And now we are five

Our family is quickly adapting to our new circumstances. As can be expected, we've had some happy times and some sad times.

But most of our times are happy ones. The kids absolutely love their new sister. Caleb, in particular, has an intense urgency around the baby. He wants to pat her, hug her, talk to her... He'll be a good, protective, big brother.

Emily wants to teach her how to be a ballerina. She's been taking a ballet class and loves it. Parents aren't allowed in the classroom, but they have a camera on the class and TVs to show the lobby area what's going on. She's very cute and listens very well in class. We went to see a ballet, "Not Afraid of the Dark", on Saturday. It was very cool. Emily enjoyed it, but wished the ladies wore more sparkly dresses instead of fluorescent outfits.

Amanda came home from the hospital on Sunday. I had some flowers prepared for her. Naturally, Caleb immediately lunged for the fruit arrangement; so it's a little bit... un-arranged.

He was after the chocolate covered strawberries. They certainly were yummy and not too hard to make. We promised Emily that we'd make some more soon.

Things are comfortable at home. Amanda somehow still manages to take care of all of us.

Of course, Daddy has been taking a little time off to help out too.

We're tremendously grateful for all of the meals that have been prepared for us and for excellent neighbors who eagerly jump up to help watch the kids. We're tremendously blessed to be in this community.

The plastic herd has been jumpy though. Perhaps they fear a return of the plastivorous terror. Actually, we weren't sure how these got in here. Then Emily told us that they were hiding from the dragon.

Oh. Of course. (We added the dragon into this photo for illustrative purposes. Normally it's next to the bed; otherwise, it wouldn't have been a very good hiding place).