Life As We Know It

We've had the boys for two whole months now.  Both Kevin & I often say we don't feel like parents.  We just feel like us plus two kids.  It's fun.  We like it.  Life is different, that's for sure.  But this is life.  Real & raw.

This is where we spend a lot of our day.  We have two toy drawers and a book drawer.  The toy drawers get switched daily so there's always something "new" to do.  The book drawer is always available, and Micah actually love to spend time turning the pages and being read to.  It makes my nerdy heart sing!

I pretty much wear my work-out clothes all day long.  I figure if I don't spend abundant time getting dressed, I'm more willing to crawl on the floor with the boys, take them outside where I inevitably sweat a lot, or not care as much when any assortment of bodily fluid ends up on me.  And as if the chasing, lifting, and constant moving aren't enough, I usually am able to get a work-out in too. (And since I know you're wondering, that giant contraption next to me is our living room AC unit.)

My parents sent us these amazingly awesome Keep Austin Weird shirts.  Most Chinese people think both of our sons look like girls (maybe the big eyes and long eyelashes?), so I'm sure the colors don't really help their case for manliness.  

Sami has been seizure free for almost a month now, which is a huge answer to prayer.  He's getting so close to crawling, an activity that I'm not necessarily encouraging.  I've got my hands full enough with one mobile one!

Micah is a ham to the core.  He gets shy around a lot of people (ie-the crowds that descend upon us whenever we leave the house) but when we're at home, he constantly makes us laugh.  He dances & snaps to any music he hears, which is only just proof of his African roots.  He further testifies to his heritage by finding our coffee grinder in the lower kitchen cabinet and eating the residual coffee grounds with his finger.  He can say a few English words (dog, shoes, fish, amen, mama) and a few Chinese ones as well.  

As for Beans, she's getting along just fine.  The boys & her have finally come to terms with each other, and they've actually made friends.  Micah actually figured out how to play tug with her, and Sami hasn't figured out how to escape her pink tongue yet.  When she's not playing with the boys, she does a lot of this during the day:

If that picture doesn't perfectly depict my life, I'm not sure what will.  Yes, that plant is dead.  I took it from a friend who moved away a year or so ago, promising her I'd keep it alive.  I have failed her.  I hope she doesn't find out.  And that giant piece of machinery in the middle of my living room is my dryer that we bought for $50 two months ago.  We haven't used it or plugged it in yet, but it makes an excellent place to pile dirty towels.  Don't let the folded nature of those towels fool you.  They are indeed quite dirty with rain water from the giant deluge that flooded our house last week.  

And I'll conclude this random blog post with another installment of Creepy China Gifts.  We call this guy Demon Dog.  He walked, barked, and his lights lit up all red & scary.  He must have freaked out Beans too because she ate it.  I can't say I was devastated.  Micah, on the other hand, still requests to play with Demon Dog because it makes noise (or I suppose I should say it once made noise).  He now resides in the trash can.

So that's life.  It's not perfect.  It's not always tidy.  But it's us and we're thankful.