Trick or Treat

The boys got to trick or treat with their cousins this year. They were quite the big crew showing up at people's houses, yelling, "TRICK or TREAT." It was fun to watch them, but the most hilarious part was the things that they would say after receiving the candy - hopefully, after the door had closed!
At one house, a teenager with lots of piercings was handing out candy. As we walked away from the house, KiKi said in confusion, "He looks like a pig." I imagine the teen wouldn't have thought his nose ring was so cool if he had heard that comment!

After pizza and trick-or-treating at Oma and Opa's, we picked up the girls and headed to my parents' for some more trick-or-treating. I'm in the picture because KiKi was afraid of the girls' makeup and refused to be in the picture without me!
We had lots of fun and the weather held out - only a tiny drizzle for maybe five minutes. The time change came on the perfect night - no pangs of guilt about a late bedtime this year. I guess I'm just saving some guilt for all of the candy I intend to persuade the boys to share!
Happy Halloween!

Punk Rock Star?

Or is he really just defying his future baldness? ;-)

Tree Climbers

Neil-Te has watched with envy for years as CoCo scrambles effortlessly up trees. After a few minutes of vigorous attempts, he stomped away in frustration on Saturday, crying, "I'll never be able to do it!"
Co-Co replied, "You really won't be able to if you don't keep trying. You CAN do it if you don't give up."
Much to my amazement, those words did the trick. Neil-Te tried for over an hour with no success, then went back out later and tried again. He realized that maybe if he could make his muscles stronger, he would be able to do it. Yesterday, he worked again.
Today, he did it! He is officially a tree climber and, hopefully, has learned a good lesson about perserverance!
By the way, that interesting pink color is the fun color of everything under our red maples. It even casts red into our living room. Gotta love fall!

Appreciating the Good Things

Today, the boys and I had an interesting discussion about favoritism. In the past, one of the boys used to verbalize that he had a "favorite brother," much to the hurt feelings of the other boys. So there has been this unspoken rivalry to be the "favorite" for quite some time. Though I was aware that it was going on, all of my intervention methods seemed to have failed until today. As one of the boys was sitting at the lunch table in tears over being the one to be left out again, I finally had the opportunity to discuss it at length with all of the boys. After we had discussed the issue for a few minutes, we decided that each of us would share something that we liked about each of the boys at the table. It was such a blessing to see them talk about the shared activities and qualities that they enjoy about each other. It was also so touching to see how inspired and encouraged they were to know that their brothers actually notice the nice things that they try to do. Here's a little sampling.
"He's so cute and adorable."
"He builds cool forts with me."
"He teaches me how to do things."
"He likes to play with me."

Simple things, but it was a moment that I will treasure.

Super Powers of Attraction

Sometimes, Neil-te likes to play the helpful, older-brother role. A couple of days ago, he had just finished washing his face when he decide that he wanted to wash KiKi's too. Though I wish that I had been in the room to see their faces, this is what I heard.

Neil-Te: Come here [KiKi], I want to wash your face.
KiKi: You can't wash my face. I'm a super hero.
Neil-Te: Well, super heroes wash their faces too.
KiKi: (emphatically) No. They Don't!
Neil-te: (without hesitation) Yes, them have to look good so the girls will like them.

Facing the Challenge

Yesterday, Neil-Te sat down at the table to do his schoolwork and said, "Mommy, some kids don't like math or say, 'It's too hard. Waaaaaaaa.' I say, 'Bring it on, baby!"

Ahhh... happy homeschooling mom moment! (Oh yeah, and great amusement at the use of the Scooby Doo line.)

The Rest of the Family Pictures

Though this is not the "official" SS pose, it is our favorite.

A posted this on his blog, so some of you may have seen it.

I've been super busy lately, so I haven't had much time to blog, but I wanted to share the rest of our family pictures while I had a couple of minutes.

Our Jokester

Over the past several months, CoCo has realized that he enjoys making people laugh. This started with the traditional silly jokes and progressed to obnoxious bodily noises and then on to silly voices. Today, we reached a new level of humor.

CoCo and A have been taking a weekly class at the library where they learn how to find things in the library according to the Dewey Decimal System. On the way out to the car tonight, I asked, "So...what can you find in the 600's?" CoCo responded, "Oh, recipes, health information, and ... books. Yep, lots of ...books." His calm wit was hilarious (It is clearly lost in writing.); and as I was mentally admiring his quickness and laughing out loud, I was rewarded with his more typical, silly-voiced reenactment of his statement.

Love the boy he is, and loving the boy he will become.

Fostering

I rarely blog about fostering because we think of SS as just another member of our family. However, there are times, like today that the uglier side of fostering makes going through the day difficult. Technically, our family is certified to bring in another child, so we occasionally get calls to take in other children for short or long-term placements. As Christians, our immediate desire is to help; but each placement must be carefully weighed against the responsibility that we have to take care of our family. Due to the size of our existing family, most of the time we have to say no. Last night, we received a call about a young child who has been suffering tremendous horrors that one hates to think that anyone must endure. The story weighs heavily in our hearts, and is somehow made even heavier by the realization that though we could help this child, it would bring serious upheaval and some potentially negative impacts into our household. So after many prayers, we have determined that we are not the best family to help this little one. While we are confident in our decision, we are saddened to have turned away one of God's children. Our hearts are broken today, and it is a day when we wish we were not so aware of the ugly side of the lives of so many children. We are praying that God will provide the right home and right support for this precious child; and we also continually pray that even more Christian families will consider opening their homes to these children in need.

Chuck-E-Cheese

Neil-Te had a birthday party today with his two best friends and his brothers. (Yes, he counts his cousin as best friend too!) They all had a great time racing around Chuck-E-Cheese. We got there as soon as they opened and shared the space with one other little boy for the first 45 minutes. It was great - no waiting, easy to keep track of everyone... (By the way, mothers of little ones, they test the machines in the mornings, so there are tickets sticking out of every game for your kids to collect to exchange for goodies!)

Neil-Te and his buddy from church.

Neil-Te with his cousin.

Chuck-E-Cheese came out with Neil-Te's birthday cake. Neil-Te and the other kids were so excited to hug him. It was a great bonus to an already fun morning. Because we didn't have an official, reserved party, I wasn't sure how much special treatment, if any, he would get; but the staff was fabulous. He got the birthday sticker, singing, Chuck-E-Cheese visit, bonus tokens... a great party experience.