The Week in Summary

Well, obviously I ended up taking the whole week off of blogging. Bret & Serena were both sick, and then I came down with it too. :P Between trying to take care of us all and taking care of the doggies in Jordan's absence, blogging didn't make the cut on my to-do list. We did have a very good week in spite of it all, though! We spent the first several days here at home and then we spent the last half of the time with Jordan's mom and his sister Anna. Today, we helped my mom unload her huge moving truck into the garage of her NEW house!

I don't have any pictures, but I do have a few anecdotes to share!

We took two walks with the doggies every day. In the mornings, we would walk up to camp; and in the evenings, we would walk down the road. Our neighbors have cows, and they were out in the pasture the first night we walked. Serena LOVES cows. The second night, as soon as we headed down the road, Serena started asking about the cows; but when we got down to the pasture, the cows were no where in sight. For the rest of the walk home, Serena told me at least 75 times that the cows had gone sleepy. She would say "Cow" and then do the sleepy sign. For the rest of the week, she was convinced the cows had gone sleepy even though we did see them a couple more times!

On our walks, Serena would hardly ever relax in her seat. She was usually leaning forward watching all the dogs and yelling at them: "Cah-cah!" (Rocky), "Say-see!" (Macy), "Dandy!" (Danny), "Paw-yay!" (Polly), "Gus!," "Mahs!" (Mars).

One day, I was walking out of my room and stepped on Serena's big pink ball. Of course, it made me trip a little. I said, "Whoopsies!" and continued on my way. Serena saw all this, then ran over to where the ball was, and proceeded to reenact my clumsiness right down to the "Whoopsies!" It was hilarious!

Another copy-cat moment happened when I pulled a mixing bowl out of the bottom shelf of my bookcase (which is acting as my "cupboard" in my kitchen). Since the bowl had been there for a while, I used a dish towel to quickly wipe it out and then blew it out. Serena watched me carefully, then ran to her kitchen drawer, pulled out one of her little plastic bowls, and came and asked me for my dish towel. I handed it to her and watched as she copied my actions exactly.

Serena started wanting to walk instead of ride in the stroller. I tried to let her walk as often as possible, but she's SO slow, so sometimes I made her ride. ;) As she walked, she started collecting walnuts, which she calls "No-walls." She liked to give them to Bret. Then, one day, as we walked along the gravel road, she suddenly stopped, looked down at the ground, and exclaimed, "Wock!" (rock). She bent over, carefully picked up a nondescript piece of gravel, and generously brought it over to give to Bret. I explained that it was too small for him to play with, so she cheerfully opted to put it in her empty seat. We continued on our way, but about 5 feet later, she repeated the discovery! It was so funny to me that she was 'collecting' rocks along the gravel road!!

Along the road up to the kennels is a young orchard. The trees are still too small to bear fruit and there is a wire fence around them to ward off hungry deer. The puppies like to go under the fence and run around in the orchard. Serena kept watching them, and finally one day motioned that she would like to go in there. With a little encouragement, she crawled under the fence. Oh, if only you could have seen the look of pride and wonder as she wandered amongst the little trees in there!!! Haha!

Serena definitely missed Daddy. She got to 'talk' to him on the phone; and after that, she would say and sign "Moh Da-da" (more daddy) every time she saw me with my phone. When he came home on Saturday, she was SO happy to be held by him!

So, what has Bret been up to? He's a rolling machine now! He covers ground like crazy! It's quite a circus act trying to change his diaper and dress him, since he rolls over as soon as I let go of him! He also pushes himself up as high as he can with his hands and then he tries so hard to get up on his knees! That little guy wants to move!!!