Coming Together

The wedding plans are starting to unfold now. Now that we have a date it is more encouraging to get moving. We have decided to look at a hall for the reception instead of the backyard. July in MO can be pretty awful and I was starting to fret about preparing and not being there in the morning. So, the boys had their dance recital and the Knights of Columbus Hall. I was surprised at how nice it was so I called to see how much it cost. I was pleasantly surprised!!! Mike did not get to go to the recital so we are going Sunday to look at it together and take some pictures of it to think about decorations. We are looking at tuxes on Friday.

We have selected our first dance and I have come up with some other great ideas. Most will be kept a secret until the big day. I am trying to make this wedding as different from my first as possible.

Other than that we have been busy with school, work, and preparing for Christmas. We had a nice little snow this week which brought us all outside with a new sled! It was heaps of fun. However, tonight it was freezing rain...ugh!!! Mike is at work so I hope he gets home safely tomorrow morning.


The chickens are doing great and keeping warm. They don't really have much desire to get out in the cold. It's a good thing because today I saw a coyote in the field as we were driving in. He was beautiful, but I don't want him eating my chickens.
here are the girls and two guys keeping warm. We got one rooster (the big white leghorn) from a friend and then it turns out one of the Rhode Island Reds is a rooster. I don't mind I love the sound of my roosters as long as they get along and aren't mean to us. We handle them as much as we can when they are young. I never thought I would have such a fondness for chickens, but they are great!!!!
I just had to add a picture of my handsome Nico. He is growing up so fast!!! Please someone stop time!!! He is such a charmer and a sweet, loving boy. He is truly a dream come true for me. My life is so full and perfect!!!

Wedding Plans

Well, the wedding plans are underway! The date is set for July 16, 2011. This just happens to be my big sister's birthday. She is delighted to have such a big party on her birthday.

The plan is to have it in our backyard. I am on the search for free tables. I figure the less tables I have to rent the better off I am. We are trying to keep the cost as low as we can, but yet still have a beautiful wedding. I know it will work out just fine. I think the most expensive part will be the food and beverages.

More to follow as the plan unfolds.

Adoption Blog Hop

In the month of November, for Adoption Awareness month, there is an adoption blog hop taking place. Even if you do not have a blog or do not want to enter yours, take this opportunity to visit other blogs and meet other families who have been blessed by the miracle of adoption. You can find out more about it here at http://foster2forever.blogspot.com/p/adoption-blog-hop.html

What a great idea to help those who are interested in adoption, are adopting, or who have adopted meet other families in similar situations. The adoption community is full of the most supportive, amazing people I have had the privilege of "meeting".

My name is Debbie, the adoptive mom to 3 wonderful boys.

My oldest son, Brian, is now 18 and living on his own. He was a private adoption that popped up when we were getting ready to start the waiting game with Catholic Charities. He came to us with a few know complications, which turned out to be a misdiagnosis. He was finally diagnosed correctly when he was 7 years old. His dad and I divorced when he was 2 years old. It was a very difficult journey, but he thrived. He still struggles with some things in life, but has gone farther than anyone expected.

(You can follow more of Brian's story at http://lifewithcms.blogspot.com/

When I was divorced I knew I wanted to have more children. Through international adoption I brought home Nico. He was 18 months and is such a joy. I had brought Brian to an Adoption Fair at one of the local high schools. This is where the adoption agencies present their programs. Brian was 9 at the time. He was so disappointed when I didn't bring him home a baby brother that night. I was blessed to select Nico off a waiting list on the internet and bring him home 7 months later. He is now 9 years old and such a charmer. He is so intellegent, funny, and a fantastic brother.

I thought I was finished adopting and started getting rid of the baby items I had. Suddenly I felt the pull for another child. By this time I was living with Mike and told him I wanted to adopt again. I proceeded with the paperwork and had to have him involved even though he was not adopting. He was such a trooper through it all. It took me 8 months to get the dossier ready. I was so frustrated because Guatemala was going to stop taking referrals the end of Dec. 2007. I finally received the referral for Luca mid October. I was on cloud 9...3 boys!!! Again, I hit all the lucky spots as I got Luca home in 9 months. I visited him twice because I was so worried he wouldn't get home. (Sadly, several children are still stuck in the changed process in Guatemala).

