Some photos to start...

Photos with minimal additional color for now:

Day 1
No photos of David's initial rush into Katie's arms. It happened so quickly and was too exciting to think about taking out a camera. After a long time in Mommy's arms, David eventually wound up in Daddy's arms as we walked to meet the social worker at New Life who walked us through the process of bringing David home for good. In Daddy's arms, David still just cared about looking at Mommy (which is why he's looking at the camera).


After our meeting, David washed up for lunch. All the other kids needed help, but David showed off and did it all on his own. After lunch, he fell asleep in Mommy's arms, and she put him down for his nap. High above his crib you can see the photos of Mommy and Daddy and the dogs that were posted above his bed.


While David was sleeping, we did some errands and then headed to Logos Christian School to pick up Jalena. She was wa'iting in the parking lot. We took her back to New Life and Mary (founder of New Life) said, "David, can you hug your sister?" and he immediately did. Mommy and David spent the rest of the afternoon cuddling and Daddy and Jalena played on the slide.
Day 2
Picked up David and went to Ya Ya center for lunch and to meet our new landlord. David fell asleep as soon as we were in the car.

The previous day, Katie had ordered mango juice and Josh was jealous so he ordered it. But he never got a single sip because David stole and drank almost the entire glass in one non-stop sip. He was happy so we were happy.

Next we drove to the doctor after picking up Jalena. This is the view of our children not buckled in and in a car we later found to have "crockroaches."

To reward the kids for being so good at the doctor, we went swimming at Hotel Milimani.

David enjoyed the splashing, but not falling face first into the water a few moments after this picture was taken (and before Daddy ever had the chance to set foot in the water).

Jalena blows bubbles with Mommy.

David so hungry he's eating air off forks.

Jalena so hungry and tired she can't keep her head above the table.

David on the verge of insanity as the food still hasn't arrived. (He was laughing not screaming in this photo.)

Day 3
David and Daddy took a nap while Mommy and Jalena were swimming. David and Daddy were going to join the swimming, but then it started to rain.

Completely unprepared for rain, all we could was pull out snacks and look for activities. We settled mostly on coloring, plus a few other things.

We put the kids in their pjs before taking them back to New Life and The Ark. David found Mommy's brushes make excellent drumsticks for anything he could bang on.

The room remained very clean after two children had been cooped up for four hours. Daddy looked around and thought: "We're f!@#$ed."

More photos of Jalena. I feel like the above has been heavily focused on David (mostly because Jalena was at school for most of the first few days). Here are some extra photos of her as we all moved in. Don't worry, there are a lot, lot more photos from this week. First is all of us when the kids officially came home to live with us.

We had ice cream during our celebratory dinner at Java House (no food in the apartment for easy cooking that night). Katie doesn't like this photo of herself, but Jalena loved her ice cream.

Mommy kisses Jalena goodnight.

I'm sneaking in a couple of David who got his first haircut (with us at least).


A newly shorn David gives Jalena an injection with their play medical set.

kiddos in the bath (when David still had a fro).

Jalena wearing her raincoat to school yesterday.