Long line of Leberts

Ice skating.

2012-01-27T10:07:00.001-08:00

This is my favorite picture because Sami is smiling away while Camila is falling in the background.

Christmas at the Bromberek house..

2012-01-27T09:46:00.001-08:00

We filled up my mom and dad's house for Christmas.

Santa even showed up!

Little brother Chris helping in the kitchen - wow!!

Pamela and Aunt Teri gave themselves matching hair styles :)

Sami, the dogs and her doll enjoyed being outside, eventhough there was no snow.

We had a fun, chaotic Christmas in the Lebert house...

2012-01-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

Pamela was in a play...

2012-01-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Pamela was a rabbit and a "wild woodard" in her school's play of Toad of Toad Hall.

She did a great job!

A little December update.

2011-12-22T05:08:00.000-08:00

First of all, here's a cute photo of Sami jumping her heart out on the last day of gymnastics class. She's moving on up to the next level! Good job jumping bean!

So, of course, we celebrated St. Nick's day - I love this day, almost more than Christmas!

This was going to be a really special St. Nick's because that morning Ed and I went to see an ultrasound of the baby. Our plan was that when the kids got home from school, we would open up our stockings and the kids would find a note telling them if the baby was a boy or a girl. Well... as I'm sure most of you know - the doctor couldn't tell! So funny! Ed and I laughed about it all day long - good reminder that we just aren't as in control of things as we think we are.

The kids all want a brother so bad, so they were dissapointed when they came home from school to find out they will have to wait till April to find out.

We had a good time opening our stockings anyway!

A little wave from the baby!

What's on my phone.

2011-11-07T19:15:00.001-08:00

For some reason I just can't keep up with what's happening with our family. Probably because there's nothing too significant, I hardly ever bring my camera anywhere and life is just busy! So, I thought I could update my blog by just seeing what's on my camera - might give you a picture of the last couple of months.

Sebastian eating one of our favorite soups - it's not that cold here, but he and Sami and their friend Kobe are really into dressing up right now.

Life at the library. We still try to make it their often. Sami made some friends this day.

Sebas and Camila had an awesome season of fall soccer with Joy of the People. They are both in love with playing soccer. This was a weird day at soccer when they also had pony rides and ice cream sundae's. Wonder why they like it so much...

Camila was SO happy playing goalie for her team this day.

Her goalie jersey was a Packers sweatshirt!

Sami got to meet Clifford (she LOVES Clifford) at the bookstore one day :)

Sami and I are working on our cleaning skills. We both love cleaning about the same amount (we hate it). But, it seemed more fun in heels.

This is a great game the three little kids came up with one boring Saturday.

1. Put a garbage can over your head.

2. Garbage-can-head tries to tag other people.

3. Other people throw balls at Garbage-can-head.

My mom came to visit and brought Packer hats for all the kids.

They wear them non-stop.

Mom also helped the kids make lots of fun Halloween treats.

These were really messy chocolate witch hats.

It was too bad Digory ate almost all of them :(

Halloween! We made the kids make their own costumes this year.

We used what we had around the house - which, thanks to a very special donor - was many lint brushes - So, Camila was a lint brush and Sami and Sebas were lint and dust. They actually were kind of cute... it was memorable anyway.

I read this book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling.

It's SO funny. You can borrow it from me, if you want.

Pamela and I went coat shopping at Target today.

For some reason the mirror in the clothing section is a "fat mirror" - it makes you look terrible in everything. So we had to use my camera to see how they looked.

She bought the grey one and is thinking about it overnight.

And that's what we've been doing, according to my camera phone!

A longer line of Leberts.

2011-10-14T08:13:00.001-07:00

A very belated welcome to the 7th member of our family, Alejandro!

Alejandro is an intern, teaching at our kids Spanish Immersion school this year and is living with us! We are so happy to have this Colombian native in our house. He is a real delight and we all just adore him.

Technically, Alejandro isn't a "Lebert", but we are also (excited, scared, bewildered? what word goes here?) to announce that a baby Lebert will be joining our family come April 2012.

So - it's been a crazy, busy house and life for us all this fall. Who knows what's next??

Anyone else want to come live with us?

First day of school?

2011-10-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

Shoot! All of September passed so quick, without a single blog post. I think I'm officially not a "blogger" anymore... but, it has been a really crazy month - so that's my excuse.

Anyway - here's my 7th grader!! (who leaves 2 HOURS before the other kids now)

And then these three head out, quite leisurely, later in the morning...

2nd grade...

1st grade...

5th grade...

We're having a great year so far!

Happy 7th Sami!

2011-09-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

Our little girl turned 7 last week! She's had a great last year and we're looking forward to seeing what this new year brings :)

Here she is, birthday morning, dressed in typical Sami-fashion: Stickers everywhere on body, ribbons in hair as "hair extensions", fairy pajamas, a number of rings and bracelets, stuffed animal in tow :) We love you Sami!
Samantha requested we go to the park with a rueda (I don't even know the English word for this - an old fashioned rusty thing where you can spin around really fast). This park is seriously so junky - but we went, because that's what the birthday girl wanted!
Sami and Courtney and their dad's got to go on a special birthday trip to the climbing wall! So fun t0 see these girls laugh and play together! Thanks for celebrating with us Courtney!
At Sami's birthday dinner we had a surprise guest! Little newborn Cipriana Conway paid us a visit and Sami got to hold her :)
For dinner we had birthday girl's request - pasta, Ceaser salad and strawberry cake.
Sami had a very polly-pocket birthday - they even showed up on my totally lame polly pocket rocker cake.
We have some videos, which are better than these pictures, maybe I'll try to put them up later...

Okay - just one more picture...

2011-08-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

And then we went home

2011-08-11T10:49:00.002-07:00

(and it was a beautiful 72 degrees - like someone was telling us to never leave again!)

Islands of Adventure!!

2011-08-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we wouldn't be Leberts if we didn't make the some mistake twice in one trip - so we took our kids to another theme park after barely surviving Disney.

Universal Studios is just as expensive, just as hot, BUT the rides are way better, and the water doesn't smell like rotten eggs.
Harry Potter world!!!! AHHHHHH!!!! I almost cried tears of happiness for Pamela - but I didn't.
Butterbeer - yum!
Okay - Harry Potter world is actually pretty impressive.

After we (and by we I mean Pamela and Camila) spent all the rest of their money we moved on from HP world and moved along to Jurassic Park land. Then it started to rain and they shut down all the rides and so we sat in this cave in line for an hour talking to a super-creepy employee. We'll always remember it.
Ed is having so much fun here!
A line - somewhere - hard to say because each line was about two hours long, so we kind of lost track.
Sami missed out on going on a ride with the bigger kids and spent the next two hours like this...

At the end of the day we took some more cheesy pictures.

Yeah! We're the best parents ever!

Boogie Boarding

2011-08-11T10:21:00.001-07:00

I spent many hours watching my children spend many, many, many hours boogie boarding and swimming and playing in the ocean, convinced that they would drown at any minute - but they didn't! In fact, they had no trouble at all in the ocean, but loved every minute of it! They are all quite tan now and have each assured us that they will be beach bum surfers when they grow up.

Oh - beach = free

Boogie boards = free (at the house)

Yeah!

