May 2010

Here's the month of May (in reverse order) since of course I forgot to upload the pictures in the correct order. :) We have had great weather and have been able to do some visiting this month, so lots of pictures.

Our neighborhood pool opened this weekend and of course we had to be there the first day. As I recall, last year it was cool and cloudy, but the boys insisted it was fine for swimming and had to go. They shivered. This year it is nearly 90, sunny and no wind, so great weather for swimming. Juan Pablo could barely hold his head up to eat dinner tonight he was so tired from playing and swimming. They were very excited to show me that all of them can now all do a front flip off the diving board. I did get some video, but it wouldn't load for me, so here are a couple of action shots.

We made a trip to my Mom's this past week. The weather, once again, was fantastic. My sister and two of her boys came and we had a great time. Andrew managed to find an almost deceased butterly. And if it isn't deceased by the time he is finished handling anything it probably will be. There were other pictures of them holding various little creatures, but I decided to spare you. Suffice it to say Andrew and Juan Pablo love to pick up anything dead or alive and want to take a picture so - "we can remember". And I much prefer a picture to keeping the real thing. :)

We also made a stop at the church camp where I went as a kid. Dan and I actually lived there for a few months when we were first married. He worked there and I was still in xray school. It certainly has changed in the past 25+ years! We are hoping that Maicol might go to a week of camp there this summer. The pictures are of a rope swing that lets you swing across the stream that runs though the camp. All the kids loved it (including Dan).

Andrew was finally able to use his birthday present. A slip n slide race set. He and Juan Pablo had a blast! Anything that involves water and racing has to be fun.

We are coming up on the last week of Upwards soccer. Maicol and Juan Pablo played. Andrew has to be one year older, so next year they can all play. Although Maicol told us that he is considering not playing next year because the Saturday morning games cause him to miss cartoons! What kind of Colombian would let cartoons interfere with playing soccer?!

If I could only get them to do chores like this all the time! I think I sent one to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer and somehow they all got involved. They look awfully happy to be helping.....

We made a trip to the Children's Museum. We have a membership, but still don't go as often as we should. Can anyone explain to me why I have to drive 45 minutes to a museum so they can play video games?

This is from the Egypt exhibit. A crocodile on the Nile.

We also made a trip to see Dan's Mom and Dad. After that we went on to see a friend of mine. She lives on a farm and one of the things they have right now are baby goats. The boys had a great time playing with them and just playing outside in general. Once again we had nearly perfect weather to be outside.

We're still trying to get the usual stuff in too! School is going ok. I never accomplish everything I would like to for school, but I keep on trying. There has been lots of playing outside and jumping on the trampoline.

The traveling we have done with the boys has been much better. Even a year ago they still didn't handle going new places well. Anything new was always difficult for everyone. This spring they have done really well. Even going to see my friend (whom they had not met) went smoothly. Yeah!

Last week I painted their bathroom and the great room and hallway. Not a drastic change in color, but a change. Maicol's first words were "I don't like it". I know he doesn't like anything to change and that it wasn't the color he was unhappy with, but the fact that it had changed. I was able to gently point that out to him and it agreed, smiled and was happily on his way. Wow! He has come a long way! (and so have I).

Until next time.

Karen

Spring!!!!

It is spring! We have been loving being able to get outdoors to play. Everyone goes to sleep easily at night and they even stay in bed in the morning a little later so that Mom has a little more time to get things done. We are back to bike riding, jumping on the trampoline, taking walks, playing at various parks and just being outdoors. We are back to roasting hot dogs and marshmallows in the backyard too.

We made another trip to Grandma's to visit and get to play with the cousins for a couple of days. It was a good trip. Not too much fussing about the ride and we had great weather to get outdoors while we were there. My sister has 3 boys with two of them being right between ours so it works out perfectly. I get to see my sister and mom and Dan gets to rest. Well, except for this time - he spent most of his time cutting down firewood and moving and stacking it.

Our other excitement was Maicol having appendicitis. He woke up one morning with pain in just the right place. We went to the ER at 9am and by 3pm he was in a room minus his appendix. He ended up staying two days. Quite an adventure for all of us. He is the most healthy of the three. Rarely even gets a sore throat, so this was a new experience for him. He did very well and is now back to doing whatever he wants. And now we know where that tax refund check is going! :)

We are having more and more good days at our house. Not perfect, but then we never expected that. But, there is much more desire to do what Mom asks, do schoolwork without complaining and just in general it seems they are more content. We still have our times of uphappiness, but they are fewer and even when things don't go well it is short-lived. When previously we would have had all-day problems, now they are just a few minutes to an hour problem and then it is over and we can move on. Not sure what it is - maybe enough time has passed that they feel safe? Whatever it is, we hope and pray it continues.

