Reunited & it feels so goooood!

Duke is home as of 4:30pm and the first thing he did is growl at Daisy and Braveheart (his original name, we're searching for a new one). What a welcome, eh? They are all resting comfortably in the big crate, though we can tell it's a tad crowded. Adam is going to take Duke upstairs to his bed and hope that he makes it through the night with no accidents. He is better mannered than the other 2. Could be like Kim said...pups that stay with mom longer have better manners. Could also be because the other 2 have been outside in the big pen unsupervised since we've had these beautiful days. They'll be spending more time inside but we had to get them past their tummy sickness after we accidentally switched their food last week. That was a fun 5 days! Enjoy

 

Isn't that just like a mother? Look at Lady above, she's looking so lovingly at him. Of course she could be thinking "son, mind your manners, you don't pass gas around ladies", but we'll never know. :o)

Adam and his very own dog...Duke!

Duke slept almost the whole way home, either between John and Adam or in the back seat with Jani.

Reunited and it feels so good...

Reunited cause we understood....

There's one perfect fit and brother this one is it....

We both are so exited cause we're....errrrrrkkkk!

nah, they were just playing...but she looks vicious, doesn't she!?!?

We had lots of scratch and sniff going on...and some good ol' leg chewing too. Look at the color difference between them. He is a beautiful blond with darker ears. Daisy looks more like her mom in the pictures. And Braveheart looks dark like his dad, Texas Ranger.

But at the end of the day, they all just went to sleep peacefully. Except Duke snores!

Daisy is on the left, Braveheart has his head on top of Duke.

argh...matey!

This morning at 8:30 John, Adam and Jani left to go to San Antonio to get Duke. When we went to get the 2 puppies Oct 1, we initially thought we were getting Duke and Liberty. It wasn't until we were going home and talking more we realized it wasn't him. But what's important is that the kids took the puppies they wanted. We had talked about Duke so much that even though we brought Braveheart home, he was renamed Duke. But now, now...Kim posted that Duke was the last one not sold. How could someone not take Duke!

Adam wanted Duke. A call to John at work on Thursday and the deal was done. Why not?, John said, you only experience life once and I can't think of anything better for him to spend his money on. Yes, this is the money that has been safely stored in a savings account since before Adam was born. Over 12 years. And now his very first big expenditure. A friend by his side for the next 14 years or so. Congratulations, son.
(pictures to come later)

So on to my post. I'm home not feeling well from something I ate last night and I have the 2 boys. If you have kids then I'm sure you're well acquainted with the many uses of toilet paper rolls. The most common use in our home is telescopes. But today they became pirate telescopes. Light bulb! I can make eye patches!

So I'm proud to present my 2 33" pirates. The only ones not afraid to be seen in their underwear. :o) And for the first time ever you get to hear Jovi. (scrap that...I can the video thing anymore to add a video. =(...)

Christmastime

I bet you're wondering what we must be doing? Hard to believe it's been about a month since my last post. Truth be told, I walked away from the computer. I've been on only in the morning to check email and I didn't make blogging a priority in anyway. But it just occurred to me, since we mailed out our Christmas letter, someone might be checking our blog!

We've been quite delayed in putting up our tree this year. Normally we put it up Thanksgiving weekend but for many reasons we just didn't. So on 12/13 I made myself go thru our storage and find all the Christmas stuff. Poor little Adam toted almost all of it downstairs. We got the tree up after buying a new stand, because amazingly, the stand wasn't in any of this stuff, which does make me wonder if there is more Christmas stuff up there! I've spend the last week organizing all of it. We have some things from John's parents that we've never gone thru. It was a great surprise to "refind" those ornaments, easily recognizing why they were hear, and now hanging them on our tree. I've taken pictures of them so that our children will later be able to tell who the ornament came from and the significance of it. I ditched (not really, will sell them) all of our Sesame Street and Disney ornaments. I guess edging closer to 40 (!!!) makes me think more about what we inherit from Christmas traditions rather than just making it all fun and games.

