ANA IS BACK!!!!

YES!!!! Ana is back with us!!!! Yeah!!!! She came home on Monday. Her birth mother had flown down to Colombia and then flew back with her to Miami where one of Leo's cousins met them, and then they spent the night at his house, and then he put Ana on a plane for home the next day. She's doing good. Happy to be home. It was so sweet to see Elena and her...they were both thrilled to see each other. She's back in school and in the bilingual program (one week in Spanish, the next week in English) and she's having serious difficulties with math. She's missed a lot. We had her Christmas and she was very happy with all her presents which was very nice. Santa did a good job. I have to take her to the doctor's tomorrow because she fell in Colombia (I don't know when) and her arm has a serious lump on one side, and she can't use it for anything heavy. Sigh. None of the people she had been staying with took her to the doctor or even told us about it. Errrr..... But hopefully it will be alright. It's a bit problematic though, because she's not insured at the moment. Double Sigh.

Things are finally coming together at our new place--yes, we're in a new house, or at least the top floor of a house. It's 1000 sq. ft. smaller than the nasty roach house, but I really feel blessed to have found it. It's in a really nice neighborhood, relatively close to Ana's elementary school (though still out of the boundaries), and has a nice big fenced backyard and a huge garage. Oh, and Leo and I have our own bathroom. Yeehaw!!! I'm loving that. Plus Ana still has her own room, which she is loving. I was a little worried because it's a dungeon room (we have that room, a storage closet and our laundry room in the basement, but that's it--the rest is a seperate rental). Her room has no windows, no carpeting, a huge pipe running down one wall, and before we painted, the walls were blackened with who knows what and it looked like there had been a lot of leaks. Anyway, I painted it blue (what Ana had said she wanted when we were dreaming of the roach house back in Colombia) and we patchworked carpet scraps together to cover the floor, and then with a few added touchs from a thrift store it actually looks quite nice. It does have a large closet and built in shelves and desk, so she has tons of space to put anything. Anyway, she loves it, which is the main thing. :) Yeah!! Plus, when I told her Aunt Amy's Christmas gift was that she was going to come decorate her room, she was thrilled.

It was kind of funny when we moved in because my Dad had called up our friends from North Dakota (back from my high school days) and had all of them come over to help move us in. It's weird to see people again after so long. I mean Thomas was who I went on my first date with, and Kayli and I hung out with him and Jonathon all the time. And then it's still weird to me that Carlie is married with a kid (her husband Robbie came to help). I still think Carlie should be 11. Hee. Hee. Anyway, it was very nice of them.

The house is pretty much unpacked now, but I still have quite a bit of cleaning to do--washing walls and that sort of thing. There are so many cobwebs everywhere! But my sweet sister Andrea and sister-in-law Lindsay came to help me clean today. More than anything, I think I just wanted their company. Lindsay Ann worked wonders on the one door though. She's amazing. And now thanks to Andrea cleaning my bathroom, the final two boxes in my room are emptied and gone. Man, I've just slowed down so much with moving into this house. It's been over a week and a half, and usually by then I'm all settled (I hate being unorganized and things not cleaned.) I've been really tired though. Oh well, I mostly just have pictures and whatnot to hang now, once I finish washing the walls. And getting Ana's room painted had been my initial priority.

In other news, I'm going in for a version next week. I'm both very happy and very worried. Happy because it is my only chance at not having another c-section and hence every baby after that a c-section as well. But worried because having a version after a c-section puts you at a lot greater risk for a uterine rupture with very ugly outcomes for the baby. Sigh again. I'm still going to give it a go though, because really I want at least a few more kids and c-sections stink.

At my WIC appointment today, I was lectured due to my poor weight gain. I've gained two pounds this last month. The lady asked if I was trying not to gain weight...that's definitely not my plan. And then she asked if I had food to eat. It's weird to have someone ask you that. And just if you're wondering, yes, we do have food to eat. Hee. Hee. I told I've just been really stressed out.

Oh, I have a new calling at church too.....I'm in the Young Women's presidency. I was initially really excited to be out of primary (where I've been since high school pretty much) but then I went the first week and realized why in the world was I excited to work with teenage girls?!?!?? Let me just say that the Kardishian sisters and Megan Fox (I don't even know who Megan Fox is, and I really don't care to) all came up somehow out of the lesson. Umm, yeah.

So that's all the interesting (well, that's debatable if all that was interesting) news at my house. But I have to share one funny story about Elena before I head off to bed. Elena has never been really good about the dark, but since living in the roach house, she's petrified of it. (We did leave a light on in her room, but she would come try to find us up the stairs and she'd make it halfway in the dark and then start to scream like she was being murdered.) So a good threat to keep her in bed and being good at night is that we'll shut the door. (Aren't we scary parents?) So one night Isabel was getting out of bed and we could hear Elena yelling at her, "Isabel!!! Get back in bed!!! Daddy will shut the door!!! Isabel!!!!" etc. It was kind of sad but pretty funny too. She also had to have her barbie get a shot at the doctor's the other day. Poor girl, she hid in the corner after getting her own vaccines because she couldn't bear to watch Isabel get hers. Elena's been altogether nicer and more calm lately. Although she can still shriek like a demon when she wants too. Isabel has a funny sense of humor and will purposely bug Elena to get her all worked up. What a rascal. I've really enjoyed watching their relationship develop lately. It's so sweet to see sisters play together.

Well, I really have to go to bed now. Chao.