since we've been home

We have been home now for 2 weeks, and wow! What a ride. I don't even know where to begin, and to tell the truth, I've just typed and deleted about 12 different openings for this post. But, in the wise words of a certain King of Hearts:

"Just begin at the beginning and go on til you come to the end. Then stop."
- Alice in Wonderland

So to begin at the beginning...

Jet lag
Coming home from international travel in the past has always been an easy adjustment for me. Scientifically, I hear that it's usually the other way around, but I tend to get back on my good ol' Texas schedule within a day or so without any issue. But of course, that was always travelling without children.

I had high hopes that they would come home and go straight to sleep. In this regard, I was not disappointed. What I also should have hoped for was that they would sleep through the night. :) Those first few days were early and late all at the same time since the kids were up at 11pm, 1am, and 3am (for the rest of the day). Thankfully, they are now on a much more manageable schedule and only wake up once around 6am.

Also, they LOVE their beds! (Thank you, Mr. Cool and Aunt Julie for getting them ready for us!) As you can see below:

HEB
Ok, so all of the adoption advice is to not take your kids anywhere for 3 months. When I first heard that, I admit, I thought that was ridiculous. While we were in Uganda, we had to get out all the time: to the store (fruit/milk/etc don't stay fresh as long as they do here), to various court & medical appointments, to get chapati in the mornings. There are always a ton of people around and the simple act of driving often turned into an adventure. I figured that if the kids could handle that, they could handle anything.

And then we went to HEB.

All we needed was some basic things: 3 gallons of milk, 12 loaves of bread, 1400 eggs (these kids eat, I tell you!). It was a weekday afternoon, so we thought it would be a quick trip. Well! If you have never seen a store as big as HEB, if you have never had so many free food samples at your fingertips, and if you have never seen frozen crab legs (and all the other interesting things in the meat section) - you will not be in and out in an hour, my friends.

The kids did great and had a lot of fun. I'm beginning to think that part of the rationale behind the stay-home-3-months advice is not just to help keep the kids from being overwhelmed...it's also to help rookie parents from setting themselves up for future failure. Our kids are now ruined for future grocery trips because they happened to like every. single. sample. Heaven help us if we need to make a quick grocery run or go somewhere without food samples.

Camping
We camped in the living room and watched Finding Nemo. Big success.

Thanksgiving
The great thing about 4-year-olds and quasi-2-year-olds is this: they like to help cook. Especially if it involves licking the bowl.

And finally, we spend most of our time playing. "Going to wagon" (also known as: going in the wagon to the playground) is the all-time favorite, but we've also found some other things around here to keep us entertained.

For our little future engineers:

Ibra is singing the Arabian Horse song to Big Bear and teaching him how to find Africa on the globe (thank you, Kerry and Neltia!).

And one of my favorites: nap time! This is the considerate boy we have: not only did he offer his best jeans to his bear, but he also made sure that Big Bear was warm enough for nap.