While my family was not into collecting anything, definitely not Christmas ornaments, after learning that John's family got one every year that I think was usually tied to something they did that year, I started buying them for Adam. More so just to follow the tradition, not because it would be something to stir up memories. But it does. And now I'm glad that I started doing that 11 years ago. Although I must admit my first one for Adam doesn't have any real significance because I was just doing it to do it.

When I hung the ornaments on the tree I realized how bare it was without the SS/D ornaments on it. Off to the store Jani and I went on Monday 12/15 to get more...right thru the sleet and rain and ice (it quit as soon as we left) and we found some really great ones. At Hobby Lobby they had a section of Asian ornaments, so we left with plum blossoms, pagoda, Asian boy, and some other cool ones. We also found a package of nutcrackers that will be 2nd ornament for each child because on 12/9 we went to the Nutcracker Ballet. So in addition to there ornaments we picked up in Taipei, they will have these, tho most likely they won't remember it at all.

It's been good to organize the stuff. Since we got such a late start I chose to not bring everything out. Or rather got it out but repacked it. So now when we're old gray, depending on packing things back in order, I can just say 'go get container 12' and it will hold exactly what I'm looking forward. Not bad eh?

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Ours will be busy no doubt. And I'm sur excitement will abound. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Getting Started and an Apple

The real truth is that sometimes it's just hard to get your groove going for school. You take off the summer and then you find yourself struggling to get going again. Of course it doesn't help when you adopt because that just something else you need to find your groove in. Can you tell we're struggling for our groove?
Yesterday Adam got to go on a very cool field trip. One of our homeschool groups went to an Apple store. It wasn't the kind of field trip where you just look and learn about things. This was hands on. Each child needed to bring in a disc with pictures or a video that they were trying to edit. We took pictures of our Build A Bear trip in June when we took the boys so they could make their own friend. So Adam was able to have a guy help him and he turned the pictures into a movie. And got a really great Apple tshirt too. Of course now our only problem is that he wants a $2700 Apple computer!

5th Grade

What a doosy of a year. We can check off health, science, and history. And in another hour math. We're only a month behind. Anyone have any pointers on how to have small children that can't go unwatched yet homeschool older children? I'm lost. Not lost lost, but just haven't found the rythym for it yet. We've found another more important rhythm instead.

First Day of Co-op

Today the piglets (maybe I should call them bugs?) had their first day of coop with one of the local homeschool groups. I was not sure how the boys would do at all. Jovi was a little clingy. Jace frowned a lot and didn't participate much. I had to make him do the hand actions during his book time. I'm supposed to be lead teacher 1st hour but just don't have it in me right now. 2nd hour I go to the nursery as a helper where Jovi is. 3rd hour is my off hour but today I was helping a bit in nursery then got a break.
Sometimes I dread when coop is going to start. I think it's because I have a steady appointment to keep each week. It's almost a 1 hour drive each way too. But once we get there we love it!

(As I listed the kids just now in the labels, it hit me all over again....WOW I have 4 children!)

Jovi is in nursery the whole time. He'll stay here until next fall when he'll be almost 3 and hopefully ready to move up to the preK class. They play and have snack for 3 hours. Basically just hanging out.

Jace is in preK. I chose to go ahead and move him up so that he can start catching up on some skills he's behind in. Like learning to sit still and also to participate in class things. It's a good spot for him to be in. 1st hour they spend learning something, 2nd hour is craft, and 3rd is a movement class that is new. Or sometimes playing outside.

Jani is in preK for the 2nd year (it's for age 3-5). She really enjoyed it last year and enjoyed making some friends. Her schedule is the same as Jace's. I think she enjoyed the new format of circle time during 1st hour. She really got into the hand motions that Ms. Isabella had them doing. And when I mentioned a line from the book later on she said 'hey, that's from my cwass!'

Adam is taking World War II during 1st hour. He really likes Ms. S as his teacher. He took history with her last semester too. And since learning more about his heritage this summer he was really interested in taking her class. 2nd hour he has calendar but I think it was changed to photography. We're a bit unclear about it still. 3rd hour is PE. 2nd and 3rd hour weren't things he would normally take but the choices were a bit limited this semester. It's making me think about doing a class next semester that would give the 11yo boys more options.

