Can you tell things have gotten busy at the Cooper house? We haven't blogged in a week and a half, and there is so much going on that deserves to be blogged about!

For now, all is well and we're feeling as blessed as ever. Priscilla's integration to our family has taken major strides forward and she is a spunky, funny, smart, opinionated little kid; she fits in well here. :)

That's not to say there aren't growing pains. For one, our routines are completely out of whack. Jess is taking (by far) the worst of it, since Priscilla often will only let her console her, feed her, hold her, put her to sleep, etc. I don't think there have been two same 24 hour periods since we've arrived back in Madrid a week ago.

Personally, in the past week I've only slept in our own bed once, and have fallen asleep in the other kids' beds multiple times each. The number of times I've woken up in the morning, in one of the kids' bed, in my work clothes (with keys, cell phone, wallet, etc still in my pockets) is too embarrassingly high to blog about. My Fitbit doesn't know what to think about my sleep stats! :)

But at least I'm sleeping, which is more than I can say for Jess. As a Mom, she soldiers on silently and (mostly) with a smile. As a Dad, I tend to complain the moment I'm "sleep inconvenienced" by a kid.

Like most people we know, we're getting ready for Christmas! For those of you following along at home, Jess decorated the house for Christmas in early November (since we'd miss a good portion of December) so there's nothing more to be done decoration-wise. We are shopping, baking, wrapping, and watching Christmas movies, while trying to remind ourselves the real reason of Christmas is not all those things. As a Christian parent, I think it's hard to keep our kids grounded during all the excitement of the season.

Wednesday is my last day at work for the rest of the year (yeah!) but the kids have been off since last weekend. They are already starting to grump at each other when they aren't around Priscilla. Oh well, kids will be kids I suppose. Especially when those kids are cooped up in the same house for days. I'm sure pumping them full of Christmas cookies will improve the situation.

During the holiday slow-down, Jess and I will go back and finish up the blog posts of our awesome adventure so we don't lose any of the memories. We experienced a lot during the process and it would be a shame to forget.