Side excursions

2011-08-11T10:08:00.001-07:00

We did quite a few things we didn't get pictures of:

An afternoon at the mall because we couldn't take the heat anymore. This involved dropping our kids off to see Smurfs and then Ed and I going across the hall to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. I was super happy about this because I HATE the smurfs, but love Steve Carell. That movie made me so happy I bought all our kids Frozen Yogurt sundaes for dinner and was ready to face the heat again!

We made a couple quick trips to Ron Jon's surf shop where everyone except Sebas got an article of clothing to make them feel like a real surfer (Sebas saves all his dollars for Swords and Legos).

We took a walking trip one night to see the local library and shuffleboard courts. But, it was too late and both were closed :(

We also got the chance to meet up in Orlando with part of Ed's family. This was the first time our kids got to meet their Great-Grandma Onnellee. We met up at an IHOP that was not so delectable, so it was even better that our company was so sweet!

Camila Onne and Grandma Onnellee
We also watched a lot of Disney Channel at night. Yep - it was luxury.

Colombian food

2011-08-11T09:59:00.001-07:00

Oh wonderful Florida and your wealth of Latin food! We were oh-so-excited to find that Florida had many Colombian restaurants to choose from and that they are a million times better than anything in Minnesota and cheaper too! We had dinner one night at Oh! Que Bueno and then stopped at a Colombian cafe later in the week to pick up some items that can not be found in Minnesota.

This was cheap because we ate here rather than at Disney, but it was not-cheap because we ordered enough food for 30 people.

Ocean for the first time

2011-08-11T09:53:00.001-07:00

The kids had never seen the ocean before so even though we got to the beach house the first night around 10pm, we had to run down and see it. The kids were excited and surprised by the waves, warm water and mouths full of salt!

Disney

2011-08-11T09:04:00.001-07:00

Oh my gosh! Disney is such a rip-off!! Oh well - that wasn't a surprise - but wow! Yeah - it was expensive. AND, it was 93 degrees and HUMID and very suspiciously the water in the drinking fountains smells like rotten eggs forcing you to buy $3 water over and over and over again - but anyway, we had an amazing magical time!

This is walking IN to Magic Kingdom - doesn't everyone ALREADY look tired??
These pictures aren't great and actually Pamela got a lot of good photos, but there are something like 600 on her camera and I just can't make myself go through them... So, instead, we have this gem of a photo. Is anyone actually enjoying being here?
Hey! Look! It's an accidental photo of my shoe! One of the only times I show up in pictures, but proof that I was there.
Ed got the job of going on all the rides that I won't go on (anything with a drop or spin or twirl). Here they are going up on the scary Splash Mountain.
Sami made a good friend in Matthew our Jungle Tour guide - she even got to become an honorary skipper!
So done. Tired feet, so hot. We packed up our pixie-dusted children and quietly told them on the way out that we were never coming back :)

Beds and Donuts

2011-08-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

Because we have the best friends in the world, we got hooked up with a FREE (that's really cheap) place to stay in Cocoa Beach!

Here we are enjoying some glorious air-conditioning in the fun bunk beds.I think just about every morning we went up the beach to dunkin' donuts for sprinkles and coffee. This would be cheap, if donuts were cheaper than cereal and milk - but I'm sure they're not... We had big plans for making all our meals at the house and being frugal - but that didn't really happen, like at all. So food counts as a not-cheap part of our trip.

Airplane ride

2011-08-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Our kids were lucky enough to have Ed and I decide that we should just completely spoil them rotten and take them to Florida this summer. So - this is a series of posts of our vacation on the cheap and not-so-cheap.

First stop - airport playland! SO exciting! (This was cheap fun, unless you count the fact that we were flying and not driving.)
Next up, airplane ride! Also, lots of fun!

(This counts as cheap because we only did carry-on baggage, the only "in-flight entertainment" was Sami and her Barbies, and we were only served a little bag of pretzels that reminded us that we choose a "discount" airline).

When we got to Florida we rented the cheapest mini-van we could find, which turned out great and saved us a couple hundred bucks - which again is cheap, but only relatively...

Date night #4

2011-07-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

I (Ed) took Sami on a father/daughter date to McDonalds and Vertical Endeavors. She must have climbed 50 times and never got tired. But seeing as how she is so little, the auto-belay wouldn't let her down when she let go. I kept having to climb up the wall after her and pull her down. Eventually the staff there gave me a rope to tie to her so I could pull her down :)

Summer Swim Love

2011-07-21T15:10:00.001-07:00

On a whim, we sold one of our cars and instead bought swim classes, a pool membership and a air conditioner. A totally worthwhile trade-off! So, now the kids and I spend our days, biking to the pool, swimming for hours and hours, biking home and then sitting in the a/c. Totally love it.

These kids were NOT good swimmers, just a week ago - they are amazing now!

Sami (yep, she looks like she's naked, but she's not!)

Sebas

Camila

Pamela

Fight!

2011-07-21T07:03:00.001-07:00

We've been doing a lot of this, this summer too...

Date night #3

2011-07-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

For Ed and Pamela's date night they, of course, went to see the midnight opening show of Harry Potter part 7b/8 or whatever you call it. I requested pictures and this is what I got...

Guess it was in 3D!
Ed took Pamela out to Perkins for a very late-night dinner before the movie. Here she is getting herself all excited about what's to come...
What?? This is such a crazy picture...
They had a really amazing time and Ed gets bonus points for still getting up and being at his early morning meeting at work the next day!

The giggliest game of Harry Potter I've ever seen.

2011-07-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Even "Lord Voldemort" is a giggle-machine :)

Date night #2

2011-07-13T07:23:00.001-07:00

I was super lucky to get to take this handsome boy out on a date last night!

We went to Como Town to ride as many rides as we could in 2 and half hours.

I even went on as many as I could stomach - but the roller coaster and tornado did me in.

Sebastian was literally running from one ride to the next and got every single one in.

Then Sebastian took me out to the Macaroni Grill and was a perfect gentleman!

We had some lovely conversation over our meal and dessert and we drew some fantastic scenes of falling off roller coasters on the table.

After dinner, we stopped at Borders to buy a mystery lego mini-figure (or 2).

It was so great to get a night with just my boy!

Date night #1

2011-07-13T07:11:00.000-07:00

This summer Ed and I decided to take each of our kids on a Father/Daughter or Mother/Son date. Camila and Ed were the first ones up. They had an amazing time!

Camila's first request - a stop at Chipotle to have a burrito ALL to herself!

(Yes - she ate the whole thing and yes, that burrito is as big as her head)

Then, Ed took our #1 sports fan to her very first Twins Game!

Camila paid strict attention the whole time and was so excited that the Twins won!

Ed, Camila, Chipotle, Twins - a match made in heaven!

13 going on 30

2011-06-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

We started this week with a 13 year old birthday!

A little dinner at Noodles (the flatbread is where Ed should be - he was out of town)

What a terribly scary birthday cake picture!

Crazy family fun - as always!

Then we ended our week with a 30th birthday!

We tried to do a hiking trip at Fort Snelling...

...but got pretty rained out...

I don't know that Ed ever thought he would have a 13 year old daughter days before he turned 30! In honor of the unique situation, he suggested that he and Pamela have a joint birthday party where his friends and her friends get together and watch the movie 13 Going on 30, but Pamela declined :)

Happy Birthday Pamela and Ed! (and Father's Day on the same day!)

Our last first last

2011-06-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

As adoptive parents we have counted our firsts this past year not as crawling, walking, new teeth, etc., but in first day of school, first time they answered questions completely in English, science fairs, math tests, sports, holidays, etc. SO, even though we've been together over a year this past week we had one more first to celebrate - our first last day of school - yeah!