My life would not be as full if these wonderful boys had not come into my life. People always tell me how special I am and how lucky the boys are....they are so wrong. It is the other way around. My boys are the special ones and I am the lucky one to be blessed to be their mama!

A Few Pictures

We have been crazy busy since we started full swing back to school. All the sports and extra curricular activities started back up and it's go, go, go.

Nico is continuing his tumbling and hip hop. He is in an advanced hip hop class at a new studio. It is my sweet 9 year old and about 10 teen age girls. It is so adorably cute. He doesn't have all the hip swinging, chest wagging moves, but he has the floor moves such as the worm and head spins. The recital should be quite spectacular! He is also playing soccer this fall. We really like his coach this year. Hopefully it is a team he can stick with.

Luca started hip hop bitty bop this semester. For two weeks all we heard was, 'hip hop, hip hop'. We get to class and all he does is stand there. I was so disappointed, but we will try again next week. He was paying attention because he heard the song the other day and immediately said, 'hip hop'. I told him yes, now show me the peanut butter smash, and he did. Thus, he was totally paying attention!

As for me, it's work, create lesson plans, teach, work with the now 30 chickens we have, finish the school house, make a small chicken coop, and driving the kids around. I love my life!!!



We took a one day trip to Springfield, IL. Mike had training to do there, so we made a family trip out of it. We visited Abraham Lincoln's Home and the Museum. It was a great museum and trip. He we are at the corner with the house behind us.


Here we are posing with Lincoln and his family.

I couldn't pass up this picture of Luca walking down the sidewalk with the picket fence. Nothing like running your hand across the fence as you walk.

Luca and I sitting by the lake at the Air Evac base in Springfield, IL.

Here we are in our MOGUATE t-shirts on our trip to Tan-Tar-A for the MOGUATE get together. It was a beautiful weekend and a lot of fun.

My handsome, charming Nico on our trip to Daniel Boone's home right here in Defiance, MO.

Sweet, baby Luca. This has become his official PreK - 3 year picture.

Big, Bad Brian. This is him post 2nd surgery on his jaw. He can now bite with his front teeth. But still refuses to smile for a posed picture.

Time Gets Away

Wow, where does the time go? I can't believe kids are starting back to school already. For us, as homeschoolers, we attend school all year long. We take off when we go on vacation and cut back to a few classes during the summer instead of the full load. This summer just seemed so short for the 'regular' school kids. Nico gets a week off next week because he is attending a pottery class for 4 days for 3 hours a day. After that, it is full steam ahead for us too. I am looking forward to new text books and new topics. I am also starting Luca's year 1 preschool. I looked back at Nico's book and realized I started everything with him when he was 32 months. Luca is now 38 months. He is doing great, but I really need to start focusing on one-on-one time with him. I am also going to have his hearing checked as there are many words he has a hard time saying (I can't even begin to understand them). Often though, he speaks very well with 5-8 word sentences. Today he told me, "No, I stay here with dad." when I told him we had to leave.

Since our big vacation to the east coast we have also gone to Santa Claus, Indiana which has a super fun water and amusement park. There is a campground (Lake Rudolph) right next door where we camped. This is our second time there as it is only a 4 hour drive and a lot of fun. We attended MOGUATE at Tan-Tar-A on the Lake of the Ozarks. It is an annual get together of families with children adopted from Guatemala. It started out 4 years ago focusing around families from Missouri. It has now turned into much more with families from Ohio, Minnesota, and Louisiana. It was great fun. I hardly took any pictures. (We spent a lot of time in the pool). The kids all grow so much.

We have a mini trip to Springfield, IL coming up as Mike has some training to do there. We also have a family camping trip planned. Well, my cousins planned it (an annual trip for them) and we are joining in this year. It is at a campground within 25 minutes of our house. Super fun times coming there. My cousins have LOTS of boys near my boys ages.

