Nearly there.....

I'm finally on the countdown until my husband and oh-so-important father of my children returns to us - a little under a week to go. I'm not too proud to admit that this has stretched me and made me cry. It makes me so grateful that we don't have to do this often and sympathetic to those who do. Sarah is really missing her daddy. I found her carrying around a framed picture of him saying, "D-aaa-ddy." She's been seeking out her "daddy fix" from her friend's dads, so our good friends came over tonight and Sarah and Andrew both soaked up the attention from Simona's dad Elliot.

I finally decided to get a couple of sitters this weekend (I needed a little reprieve). Friday night a college student that is involved in Michael's campus ministry came over to sit. I needed to run a couple of errands, including one to the mall. Jean Anne wanted to come along, so I picked her up along the way and told her that I was only going to return an item to Babies R Us and get one essential item at the mall. Somehow we both walked out with new shoes and I didn't leave with my intended purchase. But, I'm now sporting a sweet pair of Keens - and only suffering minor guilt. Jean Anne says that I am not allowed to tell Michael that I went shopping with her. ;)

My Mother's Day gift from Michael was a gift certificate for a manicure, pedicure, and massage by Jean Anne (which is incredible, because I'm too frugal to do anything like that for myself). A mother and daughter from our church took the kids for a couple of hours so that I could relax a little bit and go use part of my gift certificate. And by that afternoon I needed to get away. For some reason our whole morning was off. Kids were cranky and moody.... I was cranky and moody. Sarah spent a lot of time in time-outs. We had a scheduled lunch play date with Jamie/Luke and Natasha/Avi Joy at a McDonald's with a play area. The kids finished eating and were running around having a grand time in the huge indoor jungle gym thingy. We moms were visiting. All the sudden Natasha semi-yells, "Sarah's naked!" I look up to see my daughter sans clothing jumping up and down yelling, "Mommy, mommy!" Then I hear a kid way up in the gym yell, "Oh, someone went pee in here!" I climbed inside that thing so fast to get Sarah. Her soaking wet clothes were strewn about. I gathered up all things and had to bring her out in front of a packed room of mothers and children to dress my naked child in dry clothes. Of course, before we could leave McDonald's, Sarah pushes on the emergency exit bar (which, by the way, is at the perfect height to tempt a toddler) and sets off the alarm. Once again all eyes were on us, or so it seemed. The pedicure felt incredible that afternoon.

Last Thursday was the end of the regular pre-school year. Classes with two year olds and up got to perform in the school program. The theme was "Going to the Movies" and Sarah's class performed two pieces from "Peter Pan." Sarah was, of course, cast as the Indian Princess - lol. She was the most adorable Vietnamese Indian Princess I have ever seen! I'll try to include a little video and a photo.

Andrew is doing great. Developmentally he is spot-on for his age. He has 3 words besides Mama and Dada that he uses - hi, uh-oh, and nana (banana). He plays hard, but thankfully he sleeps hard, too. I'm definitely more in my element now that he is past infancy.

Once again, I'm up way too late...... Here are the pictures.

I just love this little boy's expression!

Note the height difference!