Update

So, here's what we've been up to the past month.

Juan Pablo's Lego creations.

Light saber fighting. This was what we did for the "reward of the day" recently. I participated too, but since I had to take the picture you don't get to see me striking a pose. :)

Andrew decided to try out Dad's beard trimmer. He very quietly slipped it out of our bathroom and had cut a swath of his beautiful black hair before I knew it. Dad thought we should just give it back to him and let him finish the job. I prefer not to have him "buzzed". As many times as we have said "the only person in our family who cuts hair is Bethany" he still did it. And I doubt it will be the last time either.

Maicol stacking pennies. For family night last week we had Penny Night. We had a contest stacking pennies (which Dad won). We also tossed pennies. I placed a point value on the tiles in the kitchen and we tossed pennies and added the points. Andrew won that contest. The penny tossing was a huge hit. I'm thinking we'll have nickel night sometime.

This is part of our candy making fun. Maicol received a kit to make suckers for Christmas. We finally worked on it last week. There were only a couple of sucker molds to use and lots of candy left over, so we just drizzled it on foil and then ate it in pieces. It was really easy to make and everyone enjoyed eating it.

Dan and Maicol watching TV I just love pictures of the boys with their Dad.

Andrew and Dad. I think Andrew is watching TV, but Dan is obviously watching the inside of his eyelids. :)

Andrew putting dishes away. Normally hs job is to put the silverware away, but for some reason he was helping with the dishes. Probably not the safest job for him to do, but he was very excited to get to do the older boys job.

School continues on - some good days and some bad days. It seems we need to constantly come up with new strategies. The latest is if you fuss or complain about your work, you have to do it by yourself in your bedroom. You must stay there until it is done and if you continue to complain you may be spending an extended part of the day in your bedroom. You also may get extra work to do in your bedroom. One day last week I had one in their bedroom and when the other one started causing trouble, in order to separate them, I put him in the bathroom. Maicol is finally learning to spell, math still remains a mystery for Juan Pablo, and Andrew is learning by leaps and bounds. There are days that it is so much fun to see them get something and other days it is almost torture to get though some things.

It was warm enough the past couple of days for them to play outside. I love it when they can get outside and play! We are hoping for snow tonight, so it may be sledding for tomorrow.

I've been on a cleaning, decluttering, and reducing quest this week. I was beginning to feel surrounded by stuff. So far I have cleared out two closets, reduced the amount of dishes I keep, reduced clothing and shoes, cleaned and organized the laundry room, etc. It is wonderful!! Now if I can just finish the job and keep it from happening agin. That's the real challenge I think.

Andrew is talking and thinking more about his life before he became our son. We were looking at baby pictures of our biological children recently and he questioned why we didn't have baby pictures of him. He really seemed to be upset that we didn't have any of him and wanted to know why we didn't get him when he was a baby. Maicol laments the same thing sometimes. He wishes we had pictures of him as a baby (and so do we). Knowing their background I doubt that such pictures even exist. Juan Pablo says at times he wishes he could go back to his real mom. So, we repeat how she wasn't a very good mom and couldn't take care of him and he needed a mom and dad and that is us. That's the simple explanation we give and it seems to be enough for now for Juan Pablo and Andrew. For Maicol we've gone into a little more detail. We've tried to be straight forward and honest and they seem to be satisfied for now. I'm sure as they get older there will be much more specific questions. Hopefully we're talking about it enough (and not too much) that it's a natural part of their lives and not a taboo topic.

Watching for the first snowflake.......

Karen

The Holidays are Over :(

Tomorrow we are going to give up the "holiday" life and schedule and get back to school. We had a great time at my Mom's for our Christmas trip the week after Christmas. It was alot of fun to have all of the cousins together. They got along very well and had a good time. We took a picture of all of them on the same couch and in the same order as last year. Obviously mine are still the cutest! :)

We went to a state park last week for a couple of days. They have an indoor water park area, which was the main reason we went to that particular park. There was a big slide, small lazy river ride, splash area and a regular pool with a basketball goal and volleyball net. Plus they have a hot tub! It was fun to swim inside and watch the snow outside. We hope to go to another park in February - assuming attitudes are improved.

Enough snow has finally arrived to go sledding. Dan took the boys yesterday and I took them today. Andrew was complaining about his feet being cold, so today I spent most of the time sitting in the car with him so the other boys could sled and work on learning to ride their snowboards. Maicol is able to stand up all the way down the hill and Juan Pablo is able to squat down and make it down without falling over.