I think we're going to have a great summer!

6th grade done!

2011-06-13T18:41:00.001-07:00

Words can not express how proud Ed and I are of Pamela.

We know that graduating 6th grade is not a huge accomplishment for most people. But we think it's something huge to celebrate because Pamela did it in a new county with a new family and in a school that was much more advanced that what she had been doing in Colombia.

Next year she'll have a new challenge of having to survive in an English-only school. It's going to be a lot of work, but we know she can do it!

But, until then we're going to party our summer away!

Big day today!

2011-06-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

Big day in the Lebert house today!

We had one field day...

(nice socks)

One State Project Open House...

One last normal day before this girl's week of festivities begins... :)

And one BIG Kindergarten graduation!!!

I can't get enough of this cutie pie!

Yeah - summer vaca is almost here!!

Help Pamela pick a dress!!

2011-05-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

We are proud to announce that Pamela is passing on to Junior High! That means she gets a fun graduation from 6th grade at her school and THAT means she needs a pretty new pink dress.

She can't decide which pink dress is better, so we need your help. Which dress do you like best??

An important detail about this light pink dress is that it comes with the shoes...

This beautiful bright pink dress will have shoes, but I don't know what yet...

Okay - voting closes Monday night!!!

Safety First

2011-05-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

365 days!

2011-04-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

We are happy to report that all dogs, kids and parents made it through the past 365 days!

We had a fun night going out to eat at Brasa and then spent awhile looking at pictures - both from Colombia and the United States. Now, the kids are running around because that was a lot of forced sitting. But first, here are our attempts at getting a family photo.

Thanks to everyone who has made this past year the amazing adventure it has been!

One year ago today...

2011-04-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ed and I got on a plane. We went to Colombia to find our children. We spent the next two days sick with nervousness.

But in the end we got this...

and this..
and this...
and, of course, this...
This Good Friday, we are looking forward to celebrating one amazing, incredible year as a family.

Bowling

2011-03-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

We took the kids bowling for the first time over spring break. They did better than I thought they would. They obviously are going to have Bromberek bowling skills - rather than Lebert ones, since they all bowled better than Ed! Here are the scores.

An interview with Pamelita

2011-03-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

First I will say, that the answers are not a great translation. I wanted to not change or edit the answers too much, to leave Pamela's voice in them, but if you read the answers in Spanish, they would be more grammatically correct :) Second, I love the answer to number 4 - the girl should go straight to the beauty pageant circuit with answers like that in her heart. Third, we can not be more proud of our daughter. Not because she has the "correct" answers to these questions. We are proud of her for even being able to answer these questions, to think deeper about the experiences she's been through and not just wanting to give up on life. We are proud of her for going through everything she has and yet she has managed to figure out how to just be a 12 year old girl. It's a privilege to parent our children.

1. What was the hardest thing about the last year?

The most difficult thing of the past year was when I had to say goodbye to my foster Mom, because 4 years of my life were spent with my foster Mom, so I think that was the hardest time last year.

2. What was the best thing about the last year?

The best of last year was when I was adopted. When I lived with my foster Mom I knew about adoption, one day I had seen some children who had been adopted, I thought it was very good but ... I never thought that of all the children, I would be adopted. For me it was like a dream come true, it was the best moment.

3. What would you tell other kids who are going to be adopted?

The first thing I would say would be if you are a small child you will get used to your new parents quickly because they have much love for you. If you're an older child, I tell you this, the first days are a bit difficult because you'll be sad and miss the people who you used to live with. I say it's hard, but it is a beautiful experience because your new parents have much love for you and they will listen and help you in everything.

4. What are your dreams and hopes for the future?

Well, I have many dreams for the future. I would like to have a foundation to help children and people who need help, but for that to happen I need to go to college and study in order to fulfill my dreams.

5. What else would you want to say about adoption?

Adoption is a beautiful experience, because people who adopt have much love to give the children they adopt. There are many children waiting to be adopted, and when they are adopted you give them their dream.

American Futbol!!

2011-03-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

I found the kids playing football in the backyard today - they look like they know a lot more about it then I do - it's amazing what you can pick up from TV.The winning team!! (It helps when you are all on the same team, and there are no other players.)

I love that they have all the different parts - the huddle, the chest bump, the trophy, and at the end, Sebastian comes up and asks for a kiss from his mom :)

Like a dream.

2011-03-14T06:29:00.001-07:00

Last night I gave Pamela an assignment. It has been a long time since I've "blogged" and really, nothing is coming to mind to write about, so I gave Pamela 5 questions to write about for this blog. That post will be coming - I'm really excited to have her thoughts on adoption and this past year - she's a really smart, thoughtful girl, so I know it's going to be good.

But, in the waiting time, while she gets all her words together, I wanted to share what she told me last night. One of the questions for her interview is "What is the best thing about this past year"? I don't know if this will be her final answer but, her first answer was, "Seeing you. It was like I was in a dream." I asked her to explain a little more and she said, "I just couldn't believe that there you were, someone had come all the while from the United States to adopt ME. I never thought anyone would want to adopt me, and there you were, you had come." Tears, lots of tears. Pamela is seriously an amazing daughter - the kind of daughter every parent wishes they had - we know we don't deserve her. But think about that - you're 11 years old and you have been waiting 4 years for parents - praying that someone would find some love for you in their homes and hearts - and you are pretty much totally awesome - but you have already come to believe that no one would ever want you as a daughter - that you'll never have parents... There are MILLIONS of children right now thinking that same thing. Awesome kids, hard kids, sad kids, hopeful kids - waiting to find out if someone can find a little love, a little more room for even them...

Anyway - look forward to Pamela's post - coming soon!

She's got style

2011-02-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

Riding around town

2011-02-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

Older child adoption

2011-02-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

I stole this from another blog, losseisverhulsts.blogspot.com who toke it off another website.

If you are interested in adoption, beyond seeing cute pictures of our kids, you'll really enjoy this article. If you are more in this for the pictures - it's probably longer than you are going to read.

I thought it was a great article, but would go further and suggest that even if it seems an orphan that is waiting is at high risk for attachment disorders, they STILL deserve the chance to have a family. We know the most amazing, wonderful parents who have taken on this very thing. Although it is a hard road to follow God down, we know they wouldn't choose to have NOT adopted those children.

Ed and I hope that more people would consider the adoption of older children and this is a great article to encourage those who otherwise wouldn't consider it :)

Older Child Adoption Does NOT = Attachment Disorder
For many parents, an older child would be a perfect match
June 01,2006 / Deborah Hage

Twenty-four years ago my husband and I adopted an infant from Peru whose behaviors were unusual. He arched his back and all but leapt out of my arms when I tried to snuggle him. He threw massive tantrums, smeared feces, refused eye contact and, in general, made it very clear he did not consider me anyone he wanted to get close to. With two children we had given birth to we knew this behavior was not natural. After years of trying different therapies we went to a national adoption conference in 1982 looking for answers and met Dr. Foster Cline. He described children just like our son and called them “attachment disordered.” Relieved to know we were not alone we began holding therapy and experienced miraculous results. Enthusiastic from our success we adopted seven more children, five of them with attachment disorders. This experience sent us on a promotional tour to find more information about this diagnosis and to help others whose children had it.
Initially, we were very frustrated to discover very little was known – and local practitioners knew even less. Adoption agencies appeared to be practically negligent in their lack of information about attachment disorder as they blithely placed children with severe emotional and behavioral disturbances into unsuspecting families. Informing the public became a crusade for me, to the point where I went back to school to get a Master's Degree in Social Work to gain credibility for my work and to become part of the therapeutic solution. IN short, for the last 20 plus years I have been researching the issue of “attachment disorders” and the process of “bonding” in order to help both the children and their families gain insight and find help.

