Together for good at last.

 She wanted her nails painted as soon as we got home!

 Brooke and Kewogo doing sidewalk chalk.

 Feeding each other pineapple.

 Going for a bike ride (with training wheels).  She rode for about 45 minutes!

She loves hamburgers!

 Summer is here.  It is my favorite time of year when I get to be with my kids and do lots of fun things everyday.  It is also the time when I get nothing done on a personal level during the day.  Now with 4 to entertain, it is even harder. So I am delighted right now that all 4 of them are playing some made up game and I am enjoying listening to their laughter and conversations. 

Matt made a quick recovery from his sickness and then I quickly got it.  I wasn't nearly as bad off as he was, but neither of us were able to eat solid food for a few days.  When we were finally able to eat (on Matt's birthday- just in time for a great meal and cake!) we felt like Peeta and Katniss at a feast on one of their Victory Tours.  Food had never tasted so good!  Matt was irritated that I had shared the details of his illness because for the next few days after we returned everyone kept asking him how he was feeling.
I will be honest that when we arrived home my first thought was the same that I had when we came home with our other three children.  Which was,  'That was awesome and when can we do that again?' I always loved the whole delivery and holding them in your arms for the first time experience. In fact, after I had Andrew and the nurses were wheeling me out of the hospital to go home, I said to them, "I will see you again next year."  And we did.  I have spent some time being heartbroken over the fact that we didn't capture our "Gotcha" moment on tape.  We couldn't get our camera to work in time and missed recording the best gotcha moment ever.  Perhaps it is for the best.  As much as I would love to have relived that moment by watching it and sharing it with our family and friends maybe that intimate moment was just to be reserved for us and to be replayed in my mind over and over just as I have with the other three. I  clearly remember delivering a stubborn Andrew who didn't want to come out.  In between pushing I stopped to count EIGHT nurses and doctors surrounding me and cheering us on.  With Kewogo we also had lots of people supporting us and cheering us on as we waited and waited to bring her home. That has meant the world to us. It almost seems surreal that this time in our lives have arrived and she is with us for good.

I don't even think I can put into words how well Kewogo is doing.  She has adjusted and done better than we ever could have imagined!  I was prepared for weeks of hard times, tears, sadness, tantrums perhaps, and being stuck at home not going anywhere.  She has been an absolute delight from the time she walked in the front door.  The first couple of days she was home Brooke kept saying, "I feel like she is just visiting."  I knew what she meant.  All of a sudden there is a five year old in your home and she is yours and we kept thinking, "WOW!  She is really is here!" 
I had one day alone with her while the kids went to school on their last full day.  They were very upset about having to leave her and begged to stay home.  I told them they would have an entire summer with her so they went off and Kewogo waved at them as they boarded the bus one last time for the year. My parents were still here which I was thankful for so they could spend some time with her and get to know her a little bit before they left.  They fell in love with her, of course, and she has definitely stolen their hearts.

The first three days she was home we tried to stick to her schedule at Hannah'a Hope as best as possible.  This consisted of breakfast, play, lunch, play, nap, play, shower, dinner, and bed.  She did well with this and by about day three she was not interested in taking a nap anymore.  She didn't want to miss out on all the fun with the others.  We did fine cocooning the first three days and then on the first day of summer when my parents were leaving I had 4 crabby kids.  I will admit I was a little worried that this was a preview of what was to come. We decided to get out of the house and go up to the street to the park.  I couldn't wait to see how she would do at the park.  She loved it! We took Macy which she thought was great as she LOVES the dog!  She and Brooke did cartwheels in the grass and she quickly learned to maneuver the slide and monkey bars.  She wants to do everything her brothers and sister do.  My parents left late that day and then we returned home to find our "new normal."

We had bought $75 dollars worth of Ethiopian food for her to eat the first week home.  She loved this and we would give her this while introducing our food at the same time.  This girl can EAT!  Bananas are her favorite food source and we can't keep enough, "mush" in the house.  Matt had decided to work from home the first week she was home so that he would be around so she wouldn't think that he had just disappeared during the day. At the time we thought it was a good idea but it didn't end up working so well.  He was having a hard time getting work done as he was trying to juggle so much with being gone from the office for so long and was trying to be everything to everyone.  Looking back he should have just gone back to work but hindsight is 20/20. As much as I could be with Matt 24/7 I was thankful for him to go back and for us to settle into a routine.  Part of that routine includes taking the kids to swim team practice in the mornings.  As soon as Kewogo saw them swimming, guess who wanted to swim??!!  I had no intention of taking her to the pool so soon but after she saw them and made it clear that she wanted to get in the water I decided that it looked like we would be going swimming!  I didn't even have suit for her. I got one quickly and we ventured out for a trip to the pool.  I know that hard core cocooners would shake their fingers at me with a "tsk, tsk" but I was following her lead and she was ready.  And ready she was!  Luckily we have a zero entry and she ran in that pool and began swimming around like she had been doing this all her life.  Now we are out of her ET food and I didn't pack anything to take to the pool.  I brought bananas and figured I would just wing the day.  I took her up to the snack bar and decided to let her pick what she thought looked good.  She pointed to a pop tart so that is what I got.  Now I have never even bought pop tarts for my kids EVER so we found this amusing! I bought her a hamburger since she seems to like meat.  She ate the pop tart and then she ate the hamburger.  Later she chose a lemon lime slush, ate part of a soft pretzel and had a pixie stick!  WELCOME TO AMERICA!!  This is how we eat!  The funny thing is is that this is NOT typical for us as we try to eat so healthy in our family, but I decided that one day wouldn't hurt anyone.  The next day she saw a dollar lying on the counter and held it up to me and motioned to go swimming and put her hand to her mouth as if she was eating something.  Yes. This girl catches on quick.  She loved that snack bar.

She is fun, funny, full of joy, radiant, adorable, smart, playful, opinionated, a little bossy, sweet, loving, and a true gift to our family.  I already can't imagine our life without her.