Fall Weekend Getaway

We are in Minneapolis this weekend. We have had a really good time.
We got here on Thursday night, late. Jaimee has been so great to let us crash in her downtown apartment. The kids were excited to get here, but TIRED. they went to bed quick and slept well.
Friday, we took the kids and went to visit Kristina at the Children's Home in St. Paul. It was fun to show off our little family. We had a good visit and turned in our Post-placement paperwork. Afterwards, we went to the Ethiopian restaurant in St. Paul, called Fasika. We went there before we were in Africa. However, to take Levi and Jesse there was a real treat! Levi literally shoveled the food in. Jesse was ecstatic.

The rest of the day, we spent at the MOA, (that's right the Mall of America). It was good though.
All the kids loved the Lego store and LOVED being with their cousins. Isaac bought a new Star Wars Lego ship. Kaylee got a little mini figure person. Levi, Jesse and Erin loved playing with the Duplo's and Legos. We walked and walked and walked some more. The 3 kid stroller, proved worth it's weight in GOLD.
We got back to the apartment about 11pm. I think we squeezed about all the juice out of that day.

Today, we started by sleeping in!! Yeah!! We got up a little after 8am, (yes, that is sleeping in).
Breakfast and then Grandpa took 4 kids for a walk down to the park. Much of the morning was spent at the park, while the women were back at the apartment, preparing for the day with lunches for the trip to the Apple Orchard. We all piled in the car and headed for an orchard in stillwater, MN. Lunch was excellent! We all had a great day. The kids played in the hay bales, drank cider, listened to music and rode trikes and bikes around.
We left the Orchard and headed for IKEA. The kids napped (except Kaylee) and slept until 5pm!
I took the kids in and we all chowed down on the swedish meatballs and pasta. The kids were very good. We headed back to Jaimee's and got jammies on and the kids hit the sack.

Updates

We haven't written in a while, mostly because we usually blog at night and by 10pm we are falling into bed.
We had planned to go last weekend on a retreat to Twin Lakes camp, but we opted out at the last minute. We know we missed some fun there, but God had a plan for us at home. We did some fun activities as a family and had a really good time! We are finding that, with Kaylee and Isaac in school during the day, times like that with the kids all together are fewer and farther between. So, we thought we would take advantage of the opportunity.
Each day, Levi's language improves. He has many words, but doesn't always know how to use them. Here's an example, if he is next to me, watching me and doesn't know what I'm doing, he'll say "daddy, where are you?" instead of "what are you doing?" It's very confusing sometimes to try to understand. It will be interesting when we start to get words for emotions and remembering. I know he is still mourning a loss, but it really, really hard to communicate that.
A short list of some recent events:

1. Isaac pulled out his front tooth at school last friday
2. Levi is getting really good on his bicycle (with training wheels) he likes to go fast and loves his helmet.
3. Kaylee has pink eye as of today 9/17
4. Erin is so excited about pre-school, saying the beginning sounds of all kinds of words.
   
5. Kaylee, Erin and mommy went on a "girl date" on Sat. afternoon, and Erin said "Mommy, I love to have "toffee" with you, as she sipped her hot cocoa.
6. Jesse is so laid back. He is learning to play with toys for longer amounts of time and is starting to look at books, too.
7. Isaac is playing football and LOVES it. He had a touchdown on Sat. and he played some QB too. He was very upset about the Huskers losing to USC.

Kaylee turns 9

Kaylee will be 9 years old tomorrow, Sept. 8th, 2007.
Meet the newest member of our family, Hottamale the boy beta fish.
Isaac's gift to his sister for her birthday.
We had a family get together for her birthday here at our house and served brownie sundaes. It was really fun and as you can see, Kaylee had a great time on her last day of being 8.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAYLEE!! WE LOVE YOU!!