Day 15: Travel Home

 Jack looked so little in the airplane seats!  Our first flight was our long one (12 hours).  Matt sat with the girls and I sat with Jack.  Matt sat with Jack for our two shorter flights.

But don't let these pictures fool you.  This one is a better description of what our plane flights were like:

He screamed a lot.  A lot.  He did finally get to sleep and I'd say he slept for about 6 hours of the long flight, but that leaves 6 hours of screaming/my attempts to calm/distract him. I'm going to be honest - that was rough.  

Once we landed in Raleigh, though, our hearts started racing with excitement!  We couldn't believe our airport homecoming moment was finally here.  When we walked up the stairs and saw our family and friends there, we were just overwhelmed with love and gratitude.  You all are amazing and I don't think words can thank you enough.  Lots of airport pictures coming soon!  

This picture was the way home from the airport.  I think the looks on both boys faces show you what they were thinking.  

Jack looked shell-shocked the whole way home.  He was very still and barley made a sound.  This was his first time ever in a car seat.

Daniel looked grumpy, frustrated, and kind of sad.  He was also very quiet.

Both boys had (still have) some processing to do.

After we got home (yay, home!), we ate some lunch. This is where I say how amazing our families are!  My parents stocked our freezer, fridge, and pantry, along with putting clean sheets on our beds and clean towels on our towel racks (and many other sweet things) and Matt's parents left several meals in our fridge and snacks on our counter.  SO blessed, y'all.

We spent the afternoon showing Jack different things at our house and trying to win back Daniel's heart. :)  We had some soup for dinner at 4:30. The girls had baths and were in bed by 5:30pm.  They could not stay awake a minute longer.  Jack was in bed by 6:30, Daniel by 7:00, Matt and I by 7:15.  And, can you believe it, we all slept through the whole night!!  Matt was up first around 5:30am, the girls around 6am, me and Jack around 6:30am, and Daniel around 7am.  I was amazed and so so thankful!

This morning, it's been so awesome to have all 4 kids playing around our house. Daniel and Jack are fighting over trucks and trying to figure each other out.  Our house and our hearts are full, though, with the dull (sometimes not so dull) roar of 4 kids hanging out here with us.  Daniel seemed much warmer to us today.  When he got up this morning, the first thing he said to me was "I want to go see Jack."  So he is processing and learning to love his brother.   We are all processing, learning our new normal.  It is hard and exhausting, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!!