Update

I have to apologize for my lack of posting recently--I needed a little break after being out of town for two weeks (after the big birthday bash in Lubbock, I drove down to Dallas for Jay's wedding).

Things have been busy here. Madeleine will need to start prekindergarten this fall so I have been busy calling and touring preschools in the area. Unfortunately the area we moved to doesn't have a wide selection of preschools. I was used to the Plano area where it seems like there are top quality preschools on every block. Fortunately though, there are a couple of good preschools around our house. Now we just need to pick one.

Madeleine is very excited about school. She keeps wanting Joel to take her to school every morning. Madeleine reminds me of myself--she likes to be busy. And right now she is starting to get to a phase where she just isn't busy enough at home. Because of that, I think that she will really enjoy school when she starts. If she could just learn how to operate a stove and properly vacuum, she would have plenty to do at home and we wouldn't have to worry about finding her fun activities like school ;-)

Miriam is really talking up a storm. She is putting together several more sentences, and she has learned to say her name and a very strange version of Madeleine that sounds like "mommy" with an "L" in it. She says something like "Momlny" for Madeleine--it is a very subtle difference from "mommy." A difference that only a mother could hear. Unfortunately she hasn't outgrown screaming as a form of communication. When words fail her, she just screams until I finally do whatever it is she wants. And I can only figure out what she wants through trial and error. But she is screaming much less often since she is learning so many new words.

Thanks for your patience with me while I took my little break from writing and I will be now be back to posting several times a week.