For most of that time it has been a very lonely struggle, with professionals and peers who shared my zeal numbering less than a dozen. With the influx of children from Romania and the massive amount of media attention given them, the situation over the last few years has radically changed. Rather than “Reactive Attachment Disorder” being an unknown diagnosis, the public now look for it everywhere. The term “RAD” is bandied about with a familiarity that used to be reserved for the flu. The pendulum of public awareness and concern has swung from ignorance to fearful hyper vigilance . It is the disease of the day…and the cause of older children adoption has suffered for it.
While adoption of infants has been more common than adoption of older children, now, the adoption of a baby is believed to ward off the evils of attachment disorder. The statistics are not in, yet my private practice would indicate that is not true. All children who are separated from their birth mothers have abandonment issues. Most of them manage to work through them in good emotional shape when placed in healthy homes. Some, a truly small minority, lose their way.

There are older children whose bodies and souls have been subjected to cruelties beyond description that pull themselves together and grow up to be functioning members of society. Others have suffered only the mildest form of neglect and yet become scourges of their neighborhood. There are children in my private practice, adopted as infants into wonderful homes, who display severe emotional and behavioral issues. Similarly, the news is filled with children, raised by their warm, loving birthparents, who take automatic rifles and attempt to wipe out entire school bodies. There is no known test for what has become labeled “the resiliency factor,” that big unknown in children's psyche that allows some children to rise above their history of abuse and neglect and others to succumb to it.
Certainly, there are markers that everyone is well aware of. Lack of eye contact, inability to accept nurture, cruelty to animals, destructive, obsession with blood and gore, etc. coupled with an early history of multiple caregivers, raises a red flag of concern that the child may be prone to an attachment disorder. What is not acknowledged is that even without these markers many children display very “unattached” behavior!

So, how can orphanages, agencies and parents predict which children will navigate the path of living successfully in society and which ones will flounder? They can't! Most children adopted as infants will be fine. Some won't. Most children who are adopted at older ages who do not demonstrate the targeted behaviors will be fine, some won't.
What adoptive parents need to realize is that there are huge numbers of children in orphanages around the world who are no longer infants but would still make wonderful additions to their family and community. Being initially raised in an orphanage is not a death knell for a child's emotional stability. Age and history, while markers, are not the determining factor of whether or not a child's behaviors will be problematic . The number of moves a child makes is of far more critical concern then age or history and children in orphanages are not generally moved except from birth mother to the facility. The environment of the orphanage and the current functioning of childcare much more reliable markers. Is the child receiving nurturing care? Then the child, in all probability, will accept nurturing care from new parents. Is the child adjusted in the orphanage? Then the child, in all probability will adjust well in a new home. Is the child healthy, happy and curious? Then the child, in all probability will be healthy, happy and curious in their new home.

The care in most orphanages where I have been fortunate to visit is consistent, loving and very present. The news releases regarding Romania do not depict the norm for orphanages around the world. Orphanage care, particularly those supervised by NGOs and Adoption Agency staff members, are for the most part very good. Parents who hire personal nannies cannot predict their children will be cared for as tenderly as the staff in some orphanages care for their children of all ages. Furthermore, there is the possibility that children who are spending their first years in an orphanage are getting more of their attachment needs met than children whose birthparents leave them in poorly run daycare centers. Adopting an infant in order to avoid attachment issues, then placing the baby in day care is a poor recipe for success as it layers move upon move upon move – exactly what the consistent care of a single orphanage avoids.

The benefit of adopting a child who is already walking is that the orphanage staff can assess behavior more readily. Staff members can interact with an older child and can see for themselves which children have the qualities which will successfully enable them to make the transfer to a new home. Health risks and disabilities are more readily diagnosed in older children than in infants.

While in Nepal I met a beautiful girl, age 9, who, with her bright smile and lilting British accent, would be the perfect addition to any family. Is the family who has decided to adopt her fearful of “attachment disorder”? Not particularly. They have explored the possibility and decided it is not a predominant factor. This young woman is well liked in her orphanage by both the children and staff. She is hard working in school. She has no history of cruel or bizarre behavior. Yet, at some point in her life she fell in a fire and burned off the major portion of her right hand. She has endured great pain and has risen above it.
For many children in foreign orphanages this is the norm, not the exception . The orphanage environment and the resiliency and current functioning of the older children are far more important factors to consider than their early history of abandonment by birth parents. Certainly, if it had been possible, it would have been great to have adopted these children at younger ages. The fact of the matter, however, is they weren't. That does not mean they are somehow damaged and doomed to suffer from “reactive attachment disorder.” The reality is, more likely than not, they are vastly stronger. They know what it means to be alone, poor and uneducated. They do not want that for themselves. The orphanage has taught them the value of working hard and they are eager for success. They understand intuitively the reciprocity of healthy relationships. They have become attached to caregivers and other children in the orphanage and, rather than being rejecting of parents, they very much want parents. They are not unattached they are waiting for parents to attach to! Their resilience has been tested and they have come out winners.

Couples where both parents have meaningful careers would do well to explore adopting a child who is already old enough to be in school . Parents, whose children are adolescents, would do well with older children who are more capable of fitting in with their siblings. Children adopted at older ages often have language skill and an understanding of their culture; which will stand them in good stead as an adult. There is distinct possibility that the ego strengths of older children make a move less traumatic for them rather than more so. Rather than knowing less about themselves because were adopted as infants and removed from their roods as fragile stages of personality development, they know more about themselves and who they are. Older children have more opportunities to consent to their adoption. They enter the new relationships willingly, rather than, as infant, having the sense that the adoption was something done to them.
Parents who have adopted older children report that they love their children and could not possibly have become more attached with them even if they had adopted them as infants.
Does this mean that adopting older children from foreign orphanages is all romantic, gushy good feelings, without problems? Absolutely not. The risks are still there. The personality evaluations still need to be done. The markers for attachment disorder still need to be searched out. The problems are just different and need to be worked through in partnership with the child.

Can it be done? Yes!

Successfully? Yes, beyond a parent's wildest dreams!

It is a risk to love… and what if it doesn't work out? Ah… but what if it does!

Happy Birthday Clementine!

2011-01-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

Our darling Camila turned 10 today! She is SO excited for today! She received some new shoes and barbie accessories - how fun to be 10! We're so grateful to have Camila as our daughter - she brings us so much excitement and joy and sass - we just love her to pieces.

Our really casual soccer player

2011-01-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

Our Colombian hockey princess

2011-01-26T10:57:00.001-08:00

Give them a little more floor space in their bedroom...

2011-01-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

Watch Sami for her "finale face".

What is going on here??

2011-01-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

That is 13 unmatched pairs of socks and 5 silly bands - in ONE load of laundry.

This week in Lebert News

2011-01-14T07:36:00.000-08:00

Monday: Sebastian turns 8! Lots of fun all around.

Tuesday: Sebastian is talking too much at school.

