So, what have we been up to for the last 6 weeks?

1. Finished Upwards soccer for this season. Maicol and Juan Pablo both enjoyed it, although Maicol is much more competitive and much more serious about it. Andrew will be old enough to play next year, so maybe we'll have all three with games on Saturday mornings!

2. We've been doing alot of swimming since our neighborhood pool opened. They all still love to go swimming and are doing very well. Maicol and Juan can both dive. This week Andrew was able to swim the width of the pool. He loves to swim underwater, but couldn't figure out how to come up for air and then swim more. This week it just "clicked" for him and he is so proud of himself. With a little more practice he should be able to jump off the diving board without his lifejacket.

3. We became in-laws. Jonathan and Kristin were married May 30. It's starting to balance out a little more in the daughter department. It was a beautiful wedding and we really enjoyed having both sides of our family there. Most of Dan's family and mine haven't seen each other since we got married 26 years ago, so we took pictures of everyone and are excited to see them. Andrew and Juan Pablo were ring bearers. They really wanted to be the "flower boys", but we talked them into the more traditional ring bearer job. :) Maicol was a groomsman. They all looked very handsome in their suits and in the end did their jobs well. Juan Pablo initially refused to walk up the aisle because he didn't get a boutonniere, but we were able to get past that and he and Andrew made it up the aisle before the bride (barely). I had to go to the end of the aisle and tell them to "GO!".

4. We spent a three-day family vacation with my side of the family. We try to get together every year and spend 2 or 3 days together. This year we rented a house at a state park and stayed together after the wedding. We had a good time playing games, playing with glow sticks at night, riding bikes and letting the cousins play together and get to know each other better. The boys spent as much time as possible playing Gameboy and such. Andrew and my niece spent as much time as possible being pulled behind the bicycle in a cart. They could have done that all day I think, except for the fact that the parents legs won't last that long!

5. We're still doing the usual things. Riding bikes, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs as often as possible, doing schoolwork, etc. We're also still trying everyday to convince Maicol that he is here to stay and that this Mom will never leave him. While I think he logically can see that I love him and will not leave, because that's not his past experience with mothers he has a very hard time believing it. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to not feel sure that your mother loves you and will never leave you. I grew up with a great mom and dad and I never questioned their love and devotion to me. I don't know how to convince him that I won't leave. We repeat the same conversations with him about how we're different, we haven't left our older children, he can see what we have done since he came to our family, etc., but it really does try my patience to have to go through the same things over and over.

Enjoy the pictures.

Karen

"Sleeping Beauty"

The Wedding Rehearsel

"The Cousins" (I love this picture - the boys were fascinated with their cousin)

Maicol teaching Andrew how to play Gameboy

Dan still reads to them almost every night before bed. If they're lucky he'll read up to 3 books.

Love the watermelon!

They all love mangos. They would prefer them to any candy or other sweet treat.

The Adventures of Juan Pablo and Andrew

I don't have any pictures, but I really wanted to get in writing the things these two have been up to so I can embarass them when they get older. :)

Last week Juan Pablo told me he had a "good idea" for he and Andrew to do. He just needed a cup with some water. Upon further investigation I discovered what his "good idea" was. He was going to take Andrew's little plastic tricycle (which has a storage compartment under the seat) out to the street, put dirt in the storage compartment, add water and make "chocolate milk" and offer it to people driving by. I nixed that idea (or so I thought). When I went to check on them, he had indeed put dirt in there and talked Andrew into getting a glass out of the kitchen for water and was getting ready to mix the "chocolate milk".

On Mother's day as we were eating dinner at home with everyone Andrew went to the bathroom. Knowing that if it takes him very long he is up to no good I went to check on him. He had evidently "finished his business", but for unexplained reasons (at the time) had had his hand in the toilet. I proceeded to flush the toilet and scrub up his hands. On the way back to the table he told me he "wanted his pennies back". You know where they are - don't you? Flushed with his "business".

