How Time Flies

How time flies. Landon is now 4 years old and Alianna will be 8 in a few short days. It really isn’t until you look back at the pictures that you realize just how much they have grown and changed. The top picture of Landon is him at 4 and the next one is him at 3. And for Ali the top is her at 7 and the next one is at 8. My baby boy is now a little man and my sweet little girl is becoming a sweet young girl. I love them more with each day that passes. They are each a blessing and special in their own ways.

Alianna is very strong willed and stubborn. Hopefully someday she will use that power for good, but for now we need to tame her back somewhat. She is excited about school and learning the clarinet and has also begun a dance and gymnastic class. She needs to do something with her endless energy level. She is having an art themed birthday party where the kids will paint on canvas and eat yummy cake. We had to keep the party small this year so unfortunately we are seeing some hurt feelings. It was a tough choice, but the art studio is very small. I hope the other kids soon forget about it.

Landon has begun a new school this year. While he enjoyed his German kindergarten class, he was really struggling with his speech. With his delay in English, German was just adding to the pressure. So we enrolled him in a private, British kindergarten. He has also started speech therapy and continues with his physical therapy for his other delays. We have seen huge improvements since the summer and hope it is only the beginning. He has so much potential and so much energy. His new teachers are just wonderful with him and seem to have much patience. I have also begun trying the P.L.A.Y. therapy I crashed trained in while home. It is a lot of work, but when I see him engage and laugh with me, I can’t help but become re-energized. We are working on colors right now, or should I say colours now that we are learning British English. I hold up a gummy bear and ask him what color it is. If he gets it right he gets to eat it. If he is wrong, I eat it. He has some very interesting colors. Have you ever heard of gre-ellow? That what he ways when he isn’t sure if its green or yellow. He waits for my reaction and then changes the word half way through. It is also very cute the look he gets on his face when I eat it. He gets all sad and whines, “awww Mooommm that was my gummy bear. Give it back!” I say nope, get the color right next time. Tough love.

So what have we all been up to…
We went to the States from July 16 to August 17. It was a great trip. We enjoyed our time with family and friends and as expected the time went by too fast. We thought for sure a month would be long enough to see everyone, but we still missed seeing many friends. I guess that means they will have to come here to visit. We were lucky enough to time seeing a large portion of Larry’s extended family. His cousin was having a baby shower while we home and he was able to surprise her. It was a really special day to be there and a great chance to see so much family at one time. The kids loved playing in the lake and spending time with their cousins.

We miss some things that home offers, but overall, not too much. We did our typical fill your suitcase with affordable clothing and shoes and we made sure to stock up on Twizzlers and Cheerios. But we are used to the food here now and have either found ways to get the things we really want or we just do without. Much like the TV. I was really excited to watch TV and catch up on missed shows, but in the end I just didn’t have the time and enjoyed spending my time doing other things.

As expected, leaving was very hard, especially for the kids. It was hard watching them say goodbye knowing it would be another year before we return. But they are strong and most of the crying stopped by the time we boarded the flight. The flight was typical Northwest only now the plane says Delta. The flight attendants pass out inedible food and then take forever to collect it. Then they sit back and chit chat and hope you don’t ask for anything. Come morning they quickly toss you something that resembles breakfast and then hurry you into landing mode. Only to have to wait forever to make it through passport control and even longer to wait for your luggage. We had way more luggage then arms to carry it and still had to make it onto a train. Needless to say we were all happy to be home, sad to have left and sore from the process in between.

So what is ahead? Alianna’s birthday party, hopefully a date night and then we are all excited to be heading to Rhodes, Greece for the fall break. Of course there will be pictures to follow.

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