We have a playdate

We had a visit yesterday from some of our friends. They were being very sweet together. Reese is a bundle of energy and she loved the trampoline.

We also had Reese and Carsten, but they were feeling camera shy. Every time I pulled the camera out, they stopped what they were doing and hid. This was sort of a small last minute playdate, so I am sorry I didn't invite all of you. I am hoping the weather will be nice enough soon to have outdoor playgroups so we can have everyone. I really need the mommy social hour! Is anyone else getting a tiny bit of cabin fever, or seasonal depression, or whatever it is?

My sweet girl

Who has learned how to smile upon request..but not necessarily look at the camera.

Some teachers, some horse riding

I wish I had a more close-up picture so you all could see the grin that is on Alexa's face the whole time she is on the horse. She loves this so much.

We had a meeting with a bunch of different people about Alexa's transition to kindergarten, so I took the opportunity to get some picturess with some of Alexa's favorite people. Here is Kristin, the speech therapist at her school.

And here is Jessica who has been Alexa's teacher for the past two years. She is wonderful and helpful and I like her almost as much as Alexa does, which is saying a lot because Alexa adores her. She is consistently positive and encouraging and and hopeful.

And here is Alexa enjoying the nice day we had last Friday. A few of these sunny days in the middle of the cloudy ones make us hopeful that spring and summer will be here soon. Spring Break is next week!

And finally, thank you all for your kind response to our decision about the adoption. It means a lot to us to have loving friends and family.

David and I have decided to discontinue our adoption of a second child. We are going to focus on Alexa since she both requires and benefits from more time and attention than most kids do.

Alexa's new music..

We got Alexa a cool little iPod and headphones thing so she can listen to her music (and we don't have to!) She likes it. I haven't been blogging lately because I haven't been taking pictures very much and it seems like a boring blog entry without them. We have been busy. We got Alexa's glasses fixed, and now she happily wears them again. We went to the children's museum in Salem with Dana and kids..it was fun, but maybe more appropriate for older kids than ours. We are back into horse riding once a week. Tayler came up to ride with Alexa on Tuesday. That girl loves horses! Alexa is doing really well in some new stuff lately, lots of imaginative play with her little barn and bus toys. She wants to help in the kitchen all the time, but I am often too impatient or too unwilling to let her make a big mess. The potty training is sort of stalled lately, we are working on it some, but are too tired to do it all the time. I am back to swimming now that surgery business is done with and the incisions are healed. It feels great to exercise again! I hope you all are doing well..sorry I have been so out of touch.

Tricycle riding

Alexa has sort of learned to ride her tricycle. She can't start by herself, but if you get her started she can pedal and steer. At least when she's paying attention. She also likes to scoot it with her feet and got going so fast she went over the handlebars and face-planted into the concrete. She scraped her nose badly and got one of those huge forehead lumps and scratched the lens of her glasses pretty badly. We are going to have to get the lenses replaced because now she doesn't like to wear them.