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.