Phew, that wore me out just thinking about all the fun we have had this summer. We have been truly blessed being able to spend this time together.

(I will post photos hopefully next week. I want to fix some up before I post them).

Post Vacation

Our vacation this year was one of the best. We saw and did so much in just 2.5 weeks, even with a minor delay (the breakdown). It was quite fun even spending the night in the Autozone parking lot. A wonderful couple stopped and helped us on Sunday morning. They were on their way home from church and saw the kids running around outside (and saw us the night before) so figured we were broke down. They drove Mike to every automotive store in town and no one had the parts we needed. Mike ended up bleeding the brakes thinking maybe something just got stuck in the master cylinder. Well, that seemed to do the trick. I was so worried about getting the RV back home and the cost of towing it from PA. Mike decided we were only 3 hours from Hershey, PA so we would try it. Someone was watching over us...we made it and continued each day on our trip. The ride home took us 23 hours (well, more with the traffic in CT, that was crazy!). We made it with no problems.

We learned so much on our journey. It was great to be able to add the hours of educational stuff to our homeschooling hours. I can tell Nico did retain a lot of information as he still talks about some of the things and is now able to picture the things in his mind as we started back up on our lessons this week.

I cannot pick one favorite thing as it was all great. Each place had something special about it. The most special though, was visiting these places with my children and fiance. It brought back so many memories of when I was a kid and we went RVing for two weeks. There is no way we could have done all we did by flying at the amount we spent.

Luca absorbed so many new words (and no not curse words :-) by being with us all day and NO TV!!! (only DVD's while we were driving). He is speaking with 4-5 words sentences and clearly gets his point across now. We will begin weaning off the TV viewing at home while I am working with Nico and getting Luca to sit in the classroom and work on things as well. Yesterday he spent 1/2 hour doing puzzles and another 20 minutes stringing beads. He really doesn't watch that much TV and is home with me all day, but the time closer together made a big difference. It was hard to leave them again and go back to work.

I wish Brian could have traveled with us. He was recovering from his second jaw surgery (which went very well.) Here we are on Pennsylvania Ave. with the Capitol building behind us.

I took over 900 photos! I will be busy scrapbooking soon I hope! Here are only 4 of the photos. By camera or camera lens needs a serious cleaning. Every photo needs to be edited. I will pick 4 of my favorites and use them to decorate the house with. We like to use our own photos instead of spending a fortune on some beach scene we have never been to.

Nico took this one of Mike and me at Plymouth Bay.

These two photos are of us at the Gettysburg Battle Field. It gave me goose bumps as we drove through here. We took a guided tour. It was very informational and taught me more than I ever learned in school.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. We are off to Santa Clause, Indiana for three fun filled days of amusement park!!!

Vacation Fun

Well, we are on day 6 of our vacation. We have made it to DC and are looking forward to 5 days of visiting with family and sightseeing. We are here for a wedding reception for Mike's cousin and his family is coming from Oregon. We haven't seen them in about 5 years. I am excited to see them and get all the kids together.

We have already been to Hershey, PA and Gettysburg, PA. We enjoyed it all, especially the chocolate.

We ran into a little difficulties early in the trip with the brakes. Mike seems to think the problem is solved since we have not had any issues since. I believe we were not suppose to be where we wanted to be so our guardian angel, Grandpa Sequeira, who owned the RV before us stopped us from going. For whatever reason, all is good now. We will plan on continuing up the east coast.

One downfall is the death of two of our chickens at home. We have friends who are 'farm-camping' at our house and are dealing with the issues. I feel bad for them as we have not had any predators get our chickens in the last year until we have left. I feel not having our dog around may have brought other critters to the house. Poor Petey was put to sleep about 3 weeks ago. Now I have an excuse to get a new puppy!!!! Although I miss Petey deeply.

Well, off for now as we are relaxing to cold beers and the boys playing.

