A MEMORABLE MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day 2011 was full of family fun and memories. The kids are loving having Rahel home. She has taken a particular liking to Caroline which I was a little surprised by. I thought she would tend to gravitate towards Hermela as they are closer in age, but she absolutely loves Caroline (not that she doesn't like Hermela-she's actually kind to everyone). She carries Caroline around and is always giving her attention which is just what she needs, so it works out pretty nicely for everyone.

First time down the slide (this was day 3 home-she wouldn't go down earlier).

She's a little silly :-)

She seems to be adjusting pretty well to everything. I'm always wondering what she is thinking. It's so different bringing home an older child because she definitely knows what's going on, but she can't really express any thoughts or feeling yet. I can't wait for her English to pick up so that she is able to tell me what she thinks about everything (or maybe I can-hmmm). She is pretty easy going so far, seems happy and is very smart. She knows all of her colors, shapes, letters and sounds, numbers, simple addition and subtraction and is even reading sentences in English. I actually think she understands a whole lot of English because when she does speaks in English, it is usually in short sentences, not just one word questions or answers. Pretty impressive as she didn't speak any English 14 weeks ago when we visited for court.

We thought it might be a good idea to introduce her to water and bathing suits on Sunday as we knew we were going to take her swimming on Monday. She LOVED it!

A little friendly competition

Then it was time for a swim. She wasn't so sure about it at first...

But she warmed up pretty quickly.....

And before we knew it--she was going under

Aren't they the cutest??? (little partial here:)

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