Week 2: Father's Day and more!

We started this next week with a few different parties at home, so the girls were so excited to have a house full of friends and family.  Saturday we celebrated Father's Day with a potluck/BBQ, Sunday our friends the Hernandez came over, and Tuesday a few of my school buddies came over.  The girls have loved every second!

On Thursday I purchased an inflatable pool at Toys R Us because the one we had was a bit too small and it had a slow leak.  I ended up under estimating the size of an above ground inflatable pool and it was GINORMOUS!  As the water went in it kept expanding and at one point I thought it wasn't going to fit in our grass area in the backyard.  Mark came home and looked at it and all he said was "Wow, that's big."  Well, it actually has ended up working out SO well and has been used every single day since we got it.  Alejandra and Amaya Fernanda LOVE it!  Both of our girls love the water.  Alejandra can swim and Fernanda is not that far behind.  And Mark....well he is now convinced that it is perfect for us.  When Alejandra's cousins came over they were in there for hours, they came out to eat dinner and then they dove right back in.

The Father's Day BBQ was amazing!  Amaya Fernanda did so much better then I thought she would.  At first, she was clingy and wanted to make sure she could see me.  As the time went on she started to venture out and play with others.  Eventually, she was playing with all of the kids in the playhouse and I didn't see her for a good 30 minutes.  She is definitely feeling a lot more secure these days!

Mark has been able to put her to bed.  There are always tears, but once the books get opened and he starts to read she stops crying and listens.  Their attachment is growing stronger and stronger every day.  She will ask for him to pick her up now and she will give him kisses pretty freely.  When he gets home from work she gets a smile on her face and is excited to see him.  Their relationship has been growing by leaps and bounds!

Alejandra and Amaya Fernanda are continuing to bond as sisters.  They are learning how to play together and share ;).  Our little Amaya Fernanda likes to hit and scratch so Alejandra is sometimes apprehensive to play with her because she is afraid she is going to hurt her.  Alejandra is also used to playing with kids her age (from preschool) so she plays pretty hard with her little sister.  So we are all learning how to play respectfully with each other.  BUT....they adore each other already and we hear Alejandra often say "I love my baby sister, she is so cute."

We are still working through medical issues with Amaya Fernanda.  We had to take her on Monday for lab work.  They had to poke her 3 times to get the sufficient amount of blood for all the lab tests ordered by the pediatrician.  She cried and wailed...poor thing :( but stopped crying as soon as they were done.  We are thankful that all of her lab work results are back and she is super healthy!  We were concerned at the reaction of her TB test, but the doctor told us it was just an allergic reaction to the BCG vaccine she was given in Colombia.  To confirm, they checked her blood work and it came back negative as well.  We will also have a chest x-ray done just to be very certain that she doesn't have TB.   Her diarrhea is still present and after 3 days of specimens and ALL showing negative for giardia and "other parasites" we've decided to retreat her for roundworm.  So we are in day 2 of her treatment and we still have diarrhea.  Hopefully after 7 days of treatment we will be able to report good news on that end ;).  She is babbling and expressing herself verbally so much more lately!  Her pitch will change with her babbles, which shows us that she is certainly trying to communicate with us.  She still hasn't given each of us a name yet.  She says "nana," "mama," "papa," "nena," and "ma."  We are so excited to see her expressive vocabulary grow!

Things we've learned about Amaya Fernanda after being home:  She loves to climb on everything!  She enjoys reading books.  She has to hug a stuffed animal in order to go to sleep.  She likes water, vanilla soymilk, watermelon, blueberries, popsicles, veggie chips, cocoa and vanilla puffs, waffles, pancakes, shoes, and yogurt.  She doesn't like cheese.  She loves to go swimming in the pool with her mama and big sister.  She loves to take bubble baths with her big sister.  She LOVES to brush her teeth.  She thrives on routine and structure, don't try to change things up on her...she doesn't like that.  She is a neat freak (so she fits in just fine!).  She will scrunch up her face and try to force the tears out if you do something that upsets her.  She enjoys having music play in the background and will start dancing spontaneously.  When she gets excited about something she will stomp her feet up and down like she is jogging in place :D....so cute!

I am so happy to be able to have this time here at home with my girls.  It has been challenging getting into a routine here on my end.   Thank goodness I haven't thrown work into the mix yet.  I still have a couple of months to work on creating a schedule that works for all of us here at home.  Mark has been amazing and has stepped into the role of being the dad of two girls with ease.  He has been the calming force here at home many times :).  We are growing and learning from our girls every day at how to successfully parent them.  Our family dynamic has changed and with that we must evolve as well and still be certain that we are meeting the needs of both girls.  We are a work in progress ;)

In other news....we took the plunge and purchased a mini van today.  We are the proud owners of a Toyota Sienna.  Alejandra, Mark, Fernanda, and my mom LOVE it!  I'm still working on "loving" it...for now I "like" it a lot.  It is the perfect car for the family and in the end that's what is important.  I was joking around with a friend the other day on what color would be the "coolest" and in the end silver won.  So silver it is!