Also on Mother's day Andrew came in very proud of himself because Juan Pablo was helping him be a clown. Juan had opened the empty ash bucket (from emptying the wood stove) that was outside (but still had a few residual ashes in it) and rubbed white ashes all over Andrew to make him white and then found a red marker and colored his nose red. They were quite proud of themselves. At least it washed off pretty easily.

Yesterday I had put some things out on the kitchen counter for them to smell as we are working on the five senses in science. I didn't get that done, but had not put things back away. As I walked past the front door I thought I smelled maple syrup. Sure enough, Andrew had found the small bottle of maple flavoring, poured it out on the front porch and proceeded to make hand and footprints on the porch and had smeared some on his body also. Juan Pablo had joined in the fun too. I gave them a bowl of water, soap and toothbrushes to scrub it off. They had a great time doing that and of course wanted more and more water.

What are they thinking????

Monthly Update

This seems to be becoming a once-a-month update. The days do just seem to fly by and before you know it another week is over. Shows my age, huh? Anyway, so what have we done in the last month? For Easter we managed to color eggs, hide plastic eggs to hunt and make it to the early church service. Pretty good I think. For the plastic eggs we put candy in the larger ones and change in the smallest ones. Before we started I limited them to 20 each and told Andrew I would help him if he needed it. Maicol immediately complained about that and so I just ignored him and went on. As they were looking for the eggs Maicol began giving his smallest eggs to Andrew and made a big deal about how nice he was being to his brother. In reality, he thought "bigger is better" and if he gave the little ones to Andrew he could keep looking for all of the bigger ones. He was quite surprised when he opened all of his eggs and found only candy and no money! Ironically, Andrew really has little interest in the money and wanted the candy. Guess next year we'll have to put the money in the big eggs!

Upwards soccer has started again. They had their first game Saturday. Juan Pablo is doing much better this year. Last year he had alot of trouble understanding what the coaches wanted him to do and was afraid to even play. This year while I know he still doesn't understand all of the words he knows what is going on and seems to have a good time. He scored 2 of their 3 goals and he really does put alot of effort into it. Maicol plays really hard and of course thinks he should be the coach! He does try to tell the other kids on his team what to do and they listen to him at least some of the time. Dan has been taking them to practice since I work on Mondays, so this past Saturday's game was the first I had seem them play.

We have had beautiful weather the last 3 days and have really enjoyed being outside. Our asparagus is growing quickly - we've picked some the last 3 days and if the weather continues like this we'll have plenty. The strawberries and raspberries are growing well too. We took a walk today near our neighborhood and spent part of Thursday at a park too. There are so many nice places to go.

Bethany is finally feeling back to her old self - minus the sore throat and constant stuffy nose. She was able to lead worship at church today. We stopped in to see her after we had attended an earlier service at our church. Jonathan is counting down the days til the wedding. Not much more than a month to go.

All of the kids are doing well. Maicol still struggles the most. I realized this week that he still isn't sure that I will come home after work. He likes to stay up to see me on Wednesdays when I get home between 9 and 10pm. This past week he fell asleep before I got home and didn't see me until the next morning. He was grouchy and rude to me all morning and when I finally talked to him the basic problem was that if he didn't see me come in he is afraid that I might not come back home. Based on his previous experiences I understand that, but sometimes it seems like no matter what I say, do, or how much time passes he just won't let himself believe it is true. I talked to him again today and reiterated the fact that he has to decide that he is going to believe what I say because I can't make him do it. I told him that I know that is not the way it was in the past, but the past is the past and once he decides to leave it there and relax he will be a much happier little boy. Oh how I wish I knew that I was saying and doing the right things! While there are similarities in parenting these boys and our older children there are also very great differences. The other two are still trying to learn that they need to do what Mom says even if Dad isn't there, but it is still a struggle sometimes. But on the other hand, we have so many wonderful times where we do things together, see them grow and mature and are just amazed at the things that have taken place in the past 18 months.

Enough of that - on to the pictures.

Karen

They still love the merry-go-round. In Colombia they could go for hours and it's still that way.

Andrew's blue candy tongue.

What do you think might be in there?

Our handsome boys. Why is it so hard to get the three of them to smile at the same time?