Karen

Oh boy, clothes for Christmas!

All of the grandchildren on my side of the family. Note the lack of girls!

Maicol and Juan Pablo

Juan Pablo

Andrew

The boys.

Christmas

We had an unbelievably good, calm, happy Christmas. Their first Christmas was terrible and last year was better, but not great. This year was "normal"! They didn't get everything they wanted, but were happy. They shared. They played together and didn't argue or fight. They even let me take a nap on the couch! I haven't done that in 2+ years. It was wonderful! The weekend has been uneventful as well. Plus we got our first decent snow so of course they are very happy. We went out and played yesterday for awhile.

No school this week which makes for happy boys - and an easier week for Mom and Dad. We're off to Grandma's for Christmas this week with my family. Can't wait to see everyone.

Karen

Andrew

New PJ's.

Being silly in our new PJ's.

We did a quick "trying to calm them down and get ready for bed" activity Saturday night. I sat them all at the kitchen counter and gave them mini marshmallows and toothpicks to make things. They were more creative than I expected. Here they are with their creations.

Andrew - not sure what he was making.

Juan Pablo with his "human", house and a flower.

Our Week

Just a post of our week in pictures.

This is the "train" that Andrew and Juan Pablo constructed yesterday afternoon. It consisted of pillows, "Tigger", a power ranger helmet, an electric keyboard, a Bible, some pieces of wood and a few other miscelaneous items. They were so very proud of themselves and although I didn't quite understand how everything went together and formed a train I of course told them how creative they were and how hard they had worked.

The next two pictures are the result of "The Reward of the Day". In an effort to try to encourage them to work more diligently on their schoolwork we have instituted this reward program. Each day it is something different - a bag of chips for lunch, computer time, a craft, make playdough and such. This particular day it was face painting. I had bought some Halloween face paint on clearance and since they love this type of thing I thought it would make a good reward. Andrew is a Power Ranger and Juan Pablo is a pirate. I still have a way to go in my next career as a makeup artist, but they were happy with the results. :)

This week I almost felt like I got to meet myself. Phyllis and her husband adopted a sibling group of 3 boys from Russia last year and we "met" through our blogs. The similarities are amazing! We are essentially the same age, have two older children the same sex and age, our boys are nearly the same age, we both homeschool and it just seems to go on and on. It was wonderful to meet someone else who has/is dealing with many of the same things we have/are.
My boys had a great time playing and wish we lived closer. Here we are with our boys.

Fall 2009

Wow - I have alot of territory to cover! Maicol in particular has been wanting to play football in the backyard. This primarily consists of me throwing the ball to he or Juan Pablo and then Maicol either runs with it or knocks Juan Pablo down if he happens to get the ball. Then Andrew comes and gets the ball and runs. They really have no idea about the rules (and neither do I), but it does provide for fun and burns off some energy. Unfortunately it's getting to cold now to get out and play.

We celebrated Juan Pablo's eighth birthday in November. We had a family dinner and then gifts, cake and ice cream. Hard to believe he's had 3 birthdays since he became our son. We still need to go to Chuck E Cheese's, but we are patiently (NOT) waiting on a time that we can all go with his big brother. I think Maicol asks about it more than he does. I do not particularly care to go there (seems like it always gives me a headache), but they all just love going and I guess I can tolerate it 3 times a year. :) One of his gifts was a Lite Brite and I think the older kids enjoyed it as much as he did. I even broke down and bought a cake. I'm cheap, but Dan reminded me it is just once a year.

I worked over Thanksgiving, so we went last weekend to my Mom's to celebrate. My sister and her family came so there were plenty of boys to play with. We got out twice to take a walk to the woods. I miss living in the country. They had a great time and since it was cold there was a little pond that was frozen over. Not thick enough ice to walk on, but enough to poke with sticks and get their feet wet. Lots of playing with sticks, looking at leaves and trees and trying to be quiet enough to see deer. They have slept for 12 hours the last three nights, so I think they are about "caught up" now. When they are gone and don't go to bed on time it is really hard on them and also hard on their Mom and Dad to tolerate them.

We are still waiting on our first real snow. We had flurries today and lots of wind. They were so full of energy (loud, pushing and fighting, disobedient) today that I took them for a walk before I even tried to get school started. We were out when it started to flurry and they thought that was very cool. By the time we got back home the temperature had definitely dropped! The time outside running seemed to help and we were able to get school done with minimal problems.

