Horns

Me and the kids just went for a bike ride over to Lynn's to walk in the woods and William did not like the horns that kept poking him. You know, horns, like on rosebushes?

We had a fun day. This afternoon Ben, Wil, and Zac and I met Stacey and Henry and Kate at the park to play. We were there for a good 2 hours if not more. The boys played and played and played and played...and played. It is so fun to see Ben and his best friend. I havent really seen them play together yet, though Stacey gets to observe every Monday! I noticed that they never seem to disagree and mentioned that to Stacey and she said they never do. They never have any bad words at all. Nice :) She also told me that Henry told her they had to run around the track in gym today at school and Ben "won". Funny that he never said a word to me about it. Let me tell you, if it were Ariana or Elijah, I would have heard about it before their first foot was on the ground as they stepped off the bus. I can't wait to see Ben run, I have seen his natural athleticism for a long time and been looking forward to seeing him utilize it in the real world.

Kate and Zac were just too cute. They were born exactly 2 days apart, with Kate being older. Kate has Down Syndrome and is just cute as a button! Extremely smiley and giggley. She let me hold her without any grouching at all. Zac, on the other hand, bitched about everything. After about an hour and a half he noticed that Stacey was giving Kate little bits of graham cracker so he went over there and climbed into her lap beside Kate and was their new best friend. How male.

He also appears to be saying "I want that". He is obviously in a window of language acquisition as he is picking up new signs and words at a very rapid pace. He has this funny sign we are trying to figure out...it's like both hands signing "milk". It seems to mean a lot of different things. He signed it to Kate today and it was hilarious. We took it to mean "give me your bottle and stay away from my mother".

I enjoyed Stacey because she is as laid back as a mom as I am. When Kate put sand in her mouth it wasn't the end of the world. As a matter of fact Stacey left some of it in there...hahaha! It's not that she isn't diligent, she is, it's just that she accepts there is no way to keep every germ in the world away from her kids and it's not beneficial to anyway. I've had people shocked that I would let Zac crawl in the sand. Well, these babies crawled in the sand, in the leaves, on the grass, all over. At one point Kate coughed and Stacey joked that she must have a leaf stuck in her throat. Zac didn't eat any sand, he prefers twigs, thank you very much.

Stacey took pictures and emailed them to me and I'll share them soon. There is a great one capturing a classic boy moment. All 3 of the older boys were on their way up the ladder on the big slide when a humongous lawn mower went by. Being boys, they stopped in their tracks and watched it intently. For a very long time. So there is a picture of them in a row on the ladder looking off into the distance, and only we know it's a lawnmower they are interested in and not something deep like a sunset, or a unique bird.

We have a new big boy. Elijah last night went from being a Tiger Cub to being a Wolf. Ariana went with to (direct quote) "See Lijah turn into a wolf". He has a new yellow bandana and a bandana clip with a wolf on it. He states that he now needs a new hat because the old one is a Tiger hat and he needs a Wolf hat.

To end the post, let me describe a nice view I had today. I was on my bike on the way to Lynn's house. Wils was in the seat behind me and ahead of me, in single file, pedaling hard and fast, were all 3 big kids. Ana, Lij, and Ben! I absolutely do NOT have to wait for anyone anymore. The boys have a tendency to get ahead, actually, while Ariana and I are visiting.

See, this is why I wanted a big family. I have my own personal biking club and it meets whenever I want it to!