What We've Been Doing

I thought I would take a few moments and add just a few updates and pictures of what we have been doing over the last few weeks.

First off, Brian is doing well. I saw him on Monday and he was up walking around, talking, and says he is eating soup and smoothies. I took more pictures, but he is still swollen and he was bruised all down his chin and next (a nice yellow color not the purple and blues). So, as promised to him, I am not going to post any pictures yet. However, he is doing great.

Next, if you haven't seen the pictures on Facebook, I finally broke down and had Luca's hair cut. YES, it totally hurt me to have his curls cut off, but he still looks as cute as ever. It was just getting way to out of control in the front. I couldn't cut the the front without making it look totally like a mullet. (not that there is anything wrong with mullets, just not for us). Ms. Brenda put his long curls in a ponytail and snipped it off. I have them in a bag for his scrapbook. Somehow in the bag, they don't look near as long. It grew tremendously over the last month as when I look back at pictures from last year or the summer it wasn't that bad.


"No Mommy, don't let them take my hair!" I ask him where his hair is and he shakes his head and says, "Were go?" then reaches up to his head and rubs his hair.
Look, he aged a couple years....when he is sleeping though he looks like the little angel I met in Guatemala. He is sooo cute I just melt every morning when I see these boys. I am so blessed.

So, most of you know I homeschool. We do most of homeschooling at home (of course), but we do attend two homeschool coops. One is in our old neighborhood which we have belonged to since Nico was 3 (my gosh, has it been 5 years already!). We always rotated between houses for our meetings, this year we were able to get a location for free. Our group has grown and it is nice to have one place to go to. Here are the boys on the first day (back in September). Luca was so excited to have a backpack. He even says 'backpack' (thanks to Dora!)
I love the brotherly photos from the back. My sweet angels.
Here is Nico just this last week working with his group. Look at that smile...he loves his friends. We are studying the 50 states. Each week a mom hosts the day and comes up with activties for the state we are studying that week. Yep, we even have a CHALKBOARD! I love chalkboards. Notice the kids all working so hard. I love it. This also gives the kids a chance to listen to other adults as the moms let the older kids do their thing with the mom hosting.
This is our preschool group. We finally have enough kids to create the two groups. I love it since I have kids in each group. It is great for Luca as he is used to playing with older kids and needs to learn how to associate with kids his age. At this age he is still in independent play when it comes to sitting and playing imaginative toys, although he can sit next to others, but has a hard time sharing (typical). I loved the activity this week. Can you guess what it was??? Yep, trains. We sang a song, made a train snack, and the kids each designed their own train car. So cute!


Onto the fall leaves! Oh my gosh, I don't miss all these leaves at our new house. We have been spending a few hours each day at our old house getting it ready for its new tenant (yes, I have someone ready to rent it). He seems to be a great guy as he has already helped clean up the leaves in the front yard and hasn't even moved in yet.

So here are the boys having a blast in the leaf piles. Watching the joy on their faces made the job a whole lot easier. It also brought back great memories of when we were kids jumping in the leaves.

BONZAI! There goes Nico, big jump.
Here goes Luca, big jump for a little guy. All that movement made the photo blurry, but the smile is priceless!
Nico labeled themselves the 'leaf boorers'. They would start at one side of the leaf pile and crawl under to the other side. I think they are cutest leaf boorers I have ever seen.
This boy loved the leaves. I can't wait to doctor up some of these fall photos on Lightroom.