Wednesday: Sebastian is perfect at school, Sami talks too much at school - no recess for her, Pamela is told at her beginner skating lesson that she has the potential to be a hockey player and should give it a try (we laugh all the way home about this).

Thursday: Everyone talks the perfect amount at school, Pamela checks out a new school for next year and gets to do some Archery and Fraquetball!

Friday: Everyone gets up late, but NOONE (except mom a little) is crabby!!

Happy 8!

2011-01-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

Monday was Sebastian's 8th birthday. Sadly, I let Camila take the only pictures we have, and the selection is a bit blah. It was primarily a Star Wars birthday, with a smattering of Legos and Spider-Man :)

When we first "knew" about Sebastian he was 6 years old. So, turning 8 just seems crazy old. I can't believe he's 8. He's a little kid and he had a little bit of a sad day because all the kids in his class told him they didn't believe he was 8 because he's so little. I don't know when he's going to grow bigger, so I'm just encouraging him that little is great and nothing to be ashamed of, because it's not! (Unless of course he has a parasite...)

Here are MY highlights from his birthday:

Eating at a Colombian restaurant and Sebas ordering nothing except 9 fried eggs! (We talked him down to 5), LOVING the Star Wars Lego dictionary he got from my mom and dad., Calling "Mr. Grandpa" to say thanks for the presents and telling my whole family to come on over, Going to the Nelsons and being so nicely greeted with a birthday banner and balloon and presents, Sebas already telling me what he wants for his next birthday, looking back and realizing that we really, truly have a HAPPY 8 year old :) He is just a joy to have around, he is well-attached, and is doing so good at being obedient and thoughtful.

We love you Sebas and thank God everyday that He gave you to us!

Skating and sledding

2011-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

This AMAZING brush

2011-01-04T15:41:00.001-08:00

My favorite Christmas video

2011-01-04T15:36:00.001-08:00

The Princess Bread

2011-01-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Guest picture post from Adam!

2011-01-03T17:31:00.001-08:00

My brother Adam sent me more pictures from Christmas! So, if you're someone that just really needs to see more pictures of my family - enjoy :)

A recap.

2011-01-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

When we last left off, we were in WI, waiting to make the drive to MI. The kids saw Chicago for the first time, which was fun. Here's Sebastian showing the White Sox stadium just how much us Twins fans hate them (or at least so their Dad tells them). We arrived at Abuelita Denise's house on Christmas Eve! This was the first time the kids had been to MI, so it was a lot of fun! They received many generous gifts and were thrilled to have fun new games and toys to play with.

We spent one night at the Embassy Suites before making a dash for safer grounds! Here was our gourmet breakfast of hard boiled eggs and yogurt - fancy aren't we?
Honestly, the hotel was pretty sketchy, but of course the kids didn't know the difference. They told us they wanted to live there.

They were disappointed when we told them we were leaving (at 10:30pm the second night), but they were all smiles when they ended up warm and snuggly at grandmas house instead!
Grandma even thought enough to put socks and blankets in the dryer, ready for our toes when we arrived! So much better than a hotel! (AND she had a whirlpool bath ready for me too!)
We had loads of fun in Michigan, but it was time to move on. We made the big drive back to Wisconsin next to spent a couple of days with my family. By the time we were rolling back into Wisconsin the kids had managed to make forts in the car. I think they were ready to live there, too!
We had a big fun family Christmas back in Wisconsin, but of course, I have NO pictures of it. It was really great though. My mom and dad took us all to the Milwaukee Public Museum and Uncle Adam and Chris came along too. It was literally the busiest I have ever seen a museum. We had to wait in line an hour just to get IN the museum. We saw a special frogs exhibit. The kids didn't believe us that the frogs were real and not stuffed.

Japan exhibit. (We told the kids the country section was just like going to Disney World and Epcot, so now we don't have to do that. Score.)

China.
Llama.
Lion being speared in Africa.
Guatemala?? Not sure.
The kids were pretty tired at the end of the day and I think Ed was carrying three of the kids at one point.

Well - that's where my pictures end. We had a great and exhausting trip! Here's the things I didn't get pictures of that were really special:
All the adults playing the game of Life and it getting pretty heated.

My mom making Arepas for the kids and them LOVING them!

Ed making Ajiaco for my whole family and every single person (all 11 of us) actually eating it! (The first time the whole trip everyone at the same thing at a meal.)

SLEDDING!!! Of my gosh - so fun! The kids just loved it. Hours and hours of sledding and a little clubhouse at the top of the hill where the adults could watch through big bay windows while having some hot chocolate and playing cards.

Sebastian and Uncle Adam becoming best friends :)

Watching Despicable Me with Ed's cousins.

Just all in all having a great week of being totally taken care of by everyone and having a blast the whole darn time!

To be fair, when we came back on New Year's Eve everyone was SUPER crabby and the night was a total disaster, but not bad to have one bad night out of two weeks!

So much fun, but really happy to get us back to normal life starting tomorrow.

Happy 2011!

The best plans...

2010-12-28T06:07:00.000-08:00

Well -- I had the best of intentions of getting a post up here everyday. I was well on my way. But then we checked into the Embassy Suites in Detroit and had our computer completely hacked into and kind of destroyed. So, then Ed spent the next night and couple of days trying to fix our computer... so that's where we are. Technically we are back in Milwaukee. We had a great trip, and I haven't taken enough pictures to prove it. But hopefully I can still recreate some of our trip.

Looking forward to hopefully sledding today on our new sleds!

A side food note and a celebration.

2010-12-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

I just realized that it was one year ago today we received the call that we were "officially" matched with our kids! For one year these kids have been in every thought and part of our lives. Now, here we are with them in WI, watching Harry Potter and playing video games - driving across the country, getting totally sick of them and loving them to pieces....

Also, I just wanted to respond to everyone that asked about the Natilla recipe. I SO wanted to put it on here, because it really was a good recipe, but I didn't have time to do it before we left home. It's so easy though, so I'm sure any one on the internet would be good too. In Saint Paul we buy our Panela at the Burrito Mercado. They have a small selection of Colombian foods there. I'm sure there are other places too, but that's the most convenient for us. In regards to cooking other Colombian foods, we have made Ajiaco Bogotano and Arroz con Pollo. We have tried a couple different recipes for both and have not had total success with either. I think they have tasted good, but the kids always say it tastes "not the same". We still need to try making Arepas and Arroz con Leche, but other than the Natilla, it just seems hard to make it taste like it did in Colombia. If anyone knows of a really good authentic Bogota recipe I would love to try it - Pamela really misses the food a lot!

Anyway - I think that covers the food questions :)

On the road.

2010-12-23T19:08:00.000-08:00

Dec. 23rd. Day 5.

Packed up, headed out. We made one stop for McDonalds (it seemed wrong to not go to Culvers, but we didn't find one).

Then this was our day... (there's two dogs in there too!)
Half-way to our first destination! Spent the night with my family, on our way to Abuelita Denise's tomorrow in MI!

What a boring day!

2010-12-23T06:03:00.000-08:00

Dec. 22nd. Day 5.

Everyone wanted to play with their new toys today. So instead, Kim and I took the kids to see the 8th floor Christmas display at Macy's. Kids love to see slowly moving dolls rather than play video games...
So MANY escalators! This was probably the best part of the show for the kids.

In front of the singing trees! The kids aren't bored at all...

