We're Baaaa-ack...

We had a fabulous trip to Florida!

We started with two days with my grandmother, which was a horror show. My grandmom is lovely and I enjoy her company, but, well, she's 83 and her house is absolutely not babyproofed. We turned her living room into our fortress, moved the furniture around, kept all the doors closed, put the knick-knacks away. We bought those Pea.pod travel beds for the girls just before the trip and they HATED them! Bedtime had them hysterical... they'd start to fall asleep, but the zipper on the top was so loud that zipping it would wake them up again. We were ECSTATIC to go to Zazie's sister KT's house. The girls had room to run around and a very patient dog to obsess over. Plus it was nice to hang out with all the sisters and husbands too.

And then...this happened:

The promised meetup with the girls' half-sibs and the donors family happened! We stayed with two of our favorite families for an entire week (the rest of the families came Thursday-Sunday). We first explored these connections because we wanted to foster them for our kids as they get older, but N & A and their 3 1/2 year old b/g twins, and A and her 2 1/2 year old daughter are friends. It was so nice to hang out with them and their kids this past week. Sweet kids, awesome parents, similar parenting styles.... everyone in our house was a joy. I just wish they all didn't live so far away. Of course, we enjoyed hanging out with the girls' grandmother and their aunts (donor's mom and sisters). The other families were nice to see too, though we probably won't go the extra mile to see any of them unless there's another big group meet up.

Our situation is so crazy unusual and I love it. The girls' aunt brought home videos featuring our donor and the rest of the family growing up. Their grandmother told us about growing up and told us lots of great stories about our donor. Toward the end of the weekend, we talked with their grandmother about trying to have another baby in the fall and she gave her blessing. We really weren't sure how she'd feel about it, though we were pretty sure her reaction would be positive- it's been a year since his death and there are still babies being conceived! She said that her son didn't get to be an organ donor, despite his wishes and her pleas at the hospital, because of the circumstances of his death (vehicular homicide), but she's happy that he will continue to help people.

We are sad to be away from our peeps, the sun, and the relaxation. We feel like we left NY with babies and came back with little kids! The girls seem to have gone through a developmental growth spurt. E. is almost caught up to R.'s number of words. Last night in the bathtub, I started to count to three... I said One.... and E. piped up with TWO! I even got her to say Three with coaxing. Seriously. Love my girls.