1 1/2 Years Home!

Yesterday was our 1 1/2 anniversary! We celebrated by John and I going out. Ok, well, that isn't why we celebrated; we went to a Valentine Banquet. Last year when we went to this, Adam cried realllllllly hard at the thought of us leaving, and it took him a long time to stop. This year, he didn't even blink. I had almost forgotten about Adam crying, but when I told the kids that we were going out and that Uncle Jared was coming to watch them, Adam told me he wasn't scared about it this time.

Lets see.... not a whole lot to update about since last month's update. The kids are doing great! Every month they get a little better though! :O) When they get excited, you might want to stand back! They get to be little monkeys when they're wound up!

Hmmm... Adam first. His speech is still difficult for him, but he really is getting better all the time. Unfortunately, when he is remotely excited or stressed, or "put-on-the-spot" he can't speak well at all. I've noticed the last few times I've video-taped him, he got all nervous and couldn't speak well at all. Gonna have to find a way of taping him more incognito. But, really, his grammar has gotten much better, (adding those "do's" "is's", etc.) but prepositional phrases are killers for him. He'll say something like, "The toy is where the floor." Instead of "on" the floor, or "Liana is where the street" instead of "by" the street, etc.

This month, however, Adam has made enormous strides in his attachment to me. He and I have been "hanging out" more together. For instance, yesterday while the girls took a bath, Adam and I sat in the kitchen munching popcorn together and just chatted away. He's just let himself be more of my buddy lately. He hasn't challenged me like he used to, and he seems to have quit enjoying "pushing my buttons" like he did soooooo often in previous months.

He still enjoys being a good helper. He's always asking what he can to do help. Never complains about doing dishes, vacuuming, taking out garbage, etc. Never.

On the school front, math is a killer for him. Absolute killer. John is writing a program to help track his math a little better, to ensure that he is mastering things, and not just getting it one day, and then forgetting the next day (without me realizing it.)

His oral reading has improved quite a bit this month, though it is really hard to judge what is his "speech/language" problem, and what is a reading problem. His comprehension is perfect, but articulation is still difficult, and he does stutter when he reads, as he does when he speaks (though that stutter has diminished quite a bit lately).

Liana next. She's made the biggest improvements with her reading this month. I think Adam's comprehension is slightly better than hers as far as knowing what she's reading, but she's much improved over last month, and has gained a lot of confidence this month. In fact, yesterday she asked if she could read ahead a little bit in her reader. That wouldn't have happened last month, I don't think.

She's also come a long way in her behavior. She's really a sweetie. Sometimes it's hard to see how far she's come until I meet a child who is a Brat and think, "wow, that used to be Liana!" Recently, I met a child who was outspoken, selfish, rude, proud, waaaay overindulged. Her parents let her have/do/say whatever she wanted pretty much. I just thought, "wow, this could have been Liana sooo easily. Good thing we adopted her instead of this other family!" What was extra-impressive was Liana's reaction to the girl. She was quiet, well-behaved and mostly just "watched" this girl. Later she told me she didn't want to be "like that." I almost laughed since she really WAS like that not so long ago! (Minus the over-indulging parents, mind you!) She still has some residuals that need to be wiped up a bit yet, but really, Liana is a great kid already!

Then Aleksa. I can't believe this is the same girl we came home with. She's very quickly progressing with her reading, and I just plain can't believe it. I thought when we brought her home that she was going to be really challenged in her learning. She's the opposite, I think. She's catching on a million times faster than her siblings did with reading. Maybe it is because she had a whole year of English under belt that the other two didn't have though. Not sure. All I know is that she's flying through her phonics/reading lessons and begging for more. She is loving the reading I'm doing with the other two during school time. We're still reading some Little House books, and she loves to "pretend" she did the things we just read about "Laura" doing in the books, right down to pretending "Jack" is following her around.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but the kids each have a thinking skills book that they work on during school time. That involves seeing patterns, sorting, classifying things according to shape, color or size, etc. I think it has helped all three of them - it has become more of a "fun" time than something they "have" to do. There again, Aleksa has been cruising. She has pattern blocks, or snapping cube blocks for her book, and she really loves it and is beaming-proud of completing her pages for the day.

All three have grown a foot, and I'm sick about it. I haven't even measured them lately. They aren't allowed to get any bigger! My son is going to be as tall as I am in about six months. Liana and Aleksa can just quit their growing too. They are supposed to stay tiny forever, right?

Well, I really need to get going. The troops are up and running, and that that means Mama better get herself in gear ASAP!

Valentine Magic

Decorated Livingroom

Happy Valentine's Day! (One Day Late!) I'm pretty sure that V-Day is my favorite holiday. Well, Christmas ranks right up there too, but it is such a busy, busy, go-go-go time of the year.