Maicol.

Juan Pablo going in for a goal.

Andrew and I enjoying the games.

At Holliday Park.

Maicol.

Andrew.

Juan Pablo

Andrew coloring eggs.

Maicol coloring eggs.

Juan Pablo and his orange egg.

Three Birthdays and a Surgery

The title pretty much sums up the last three weeks at our house. Three of our children have birthdays in March. We start with Bethany on the 14th, then Jonathan on the 22nd and finally Andrew on the 28th. So, we have had a birthday dinner or lunch three Sundays in a row and cake (or in Bethany's case pie) three Sundays in a row. Jonathan's fiance Kristin said today we were going to be going through "cake withdrawl". For Andrew's birthday we went to Chuck E Cheese's. This is all the boys talk about when it comes to birthdays. We went for the first time last year on Maicol's birthday and now I think it will be a requirement for a few more years worth of birthdays. We just went to play the games and then out for ice cream afterwards. We did the cake and present thing the day after his birthday since that was when the other kids could be here. He has been very excited about having a birthday and being four. So we now have children from the age of 4 to 24. What a range!
Bethany had her tonsils out last week, so she had been hanging out at our house for about 3 days. Mostly sleeping on the couch, taking her pain medicine and eating slushies. She's slowly getting better, but is still pretty uncomfortable. But, she is back in her apartment and so we are a little more back to normal here.
That's the big news. We continue to go the proverbial "two steps forward, one step back" with Maicol. Just when it seems things are going well for him, he has a day where nothing seems to go right. Oh well, we are making progress. Juan Pablo is still slowly becoming more comfortable. I have always kissed and hugged him when putting him to bed, but he never reciprocated. Recently he has started hugging and kissing me before bed. And he has started hugging me spontaneously - something he didn't do before. Before we met them, we were told they would probably be very affectionate and want to be near us and touching us all the time. It took Maicol about a year to start that and now at the 1.5 year mark Juan Pablo has become more affectionate. As I sat reading to them before bed last night one sat on each side of me with their arm around my neck listening to the story. So, it seems we are still moving along in that attachment thing. It has been a slow, but steady process.
On to the pictures...



Bethany's Birthday and her pie. Andrew looks pretty excited too!

Jonathan's birthday - with Kristin trying to stay out of the picture.

Juan Pablo and Maicol at Chuck E Cheese's. I love this picture of the two of them.

Jonathan helping Andrew feed his tickets into the counter so he can get a prize.

Licking the blue icing he requested off of the beater. Is there anything better?

Andrew blowing out his four candles.

A very happy birthday boy! He is not only excited about his birthday, but he loves cake!

Worms, Trees and Houses

What a fabulous day! It was finally warm enough to get outside and play! Everyone is so much happier (and ready for bed at the end of the day) when they have had a chance to run and play. They managed to get their schoolwork done right after lunch, so we had the afternoon to go outside. I cleaned up the yard some and the boys did boy things - climbed trees and dug for worms. Maicol and Juan Pablo are trying to teach Andrew to climb a tree. Not sure if that is a good idea or not, but they had a great time together working at it. Then they moved on to looking for worms. Digging in the sandbox and looking under things for them. I'm not sure what they were going to do with them once they unearthed them and fortunately I didn't have to find out. :) We were hoping to have a fire outside tonight and roast marshmallows, but it was just too windy.
Enjoy the pictures of our first outside play day in way too long! I need to explain the last picture. Juan Pablo is into building houses. He started one in the backyard and was going to sell it to us for the bargain price of $6.00. He never got it above about 4" high before we made him put back the boards he used, so then he moved on to a brick house. That's the last picture - he and Maicol standing in his brick house. Unfortunately it had to be disassembled recently too. Who knows what he will build next.

Nothing new and exciting, but it's past time to update so here goes.

Last week we went for a 2-night, 3-day trip to a state park. Of course they have an indoor pool which was one of the main reasons for going. There was also a hot tub which they loved. I just wish the pool water were about that warm! It wasn't bad, but not as warm as I'd like. We also played some ping pong, watched movies and cartoons, played games and ate alot. We stopped to see Grandma and Grandpa Baker also. So, lots of things in one trip.