Santa's workshop - hey at least they looked at this one!
Afterwards Kim provided relief to all by pulling treats from her bag - she's a real Christmas miracle :)
Drinks were provided for us.
Here I told the kids to give me their best bored face - so of course, only the boys obeyed :)
Yeah! Everyone got hot chocolate afterwards!!
Hanging out in the skyway in downtown Minneapolis.

Last night we headed over to the Glovers for Christmas with them. It was just really wonderful. Lots of presents and food and love. Afterwards we all went to see the 3rd Narnia movie in 3D! I hope all my children have a Eustace Scrub moment in their lives - that they would realize that no matter how hard they try they can't get rid of their sin and ugliness by themselves, that only God can come forward to remove it for them. All in all, another great Christmas day!

On the 4th day there were presents.

2010-12-21T19:06:00.000-08:00

Dec. 21st. Day 4.

Today we celebrated Christmas as a family! Pamela requested Natilla, a traditional Colombian Christmas dessert - so the two of us decided to try to make it as a surprise for the rest of the family.
Here, I am grating the panela - not an easy job, like my smile would lead you to believe...

I was so happy and surprised when it really started turning into a custard, just like the recipe said it would!

It was actually pretty easy, and Pamela said it tasted just like it did in Colombia! Win!!
Here's Pamela, bringing it out as a surprise after dinner. We all enjoyed it, but I think Pamela (whose new name is going to be Panela) had at least half the dish :)

I made my mom's italian sausage and pasta for dinner - although Sami just had the pasta - it was delicious!

After dinner, Ed read the Christmas story from the Spanish Bible. It was really fun and special to hear it in Spanish with our children.
Presents!! Everyone really appreciated what they received and we all had a great time. I know I have more pictures of Sami and Sebas with their presents, but I'll have to find them on our other camera some other day... who knew watching kids opening presents could be so tiring??

The infamous "computer barbie". This is one happy girl tonight!

So fun to be dressed up with my girls!
The boys - Sebas' dress shirt needed to be washed today, but I'm sure his "outfit" will reappear tomorrow!
God has been SO good to us. I just couldn't stop thinking about that today. He was good to us last year, when things were hard and we were waiting for our kids and He's good today, when life just seems like it couldn't be better. We are so grateful for what we've been given and the path that God took us down to get us here.

Merry Christmas from the Leberts!!!

A Conway Christmas

2010-12-20T19:58:00.001-08:00

Dec. 20th. Day 3.

Today the kids slept in - yes!! Finally around 9:30 I woke them up and we all had our "recess" time and did an exercise video. We did some cleaning and playing and then the three youngest kids spent two hours doing their hair and getting dressed up... Sebas is on Day #2 of "the outfit".

This evening we went and visited Carlos and Priscilla. Of course Priscilla whipped up lots of wonderful treats (banana bread, chicken bites, cookies, hot chocolate...). We watched a little of White Christmas until the boys took over and decided to play video games instead :( Another nice evening with friends. And, thanks for taking pictures for us since I forgot the camera! We love you Conways!!

The Great Lebert Christmas Adventure!

2010-12-20T06:43:00.000-08:00

Our first Christmas together as a family is going to be a busy one! We have something planned for everyday of our two weeks off. So, I'm going to try to blog "Colombia-style" during our break. I'm going to try to post what we did every night so that we can remember all the crazy fun we had during this first Christmas together. (I really wanted to save this for our kids... so, you know, feel free to not check-in, if you're not interested in ALL the details of our lives :)

Well - I'm already behind.

Dec. 18th! Day 1. We woke up bright and early to get to church to practice for our church's Christmas program. Samantha, Sebastian and Camila were all singing in the program. We brought along our swimsuits because after that we headed out with the Nelsons to the Water Park of America! It would be nice if I had pictures of this, but I don't. We had a great time running around the park. I think the favorite ride for our kids was the family raft ride - where for sure our girls LOVED watching Kim scream :) Graham proved to be a great shark in the wave pool for Kobe and Sebastian and even after 9 hours at the park the kids still were not ready to go home (but the adults REALLY were). Thanks Nelsons for a really fun first day of Christmas vacation!

Dec. 19th! Day 2. Up early again to get everyone in their best clothes for the Christmas program. Sebastian was totally embarrassed to be dressed up, and spent awhile at church refusing to take his coat off, but by the end of the night he had convinced himself he was the best looking kid he ever saw :) The Christmas program was so great! Jill and Brooke did an amazing job of getting all those kids together and singing and reading on stage. I was really proud of our nervous, shy kids for getting on stage and singing in their second language! It turns out Sami thought she was playing the part of Jesus in the play, but once that was cleared up she did just fine in her role as a shepherd.

We spent the afternoon relaxing and dancing and signing to Christmas music and then went to visit our friends Cassie and Kevin's house in the evening. They have a bunny, so of course, it was awesome to be there. Ed and I really enjoyed seeing our friends too :) We had delicious desserts and drinks, the kids all got a new book in Spanish, we played some Jenga, watched Shrek and Pamela got to advise them on what to eat when they are in Colombia next week! Also, Pamela read the entire book they gave her, while we were there. Sami was so tired when we got home she went to bed with her jacket and gloves still on. But, first thing this morning she came down and said, "I love that bunny". Thanks Cassie and Kevin - we love you guys!!

St. Nick's Day

2010-12-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Milwaukee, we always celebrated St. Nick's day. It was so fun to finally get to celebrate with my kids! Two years ago when our original social worker told us we wouldn't be approved to adopt 4 kids, I was pretty down, but I went ahead and bought 4 stockings anyway, in faith that, that wasn't going to be our final answer. It was really special to see our 4 kids names on those stockings this year!

Fun times in picture.

2010-12-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

New video for our friends in Italy.

2010-11-24T06:07:00.001-08:00

Just an FYI... to our friends in Italy - we put a video just for you on the side. We actually made it awhile ago, but just figured out how to get it loaded up. Anyway - we hope you find it and hope that you are doing well!!!

Love,

The leberts

SNOW!!!

2010-11-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

The snow has not disappointed! After 6 1/2 months of anticipation of getting to see snow for the first time, it showed up big today! I woke up at 7am to the sound of what I thought couldn't possible be someone shoveling their sidewalk. I looked out - and it WAS snowing! I ran upstairs to the attic where the kids where sleeping and woke them all up to see it. They all kept asking if it was real, they couldn't believe it. Pamela was the first one down to check it out. The other kids where excited, but still kind of sleepy. When I asked her how she liked it, she at first said she didn't even have words to describe how she was feeling, it was just so new and wonderful! About an hour later she and I went to Target to buy the snow boots, gloves and jackets we were missing. On the way there, she literally told me she was crying she was so happy about the snow. That it was the best day of her life and that she couldn't imagine anything better than snow :) Wow! We knew she was a winter-girl, but she REALLY is! I said, "I know, isn't it crazy?" and she said, "No, it's not crazy, it's excellent." She just cracks me up. God gave her a big present today :)

All the kids have spent lots of time outside and are all loving it. They keep asking if there will be more snow tomorrow - I think they are afraid this is going to be their only day with it. I have gotten my first lesson in getting 4 kids bundled up and out the door multiple times a day. So far, I don't mind - I'm just glad they are playing outside! Thanks to everyone who has given us so many pairs of boots, jackets, snow pants, gloves, hats - we put them to good use today! So, glad I didn't get rid of anything, because Sami is wearing size 2/3 snow pants right now and Camila is wearing size 5!

