Pat came to visit! She stayed for 10 days. It was great to have her here. She was a total sport and slept on our couch. Brighton was sleeping worse than ever and we let him cry it out a few nights and she suffered through the wee hours of the night with us. I felt bad robbing her of sleep, but I was desperate. She never complained, of course. Does Pat ever complain? Um . . . no.

Scarlet and her had TONS of fun!

We kicked the ball around at the tennis courts.

Scarlet and I have been doing this everyday, lately. It's great because it's a two minute walk from our apartment and she loves it. She's been getting way more into the physical stuff lately (probably because she's been feeling up to it!) But it's been fun!

Scarlet LOOOOOOOOVES climbing steps. She is always asking to do it when we go outside. We will just walk up and down 3 flights of stairs, over and over until I tell her we're done.

Makin' "brownie balls". These are our dessert, most of the time- walnuts, dates, cocoa, salt and vanilla. They are gooooood. And the crumbs smudge into the carpet real nice :)

Takin' a bath . . .

Pat rented a car and it was great. She took Scarlet to the Farm and Story Time at the library. We all went to the zoo together. AND she took me grocery shopping so I didn't have to rush off after dinner. It was GREAT! Scarlet had so much fun. It seems like there was a fun activity everyday they did, and of course a lot of hanging out and playing at home. The last time Pat visited, Scarlet was still pretty sick, so she was watching a lot of tv and had some GROUCHY days. But this time it was all fun. It was great.

Coloring in her new horse picture book. Pat brought it from Steve and Irmgard. Scarlet LOVES it.

There was playing with play dough, reading books, and all the usual play.

You can see on the wall we learned the letter H that day. For months I was trying to figure out a "program" or something I could do to teach Scarlet letters. After wasting time online and not finding anything I liked, I just got out a piece of paper and wrote the letter on it and taught it to her, hung it on the wall to review and bam. Done. Simple enough. I don't need a nice looking print out, I can just make one myself. So much easier and less time consuming and just as effective. I tried to teach her the sounds and she wasn't catching on and I gave up because I read over and over that kids don't catch on to letters representing sounds until they're around 4. But Pat started teaching her and she totally got it! Awesome! We went through all the letters we learned and listed off all the words we could think of that started with those sounds and Scarlet totally thought of some on her own! I was amazed! Pretty awesome! It was exciting to me.

Greg took Pat downtown on Saturday. They had a good time. It was raining. They walked all over. DC is so much fun, but so exhausting.

They went to the same place Randy, Chris and Greg went to. The place where a cockroach crawled by on the wall next to their table. I would never eat there. Every time I say this they respond, "But the food is so good!" 

They missed a turn on the freeway and ended up at the Marine Corp Memorial. Greg's been wanting to go ever since we moved here. He was excited they got to see it!

Saying goodbye.

That morning I told Scarlet Pat was going home and she said, "I wanna go with Grandma." So sweet. They have such a good relationship. They are really close. There was no "getting used to her". Scarlet was so excited right when she got here.

Pat got sick within a few days of arriving, so she didn't get to hold Brighton as much as she would've liked, but they got to hang out too. He's so much older now. He was only 2 or 3 months when she came last.

Scarlet and I have become quite the crafters. We make one almost everyday. It's without a doubt, her favorite thing to do- "build a craft." I used to look online for craft ideas- but it was the same with learning letters. So much preparation and details. It is so much easier to say, "What do you want to make?" And just build it. This day we made Steve and Blue from Blues clues.

Steve is a little lacking, but hey- all of this began and ended within 5 minutes, easy.

We make all kinds of things. We even made one of her friends, one day. You can get quite creative when you don't have a plan, and I like it that way. We always hang it up on the wall when we're done, except the Macaw- that she wanted to play with. For awhile the craft wall got pretty crowded and tacky, so now we have a rule that we take one down, before we put another up. It has made our apartment a lot less ugly. Though, who knows, it probably still is! Oh well, I don't care.

Scarlet quotes-

"Don't talk about me!!!" even when we're NOT talking about her.

"When I get bigger, I go to Africa and see the animals!" Greg told her when she gets older he'll take her. She talks about it all the time now.

She refers to the stripes on her shirts as "zebra stripes".

"Be gentle!" when we're changing her diaper. She has a WICKED yeast infection from her antibiotics that we just can't kick this time!

"What are you doing?" This is the WHY stage that all kids go through, except it's a WHAT ARE YOU DOING phase. She also asks what THEY are doing, when the tv is on.

My latest "rule" is that she can watch tv when I'm making dinner. So first thing in the morning, when I tell her this (everyday) she immediately says, "Make dinner!" All day long.

"Martian Food" are mandarin oranges.

Have I mentioned she says prayers on her own? We usually tell her what to say, but she can say them on her own, pretty good too.

She's constantly talking about her "baby sister." I mean like all the time. (This is not an announcement that I'm pregnant- I'm not.) "I want my baby sister!" "Mommy, you grow a baby in your stomach." "My baby sister is in heaven. I want to hug her. I want her to come here." "My baby sister!" lifting up her shirt and pointing to her stomach. ALL of this is her own doing and thoughts- with the exception of me talking about her being in heaven and coming a different day.

She is so much OLDER. She really understands EVERYTHING and SAYS everything. The only thing missing is just the words she hasn't learned yet. 

She LOOOOVES Brighton. She loves to run in his room when he wakes up. She is ALWAYS hugging him and kissing him. She absolutely loves him. And he loves her. 

