Home Sweet Home

We made it home safe and sound. No problems, smooth flight, breezed thru immigration and made it home by 6pm. Poor Katie had to run in, change into her cheer practice clothes and head straight to the gym for 2.5 hours of practice. She didn't seem to mind, though. I dropped her off and hit the grocery store briefly. I was craving normal food. Plain ol' comfort food. I bought a roasted chicken, mashed potatos, gravy, stuffing and corn. Went home, unpacked gifts, left the rest for tonight, heated up my quickie down-home meal for the fam, and planted my hiney on the couch. We loaded up the hourlong video I took of PBJ and Ahren and watched it. Levi kept saying he wanted to watch the Ahren movie after we were done. How cute is that! The Ahren movie.

When we walked in the front door, Katie was ahead of me and I heard loud squealing and saw a flash of white-blonde hair hurtling towards Katie's head. Levi! Did he run to me first? Nope. His sister. Once he was done hugging her, he came to me. It didn't bother me at all. It made my heart expand 3 sizes to see them loving each other so much. That is what big families are all about. What I can't give them, they provide for each other. The rest of the night Levi was glued to me, and I laid with him in bed as he fell asleep, just snuggling him and letting him know how much I missed him. This morning, when he woke up, he came looking for me first thing. Once he saw me and I reassured him I was home, he went back to bed and fell back asleep.

I have a billion pictures but haven't downloaded any yet. The ones I have posted so far were taken with Katie's camera and we could download them on the laptop while we were there. My camera needs special software to download that we only have on the desktop at home. So there will be many more pics coming.

Memorable moments from our trip: On the way back to the city from Antigua the traffic was really bad and it was raining. Couplle that witht he complete lack of traffic laws and the fact that the car we were riding in had NO shocks, and it made for a wild ride. I was holding Ahren and Katie had PBJ. Both kids were asleep. A huge truck pulled right in front of us and the car hydroplaned sideways as the driver swerved to miss it. Katie and I looked at each other and we both were thinking the same thing. Pray. Pray hard. The prayers worked and we made it in one piece, but we will always remember that ride down the mountain.

Katie was kissing PBJ on the cheeks and PBJ lifted up her little face and kissed Katie back. She did it over and over again. It was so sweet! Of course the kisses were wet and slobbery, but those are the best baby kisses ever!

Katie and Ahren were resting their foreheads together in a sweet moment when Ahren leaned forward and bit Katie's nose. She had teeth marks for the next day. She didn't think that was very funny, but I did!

I got Ahren on video calling me Mama. His foster mother shows him pictures of me everyday and says Mama to him. She shows him pix of the whle family so he will know us. She is wonderful. Of course, she is not much bigger than he is! She is a tiny little thing and he is a moose. It's too funny to see him in her arms!