Dance Recital Video

Here are a couple links Nico's dance recital. I am so proud of him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A34dUZpWzso this link is the actual recital. It is not very clear, but it is the actual with all the crowd cheering...sorry for my loud voice ;-) (I have a professional video on order).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHOhaHiUNVc this link is the dress rehearsal. It is much clearer, but he doesn't do his head spin on this one.

We like this studio, but are checking out a new one in town next week. They perform in nursing homes, street shows, parades, and have an end of the year performance. I really want Nico to get comfortable with all kinds of performances.

Enjoy!

Pay It Forward

Kelly over at Kelly's Korner has a McLinky up on Random Acts of Kindness. http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/2010/06/show-us-your-life-random-acts-of.html

I wanted to link my Pay it Forward expereince to this.

Saturday we had a wonderful 'Pay it Forward' experience. I had just donated some money that morning to the relief funds for Guatemala. They were hit hard with a volcano eruption then a tropical storm with mudslides and flooding. Families lost what very little they had many including their whole home.

A few hours later we went to an auction in town. We were browsing the items on the trailers when Nico spotted a tackle box. He kept admiring it and all its contents asking us, "Can we bid on it?" We told him we would when they got down to it. About 45 minutes they got to that trailer. The whole time Nico had be 'guarding' and admiring the tackle box. The bidding started and we capped out at $20. The bidding for this tackle box kept going. When the final bid was done, the man who won it said, "Pass that box over to that little boy." (meaning Nico). He must have been watching Nico admiring that tackle box the whole time. We have no idea who this man is but Nico went over to him and gave him a hug and a thank you. Never would I have expected someone I have never met to give something like that to my son.

The rest of the week Nico has been trying to think of a way to Pay it Forward. He donated his $1 he earned for getting an A on a test to the kidney foundation outside the grocery store instead of buying a toy.

Spring Recital

Nico had his dress rehearsal and pictures for the spring recital tonight. He looked soooo good. He remembered his routine and did great. The real show is Sunday. Here are some photos of my handsome young man. I am so proud of him.

Our Life in Pictures

This is a post of pictures and the happenings of the last month or so. I can't believe it but Brian turned 18 in March. This picture was from November, but you get the idea of how he has changed. He now has his own car. It scares me to think of him driving around on his own, but he seems to have matured a bit with the added responsibility of driving. I pray he keeps his head about him and doesn't do anything stupid like hot-rodding, drinking and driving, drugs, acting cool. You get the point.


This is Brian at 3 months of age. We had no idea of the obstacles we/he would face. He was always so strong willed. He gave it his all. I wish he still had that motivation. He seems to give up a lot as he got older. He is so smart and funny. People really enjoy him when they meet him. He is very social and loving. I can't imagine my life without this special boy.

Our homeschool coop is getting ready to wrap up our 'structured' learning classes. We will be switching to park days for the summer. We have been studying the states all year. This is a picture of our study of Hawaii. We learned many fact about Hawaii, set off a volcano, and had a luau. The kids were adorable and had fun wearing their bright colors.

Here are the boys Easter Day. It turned out to be such a warm beautiful day. For once we had an Easter with no rain.

Luca smelling the flowers.

This is our rooster Devestator. Unfortunately he is no longer with us. We think the buffalo gnats got him, however, we are not sure. The hens all seem fine. We do not know how old he was since we got him from another family. He may have died of other complications. I really miss his crowing throughout the day. We have 15 new chickens so we are hoping one is a rooster.
Mike had 2 large piles of dirt delivered to the house. The boys had a couple of fun days playing in the dirt before it was all moved around.
Luca especially had a blast on the dirt.

Nico and Luca have fun feeding the chicks by hand. We purchased 10 chicks that are growing up together. I never knew that chickens could be so affectionate. We have handled them since we got them (at 5 days of age). They still like to come right up to you and let you hold them. We are hoping we can introduce them to the 5 remaining big hens without any problem.

Last week we purchased 5 Americauna chicks. They are suppose to lay bluish/greenish eggs. They are so adorably cute. They have these little round heads and big eyes. (just like Nico here).

