Again the past few months, I haven’t had many specific events that I felt warranted a blog. Believe me we have been doing things on weekends. We’ve had 6 kids birthday parties in less than 2 months which have all been so different and a lot of fun!  Luckily they have all been different weekends or days of the weekend so we have managed to go to all.  Between the birthday parties, our normal weekend errands (grocery store, laundry, cooking meals ahead for the week, etc.), there hasn’t been much time for other big events….other than buying a Honda Odyssey one Sunday last month!  We knew the Odyssey was in our family’s future; however, we held out for a really long time….and every month we held out was one less car payment.  Truthfully we probably could have even held out a few additional months; however, the Honda had two separate incidents (dead battery, and some other issue that caused the car to not steer) in the course of one week and it left us sharing one car between three drivers.  While we got the Honda fixed both times, I think that really sped up our car buying process.  We even took the girls with us and they were very well behaved. Now that we have the minivan, it’s proving to be really great.  Karolin now has a car every day of the week and now that it is getting warm, it’s nice that they have the ability to go places if they want.  This past week is Spring Break.  Karolin’s sister Louisa is here visiting from Germany and they have been having a great time taking the girls places.  Friday after school they picked the girls up, took them to the dentist (which the girls love) and then out for lunch at Wendy’s.  Avery and Emerson both told me the play by play of what the dentist told them quite accurately!  Monday and Wednesday they all went to Great Falls Park since the pass was good for three days, they went back a second time on Wednesday! Tuesday they all went to Udvar Hazy where they had story time and learned about astronauts and spaceships and had a fun time viewing all the airplanes. Thursday they went to Clemyjontri Park and Friday (tomorrow) they will go to a kid’s concert at Jammin Java and then out to lunch before going to my mom’s  (Grandma’s) house for the afternoon.

Back to our activities the past few months though, weekends have also included going to the gym regularly, which all three the girls now thoroughly enjoy.  The first two months Harper just cried or stayed in the same spot while she was at the gym.  Now she can’t get her jacket off and walk away from us fast enough when we get there.  Perhaps it’s the fact that our activities are becoming more routine and easier (in a good way) that the weekend events haven’t seemed like significant events. Perhaps it is because we haven’t taken many pictures the last few months to document the events.  Life has been good though…busy as always, but good, real good!  Avery and Emerson are really starting to show some more independence like getting dressed themselves, going to the bathroom themselves, putting their own jacket and shoes on, taking their plates to the sink, and even sometimes helping themselves to their own snacks.  They don’t always do these things on their own, but the CAN now, which as Emerson would say is “wonderful”.

In other events, we started the au pair search again in February.  It’s hard to believe that Karolin only have a few more months here.  We would never have chosen Karolin in our initial search as we were only looking at Brazilian au pairs at the time, we are so fortunate to have found her.  She is part of our family and the girls adore and respect her. The au pair experience has been wonderful for our family and we are cherishing these last few months with her as she will be missed.  As a working mom, it’s hard to leave your kids each day but I have always been able to do it because I know that my girls are with someone that truly loves and enjoys being with them….Karolin now and Ana and Ari before Karolin.  In just over two months, Ludmila will be joining our family!  We are quite excited and while we know the girls will need a little time to adjust, they have already started welcoming her to our family.  Today is Ludmila’s birthday so the girls and I skyped with her for a little bit and we sang Happy Birthday to her a few times!  They were even “fighting” over having their own turn.  And tonight we are going to celebrate Ludmila’s birthday with cake and ice cream!

So life is becoming ordinary…ordinarily extraordinary!  Life is great…I love my life and my family!  Every night (well most) Justin and I and the older girls say what they are thankful for…occasionally they say they have nothing that they are thankful about that day, but most days they have a range of things that they are thankful for (their family – often naming individuals by name including both immediate and extended family), their dinner, school, ballet, vacation, going outside for the day, or whatever they did that day, and often circling back again with FAMILY.