Daisy's baptism day

Havin' a gay ol' time...

 I had to catch the kids in action jumping on our bed. They wanted to show me their Kung Fu moves. Shortly after taking these pictures Adaira bounced herself off the bed and got herself a huge egg on the back of her head. I could literally feel it swelling up as soon as she fell (the floors are wood, no carpet). That was the end of the fun that day.

  

 

Dale was really content to lay on the end of the bed and watch all the action.

Recently Justin taught the kids to play crazy 8's with him and it's been nice to have a game that isn't totally boring that we can all play together.

I love Dale in green, I couldn't help but take a bunch of pictures of him in his new green onesies.

 

Dale is just the cutest boy in the world. He has starting growing hair all over his head now so he's got a nice downy top. He still has a few of the original long hairs he was born with that fly around (they are about 3in long!)  He has a pretty sweet disposition as long as all his needs are met. He loves to laugh at Brighton and Adaira and has a special affection for Brighton that I think is adorable. He's starting to sit up on his own more and more but really I'm not pushing it because I'd rather not lower the bassinet on the pack n' play yet ;) The floors in the house we are renting are all wood and I don't really want him crawling or getting too active until we go home. 

Finally at 5 1/2 months we are starting to get the nighttime sleep routing to a more desirable place. Dale has slept at least 8.5 hours straight for the last three nights. I'm still up once with him before his wake up time at 7am, but having him wake up at 4-5am and then going back to sleep is better than the 3-4x a night I have been up with him since he was born. I'm very optimistic that my life will be much better from here on out now that I'm not up all night long. He goes down every night right at 7:30pm along with the older kids, and Justin and I are loving having our evenings back!

We don't have much to update since it has been so cold out here. I like the temperature to be about 78degrees, any variation of more than 15degrees in either direction and I become a hermit. It's been cold and wet here for the past month and I don't like it! I've debated coming home early since we have construction to start on the basement at home, but Brighton is doing SO well in school here and he's excelling with the smaller class sizes they have out here. I hate to pull him out early to put him back at school in Chandler where his teacher has at least 5 more students in her class and doesn't have an aide. There are about 6 kids within a quarter mile on our street that he plays with almost every day and he doesn't have that at home either. I also don't have an awesome and affordable preschool back home for Adaira and she is really learning a lot. She's writing her name, counting, and writing anything else we can spell out for her. Her preschool is really cool in that it has a drive through where we drop off and pick up the kids. They urge parents not to walk their children to class or get out of their cars so we can foster independence in the preschoolers. It's been great! The staff are so friendly and Adaira is very well-behaved at school (Come on! What do they have that I don't Adaira?!)

What I love most out here is the small town feel of the island. I have everything within two miles of me (schools, grocery, parks, beaches) and I think I only fill up my gas tank once a month. The school is awesome and ultra friendly, and the people in general are friendly and sociable. Things are just slower here, including the speed limit, which is no more than 25mph on 90% of the main roads here! It's beautiful as well and though I really look forward to coming home I will really miss the simplicity of living the slow Southern life here.