But, the test is only a two hour snap shot of the boys, so you can only gather so much information from it. And when you're doing it during their nap time, after having driven across the state you really can't expect them to do that well. I was concerned by the results, as I did not want to start birth to three services again, but after talking to the boys social worker, who thought those results were crazy as well, it doesn't look like I'll have to, which is great! :-) So we'll just keep working with both of them continuing to increase their skills and see who it goes.

beach time

After a busy week last week and a weekend at my parents we've been spending this week enjoying the beautiful weather. The past two days were a high around 80. Yesterday we had the beach to ourselves most of the morning. It's super easy taking four kids to the beach when they can just run around and do whatever they want with no one there to care. Next week starts the craziness, as school will be out, so the beach will be much more crowded. Today was a little cooler, so we just headed to the park instead. The boys are doing so much better at parks now. They're able to climb most everything and do the big slides and such by themselves. Hopefully I'll have more up on last week soon!

Stepping stones

Yesterday I met a friend at Stepping Stones museum. I didn't take any pictures, but it was a good time. The kids favorite part of the museum is the water section. All the kids enjoy playing in water, and when you add balls to water how can you go wrong? The museum also has some cups and streams of water that flow down into a small area. Well, my boys have this thing about drinking water. Any all and all water. Have I mentioned Little Boy Blue has been licking the lake? Anyway, the boys found the cups and were drinking the water....there really wasn't much I could do to stop this unless I left the area, so I decided I wasn't going to fight that battle. There was definitely chlorine in the water, so it's fine right? At one point Green Machine stuck his head under the steam as well. There were four moms in the area and we had a discussion about how it's not worth it to stop them from drink the water. So we were all standing there when a mom who was on the other side of the wall, walking into the three and under play area leans over and in a panicked tone says "He's drinking the water!!" I look and her and said "yes, I know" "that's okay?!?!" and she looks at me funny and walks off after that. Then one of the other moms says "she must only have one kid" and we all laughed. How true it is! :-)
Today we went to Waterbury for a visit with the boys birth mom. And now I'm done driving for the week! Next week will have lots of driving as well, with a doctor appointment in Hartford and then a trip to visit my parents next weekend. I figured this week, with an hour trip one way the past three days was just practice :-)

The Zoo

Monday, we did our typical crazy library schedule, and Tuesday we had library in the morning and then it was a beautiful day so we headed to the park. We were supposed to have a make up visit for the boys in Waterbury, but thankfully it was cancelled. We spent a couple hours at the park and the girls saw a friend there that had met at the beach the week before. After those two busy days on Wednesday we headed to the zoo!!! It was the same one we went to last year. One of the first animals we saw was the tiger, who was quiet vocal this year. That scared the boys quiet a bit and wasn't exactly the best start to the zoo experience. There was a lot of crying though out the day. There were also a lot of kids who were trying to tell the boys it was okay they didn't have to be scared. It was sweet.

How long is your wing span?

The girls are about the length of a barn owl. 

The girls sitting on a bear...

This peacock gave us quiet the show! 

Even with the crying, I think some fun was had. Even if the boys favorite part may have been watching the birds fly around! :-)

Catching up.....

This has been a slightly crazy week. Last Saturday Nathan got out our large roll of paper and covered the table for some family coloring page. Hannah drew a picture a picture of our family and then added a swimming pool and some flowers.

Here she is working on the flowers. 

Evie drew some people doing handstands, along with the dog pretzel

Nathan went all artsy with nature and drew a flower and a bee. Much nicer than anything I did...of course I was also trying to supervise small children who were trying to escape with markers! 

Saturday afternoon we headed to the beach as a family for a birthday party. It was quiet warm, so the beach was crowded. It worked out well with Nathan watching one boy while I watched the other. After playing in the water for awhile we headed over to the pavilion for some games, pizza and cake. 

The girls enjoyed digging for gummy worms in whip cream, no hands allowed!

Don't they look good?

The boys really enjoyed their cupcakes. At their birthday they barely touched their cupcakes, so it was fun to watch them enjoy those ones.