Surgeries for Brian

Brian surgeries have both been scheduled for June 17. He is having his jaw surgery redone. Yep, redone. This time they are working on the upper jaw. Totally removing the jaw and moving it around The procedure sounds painful, but Brian is so strong! He has to donate blood for this one. This surgery will probably change the shape of his face more. They expect to bring the 'sunken' in part of his cheeks out and his upper lip down. I hate that he has to have this a second time, but with all he has been through, we feel he needs to have it finished up. This surgery is being redone because the first one did not close his jaw as expected.

His back surgery (to fuse the lower part of his back, not fused when he was 5) is scheduled for October. He has to donate blood for this one as well. This surgery will fix the very large curve that has occurred in the lower portion of his back as he has grown over the last 13 years. His hips are greatly out of line and he walks with a large limp. With the spine being fused and straightened it will realign his hips. We are hoping this fixes the problem he has been having with pain in his knees.

I hate to see my baby boy go through so much, but hopefully these are the last. We knew he would have at least the jaw surgery once he was grown, but the back was not expected. I am so grateful for the wonderful surgeons we have and the skill they have to help Brian.

Brian is doing well with school. He should be finished with his online degree by December. He is driving his own car now...this scares me so much!!!! I know we have to let go sometime, but I am just not ready. He seems to be maturing a bit more. I love this boy with all my heart and pray that he makes the right decisions in his life. He has come so far and battled so much.

Talking Machine!

Oh my gosh! Luca has taken off talking and is not stopping. He was doing great before, but over the last two weeks he is really going to town.

The new cute word he says is HOME. I love to hear him say this for more than its cuteness, but because it is home to him and he feels right at home. He says this when we are driving or out, "Mama, where go? Home?"

He loves the sun. We had several weeks a few months back where we didn't see the sun for several days at a time. Everytime the sun was out I would say, "Yay, SUN!" He now says this in the morning as I open his bedroom curtain. He says, "Yay, sun" while clapping his little hands together and the biggest grin on his face.

He cannot say helicopter, but instead makes the sound of a helicopter. Nico was trying to get Luca to say, "Daddy flies a helicopter." Luca would repeat, "Daddy fly bbmmmm." We cracked up!

He verbalizes well what he wants. If we don't understand him he grabs our hands and leads us to what he is talking about. He tends to drop the ending sounds off many words such as up, cup, net, etc...but will put the ending on words such as home, dime, down, etc. We just keep reiterating the ending sounds on words to him. I know he will get it. Nico did the same thing when he was that age.

His new favorite TV show is "Diego." We were in blockbuster and he saw a video and quickly grabbed it saying, "wayweo" his version of Diego. He watches that DVD over and over. The Easter Bunny brought him his own Rescue Pack and he carries it around quite a lot.

He loves to sing. We will be driving and a song will come on, suddenly this cute little voice from the back seat is singing the words right along with the radio. His favorite songs are by the Black Eyed Peas, but he sings several. I need to start him on the preschool nursery rhyme songs rather than my 107.7 music.

He loves the new baby chickens and is not afraid to let them eat out of his hands. He giggles when they peck the food out of them.

We started potty training Dec. 23...that was the last day of diapers. He is doing great with the peeing in the potty, but we were having a hard time with the pooping. I refused to put him back in diapers!! He would run and hide then come out (with his pants full) and tell us, "doo-doo". Welllll, for the last week he has told me each time he has had to go poopy. He calls it 'nana butt'. It got this name because the one time earlier he went on the potty, he looked in and said, "nana!" (banana). I said yes, "nana butt"....ever since then it stuck...I figure, hey whatever works!

Luca just loves his brothers to death. He is also very much a daddy's boy. He is my boy too, but when Daddy comes in, forget about mom.

There are lots and lots of other adorable things about him and his development, but those are some of the high spots on my mind at 5am in the morning after a long night of work. I will post pictures later this week.

