Feliz Cumpleaños, A.!

Today is Baby A.'s 1st birthday! Before Baby A. arrived, I was caring for Carmin, and Lindsey was DYING to have a baby of her own to care for. He actually arrived on October 4th, but his birthdate of September 30th was assigned to him. He arrived on Carmin's one month birthday, and that had been the longest month of both of our lives… For me because I didn't want to share Carmin with anyone, and for Lindsey because she wanted her own baby but also wanted to share Carmin. We were thrilled when Baby A. arrived late on a Friday afternoon. 

I look at both he and Carmin and can't believe a year has passed so quickly! I know I've written in blog posts that we used to talk about how we couldn't ever imagine them rolling over, then sitting up, crawling, standing, walking, etc. Now it's a year later and they're doing so much! There's certainly something to be said for one-on-one care for babies in an orphanage setting, and they're both on level developmentally and so well-adjusted. They act like babies that live in a family, and seeing all that they can do makes all of the work that went in to getting them to this place SO worth it.  

Once Carmin's birthday passed at the beginning of the month, the countdown was on for Baby A.'s birthday! Lindsey mentioned throwing him a pirate themed birthday, but she left before the big day. Although we didn't have a party, we did celebrate with a pirate ship cake! Lindsey was even able to skype with us during the festivities!

Hope you enjoy the pictures! (I've blurred out his name on his cake…)

Feliz Cumpleanos, E. and D.!

Today we celebrated not one but TWO birthdays! E.'s 6th birthday was this past Wednesday, and D.'s 7th birthday is today. The tías decided to celebrate both today as there is no school so the girls were also able to join them! Both boys had family come visit, and D.'s visitor even brought a cake for the boys! It was definitely one of the most odd cakes I've seen as far as the decorations go, but the boys loved it so that's all that matters. :)

Hope you liked these pictures of our birthday boys and their party guests!

It's almost like we're at the beach!

Right before the Booher family left, they had a sandbox put in at the baby home! Before we had the sandbox, under one of our two playsets, there was just a dirt patch that the kids always got in to. The problem with that was that the stray cats use that area as a litter box at night, so we obviously didn't want the kids playing there. It was a constant battle to keep them out of the dirt. 

The Boohers had this area fenced in and added lots of sand and a door to make sure no cats were allowed in. It has been so great to have a sandbox. The babies, especially the toddlers, LOVE it! Every morning when we're outside, they ask to go into the sandbox. They're happy to all cram in an once, and since we can shut the door, it makes it easy to keep an eye on them when we're outside. 

Thank you so much, Booher family, for this wonderful gift for the babies! They're definitely putting it to good use!

Trip to the Park

The tías have really been wanting to plan an outing for the kids, so last week they decided we needed to take the babies to the park. Today was the big day!

It's quite a bit of work to take 14 babies out (and also all of their supplies along with lunch and everything that goes with that), and we ended up not leaving until about 15 minutes before we normally eat lunch. Then, it started raining as soon as we arrived. It ended up not being the best day for a field trip, but the kids enjoyed getting out. We were gone all afternoon, so it was a nice little break from the normal routine!

 I think Baby C. is ready to learn how to drive ;)

The tías took the other babies into the park while some of us unloaded everything. Baby C. stayed with us and waited patiently at the entrance… She's sitting on the "fin" of a whale!

 Baby G. was worn out after all it took to get us there!

Lunch time!

 A.M. lives at the girls' house but joined us at the park!

Naptime for the babies… as you can see, they wanted no part of that!

Baby B., our newest and youngest baby, slept the day away!

 Setting up our homeless shelter… at least that's what it looked like when it started raining!

Several of the kids found this great hiding spot in our little tent!

 Passed out.

 Baby C. making friends with an alligator.

This is actually a big fish and you can walk inside. There are lots of aquariums and even some birds and turtles.

 Toucan

 These fish look like they're ready to eat!

 We found N. and some of the tías and other kids inside the big fish, too!

Tía Yovana and Baby E., Tía Claudia and S., Tía Silvia and Baby G., Tía Ely and M. and N., and A.M. and Baby C.

Everyone wanted a picture on the alligator! 

Baby A. FINALLY fell asleep toward the end of nap time!

We came back from our little site-seeing tour of the fish and found the kids awake. (*Don't worry- We didn't leave them alone!)

Train ride before going home

Our train car 

 Baby C. was getting sleepy by this point but really liked the train ride!

My co-pilot! Waiting on us to take the trufi back to the boys' house!