Home! Exhausted! Happy!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

We are home! We arrived home late on Thursday night and we even had a little gathering at the airport waiting for us!!!!!! (Thanks!!!!)

Our last couple of days in Guatemala were great but bittersweet.

We got to spend a ton of time with our kid's foster families (yes... all 4 of them!) but, I still wonder about the kids left behind... and how fortunate we have been....all of the foster moms are struggling since they now have no children to foster. I want so badly to help...but I know that financially we are not in a place to... nor do I think that they would want that anyways... I just know that it pains them to put so much love into a child, have that child leave, and not see them again...but that it pains them more knowing there are children out there that may not ever grow up with a family...

It will be a year at least till we can go back to GC...mainly due to $$$ and law school...but we will go back as soon as we can.

Embassy went very smooth. E's Godmother watched the boys for us and we were back to the hotel around 9am!

Visa pickup went smooth...and Wed night we had a huge dinner for our lady's foster family.

It ended with a lot of hugs and kisses...and we got the kids off to bed and packed everything up.

The kids did pretty well on the flights home minus our little tude, F. He is having a few jealously issues over not being the baby anymore and he chose to take them out on us at 35,000 feet. Minus that, and the a$$hole sitting in front of us from Houston to home. (yes, YOU, you old, fat, drunken *bleep* *bleep*) our flights were pretty uneventful! This is the FIRST time we have flown and NOT had diarrhea!!! (sorry bout the tmi...but I'm pretty excited!)

So... we have been home since late Thursday night... and Sunday night is the first night I can update this blog.... my Mother's day present from our little lady has been a couple hours of sleep!!! Which of course I'm using to be online....

We do have a perfect little girl. She eats well, is generally happy, doesnt fuss, goes with the flow, prefers me (yea!), tolerates her brothers, and does sleep. I will explain the sleep part though... she does NOT take naps. Seriously. She just doesnt take a nap. Foster mom told us she will take 2-3 catnaps of 5-10 min each and that is it. Unfortunately, it turns out that I think she was telling us the truth. At night, she needs me to sleep. Which leaves me with 0, and that is a big ole fat ZERO, free time. Granted... I have three toddler boys...but dang... they take a 3 hour nap in the afternoon... and at night, we throw them in bed and they stay there till morning.

Talk about a shock to my system!!!! I wouldnt even mind the evening cuddling to sleep as much if I had some time during the day to so something for me. I dont mind her needing me to sleep. I dont mind at all....and I kinda expected it... and I kinda like it. But... I need some decompression time.

She is very much still a baby also. She holds her head up, she can sit up, roll from back to stomach (but not back again), and is trying to crawl. She eats stage 2 baby food (and eats like a flipping champ!!!), drinks 6-8 pachas a day, hates her diaper changes but loves her bath. I have found some of her tickle spots and she has found she can make my nose bleed with a swift headbutt. She is difficult to dress...but very cute once the clothes make it on.

Being used to walking, self feeding, toddlers... it is quite a shock to go back to little tiny spoons with nasty smelling, tiny little jars, of mush that needs to be put into an ever moving mouth!

Yea for self feeding!!!!!

Really though... we are truly blessed to be able to see some of her babyhood. I dont take that for granted for one single minute. Missing two 1st birthdays was just too damm hard. Now, I get to plan for her party!

This Mother's day weekend I have so much to be thankful for!