After coop we met John at Sonic for a picnic lunch with some Sonic sweet tea. Mmmm.
It was the first day of coop, no matter what, that's always a bit chaotic!
(PS: during our lunch with John, Jovi got the first of many nosebleeds that led to the kids having surgery later on. They just randomly start and stop for no reason which is very frustrating for sure.)

just outright funny

Adam gets these wild ideas sometimes. This is the result of the recent one. It was just down right hilarious. It was dinnertime, so the boys got to see just how funny we are.

Adam turns 11

Today Adam turned 11. Wow, 11. Which means I've been a mom for almost 12 years. The time really does fly. It was a very full day as we planned to go bowling, then to eat at his favorite Mexican restaurant, La Margaritas, then home for cake. Only we had a slight detour.

We did go bowl, our 2 lanes were reserved for 10am and we got there in great time. 2 of his friends made it to his party, but it was a good group. The 3 boys bowled in 1 lane, and John and Jani bowled in the other lane. They mgmt turned the lights down and made the disco kind of lights come on. John and Jani bowled with their bumpers up, and after about 3 rounds the boys asked for the bumpers to be raised on their lane also. At that point they had only hit a few pins. About 5 minutes til 11, Jani chose to get her ball from the the place they come up. Only when she went to step up on the platform she missed it! She fell on top of the ball and on her left hand, the hand she uses. She cried but could move it, and we didn't realize she fell on her hand. I took her to the potty and saw her thumb in better light. Oh man! It was swollen and completely blue, withing 5 minutes! I got her some ice and bowling ended and off we went to minor emergency.

I never will understand why they make people wait so long. But they did have an xray machine only now we know not to get xrays done there because they make you wait 2 days for results! She in fact had fractured her left thumb, the little bone on the very tip. I have pictures of her pretty blue cast (that she got on Thursday 6/26) on my phone but don't know how to get them off.

We finally got to go eat lunch about 130 and we were all starved. Mixed fajitas and queso for everyone! Mmmm And they bring you fried ice cream for your birthday and put the Mexican hat on you. That's the pictures you see.

Oh and we had planned on having it here at our house, with a Lego theme. And even Lego fruit snacks. But I forgot to pass them out since I just wanted to get Jani to a doctor. But can you see my awful Lego cake? Cool idea, just bad frosting job!

Surprise! Adam is 10 today!

We had planned a birthday party here at the house, but after 2 sets of friends couldn't make it, our minds got busy on what else we could do. After coming up with various ideas with Adam's help, Tuesday night I remember that he has wanted a surprise party for quite a while. We had already told him that we would do something on Monday instead of Saturday. But then my mind went to work.

His day started with a trip to our favorite donut shop that is owned by 2 brothers from Cambodia. We've taken a mutual interest in each other given our Asian interests.

Then after a very sugary breakfast we gave Adam his present. It's been in plain site for a few months but he never questioned what the gigantic box was. Guess that means we have too many boxes around here! Earlier in the year he found some Magnetix that he wanted so we told him it would be part of his birthday present, thus only 1 gift at this point. It's a video chair that you plug your game system in and it has built in speakers that play by your head. I think he's enjoying it. =)
About 10:45 he started trying to eat more of his cinnamon roll and could not figure out why we didn't want him to. Little did he know what was in store for him to eat! We went to La Margaritas, his absolute favorite place to eat. Our family and friends got there at 11:30, we didn't get there until about 11:45. We went in with the pretense of using the restroom and changing a diaper. Boy was he surprised! The rest of the time there was just fun, talking and eating.

At the end of our meal we lit the candles and had cake. One of the cool things is that Margaritas brings out a Mexican hat with fried ice cream with lots of cool whip for the birthday person. They sing to them and then take their picture. Of course their picture came out better because they were right in front of them. And I missed getting shot of the singers. Oh well.
Happy birthday, baby!