Nothing else very exciting. Here are a few pictures of our trip to Grandma's.


The Three Amigos.

Playing a very important game of badmitton on the sand volleyball court. At least there is something to do while you wait for your turn.

Maicol.

Juan Pablo

Andrew.

Andrew's Birthday

We are almost finished with birthday month! We celebrated Andrew's 5th birthday today. Hard to believe this is the 3rd birthday we have celebrated with him. We still have the Chuck E Cheese thing to do, but that will have to wait until later. He had the cake and presents today. His brothers have been reminding him every day how many more days it is. It was so much easier when they didn't know their birthdays. :) Andrew can't read the calendar, but he does now know the date of his birthday.

Jonathan's birthday was last Monday. We had a Chinese buffet dinner with him. He and his wife decided to go south for spring break, (I can't imagine why) so we'll do his cake another time.

Here are a few pictures of the birthday boy. He enjoyed the day and so did we.

Karen

The Beginning of Birthday Month

This is the beginning of "Birthday Month" at our house. Three of our five children have March birthdays. The first was today - Bethany. She requested BBQ chicken pizza and apple pie - so of course that's what we had. I'm not much of a pie maker, but I managed to peel apples and put them in a crust with a little (lot) sugar and cinnamon and it turned out ok. We did have one little candle in the pie, because it's a birthday and you have to have candles. And the boys all know that regardless of whose birthday it is they will get to blow out the candles at least once. We have Jonathan's birthday next weekend and Andrew is the next. Plus, my brother's birthday was yesterday! Let the celebrating continue.
And now a few pictures to make this post complete.
Karen


Andrew on our walk last week. It was warm enough to go out and we all needed to expend a little energy so Mom wouldn't go crazy! He is showing off his collection from the walk - a stick, a cork and 3 sweet gum seed pods.

"The Boys" on our walk. Don't you normally walk around your neighborhood with your Spiderman or Power Ranger outfit and dracula cape on?

The Birthday Girl. And her birthday apple pie.

New Discoveries

Not much exciting going on here. Just life. School is going somewhat better. After you have to spend a few days doing your schoolwork in your room by yourself it does encourage you to be a little more respectful and do much less complaining!

We had to buy a new camera. It had disappeared for a few days and I had looked high and low for it. I finally asked the most obvious person (Andrew) where it was and of course he knew. He came out of the bathroom with it. Thankfully there were no "bathroom" pictures on it, but it won't focus properly and it makes a funny sound when you turn it on. So, one more thing Andrew has destroyed. Oh well...

Maicol has had many better days lately. I think that some of it is our reaction to his moods - quick consequences for being disrespectful. I think some of it is just more time being with us and very slowly beginning to trust. Last week he was interested in what time of the day he was born, so I pulled up the referral documents and was looking for it. He began to read over my shoulder the information that explains what events brought him to the point where he was declared abandoned and adoptable. He wanted me to read it and I did and explained some of the things he wasn't clear about. He remembers very clearly many of the circumstances described. While he has known some of this information before, some of it was new to him. I think that in the past he really had not seen any reason for him to be adopted. He felt like he was ok and didn't need a mom and dad. Going over some of this information has helped him to better understand where he was and why he is with a new family now.

Juan Pablo has become a "please Mom" and "thank you Mom" boy lately. Yeah!!! He has been spending less time sitting on his bed for refusing to do things. He has also been encouraging Andrew to be good too.

Andrew is fascinated that he has 10 fingers and 10 toes. I'm not sure if we just never mentioned that particular fact to him or it's that he can count and understand what 10 is. Whatever it is, he has been counting them for us recently. He didn't want to eat bologna tonight (which I have discovered they used to eat and love) because it's made of "guts". I also discovered that he has been putting Cheetos in the overflow holes in their bathroom sink. Why? He is just so funny! He is also learning the "2-vowel rule" in reading.

Nothing else exciting that I can think of. Thanks for reading.

Karen




Juan Pablo and Andrew being silly.

We made a cake one night last week just for fun. They decorated it with colored sugar and then we put candles on it and they took turn blowing them out. Whose birthday was it? We don't know - but I'm sure it was someones!

Juan Pablo's lego creation.

We have had about a month of snow. This was the beginning of it. Heavy, wet beautiful snow!

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.