Wishing you lots of snowy fun!

The Leberts

new pictures and videos

2010-11-13T16:24:00.000-08:00

Ed just added a bunch more photos of the kids from the past couple of months. If you want, you can check them out on the right hand side.

The smallest of updates.

2010-11-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

I don't know where the time goes. I have been meaning to write an update on how the kids are doing, but the days just fly by! In brief, we are all doing really well! Our major struggles are really all school related and just trying to do what we can to continue to help the older girls get caught with Math and English. Sebastian really dislikes going to a different school than the girls (and we dislike it too!) and we continue to try to find different ways to get him into the girls' school, but so far nothing has worked.

Here's a small summary of how they are all doing (including their new middle names that I ended up choosing, they are all variations on Grandparents names:

Pamela Winn: So fun and funny and happy most days, but a little pre-teen moody other days :) She's really trying hard in school, but the terrible awful subject of Math still gets her pretty bummed. She's a true book-worm - we hardly ever can get her to stop reading - the only thing that does is High School Musical or Camp Rock. Her English is still coming along slowly. She is very hesitant to use it, although she understands a lot. I know she still misses Colombia very much, but she also has expressed how much she likes is here too.

Camila Onne: Just a total joy! She is just a really happy kid and we like having her around :) Her English is by far the best out of any of the kids. She can speak in English all the time, if she wants, but still prefers Spanish. Camila is doing fine in 4th grade. She also has a hard time in Math, but she's getting it and is doing well overall in school. She's been asking me a lot lately if I'm happy we adopted them (which of course I am) so it makes me wonder if I don't tell them enough... I think she just really likes to hear it!

Sebastian Luther: Sebastian is just doing so good! He's all smiles and jokes with the occasional grumpy moment. I actually can't even remember the last time he had a tantrum as he has really started to learn how to handle himself when he's not happy. Also, we have turned friday nights into kid sleep-over night which means they all get to sleep together in the 3rd floor. He loves this so much and he knows that if anyone throws a fit during the week (for no good reason) that will be taken away from them for the week. Yes, I'm bribing my children, and yes, it's kind of working and kind of awesome. Sebastian has really started to love me in addition to his dad too, so that's been fun!

Samantha Joy: Always fun, always smiling, always dancing! She loves Kindergarten and loves her family and loves everything except eating dinner (which is the only time she gets in trouble). Not that much has changed with Sami, she's just great!

We feel like we don't really get enough individual time with our kids and we need to work on that... everyone is SO looking forward to snow and Christmas and all of that!

Right now I now (through the magic of the internet) 3 families in Colombia right now that are adopting older, waiting sibling groups! I'm so excited to see more and more families decide to pursue the adoption of waiting children, and hope to see even more choose it!!

Thanks to all of you who keep on checking this thing - we love you guys!

amanda

Halloween

2010-11-02T07:57:00.001-07:00

Tantrums - more, but more low-key

2010-10-12T18:42:00.001-07:00

So, a new interesting development recently has been Sebastian's regression into more tantrums. I'm really sad to say that he's just been bummin' a lot lately. He just isn't very happy. We can see a bed-time tantrum coming on from the first minute he wakes up. But, the cool thing is that by talking him through the process we've actually started to see him really try to keep his cool and not let it turn into an all-out tantrum. He had a really bad day today, and so lost some privileges. But, right now, he's NOT screaming. He wants to, SUPER BAD... but we talked about breathing and calming down and what he can do to make tomorrow a better day and I think he actually might pull through. Of course, I won't be surprised if he doesn't, but I'm learning to be okay with that too. The big thing for me really has been learning to not be afraid of tantrums and to just be firm and consistent with him, even if it means he's going to be a pill. This has been really hard for me, but I'm hoping, with prayer, I can continue to be a better Mom, who realizes she's not in control and that the best thing I can do is just pray for my kids and try to make good decisions. So, we'll see!

For those of you still checking in :)

2010-10-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well - we just haven't been keeping this thing up-to-date, and to be honest, I'm exhausted!

But here are some fun pictures from our day at the good ol' Minnesota Corn Maze. They really had a blast and it would have been a perfect day if not for the 85 degree heat!

We've had a lot of successes in our family lately and we're feeling more "normal" all the time. School is going well - the kids are getting good grades and catching up in the areas they need to. Ed and I are tired all the time :) but we're enjoying it! Thanks for still looking at this blog, if you still are!!!

5 months today.

2010-09-22T10:57:00.001-07:00

We've been a family 5 months today. Seems long but short at the same time. This morning I was standing with Sebastian at the bus stop reminding him that tomorrow night Ed and I would be gone at a meeting to talk with other parents about adoption, and the first thing out of his mouth was, "for us"? He was asking me if were meeting with "other parents" to talk with them about adopting them, OUR KIDS! Oh man, that's just heart-breaking. Of course, I gave him a big hug and kiss and told him again that no, he is my son forever and that we just want to tell other parents how totally awesome and amazing it is to adopt OTHER kids.

How much does it suck to be a 7 year old boy and think that your parents might send you away at anytime? I wonder how long it will be before he stops thinking that's a possibility? It's just not right. I really want to go drive to school and pick them all up and just tell them how much I love them right now, but that would probably just freak them out even more.... so I won't.

I'm so grateful for the 5 months we've had together as a family. I'm just gonna love the heck out of those kids tonight :)

All 4 at school :)

2010-09-15T13:28:00.001-07:00

Sami started school on monday! At the last minute the older girls' school called and said they had an opening in their kindergarten for her, so we took it. This is kind of sad because now Sebas is going off to school by himself, but we are still hopeful we might be able to get him into the girls school too... maybe at the end of this week.

Sami came home the first day and said, "It's beautiful!" She just loves school! Math has started for Pamela and it is really rough, but we can't give her anything but credit. Considering the last math she did was third grade math in Colombia! Ed spends every night working on math with her, but hopefully in time it will get easier. Ed and I have been to our first official school meetings as parents and found it pretty entertaining. I think we still feel a bit out of place... we're just not up to speed on fighting for more recess time and cupcakes in the classroom. Anyway - here we go on the next phase of this adventure!

3 off to school!

2010-09-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

What a fun day! The three oldest started school today! They were all up and ready to go with an hour to spare. We found balloons on our porch from our great friends the Nelsons, too, which made the day extra special :) Pami and Cami rode the bus and I drove the other two. (We had a kindergarten conference for Sami today too.) Everything worked out and they all came home just thrilled with the day! Not too much homework, but TONS of energy! Sami wishes she could go tomorrow, but no school for her till next week.

Happy 6th Birthday Sami!

2010-08-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

Today was Sami's 6th birthday! Have to admit I was a little sad to see my 5 year old go, but I think 6 is going to be a really fun age :)

We had way too much fun and way too many presents!

These photos are totally in the wrong order, but you'll get the idea. (Notice how Sami was looking pretty cute at the start of the day, but after the heat, she was pretty gross!) Can't wait for this heat to end!

An important disclaimer

2010-08-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

If you happen to look at our videos and photos with any regularity, you might notice some new videos that were posted there. I need to point out, in the interest of not feeling like a totally terrible mom, that I had no idea that Ed was letting the kids spray bug spray into their mouths and video taping it!! When I first saw it, I said, "Oh, what's really in the bottle?" Yes, it really is bug spray. Ed says that I don't have a case for it being stupid because the kids are still alive. Anyway - just wanted to let you know.