Maicol still has trouble controlling his mouth, but has good days also. The upside for me is that each time he gets into trouble he has to do a chore for me. I have been the recipient of a clean bathroom and mopped floors today. Juan Pablo vacuumed and straighted up the living room for me. Andrew even got to help put the dishes away and put toys away. But I did also play hide and seek with them so they didn't have to work all day. They are doing good as far as learning, but their attitude towards Mom still needs a great deal of work. We just keep working on it.

There is lots of talk of Christmas gifts and they now understand that nearly every day in the paper their is another new ad to be checked. They are more anxious than me to get the paper each morning! We are doing a simple advent book each night. A short version of a Bible story and then a picture to find hidden items in.

We are still doing "Family Night" each Tuesday. The counselor we went to suggested this and so each Tuesday we do something together. Sometimes it's an all day thing and sometimes it's a shorter activity. Maicol (being the stickler for rules that he is) is unhappy if we do a daytime activity instead of a nighttime activity. He makes me crazy sometimes! Isn't an all-day fun time better than just a one hour night time thing? We think so, but what do we know?!

Lots of pictures with this post. That's what everyone wants anyway, isn't it?

Until next time....

This is how their version of football always ends up - one on the ground and the other two trying to wrestle the ball away.

Juan Pablo - he's usually being pushed to the ground by Maicol.

Juan Pablo - the very happy birthday boy!

Juan Pablo - 8th birthday.

Opening his presents.

The "big kids" playing with Juan Pablo's new Lite Brite.

Playing on the trampoline with Dad. He doesn't jump or play on the trampoline very often, but when he does they love it!

Andrew

Maicol

Juan Pablo

Andrew, Juan Pablo and Maicol

Juan Pablo

Maicol and Andrew - listening to Dad read for Family Night.

Fall

The weather has been good for being almost November, so we have been trying to get out and take advantage of it. Two weeks ago we packed up a suitcase and went to a state park for a quick overnight trip. It took me three hours to get the boys around a 1.7 mile trail! I told Dan with the boys a trail is to be "experienced", it's not a matter of going from the beginning to the end with them! They have to stop a look at everything, pick up everything and ask about a thousand questions (most of which I don't know the answer to).

We went to a hayride/wiener roast at an old friends house. This is the third year they have gone and now that they know what's going to happen they are excited to go.

I took them to a park near our home that we had not investigated yet. It has a nature center, playground and trails. The trails were closed that day, so we spent a good bit of time in the nature center. Lots of aquariums with turtles, snakes and lizards. Animal puppets to put on shows for Mom and a bird watching area. We went again today to walk (experience) the trails.

School is going ok. Maicol still complains everyday about what he has to do. He still has to complete all of it, so I don't know why he hasn't given up complaining. Maybe someday. He is at the point where so much of his work involves reading and while he can read, there are still so many words that he doesn't know which frustrates him. Juan Pablo still prefers reading to math. He is starting to write sentences and doing well with that. Andrew is learning to read. He is able to blend consonants and short vowels. I think very soon he will be able to sound out words himself. He does well with numbers too.

We are quickly approaching another birthday. Juan Pablo will be 8 in two weeks. Now that Halloween is over this will be the topic of conversation. How long will it be til the event, when will we go to Chuck E Cheese, what will the gifts be, etc. Everyday, many times a day we will have to answer the same questions. Ahhhhhh!!

Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

Karen

What did we do before?

What did we do before we had 3 boys? It must have been really boring around here! The past week they have:

1. Climbed on the computer desk and managed to tip it and send everything on it sliding, but fortunately just alot of noise and nothing really broken beyond repair.

2. Ran through the house and pulled the silverware drawer out onto the floor. The drawer glides are bent, but it does still work.

3. Spread styrofoam beads ALL over the living room, down the hall and into the bathroom. Took forever to suck them all up with the vacuum cleaner.

4. Covered themselves in sidewalk chalk. Hair and skin. Took their shirts off outside to really do the job thoroughly.

5. Emptied a bottle of bodywash into the bathtub because they wanted bubbles.

Illness is visiting our house today. Maicol and Juan Pablo started getting sick yesterday afternoon and Dan and I are getting it today. So far Andrew is fever free and has way too much energy. We're hoping this is short-lived. Maicol is already better, so that's a good sign.

Not much else going on. I'm home more now that I have quit my part-time job and Dan has been busier. They are going to school on Mondays and seem to be liking it. We've been able to play outside this week except for yesterday and today. That's always good.

Since I don't have anything else exciting here are a few more pictures of our beach trip.

Karen