She likes to lick salt. She is always licking the salt shaker.

She loves to close doors. It drives me crazy, because I like them all open.

She is always bringing me "presents". A bag full of toys that are usually "cookies" that we eat. She tells me to eat them and as soon as I say, "Mmmm! Yummy!"  she tells me, "No! They're yucky!" and then I spit them out and say, "Ew!!! Yucky!" This happens all throughout the day.

She can put on and take off her shoes, most of the time. Pretty exciting!

She is always wanting to help with everything, which is great but very difficult around the stove.

When she's finished with lunch or breakfast she dumps her plate in the garbage and puts it in the sink. Awesome.

She eats like a freakin' champ now. It's AWESOME. Somedays I swear she's eating all day. She was always a pretty good eater. And then when she got sick it was like all she would eat was "cheese popcorn!".

I was freaking out for a little while about Scarlet showing symptoms and being so confused because I felt so strongly it was all over. But now I realize it is just the TERRIBLE TWOS. She is quite the defiant little one. She really likes to test the boundaries if I'm being lazy with my discipline. If I'm on top of it and don't let her get away with it, she is so obedient and just a sweet little girl. She only gets this way, when I'm too lazy to do time outs and just don't want to bother.

Brighton is just a happy little boy. Though the nights are not where I WANT them, they are much improved. I'm going to just trudge on, hoping we will get there. He has been going a nice 10 hour stretch between feeds, which is heavenly- but he always wakes up at midnight and cries anywhere from 2 minutes to two HOURS. It's the worst. I am just having faith that day by day we'll get closer and closer and he'll be able to wake and go back to sleep at night. HOPEFULLY.

These horrible nights have completely wiped out my morning runs. Thankfully, it all started when Pat was here, so I just ran in the day while she watched the kids. Since she left, I've been running at night, which works- but I'd REALLY like to run in the morning. It would just be better that way. Greg, thank goodness, has been very supportive and lets me just take off at night. Granted, it's a pretty quick run, but I'm still grateful.

Names for Brighton-

Baby Brighton

Little Man

Handsome

Bud

Buddy Boy

I think those are all of them. It's funny, we only say them in certain ways- probably all of them except Baby Brighton start with a HEY in front of it. Like HEY little man! Hey bud. I always refer to him as Baby Brighton when I'm talking to Scarlet. It's cute and funny- Scarlet says all these names now too.

Brighton LOVES chocolate. Seeing how my kids react to chocolate has sealed in my brain that there is something genetic about my family and chocolate. I used to think it was in our heads, it was our upbringing and now addiction. But I've seen Brighton eat many delicious things and no reaction has compared to the chocolate smoothie. He can wolf more of that down quicker than any other food. He gets UPSET when you take it away and this kid doesn't get upset about anything. And it was IMMEDIATE.

My poor kids are barely alive and they are already chocoholics. They were before they even tasted it.

Brighton can scoot this way and that, and move around SO WELL, but no crawling yet. But he's started scooting backwards!

He loves Scarlet so much.

At night when I wrap him up, I bring him into Greg and Scarlet (reading books before bed) and lean him down and it's like a "let's kiss Brighton-fest". He loves it. This boy loves being kissed. He was like this right when he was born. He doesn't like taking the time to snuggle, but he likes the kisses!

So I was starting to freak out about Brighton's head becoming majorly flattened in the back. I was pretty worried he had brachycephaly. I only even knew about it from posters at my pediatrician's. Well I was looking into it and measured his head and it was seriously as wide as it was long and that means he has that condition. Most people say it's just a cosmetic "problem" but it seriously reshapes your BRAIN. I don't know, I was just really worrying about it and ended up buying this pillow that is scooped and has a hole in the back so he's not laying on a flat surface. It had great reviews of people saying it took away their babies flat spots. ANWAYS, I'm sure you're all thinking I'm a FREAK right now, but I swear after sleeping in it a few times- I swear his head is changing shape! Crazy! I wasn't sure if it would do anything, because everyone said the older they get, the harder it is to change, but now I'm hopeful his head will go back to how it was. In older pics you can totally tell, it just keeps changing. 

Drumroll please . . . we're going to cloth diapers. Can you believe it? I'm actually way pumped. I ordered 6 to try out before buying our full supply. I hope they come this week. I really don't want to wait. I just want to get started. I want to be fully adjusted before we move. The last thing I want is ONE MORE thing to get used to when we move. I don't need that. Anyway. I am way pumped. We have visited this idea a few times in the past, but after thinking about it, I just could never bring myself to do it. At those times in my life, it was just too much work and the whole idea of it overwhelmed me. But now I feel ready. I honestly don't even feel like I have a choice. This is just how it's going to be. And once we get it all figured out and in our routine, it's one less thing to worry about overseas. We've got all our diapers there, no need to ship any in or deal with foreign diapers (I heard they aren't very good).

Kyrgyzstan is coming fast. We're leaving in less than 2 months!!! Lots to get done. The panic comes in waves :) but I know it will be great. We have always felt this is the right path for us, from the start, so I have faith it will be great!

I have never been so grateful that the church is so thriving online. We will basically be the only members in the whole country, so we will be taking advantage, that's for sure! It's weird to think we will being going to church 8 more times and have to wait two years before going again (hopefully). That will be a change, that's for sure. I've always whined to Greg about possibly being in a country where church is in a different language and Greg was saying today, after our time in Kyrgyzstan, any language will do as long as there's church! It's definitely changed my perspective.

Have a great week everyone!