Five on Friday

1.  Anna Reaghan said her first two word sentence this week!  On New Year's Day, she was hugging Matt and looked over his shoulder where she spotted a little wooden duck we bought on a beach vacation.  She waved at it and said, "Hi, duck!"  We didn't know she even knew "duck!"  She is also requesting baths by name ("ba").  My favorite is probably that when you say, "I love you!" she grins and blows you a big kiss. :)

2.  We made a great mistake early in the week. :)  We thought the list of paid holidays for Matt's new company did *not* include New Year's Day.  So we planned for Matt to work that day--it seemed a liiiiittle unusual, but he gets Good Friday off so we figured that must have been the compromise.  He went to work on Monday, and not only did he find out he DID have Tuesday off, but they sent everyone home early around 3:00 on Monday!  Hooray for an extra Daddy Day! :)  The only downside is that we are all spoiled with so much Daddy time lately, and Asa is missing his daddy BIG time during the day.  He talks about Matt all day until he gets home.

3.  Yesterday we had lunch with Matt as something fun to do.  It is such a treat to live close enough to Matt's office to meet him for lunch!  When he worked 45 minutes away, especially when Anna Reaghan was taking 2 or 3 naps, it was just too far and too complicated to work around naps (not to mention the cost of gas!).  Now he's just a skip down the road.  A block or so from his office is a huge park.  I definitely see some picnics in our future when it warms up. :)

4.  I am about halfway through adding background papers to Asa's 2nd year scrapbook.  I realized I have not QUITE finished the layouts--I believe I am lacking his actual birthday party page(s) and then it will be complete.  I have also been diligent about taking pictures through the week to print and complete my first Project Life pages this weekend!  Woo hoo!  I *think* I'll try posting those on Tuesdays... that seems to be what the rest of the PL internet world does... "Project Life Tuesday."

5.  I know I've mentioned that we had a rough transition with this move.  I don't recall if I mentioned specifically that we could not locate the box containing Asa's favorite toys--all his train tracks and trains, his airport, his digger, etc.  I was really distraught by the missing box--we were having a rough time, the kids were so sick when we first got here, and I just wanted to ease Asa's transition.  Not being able to give him his FAVORITE toys he played with DAILY felt like it just added to his unease and resistance to our new home and I wanted to do anything I could to make him happy.  We literally opened EVERY box in the house when we still had not found them.  We enlisted help from family to search through EVERY box again. We still did not find the missing toys, so we contacted the moving company and they agreed to send us a claims form.  Earlier this week I was putting away some things in the guest room while the kids played in the room next to me (the play room).  I reached into a box marked "stamp sets" that had 3 stamp sets..... and THE BOX OF TRAINS!!  And the airport and our missing Busy Town game!  I was quite dumbfounded!  We had just replaced all his tracks while we were at Ikea over Christmas, so he has quite the train set up now. ;)  I am so encouraged and have much more peace that the odds and ends we have not run across yet ARE here somewhere.  I have never seen such JOY on Asa's face as when he saw the box of trains and recognized it as his "very own trains from Ohio."  The tiniest glimpse of the Father's joy when His lost are found.  And while Asa played with the trains, he completely spontaneously looked up and said, "Thank you, Lord, for my very own trains back!  Thank you, Lord, for my very own trains!!"  I cried. :)  Nothing is better than seeing that of his OWN accord, his heart turned to God overflowing with thanks and praise.