We haven't had anymore snow, but there is hope of some this weekend. We did have quite a bit of wind while we were gone last week. It blew our trampoline from our yard, over our neighbors fence, through their yard, over the fence on the other side of their yard and into the next neighbors yard and against some trees. It will need some work, but Dan thinks we can salvage it. If we can't the trampoline will be sorely missed. We have spent alot of time playing on it and have burned alot of calories since our neighbors were so kind to give it to us.

School - Juan Pablo is doing well with reading, but the math thing still leaves him a little puzzled it seems. He is able to sound out words and mark the vowels, but can't figure out how to write the number before or after another number or add without counting objects every single time. Maicol still hates to have to write any kind of sentence, but his ability to do it is improving. Math doesn't seem to be difficult for him. Andrew knows all but maybe 2 or 3 letters of the alphabet. I had no idea he knew so much - watching Word World and Super Why has helped him (and listening to us work with Juan Pablo). Now we're starting to work on the letter sounds.

Behavior - Maicol seems to be improving. No all day stints of him being angry and if he is it's only for a short period of time. His big problem now is learning "if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything". He loves to point out any slight error you may have made (or thinks you may have made). Because he is still learning English he sometimes doesn't completely understand what is being said. We have so many ways to say the same thing and I now realize how difficult it is to learn English. They understand most of what we say, but certainly not everything yet. Juan Pablo still dislikes schoolwork and that seems to be where alot of his getting into trouble comes from. He asks every night if there will be school tomorrow - and then sighs when I say "yes". They all still listen better to Dan than me. If we're both here and I tell them to do something, they will look around to see if Dan is watching and let that determine if they will do it or not. That makes me crazy!! We're still working on that, but it is certainly better than it was.

I think that's it for now. We'll try to do some new and exciting things before the next post.
Karen



Reading one of Andrew's favorite books - Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Dan has read it enough that they can now quote some of it.

Juan Pablo

Andrew, Juan Pablo and Maicol

It Finally Happened

It finally came. After weeks of watching and waiting, hoping and praying, faithfully checking the news at least once a day, the long awaited, much anticipated event of the season finally arrived at our house - snow! We got about 8 inches between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. It was beautiful! The boys went out to play at home Wednesday after it stopped falling, but we had to wait until Thursday to go sledding due to some behavioral issues that resulted in a moratorium on sledding until school could be completed with the proper attitude and speed. We had a wonderful time. Maicol got to try out his new snowboard and the rest of us enjoyed sledding. I don't know how many times we went down and then back up the hill, but it was enough that everyone went to bed very well Thursday night. :) We stayed almost two hours and by that time although they would never admit it, they were tired. Andrew is big enough this year to take himself back up the hill, so that means more trips down the hill for Mom or Dad since we don't have to carry/drag him back up each time. We have had a problem with him taking his gloves off and then crying because his hands get cold. No amount of talking to him has resulted in him not doing this. So I saw an idea (in a magazine I think) that seemed the perfect solution to this problem. Buy waterproof mittens and then sew them to the end of the sleeves of a long-sleeved shirt, put the shirt on him and then his coat on and no matter how hard he tries, he cannot take his gloves off! He wasn't too sure what we were doing, but he went along with it, and we had no cold wet hands that resulted in crying fits. Wish I could say I thought of it, but it is a fantastic idea as far as I am concerned. Now I just need to figure out how to keep his feet dry. Hopefully we'll get at least one more good snow before spring.

Dan and I have been out twice by ourselves in the last four days. Bethany came over to do haircuts on Thursday night and stayed for a couple of hours so we could go out and eat. Jonathan and Kristin came over today and took the boys to eat lunch and go sledding so we had the afternoon free.

Enjoy your week and the pictures.

Karen

"Come on Papi, hurry back up the hill with my sled so I can go again!

Andrew - dressed to do battle with the hill.

Andrew, Maicol, Mami and Juan Pablo.

Juan Pablo

Maicol - looking very cool on his snowboard.