Tooth Fairy

I. lost his first tooth! He is very excited about the whole thing and showing it to everyone. He even got a whole dollar from the tooth fairy!!!

It was pretty funny when we were talking about the Tooth Fairy, I. and A. had several questions. I can't remember them all, but they wanted all the specifics. How does the tooth fairy get the money to give to kids, how does the tooth fairy travel to all the kids, etc, etc. Since A. was doing half the asking, we simplified some of our answers to "by magic." I.'s response, after a few moments of pondering, was, "There's no such thing as magic." Which is true and something we had talked about before--referring to tv shows and movies, but it was interesting to hear I. make the connection. Our answer to that was . . . avoid, avoid, avoid. We can't ruin the myth of the tooth fairy before it's even begun! If we told I. the truth, he would spread it to A. and what would A. do when he finally looses a tooth? Ah, the magic of childhood!

I. is 7!!!!

Can you believe that I. is 7!!!! I can't believe it. He is such a beautiful and thoughtful boy. And he is already asking me how old he has to be before he can get his own cell phone! What does a 7-year-old need with his own cell?!? I can't believe how big he is getting! Who gave him permission to grow up? (I will try to post a birthday picture when, and if, I ever find our camera again.)

Adoption Update

For those of you wondering what's going on with the adoption, we only have a small bit of news. We are waiting! Our dossier was completed and arrived in the country of Ethiopia in the first part of Feb. Now we are just waiting for a referral. This can happen quickly or take some time. We did get an interesting phone call the other day--our pre-travel phone call. The person seemed rather surprised that we were on her list to call when we didn't have a referral yet. So, we are trying to find out if we got on the list by accident, or if our referral got lost in the mail. I'll let you know when we know.

Christmas

So I know I'm a bit behind in updating the blog. This probably isn't going to be all that you had hoped for, but it will have to do. (I've had a computer crash, lost a camera, D. gone most of the year. . .you'll just have to forgive me.)

So for Christmas T. and her family came out to visit. Here are pictures from just a few of the places we took them. Hopefully they went home tired and happy because we sure did our best to show them as much of Italy--and a little of Slovenia--as we could.

The pictures are not in chronological order, but here is a brief synopsis of what we did:
Rome--including the Vatican museum, St. Peter's Basilica, the Scavi tour (a very hard-to-get tour of the excavations underneath St. Peter's Basilica to see St. Peter's burial ground itself--or where they think he's buried), Coloseum and the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, etc, etc. Okay, so I don't actually remember everywhere we went, but we saw a LOT! We even got to see what a bus does when there isn't enough room to turn onto the tiny Italian road, lined on both sides with cars, that is along the bus route. The bus driver got out, recruited 4 men from the bus behind us, and together they lifted the car that was in the way onto the sidewalk. Of course, what else!
Then on to Pisa--to see the tower.
Florence--Michelangelo's David
Venice--St. Marc's Basilica and to wander the streets.
Piancavallo--sledding
Slovenia--visit a castle built partly inside and interconnected to a series of natural caves (the cave we had originally planned to visit was closed due to dangerous ice stalactites)
And a few more other random places, but I'll spare you the details. Let's just say we packed a few things into the 2 weeks we had with our visitors.

Outside the Slovenian castle. The tower furthest to the back connects to the caves and in the summer you can keep going, but it was closed during our visit. There is also another entrance far below the castle--several hundred feet down over the edge of the wall we're standing by.


Posing at the back of St. Peter's basilica in Rome.


Seeing how many kids it takes to circle one of the pillars outside the Pantheon. Even with D. in the mix, we needed them all.


I. and D. discussing the paintings of the Sistine Chapel.


This was our own little nativity play that we put on for Christmas. Since I thought M. would be leaving earlier, we could only fit everything in by traveling over Christmas. For spending Christmas in a small hotel in Lavorno, I thought we had a pretty good time.

Halloween

So, we had a pretty obvious theme for Halloween this year. It was all thanks to A. who fixed on a Darth Vader costume. From there it was pretty easy to convince I. to join the theme, and there we had it. Of course, after that I figured they had better watch the movies so they would know something about their costumes. Believe it or not, that was the first time they saw the movies.

I ended up having to borrow a sewing machine for the project since every costume had to be adjusted when they came in the mail. I.'s looked nothing like the picture they had posted online and was so hideous that we had to do some major reconstruction before I would let him wear it. I could have fit two of me in the original "one size fits all" Leah costume. A.'s just needed some hemming. D.'s was the real challenge since all male Star Wars costumes are either a tunic with lines painted on to show there should be three layers, or it costs $800. We opted to make a costume, but getting fabric here is quite a challenge and I didn't have time to buy anything online. Luckily a girl had some leftover fabric she brought with her from the states that she donated. To die the white fabric, we bought some tea since we knew that would give it a nice natural color. When I. went with me to the store to buy the tea he was very concerned and asked, "Mom, does God know what we're doing?" It was so cute! I explained to him that, yes, God knew what we were doing and that even though we don't drink tea, it still has some very good uses, such as dying fabric.

I love this picture of I. because it looks like it's Photo Shop-ped, but it's not! He was running down the hall and I was trying to tell him to turn around so I could get a picture. Instead, he just leaned his head way backward, and this is the result.


Okay, you have to admit it, K. is the cutest X-wing fighter pilot ever!!!


We even carved pumpkins. We actually haven't done this for quite a while (because of moving and things), and the kids were ecstatic! Because of safety reasons, though, while we are living here, we are supposed to do all we can to NOT make it obvious that we are American. Thus, no putting out jack-o-lanterns on the front porch. We put the pumpkins outside for this picture only.

This picture had to be added, just because. It is amazing the costumes A. puts together when you're not looking. Here is is wearing my boots from the Leah costume, I.'s Jedi belt, and the scabbard from his sword. Looking good!

K.'s a Walker

It finally happened, K. decided to walk! We are all very, very excited. Of course, this now means he is a walking menace leaving pure chaos in the wake of everywhere he goes, but we love it. And also, of course, he started walking those first few steps while D. was gone on one of his many TDYs (i.e. it was around late Aug that this all happened). So here we have a video from when he first started walking, and then a clip a little later to show his progress. He still wouldn't pass a drunk driving test since he can barely walk in a straight line, but it's so fun to watch he waddle like a penguin. (It's his enormous budda belly that runs interference with his balance :)

Coming Home in STYLE

So, as you all know, D. is gone a lot. . . .but there are some advantages. I.e., getting special permission for you and your kids to go onto the flightline (a normally totally restricted area) and see your husband roll up in the back of a F-16. We even had to get a special form signed to allow me to take pictures. So here are the fruits of that!

A. waiting with his ear protection.

D. coming in on his sweet ride!

D. de-boarding. It's a little different than your standard flight.

You can see how much we miss our daddy when he's gone.

Even K. had ear protection on.

After getting a tour of the plane, A. decided to try his own wings.