A trip home

I had good intentions of doing a blog post before our trip home so the next blog post could be JUST about our trip, but it didn't happen. So a brief blurb about the week before our trip! We had some snow on the Sunday before, which turned out to be a real nuisance. Luckily it was gone before Monday came around so school wasn't affected, but we actually couldn't get the van out of the driveway Sunday morning, it was too slippery. What a pain! Lynsey was happy to have some snow to play in, so I guess I was happy for her:).

Preparing for our trip was a bit hectic, but we were ready to go Wednesday night! The flight was relatively uneventful actually. Nathan was a bit wired and the only one who slept at all on the plane was Adam, and that was only for about the last 15 minutes (and we got there around 11:30 MST, which was really 10:30 for us). It took some time to get our bags and the rental car etc, so we weren't at the hotel until about 12:30 MST - wayyyy past everyone's bedtime! It took a while for the boys to settle - Nathan just thought that he didn't need to go to sleep at all that night, I think! It was not the greatest night - maybe 6.5 - 7 hours of sleep for the kids. I met some of my mom's group friends at a big play place in the morning, and the lack of sleep did not bode well for this trip to a huge, stimulating, chaotic play place. Nathan was a disaster for the first hour and a half. He was not doing well, and then he actually saw another kid with the same blanky as him (!) - not being able to have that blanky sent him over the edge for 45 solid minutes. Let's not forget that Adam was also not having a ton of fun at this time, and by that I mean he was walking around crying for a lot of the time. Luckily he was not screaming and freaking out, too, that would actually have been unmanageable and I would have had to call Brian to come and get us right then and there. Everything did calm down for the last hour or so that we were there, so I was able to visit a little bit which was nice! I would not do the really late flight combo-ed with an early morning plan again - lesson learned! We hung out in Calgary the rest of the day and took off for Three Hills on Friday, where we hung out until just after dinner. Friday night we were off to Edmonton! Things slowed down once we got to Edmonton and we were able to relax a bit more with a little less hectic of a schedule. We managed to see a ton of people in the 5 days that we were up there including both sets of parents and a lot of other family and friends, so all the craziness was worth it! Our kids traveled pretty well all things considered and there were no major hiccups anywhere, so I am just feeling very thankful for that!

Now that we are home, I am just trying to catch my breath and get back to routine! All of our kids need to catch up on some sleep (which Nathan did this afternoon with a 3.5 hour nap!). Adam has had a rough few days, and I think he just needs a solid week of good sleep so he can get back to some sort of equilibrium. He handled all the transitions and different people and places of the trip well, but I think we are just seeing some residual effects of lack of sleep and over-stimulation. The TV has been on a lot because of the Olympics and he is starting to ask for it to be turned off, which we haven't seen before. Too much for our poor boy! Hopefully he can sort himself out soon, because he is very difficult to deal with when he is unregulated like this!

A bit of a funny thing happened today that I wanted to record:). I had given both Adam and Nathan some pretzels for a snack, Adam's at the big table and Nathan's at the kid table. Adam came over to the kid table and tried to take ownership of Nathan's pretzels, to which Nathan obviously objected, at which time Adam pushed Nathan to the ground. I stepped in and sternly told Adam that it was not okay to push Nathan and directed him back to his own pretzels. Shortly after I hear Nathan directing a little lecture at Adam: "No push Nay-Nay. No Ab-um." He said this a few times, even walking closer to him to make sure Adam was hearing him! It's just so interesting to hear Nathan becoming so aware of what's going on and being able to verbalize so much, he's just his own little person! My feelings are mixed as he passes Adam in some areas of communication, but obviously we are really happy that he is just plodding along and expanding his communication continually. Such a cute little boy!

So I didn't take a ton of pictures when we were up north, but Lynsey did grab the camera and several of the pictures you see here are ones that she took! It was actually really funny, she had taken one megablock and took pictures of it in several different places in the basement - quite artistic and so funny to see! I didn't include all those pictures, though:).

Superbowl Sunday Fun!

We had a great Superbowl weekend! We invited over one of Brian's co-workers and his family (they have a 9 year old girl, a 7 year old boy and a 4 year old boy) and we had a great time getting to know each other:). The fact that the Seahawks destroyed the Broncos in a dominating performance was icing on the cake! What a year to move to Seattle, first Superbowl win ever! It's pretty exciting for the city, and I'm definitely getting into the spirit of it as well. Not too sure if I will be venturing downtown on Wednesday for the parade, that might be a bit too much for me to handle, but it would be fun!

We had Lynsey's parent/teacher conference on Friday! It went really well! Her teacher and her reading group teacher had very positive reports for us on her progress in all areas which was great for us to hear. She is almost caught up to her classmates in reading, and her teacher says she feels like a light bulb has come on with math as well (I knew it would eventually, glad it happened sooner rather than later:)). All in all we are very happy with how she is doing in school! She starts with her after school drama class tomorrow, so we'll see how she likes that. She is excited about it and it SEEMS like something she would like, but you never know until you actually try it. Fingers crossed it goes well!

Our trip to Calgary is coming up fast, only a week and a half away! I am excited for the trip but a bit anxious about the travel part. I am just hoping and praying that it all goes smoothly, since Brian and I will be outnumbered by kids (yikes!). We are also hoping for good weather, which is always a bit of a toss up this time of year! It looks like it's going to be pretty cold there this week and warming up a bit next week, but I see on the 14 day trend that they might see some freezing rain while we're there - not cool! We need to drive to Three Hills and then to Edmonton, so the precipitation has got to go!

Hmm I can't think of much else that has happened over the last few weeks, we're just plugging along as usual. Adam hasn't really made many changes recently, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we are always hoping for big breakthroughs! Maybe this week:). Nathan is chattering away all the time, and has started wanting to walk all the time instead of ride in the stroller. This doesn't work when you have not left enough time for it (which is every single morning walking Lynsey to school) so it can be a bit of a struggle. What I love about this stage is that he's learning to understand and even complies sometimes! This morning he wanted to walk and he was starting to cry about it, and I told him that he could not walk on the way there, but when we dropped Lynsey off, I would let him walk on the way back home. After I explained that, he let me put him in the stroller. Now obviously this kind of explanation doesn't work every time, but the fact that it even works SOMETIMES is awesome! Such a fun little guy:).