Pictures

Here are some pictures of the fun we have been having so far this year. Just last week we bought these adorable little chicks. We are now up to 10 baby chicks to add to our already 5 hens and 1 rooster. We are on the hold list for 5 araucana chicks. Nico is hoping to go to the farmer's markets next year when the chicks should be at their peek production.



This was an interesting adventure on our trip to Montauk State Park, in southern Missouri. Our accelerator cable broke as we were getting off the highway. Mike with all his ingenuity rigged the cable up so he could get us to a part store. He was able to get it fixed enough to get us to the park where it then broke again when we went to leave - luckily my brother had his truck there and brought Mike into town to get more wire to repair it again. Lucky for us we made it back home.


Here are my mom, dad, and my crew of boys. It was a great trip because my mom and dad came and stayed in my brother's camper.
Vernon, my younger brother (but the oldest twin) is helping Nico get ready to fish. I think Vernon enjoyed showing Nico the ropes.

A hollow log we found that was fun to take pictures while looking through.

A snapshot of us on our little hike.

Nico won't eat the fish, but he will kiss them. He caught one each day. We cooked them up when we got home. They were delicious. We had fish fry one night at camp from the fish Vernon caught. He could only have 8 in his possession at one time, so we had to eat some so he could catch more.

This was the last morning. It was the only morning we got Nico up early to start fishing when the siren started. The fog over the river was beautiful. Mike and I sat on the bank with our coffee and watched them fish. Nico had one and it got away. Vernon caught two within a half hour. We are definitely looking forward to going again next year.




In February we went to Kansas City, Kansas to get a little 'warm weather' fix. While it wasn't warm outside, it was warm inside the indoor water park. Brian went with us on this trip.

I love this picture of Mike and Luca. I love Luca's pose. He is such a doll and Mike is a great Daddy!

Here we are. The love of my life.

Mommy and her littlest angel.

The kids sleep area was their own little sectioned off area. It had bunk beds on the other side. Luca slept in his first big boy bed without any problems. He didn't get out of bed at all.
They had story time each night. I dressed Luca in his jammies and we snuggled down to listen to the story.

Luca absolutely loved the water slide. He went non-stop.

Nico also had a great time on the slides. I love seeing my boys smile. Seeing these happy faces and hearing their laughter make me one, proud, happy mama!

Spring Break!

One of the many things I love about homeschooling is that we get to pick the week we take spring break. My brother asked early in the year for us to join him on a camping trip this month. It quickly became our spring break. It looks like the weather might even cooperate and be nice!

We are headed to Montauk State Park in southern Missouri. The park is known for its trout fishing. Nico is looking forward to fishing with his Uncle Vernon, Grandpa, and dad. I am excited my mom and dad are going as well. It was on the fence for mom as she came down with an infection in her gum but was able to get to the dentist to get some medicine. She will be heading out with us in our camper on Tuesday. Dad and Vernon went on Monday.

Brian was going to go with us, but I finally convinced him to call his dad last Thursday. They chatted for a while and he went over there this weekend. He decided he is going to go to Wisconsin with them as they are headed there for some family event on their side. I am glad he talked to his dad and hope that all stays on tract. I hope he stays away from the rotten kids he was hanging out with too. I think he is coming back to our house next week, but who knows. As he said in a letter to his, "DIVORCE STINKS!". We have been divorced since he was 2 yo but I guess you just don't get used to it. He is lucky he has two parents who love him and fight over him so much!

We did have a great week and a half while Brian was with us. The kids got along great, Brian did as he was told, and he completed his school work as instructed and did well. He applied for a few jobs, but hasn't gotten any phone calls yet. I am just glad he made the effort. I can't ask for more than that. We had a great time in Kansas City. It actually worked well in that we left the boys at the hotel since Brian was there while Mike and I went out to The Yard House, for an appetizer and beer sampling. (I found a new yummy beer called the Lindeman's Framboise. It is a delicious raspberry beer).

I will post pictures next week of both of our trips. We will also be getting new baby chicks. Nico has requested baby chicks that he can raise and hopes to sell the eggs. (This is to go with our 5 hens and 1 rooster we already have.)

