Home sweet home

We're home! We had a great couple of flights home. Our only trouble with the kids occurred before the flights back in Beijing; it was actually a relief to get on the plane and settle in for the long haul! Once again, we sweetened the trip with lollipops:

We were met back home with cold weather (but not as cold as it had been, apparently) but it didn't seem to phase Claire one bit. She was just so happy to be home. Ren didn't cry or react to the cold other than to look around in disbelief. Thankfully, he didn't put up a big fight about being put in the carseat (so far, at least). Here are the kids just after getting buckled in to our vehicle at the airport:

And then we were home! My brother Stu gave us a warm welcome and we had a nice night on Friday visiting. Claire immediately ran to her toys and began playing, while Ren walked around the house, checking things out. He met our cat Kitsya and was quite afraid of her at first. But soon he said, "Kitty" and attempted to say her name and he's been saying it ever since. We kept the kids up fairly late Friday night in the hope of getting them to sleep for more than a couple of hours.

And sleep we did! The kids were asleep by 11:20 p.m. Friday night and, with the exception of Claire waking for a while in the night and the adults waking periodically to check the time, we all slept until 2:30 p.m. on Saturday! I honestly can't remember the last time I slept that long. We then all had a really great day. With everyone so rested and with Claire so happy to be home, there were virtually no fights, no tantrums, no nothing but happy playing, sharing practice and hanging out.

Since we've been home, Ren has been repeating more words, such as Kitty, panda, and Uncle Stu. He has a cute little voice that sometimes sounds like he's holding his tongue in one place when he speaks (try saying Kitty with your tongue in the middle of your mouth and you might get the idea). We've really enjoyed seeing Ren run around the house. He runs with a wide stance and pumps his left arm like crazy. It's super-cute. Today, he created a slide out of a booster seat box we had left in our living room for our cat (she likes boxes). We were pretty impressed with his ingenuity! He tumbles and falls all the time but I don't worry about it anymore. He seems to have good control as he falls and somehow he always emerges with a smile. Sometimes his falls look like they happen in slow motion, which is kinda funny to see.

Our sleep patterns from jet lag are still a little wonky today but I'm hoping that tonight we will settle everything out and will be back on our time zone tomorrow. It'll be good to get into our routine. I haven't even started to go through my email yet so if you're waiting to hear from me, that's why. It may be a while but I'll get to it eventually! Same thing with more posts ...