Sleep, Must have sleep.

It is 9:40pm on Sunday night, and Noelle and I are home! I mention the time because, by my count, 56 hours have passed since we received our wake up call Friday night to head to the airport. And out of the those 56 hours, I have slept 7 (maybe 8) hours. Our travel was long but relatively painless. We were traveling with several other families as far as Frankfurt, so the kids kept us occupied as we whittled away the hours. And man, were there hours to whittle! The flight from Almaty to Frankfurt (7 hours, I think) did not have any kind of movie or other entertainment-- so it was totally boring for the adults. Noelle was a trooper, however-- catching some zzz's here and there as you can see from the photos. (I finally slept a couple of hours on the Frankfurt to NY leg) And there was plenty of excitement to be had when we arrived at JFK. Immigration was a breeze, and we got through so quickly that part of our welcoming party got there after we did! My sister Ann and her husband and son, my brother Brian and my brother Terry and his son threw Noelle a little welcome home bash-- and somehow, we all found a way to stay awake through it. Noelle lost the battle around 7pm on Saturday, and I thought I was home free (silly, huh?!) I was just getting into bed at 11pm when she started to cry-- and that was the end of the sleep discussion until 2am. THEN I thought I was home free (I never learn) and finally fell asleep-- until 5am when Noelle was up again. This scene repeated itself several times throughout the day-- each time, with me thinking she is finally getting onto her schedule. Now she is down again-- I guess I will have to wait and see what tonight brings.

Noelle has settled very well into our home. She "walks" and crawls from room to room, and has been pretty pleased with the toys she has found. She absolutely loves her exer-saucer! So many people were concerned with the exersaucer once they found out how old she is-- thought she is too old for it-- but for now, it is doing the trick! She thinks it is hysterical to rock it back and forth, and she loves all the little things around her. She had fun meeting her cousins and playing with one of them again today. She met her first dog today, my sister's Australian Shepherd, Beans. Noelle was visibly nervous, but she didn't cry (that was reserved, strangely for her intense fear of a big teddy bear and Humpty Dumpty doll that belong to my nephew) She is eating everything in sight-- and is always trying to get to what is on my plate, a habit she picked up in Almaty. Probably because she was hungry-- the baby food they told us to pack for her definitely did not do the trick. On the menu tonight: spaghetti and chicken parm. I might need to get a second job if this keeps up!