Crazy Happenings

Wow, things have been busy at our house!

Brian, the 17 year old, has been keeping us on our toes. A few weeks ago he stayed out for 36 hours (without his medication) and would not answer his phone. You talk about a frazzled mama and papa! We were to the point where I was calling news stations to get his picture on the news when his dad found him at someone's house. Oh boy the relief. But, oh boy, the anger at him for not at least calling. His dad kept him with him for a week; taking him to work and keeping him close to him. The next week he gave him a little bit of lee-way, leaves him at home and he pulls it again! He takes off with these kids and doesn't tell anyone and doesn't come home! His dad called me, so I tried calling Brian and he did answer the phone when I called. I don't know what was going on in his mind (or what still is), but he refused to go back to his dad's house and would only let me pick him up. (At least he came home with me!) We talked to his dad, but Brian wouldn't give any explanations, just that he wasn't going to stay there with his dad. I felt so bad for his dad as I know how he was feeling because Brian did the same thing about a year ago. He said he hated my house and wanted to live with his dad, however, he didn't sever the ties like he did with his dad this time. Even though I am divorced from his dad, his dad is always there. I couldn't have made it through these years without the help from his dad. With all of Brian's medical issues, it takes two! So, now we are establishing our lives again with Brian in the house full time. I love having him home, but get so frustrated at having to remind him to do anything! (clean up after yourself, take a shower, brush your teeth, no eating in the LR, eat healthy, do some chores, take your medicine, complete your school work). On the school work front at least he is doing that. He is completing an online HS degree (which I don't particularly like, but at this point we will continue with it and get it done. I'll fill in as we go along). I love him to death and am hoping I can get him to see how precious his life is and how much he really has to offer to the world. He is filling out job applications and hoping to land at least a part time job and meet some good friends from the area. Living in the country makes it hard to meet people.

I have had to explain to Nico that he needs to keep doing what he has always done. Nico is a self motivator and will pick up and clean when he sees it needs to be done. He keeps his toys in order and works hard at his school work. He very rarely talks back. We have seen when Brian is with us that Nico will tend to act up (not listening, lagging behind, goofing off when he needs to focus, etc). After the first couple days, things settled in and our week went smoothly.

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue our journey. Brian has two more major surgeries coming up and cannot risk going out on his own yet. He has so much to learn and so much to do before he is even ready to take that leap. I pray he gains the sight to see this and strive to get where he needs to be with our help. I am with him every step of the way. I pray I have the patience to hold my tongue and not say some of the things I am feeling, but be able to communicate effectively with Brian and the boys. I will be using this blog as my venting stage, so please don't think poorly of me if my frustration shows through here.

The Valentine Box

Every year is so much fun for Valentine's Day. It was tradition when we were kids to make a valentine box for school. There were always competitions and we would try to make the best. My dad would come up with the best ideas. I am so uncreative in this area. Every year now I let Nico choose what kind of box he wants to make (pasts boxes; T-Rex and a giraffe). It is always something quite challenging. This year proved to be no different. I enjoy helping him create them, but they are always his idea, Mike and I just help with cutting shapes, etc. This year though, Nico was able to do most of it himself. Don't look ahead and see if you can figure out what he made by looking at each picture. He asked for help with the painting and holding boxes together, but that was it. Here's the start...taping a series of boxes in a certain order.
Spray painting it gray...thanks to daddy for having the gray primer spray paint, this would have taken forever to paint by hand.
Adding some fine details.
Adding even finer details....you probably guessed it by now!
And here it is in all it's glory...the Empire State Building...complete with King Kong, the girl, and the airplane. He really wanted to make the airplane fly around the top...but we didn't have all the parts to make that happen this year. Nico stands about 45"...so you can see how tall this is. I am hoping it rides carefully in the van to our Valentine Party with our homeschool friends. (We have two of them to attend).

We don't have competitions anymore, but Nico has fun creating and showing his work. He is going to be making a box for Luca to bring as well....not near as elaborate, but sure to be adorable! Pictures next week!