still alive... just busy

So I realized that we have not been present in the blogging world for quite some time...almost four weeks now? wow, time is flying. We are still alive, just busy in our lives and dealing with our kids. Sydney is doing really well, she slept from 12 to 6ish A.M. straight-through last night, so we are really grateful and happy about that. Thank you Babywise! She is spending more time with her eyes open lately, checking out this wild world in which we live, and is starting to follow the sounds of our voices. She especially loves to hear Em's, and has smiled at her a couple times in response to Em talking to her. I have not been the beneficiary of any smiles in response to my voice, but I like to count the ones where she is smiling at the fan and because of gas as mine.

The older girls are still very sweet to her, except that I think that Kami wants to start playing with her, so she has been bringing toys to Sydney, hanging out with her at mealtimes (which is fun for Em), and removing her socks for her (Kami has a thing with shoes and socks, I'll talk about it some other time). Gracie has been nothing but sweet to her and likes to imaging that when Sydney is crying, that she is the Mommy and says comforting things like, " Oh, Honey, What's the matter?" and "It's OK, sweetie". Cracks me up every time!

Funny story about Gracie, today as we arrived for church we devised a game plan for getting the kids out of the car and chauffeuring them into the capilla. I said that I would take number three and Em volunteered for number two, which left Brittany (my sister who is staying with us for a couple months, we had space, she wanted a change) taking "number one" (Gracie). When Gracie heard that she was number one, she broke down in tears, saying that she is not number one, she is three, and that she could only be three and not two or one, that she is a big girl, ....and so on. She obviously meant her age needed to be three, and that we couldn't relegate her to being one just by saying so. I just laughed as I tried to explain to her that she was our first child and that that was special,and that she was still a big girl and could be three years old and still be our first child...needless to say I was laughing whilst I explained and she thought I was laughing at her, not with her...and she eventually understood, but I was again reminded of a number of things that I should not forget. 1. Cardinal numbers are not an easily understood topic by three year-olds (get working on that Disney) 2. I have a house full of girls and need to remember that most of the time it is not what I say but how I say it that matters 3. these kids are paying close attention to everything we do, and so when I am not speaking at their level, I probably need to talk in code so as not to upset them. I

Well, this was just a short blurb that will hopefully allow Em to guilt-free post some pictures of our cutie pies without writing a whole lot. so tune in shortly for the good stuff in our next post.

Lance