Wow! What a life!

As any observant person can see, its been awhile since my last post! Trust me I haven't spent the last few months laying on a beach or anything even remotely relaxing.

Someday I will make my Vietnam adoption story public but for now we'll have to leave it with the conclusion: I have a new daughter Emma Linh.

Emma is a very sweet mostly happy baby who loves her bottle. She just turned 5 months old on Monday. Her brothers and sisters adore her but lately she really prefers her mommy. However, Jenna is the one person who can make her laugh out loud. When she smiles sometimes she gets this great big smile and tilts back her head but no sound comes out. But Jenna is the one person who can get a giggle out of her.

Emma has decided to follow one tradition of being a Swank girl-- being a Drama Queen. Ten days after coming home from Vietnam Emma decided our new house was too boring and wanted to check out Children's Hospital. What was supposed to be a one night observation for RSV turned into a ten day stay, 5 of which were in ICU on a ventilator. But we're home now and she's doing quite well except that her GI system seems to have gone crazy. Lots of gas, massive spitting up, some days constipation some days the opposite. Emma has officially earned the title Head Drama Queen.

As mentioned above we are now in our new house. Trace and Ross were in charge of moving all of our worldly possessions from storage into the house and they did very good job! I was in Vietnam calling them every hour checking on their progress. Of course when I came home I was greeted by mountains of boxes some of which have been unpacked, some have been taken to the basement and some are still hanging around my entryway and dining room waiting for my attention.

I have wanted to post here several times since coming home but thought that I should "backfill" first. I hope to start sharing our craziness soon. And believe me, if anything its gotten crazier!