The week in Review....

When we adopted Alex he came from the orphanage with very few personal belongings. Besides the clothes we sent him back with (and he was missing quite a few of those) and a few of the books, toys and pictures we sent while we were completing his paper work, Alex came home with one pair of plastic flip flop type sandals and FOUR swimming caps. (Yes....FOUR!!) That was pretty much it!
So when Kambree wanted to go swim laps with me and was in need of a cap, I had her ask Alex if she could borrow one of his. He was more than willing to share. This is Austin modeling one of the caps from Ukraine. It cracks me up that they're in English!

The kids were out of school on the 14th (half day)-18th. I had a big RS board meeting at our house the night of the 14th but told Rylee she could have friends over up in her room. They played barbies for sometime and than did make-overs. Here's the results:

Monday (on the fourth and 1/2 day home and going stir crazy!) My sister and I took the kids to Jump On It. They had a blast.

I am posting this oh so attractive picture of me as proof to my dear husband that I did indeed jump!

So, Alex needs to do a science project. He's brought home a few different ideas, then decided to partner with a friend then I got a call from his teacher that there were no partners left so I guess he'll just have to partner with....me!
I selected an experiment that was easy and of interest to Alex. Apples! Our experiment is to wrap apples in different types of wrap and store in the fridge. Although pictures were not required, I figured it might help us so here are our apples after 24 hours in tin foil, wax paper, plastic wrap and a sandwich bag.
(I did not make up this experiment but got if off the website of approved experiments!)

The other night we came home to find Austin asleep in front of the fire with his head in Ella's dog bed. Just had to document it!

And I found this picture on my camera of Kambree and her friends jumping around in a snow storm. I met these two friends so I'm not sure who exactly is taking the picture.

Had a few interesting conversations with Alex. On the way to basketball Alex was telling Brach about his friend Sasha in the orphanage. He told him he was "just a little guy" and "I sure miss him and love him." It's the first Alex has ever said anything about his friends at the orphanage with out me prodding him. On the way home-after we dropped off Brac-I told Alex maybe we could send a care package to Sasha with the Benson's. He's pretty excited about that however, he's come up with some crazy things to send-like perishable food and HUGE items. I told him we'd have to limit it to a Ziploc size if we're going to expect the Benson's to fit it in their luggage. So far he's come up with candy and he thinks we should go the Russian store to get it! I told him he can get that kind of candy in Ukraine, how about something American? But he doesn't know what he'll like.
He's been really good about staying away from video games and spent the afternoon playing Lego's. And Saturday he went out in the garage and crafted a box to hold his X-box games.
Lately, he's constantly talking about his birthday-which is six months away. Probably because we approaching Rylee's birthday this week. After hearing ten different things he wants and fielding 20 different questions-like how many friends can I invite? What day of the week will it be? What will we do? Can I have banana cake? No cookie cake? I told him today he can make a list of what he wants & questions he has and we will plan and talk about it after July 1st as his birthday is not until the END of July!