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