Survived the Wedding and Life is Good

The wedding went well, except for my $15 of music that did not get played while the guests were arriving. I was a little bugged about that because we had the music at rehersal but they wouldn't play it on their sound system. We had to play it on our player. Thus, the day of the big event, the music would not play. The start of the ceremony was delayed about 15 minutes because they had to copy the processional and wedding march songs onto another CD.

It was a hot July day, but actually the coolest of all the days of July. Once again, I picked the perfect day!

Mike and the boys looked so handsome! The girls all looked beautiful and I felt like a princess! I love my dress and wish I could wear it any ol' time. I have had it cleaned and boxed for a future woman to wear. Maybe one of my future daughters-in-law, who knows.

Life is going on just as before, no new changes except for the rings on our fingers. Life is good. I couldn't be any happier!

Wedding Approaching

The big day is creeping up quickly. This week I have managed to order the foil for the chocolates we are making...yep, we are making them. Mike is obsessed with Oreo cookies, so there will be two chocolate covered Oreo cookies at each place setting, along with a box or bag of chocolates. I am anxiously awaiting our bigger guest gift. It should be in this next week. I have ordered one of the girls items I am giving them and have purchased their jewelry. My friend Tracee is working on the deoorations and they are turning out fabulous! I am so excited to see the hall when it is all decked out. We paid in full for the flowers, cake, and other rented items; including the margarita machine! We are meeting with the DJ on Wednesday to go over the reception stuff. I downloaded and made a CD of the music for the wedding ceremony. I am pretty excited about it as it is not all traditional stuff, but more meaningful for us.

I go for my final dress fitting on the 2nd of July. My mom and sister are meeting me there. I am excited for them to see my dress. My sister needs to know how to bustle up the back. I think there will be quite a few buttons.

It's just a task of cleaning the house for the in-laws that are coming in and getting the little things done.

Other excitement this week was the butchering of our meat hens. I was fretting how I was going to take it, but let me tell you, it is all worth it. I had a friend come out and walk us through the whole process step by step. His method is much easier than what I have watched on TV. Speaking of TV, this is what brought me to raising my own meat hens. After watching several specials on Kentucky Fried Chicken and the chicken in the grocery store, I thought I would go vegetarian. Then, after speaking with families in our area I convinced myself to try meat hens. I know exactly what they have been eating and their pristine living conditions. They are cage free, free range, grain fed, and healthy, healthy, healthy! Tomorrow we are cooking up one. I wanted so bad to cook one yesterday freshly filleted, but Mike would have had to microwave it. We want to try it fresh off the grill. I am sure I will be raising more next spring. Hopefully enough to get us through the year. I am filleted 4 of my 5 and will use the carcasses for soup stock. I am not an avid soup eater, but think I will become one now! It is good for me to know I can keep us fed if times become tough. Beside our meat hens we have the 20 other hens and two roosters. We hatched 15 babies in May. So we have plenty of eggs to go along with our chicken. We also have our garden growing strong. I picked 5 cherry tomatoes today. They are so much better than the store bought!

We are on break from school this summer. Nico still does math and reading, but everything else is on hold. It has actually been very nice! We are planning on staying off until the end of August. We will definitely start up the beginning of September. We have a family camping trip planned for mid-August, so I know it will be after that. It is nice having so much free time and not worrying about getting lesson plans done for the next day. I have been preparing for the next school year by getting our curriculum in order. Luca will be starting a more structured pre-school program. Nico is moving onto 5th grade. I have changed some of our things around to a more literature based program. More the Charlotte Mason style of learning. I am excited about it as several of the classes I'll be able to dual teach in the future years, at the different levels.

That about wraps it up here.

Too Long!

Oh My! Time has gotten away from me~ I check in every week and read all the blogs I follow but am bad about updating my own. One I don't think many people read it and two I spend a lot of time on facebook and am posting so much there.

Anyway, wedding plans are on track. We have done a lot in the past week doing all the little things. We met with the florist, applied for our marriage license, ordered the cake, and visited the garden center for ideas and things to rent for the reception. My dress is in and it fits just about perfect, except for the bust area - go figure! I bought my shoes today and have an appointment with the seamstress next Saturday for a fitting. The invitations are all out. I love going to the mailbox to see who sent their RSVP back.

Our school year is still in progress but will be wrapping up within the next few weeks. We finally finished the school house! I spent the last week also moving things out of the house into the school. I can't believe the amount of stuff I have accumulated. I am sooooo glad I bought the building with the loft overhead, because I can hide most of my stuff. I have everything organized in totes by subject so when we finish one year, I just go through all the totes to see what I need for the next. I am also working on making lists of all the books I have so when we study a topic I can look at the list and go up and dig out what books I need.

