Our neighborhood

Our neighborhood is really an amazing place... It struck me tonight just how amazingly lucky we are to be living here. Our street is full of kids and families and all of them have been so amazingly suppportive and accepting of our new kids. We are the only adoptive family on the street, and the only family with sooooo many kids - but it is no big deal to anyone - and boy oh boy does it help the newbies to feel welcome.

Today I took our 5 youngest to the park down the street - and along the way picked up 6 more kids so by the time we arrived there were 11 kids on bikes racing around the park - there must be something magic about that number of kids - does it go out on some secret kid radar?? with in about 10 minutes there were 10 more kids - the perfect number of kids for games of tag and bike races and an all around good time. An hour later when I gathered the 11 I needed to take home... the whole park emptied.. kinda funny. Then tonight after dinner the kids went out to play for a few minutes and suddenly everyone is out running up and down the street playing hide and seek in everyone's yard and having a great time - much like I remember playing as a kid. And not at all like any other neighborhood we have recently lived in. It just brought such joy to my heart to see how easily Alem and Estifanos fit in.