Pre flu photos

I cannot believe how fast they have grown! Aubri is just 11!! Each year she has shot up at least 6 inches! Andy is now almost 4 ft tall and where did my tiny little one go??


We did the pumpkin patch trip last weekend just before the flu hit Sera hard.... She has been such a sick little girl this past week with a high fever and breathing troubles. She has been up with breathing treatments at least 3 times each night and needed to have her 02 levels monitored closely. All kind of nebulizer meds and oral meds.....Thankfully, I was able to keep working a few days out of the week, since Aubri was able to care for her very well and get her home school assignments done with Grandpa's supervision. Now Aubri has had a fever and got a cough and is feeling pretty badly though.... So far, Andy seems to be doing OK with just a minor coughing fit once in a while and no fever yet. I am not too sure what I feel like. I am too tired to notice :-) Grandpa wore a mask while the kids were with him and I pray that he will not get it. He has Tamiflu, just in case, though!

In any case, we had fun at the pumpkin patch this year. Grandpa went with us, but stayed in the car due to the wind. We liked having him with us all the same! Sera knew what to expect this time and was so excited to go play there and the other two... well, they definitely know how to have fun in the hay :-) I am so glad we did it before the flu hit! There is no way I would take Sera there now.... Seeing her struggle to breathe just rips me apart! She will not complain but is so thankful for her breathing mask that helps her feel better. I so wish that her little lungs were not so fragile...

New look!

Isn't he so handsome in his new specs? I certainly think so! He is so happy to be able to see things on the board at school and see details he was missing before. He also thinks it makes him look like a different person and was worried that people would not know him. Now he knows that they will and is now happy to be a member of the four eyes club like his mom! 4 eyes are always better than just 2! He understands that math!

Unbelievable!!! I don't understand!!!

As I sit to write this, I am wondering IF I should write it at all AND IF it really happened..... My mind wants so badly to believe that it cannot be possible!!

Andy has weight issues. Not that he is too skinny, but that he is very thin, no matter how much I feed him. His metablism and his constant movement just seems to burn it all off. Since he takes Adderall which also decreases his appetite and I wanted to make sure he was eating at lunch, I have been packing him thermoses of his favorite high calorie comfort foods in his lunch daily. He generally eats about half of it. There just isn't time for him to eat and talk durring his 20 minute lunch.

I had been praising Sera for eating all of the lunch I had been packing for her each day to help encourage Andy to try to eat more. WOW did that ever backfire on me!! He evidently decided that he wanted to be praised too, but that there were other ways of accomplishing that... He simply dumped the leftover contents of his thermos behind the dog food bag in the garage before bringing in the thermos to proudly show me he had eaten everything!! I found this spoilage on Saturday and sent him to his grandpa's, because I was so put out that I truly could not be around him with out feeling like I would steam over.... I cannot stand lying! Evidently Grandpa mentioned to him that leftovers needed to be put down the garbage disposal.

Well, this morning, after telling Andy to bring in his lunch box so that I could pack it, I was doing Sera's hair in the bathroom. I heard an odd sound, kind of like a chair scooting on the floor that was loud and short. I didn't think much of it. When I walked out of the bathroom though, I noticed water and chicken noodles covering my hall walls. It appeared that someone had made snow angels on the walls, ALL down the hall with wet arms. I immediately yelled at Andy.... YEP!! He had taken a wad of wet paper towels and stuffed them in the garbage disposal drain, then poured his left over soup on top and tried to run the garbage disposal before I could get out there. Yep. That is my boy!!! Sneaky Petey!!

I kind of understood this, because of what Grandpa had told him, even though I was so frustrated I could not see straight. We came to school in a hurry, after I cleaned up as much as I could and he now has to come eat in my classroom where I can see him eat. I don't know what else will happen, and I think just wondering has him very worried, almost better than knowing a punishment. I don't think there will be much more of a punishment for the garbage disposal, since he was actually doing what he feels he was told to do. I semi understand it, even though I am not happy about having to replace a garbage disposal. It could be worse! His hand could have been in there!!

BUT, can anyone explain what this kid was thinking while making snow/ soup angels ALL OVER my walls!!!!!!!!!!?????????

Fall is here!!

We went out for a drive today after church to enjoy the crisp air and beautiful hues of fall. Aubri had wanted to Picnik a photo for Halloween, and a local cemetery seemed like a good setting. I had some pretty scary looking zombies ready to be altered, but once they saw what they were changed into they were not so thrilled.... Since Aubri has been devouring the Twilight series, of course she preferred to be a vampire. Oh well! We had fun and I have to admit that I like my little ones in their current "scary" form :-)

BTW, Sera's dress is a Poppydip! She adores this dress and with leggings it is great for the fall. Check them out if you have a little one who loves twirly dresses!! Your purchase will help bring home a sweetheart from Ethiopia!

Names

My kids all have rather unfavorable names for each other when they are annoyed with each other, but heaven forbid if anyone but them ever use that same kind of name on their siblings! They are so protective of each other. They have also picked up calling each other by nicknames of endearment, in twisted versions of the names they call each other when they are annoyed.... Aubri is "Bossy", Andy is "Trouble" and Sera is "Stinky". No one else has permission to use these names either!

I have my own nick names for them too.. Not planned ones, but ones that have stuck. Aubri is my Doodlebug, Andy is my Noodle boy and Sera is my Snickerdoodle... Somehow I must like the sound of "oodle"!

As for their legal names each child has a family name, a name I liked for specific reasons and Sera and Andy kept their Chinese names ( minus the surname) as a 2nd middle name.

Aubri is named after a little girl I was blessed to meet in college who changed my life forever. She was a student I worked with while taking a SpEd class as a gen ed requirement to ease my workload from a Chem E major. I so enjoyed working with her that I totally changed directions in career planning. I knew my Aubri would also change my life for the better forever, and she definitely has! Her middle name is a derivative of my grandmother's middle name.

Andy was given a first name I really liked due to it meaning "strength" but also because I naively thought it sounded similar to his Chinese name and would be easier for him to adjust to. Little did I know that it did not.... His middle name is my father's middle name and he also kept his Chinese name as a 2nd middle name.

Sera was named based on her future full of hope. I had been told that she could easily have lifelong delays. I did not care. I wanted, and will always want her (and my other 2 also) to become who they could aspire be, so her name is my grandmother's firstname with a twist. It is said like Sarah, but spelled like the french verb "to become- she will become- elle sera". Her middle name means garden of beauty. She also kept her Chinese name as a 2nd middle name.

I have no idea if Andy and Sera will ever use their Chinese names. Both were given by the orphanage they were in. Neither has any special meaning or connections to their personality, but they are theirs and are the only things they have of their life in China. I know Andy has to have had another name given to him with more meaning and love, since his first family tried to provide him the medical care he needed before realizing it was beyond the scope of what could be done there. He was about 4-5 months old when he was found. Maybe someday he will know that name. Maybe he will not. I don't know if Sera was named before she was born, or when she was born, before she was left in the hospital.

I do know that their Father knows all of their names, however, and despite the meanings they have to me, to them, to their siblings, to their friends, to their teachers or to their first parents, their names are precious to him. They are precious to him.