Here are the boys in the new school house. We hope to run electric from the house to the building by winter so I can run a heater. We have the room all wired up and ready to go. I have added a small futon for a reading corner and a large bookshelf in the back for all our books we use and reference material. Nico will be moving onto 5th grade and Luca will be starting a more organized Pre-K year 2 program. He loves creating his letters with Hand Writing Without Tears and asks to do his lessons everyday.

Both boys played soccer this year. Luca had a blast just running around and making friends. Nico was more serious this year and really focused on his skills. I am so proud of both of them. Nico continues to dance HipHop and does his tumbling. He is excelling at both and hoping to go competitive in HipHop next year. He will be getting one on one lessons this summer. Luca will be starting tumbling and dance this summer. I am really pushing for him in tap and jazz to start with because now I can't get Nico to try tap at all. Luca can't take hiphop until he is 5.

Luca turned 4 this May. I can't believe it has been 3 years since my trip to Guatemala with Brian and Nico to celebrate his first birthday. He is such a character. He cracks me up everyday. He always has something funny coming out of his mouth. He is into so much more than Nico ever was and I mean getting into things. I have to keep a sharp eye on him. Nico is the best big brother ever and is a great help. It does not go unappreciated.

We have been having a good time with our chickens. Well, after the bout of largnyotrachetitis that they had. Many still have garbling breath sounds. I lost about 10 hens this summer. Lucky for me Missouri University Veterninary School took two of my birds and tested them so I could find out what they had. There is a vaccine for it. My 22 remaining chickens (2 roosters and 20 hens) are all immune to it now, but are carries of it. This spring one of the hens got really broody so we let her sit on 10 eggs. None of them hatched. They were slowing dissappearing and the last one she walked away from. We broke it open on day 24. There was a chick inside, but it must have stopped developing. I decided I was going to break down and buy an incubator. We put 15 eggs in it. We candled them and let them all go. I was totally surprised to find that all 15 hatched!!!! I cannot yet determine how many roosters we have ended up with though. I am hoping for more hens than roos. They are all so cute. Our two roosters are white leg horn and rhode island red. Thus, our chicks are mutts. Our hens range from americauna, rhode island red, red/white sex link, black austrolope, and new hampshire red.

We have been blessed to be missed by the horrible storms raging through the midwest. I pray for all those who have lost everything. I can't imagine what it would be like. We went through the house and collected toys and clothing to donate to some of the families. I know it is not a lot, but hoping it gave help to some.

So, until later.....all is good in our neck of the woods.

Say Yes To The Dress!

Since I started looking for a wedding dress, I have gotten addicted to this TV show. (Say Yes to the Dress)

So, I have said YES to my dress!

I am super excited about it and can't wait until July to walk down the aisle in it. I cannot post pictures because I don't want to ruin any surprises. I'll just say I was going to go with what I thought would be a '2nd wedding style' dress, but once I started trying on all the pretty dresses I had to change my mind! I remember my first marriage when I put on the dress I just knew it was the one. I walked out of the dress store last Wednesday evening pretty sure I wanted that dress but not totally convinced. That night I dreamt all night about me in that dress. So, Thursday evening I went up for a fitting and put my deposit down. I have about 4 months to wait for it to come in. I'll also add it is a designer dress, Alfred Angelo. (I had one I sort of liked at David's Bridal, but was so dissappointed with their service I didn't want to give them anything!)

I also have some fabulous tuxes picked out for Mike and the boys. We will made an appt. soon for them to try them on to be sure they all look fabulous in them. I am sure they will. Brian is going to be walking me down the aisle. I feel at 19 he is perfect for the job. I asked my dad today if he would be upset if Brian walked me down the aisle instead of him. He said, "No, not at all." With a big grin, "Brian will like that a lot." I think he was proud of my decision. Brian is very excited for me. He likes Mike and knows that we are very happy together. I have lots of other exciting surprises and beautiful things in store.

I am also amazed at the outpouring of help I am getting. My cousin is going to be our officiant - super excited about this. I also have a homeschool mom who I recently met that has offered to help me make the ring bearer pillow and flower girl basket with her lace machine!

On that note, I will leave you with pictures of me in my brother's wedding just two months ago.

Walking with my nephew. I can't believe he just turned 21!

My sister, my new sister-in-law, me having a drink at Hooter's!

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!