Raingutter Regatta

Brandon had his second Raingutter Regatta with Cub Scouts on Sunday. He had fun building his boat with Dad and at the race. Brandon won first place for speed and second place for design on his boat. Great job Brandon!!

Working on the swing set

Last week we worked on sealing the deck, this weekend the boys helped Daddy paint the sealer on the swing set. May not be even and pretty, but they had fun helping, and hopefully will have a sense of ownership over their swing set after helping work on it.

Reading

After watching Toy Story 2 several times, and having me read the book to him several more, Ethan started to 'read' it to me. Notice how he runs his fingers along the words as he tells the story by the pictures. Knowing a little bit about the movie and characters might help you understand better what he is saying.

Ethan's "Big School"

Ethan all ready for his "big school"

Ethan's Superman backpack.

Ethan in front of school.

Running after Brandon heading into school.

Ethan is now going to school during the mornings and having a great time and doing well. He loves to follow along and do what his friends are doing. Even thought he's in a kindergarten classroom, he is the youngest in the class, he only made the cut off my 6 days, and we're viewing this as a pre-k year and planning on kindergarten again next year. This year we hope will give him a good base and help him get caught up developmentally with the other kids around his age.

6 months since Gotcha Day!!!!

Ethan drawing a sun.

Placing stickers on a color sheet. Ethan loves playing with stickers.

It's hard to believe but yesterday, on October 17th we've had Ethan with us for 6 months. It has been an exciting time.



So much has happened in the last 6 months. He has gone from living in an orphanage in China, to living in a family in the United States. We have made it through two surgeries, one to detether his spinal cord in May, and to place a shunt to relieve pressure from hydrocephalus in September. A new diagnosis this month of narcolepsy with medication that has been working great!!! Ethan is so much more alert and awake now and he has been just blossoming developmentally. Ethan has also started school part days in a kindergarten classroom that will help him catch up academically and developmentally to help him be ready for kindergarten next year.

Snap Circuits

Brandon has had a lot of fun working with his snap circuits. If you don't know what they are http://www.snap-circuits.com/ this will tell you alot about them. The experiment that Brandon did this time makes it so that when he talks into the speaker on his snap circuit, it will send his voice to the am radio that is sitting right next to it, and you can hear him through the radio.

Acorn picking

The boys helped Papa by picking up acorns. Notice the pile by the tree. Instead of putting them in the bucket, Brandon decided that they needed to leave them out for the squirrels so that they could store them and have enough to eat over the winter.

There's even more on this side.

All that hard work deserves a Popsicle.

Animals at the farm show

We think this might have been Ethan's first time to see many farm animals up close. He loved watching and learning what sounds that they made, but didn't really want to pet any of them.

Brandon got to bottle feed a baby goat. Ethan just wanted to watch.

Okay, that's close enough, goat.

Brandon didn't mind getting up close and personal with the animals.

Ethan kept thinking that the donkey's were 'little bit horseys."

What does a pig say?

What does a puppy say?

A lotta green tractors

We went to a farm show this weekend and Ethan was very excited to see "lotta green tractors". Much to Daddy's dismay, Ethan's favorite tractors are green.

Trying out a tractor with Papa.

Brandon had a blast climbing on all parts of the tractors.

Checking out he four wheeler.

Brandon in the scoop of a Cat.