I do the "12 Days of Valentine's Day" for John. Each day he gets a little treat in his lunch, or a small gift, or a note or e-card, etc. Some are "romantical," and some are practical. In other words, I've been enjoying V-Day for about two weeks now! lol!

But yesterday! Oh, what a wonderful day it was! I'm sure the kids will remember yesterday forever. It was AwEsOmE! First off, yesterday morning before the kids got up, I sprinkled Valentine candy on the floor in the kids' rooms. The girls were actually awake, but oh-so-still secretly watching me dole out the goods. As soon as I left their room, I heard the flick of their light go on, and alllllll kinds of giggles. Adam says he was "half-awake" though because his loft is so high, he didn't see me at least. It was really fun.

John made me breakfast in bed!! Can you believe it! I thought that was sooo sweet! Brought me my tea and everything! (I'm becoming a Yerba Mate freak... anyone else out there drink that stuff?)

When the kids came out of their rooms (and I came out of mine!), they all greeted me with their fingertips on their heads to make themselves into hearts. Hard to explain, but I'm pretty sure you got the picture.

After the kids did school yesterday (and boy were they diligent getting through it, since they knew what was coming later!), we went out to the storage shed, and dug through the Christmas decorations looking for our white lights. Then, we came back in, and turned our livingroom into what sooo reminded me Prom Night. We also blew up ten large red, pink and white balloons and made a big clump of them hanging from/around the ceiling fan, which is also where the lights all radiated from. (Hence, the Prom Night effect.) THEN, we cut out a gazillion red hearts, hung them from gold ribbons alllll over the livingroom. We all vacuumed, dusted, cleaned and de-cluttered, until our livingroom was fit for a King.

Before John came home, we set up a table in the middle of the livingroom, with a pretty white table cloth, three small candles and sprinkled the table with candy. We put out the "good" dishes, and then played some nice classical music (rather loudly! lol), and all of us got dressed up in our favorite fancy clothes. Liana wanted to wear her dress-up dress *sigh*, but Aleksa put on her blue satin/black velvet Christmas dress. Adam had a white shirt and tie (plus a tie tack, which he was soooo proud of!) The kids proceeded to ball-room dance all over the room. John came home to the fanciest livingroom/family in town! :O) (And he came home with roses for me from a *way* too expensive flower shop in town.) *gulp*

For supper, we had strawberry heart-shaped pancakes, which John actually finished cooking while I took turns dancing with the kids. John made sure to get some good dancing in with his girls too. We alllll loved, loved, loved every minute.

After supper, John's parents dropped by to give us all some Valentine treats, and it was fun to see their reaction to our "Valentine Atmosphere." The kids filled their pockets with cut-out hearts that they had worked so hard on this afternoon.

After the Fishers left, we took down the table, and then made a "pin the tail on the donkey" kind of a game. Except it was a big heart, and we used the little hearts that the kids had already cut out as "tails." It was so fun to watch the kids giggle at each other (and us!) as we tried to feel our way around the room to go put our hearts on the board. (Which was the cardtable leaned up against the couch, btw). Adam won two out of the three games we played, and we're pretty sure there has to be a hole in the blindfold we used that only Adam knew about!

After "Pin the Heart on the Heart," we played pick-up sticks, which is the kids' new favorite game. John is the cheater in that game. He always seems to beat us all by about 15 sticks or so. (At least that's what it seems like!) lol

At the end of the night, we laid out a blanket, and we all flopped down on the floor and talked about what Love was, and what we did during the day that was loving, and how much fun it is to do hard work if it is because you love someone, etc. We sang a few songs, and then, sadly, we had to call it a night. Such a wonderful, wonderful day! I'm SOOOOOOOOO glad we didn't just call a sitter and go out... we would have missed out on one of the most wonderful days EVER. We plan to go out on Friday, but for the official "Valentines Day," I'm so glad we made it a family day.

I tried to upload some more video onto that website the other day, and they told me I had hit my capacity. *sigh* I'll have to figure something else out. There are so many I'd love to share!

Guess it's time to take down the twinkle lights and the balloons. *sigh* I guess all good things have to end some time! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

More Videos

It took over four hours today, but I put about nine videos online today. They are from the first weeks/months home, and then some from a year later. There is one of Liana telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears while she is sitting on John's lap. That one is taken at one month home. Then, one year to the day later, I took another video of her telling the same story. I just put up some token "cutie" ones of Leks. I only got one of them of Adam on there so far, but fear not! I'll post more later. I don't know how many clips I'm allowed to put up there without paying, but I fully plan on using it up! (I've sure had fun going down Memory Lane listening to their little voices... it's just amazing how many changes they've made in 1 1/2 years! Enjoy! http://www.dropshots.com/ShellyFisher

Curtsy Writing Video

I caught a cute video of the kids today... Thought I'd share it...

http://www.dropshots.com/ShellyFisher