Why WOULDN"T you want an egg on your head??

2010-08-23T09:33:00.001-07:00

Pamela and Camila told us a really funny story last night.

We were talking about birthdays (a common topic of conversation in our house) and I told Pamela that this year her birthday is the last day of school - which is pretty late in the year. The girls started laughing and told us how when they were in Colombia and your birthday happened to fall on a school day, it was SO fun because kids would bring eggs to school and sing happy birthday to you and then splatter an egg on your head!! I said, "Oh - that's terrible, that's so mean!", they said, "Oh no, it's SO fun!". Hmm... I told them to not do that in the US because kids would get pretty mad at them here, and they couldn't believe that! Who WOULDN"T want an egg splattered on their head as a special birthday treat? Anyway - it was an interesting glimpse into their life in Colombia.

Speaking of schools... we've made the final decision on schools! Amazing! We have decided to send our kids so Spanish Immersion schools after all. We know that not everyone would agree with this decision, but we feel really good about it and the schools we have decided on. We think they will have some success in the school year now, where as before we felt like every single part of a school was going to be a challenge. So, Ed and I are realizing that means WE also need to be studying our Spanish more as well, because it looks like we will be a dual language house for quite a long while (forever?). We're excited about this!

Switched to Flickr

2010-08-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Hey, I switched photosites from picasaweb to flickr. You can view our family's stream of photos and videos using the link on the sidebar. :)

Super fun afternoon!

2010-08-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

The heat finally let up and we had a great time hanging out with our small group this afternoon! The Ohmen's have a zip line in their yard - what?? We even had a good round of relay races, including some genuine Colombian coffee sacks! Baseball, kickball, a couple of good tumbles in the yard (Amanda), vintage playmobile, corn on the cob, a little time to even read and AMAZING coffee - thanks Gene and Wanda!

Free meals at Ikea.

2010-08-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

We kind of made Ikea our second dining room the last two weeks. They had free kids meals for two weeks - and I just can't pass up free food for kids! We went so often we designated a table as "our table". It was a pretty good deal - watch airplanes come and go, eat mac and cheese and french fries, put the three youngest kids in the playland for an hour and then take Pamela along for some house dreaming and to check the "As-Is" section for any good deals. So long Ikea - we will miss you!

My view most days.

2010-08-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

One of the few places we can always count on air conditioning! Some days we drive around just to get out of our hot house.

what?

2010-08-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Another fine example of the English our children are learning... I found this today just sitting around - who knows the story behind this!

Read this today.

2010-08-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

This is such a great post about adoption. I am so blessed by reading Katie's blog. Everything I would want to express about adoption is pretty much here on this post - read it if you have time, I know you will be blessed too.

http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2010/08/teenagers-and-lesson-from-jacob.html

These are a few of our favorite things.

2010-07-31T13:15:00.001-07:00

Person   Most Favorite Thing  Least Favorite Thing
-------------------------------------------------
Amanda : Ed                   Trash
Ed     : Amanda               Being Dizzy
Pamela : High School Musical  Broccoli
Camila : Snow                 Pepperoni
Sebas  : The Dogs             School
Sami   : Skates               The Fan

We actually thought everyone came up with answers that explained they're personalities pretty well. We don't know why Sami hates the fan in our living room other than it was just the first thing she saw.

In every season.

2010-07-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight Pamela asked to find a particular song in our music that she likes. We have downloaded Disney Princess albums and Colombian music for the kids, so I expected it to be one of those songs. I was surprised when she choose a Hillsong United song and told us this was her favorite song of all! The song she picked is called the Desert Song and it's lyrics are "All of my life, in every season, you are still God, I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship". Ed helped her print out the lyrics to the song in side-by-side English and Spanish so that she could learn the song in both languages.

The fact that my daughter, who has experienced more hard things in her first 7 years of life than I have in my 32 years, says that her FAVORITE song is one that talks about praising God in every season and situation in life just floored me. Right now, she could really be choosing to be bitter and angry about the life she has had, but instead she wants to sing songs praising God for how good He has been to her. I told her that, that song is also a favorite of mine and she said, "I know Mami, it's just so wonderful". What a girl - she continually amazes me.

A Colombian Day.

2010-07-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days where it felt like we were back in Colombia. Sebastian had his mad face on all day, the girls wanted very little to do with us and I just felt like, "What the heck are we doing?"... sometimes parenting feels so terribly clueless. So sorry- Priscilla for the Strawberry Lemonade spilled all over your chair and floor - sorry to everyone we were crabby with today, because I felt like acting like my grumpy child rather than a persevering parent...

Of course this hard day came after a weekend filled with endless new and fun things and so Ed and I should have expected it, but somehow just expecting it doesn't make it any easier. We've been at this for three months now and we know that we have more good days then bad days and we are so grateful for that. Most days are thrilling and filled with laughs and giggles and broken English and surprises and dancing - and we really how can we have it so good? But, today was just one of those days that crept up on me and kept me knowing how hard this parenting thing is.

Just to keep myself in reality... things that were cute and fun today:

The three oldest kids ended the night by laying in bed and having us quiz them on English words.

After a rough time at the park, everyone sat around the computer and watched the second part of Harry Potter and ate leftovers, while attempting to read the Spanish sub-titles.

Sami asked me to read Cinderella to her again for the 100th time in English, because even in English it's better than any other story in Spanish!

Sebastian, though mad all day, did NOT throw a tantrum and at the end of the night I heard him coming out of his room and I stood at the door to tell him to go back to bed, but he just opened the door and said, "I love you Pa, I love you Ma". He gave me a kiss, asked where Dad was, since he wasn't there, he gave Papi's kiss to the door frame and then headed right back to bed :)

Our Spanglish House.

2010-07-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

"Mom, how do you say, excuse me, in English?"

"Camila, that is English."

"Oh! Excuse me!"

That is becoming more and more the conversations we have in our house around here. I think we are all a little confused about what language to use, and what language we ARE using!

School is going okay - it is definitely helping our three older kids learn English quicker, but I think it's a bit of a "time-waster". Pamela comes home almost everyday with a new card game she has learned, that really has almost nothing to do with school at all - so I wonder, how much are they actually learning? I still think it was a good choice to send them - to help them with the language and get them used to what school is like here (long days and MUCH more difficult than school in Colombia was), but I think we'll all be happy to enjoy our next six school-free weeks at home, together. (In response to another reader's comment: Yes, we were told that our kids did very well in school in Colombia, but here they are VERY far behind in math, in particular, and it's going to be a hard adjustment year next year.)

Other than that, we are really just still figuring out life for the 6 of us - Ed and myself included. Life is just SO different with kids. Not, that most people don't know that, but I think we are all still adjusting to a new life. Sebastian had a little bit of a hard week going to bed last week, but other than that, behavior is pretty good. Everyone is still HATING the heat and they ask everyday when the snow is coming... but at least we got a lot of use out of our pool.

No pictures - we need to start taking more!

Happy 4th!

2010-07-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

The only picture I have of the day :) We stayed up later than ever to watch fireworks... thanks for a fun day everyone! On a very proud note... when we thought about going to this 4th of July party in the past (before we adopted the kids) we never thought we would be able to do it - the kids would have too many attachment problems and things like that... Well - the ONLY problems we had the whole night were that they were tired and hungry at the end of the night (pretty normal kids stuff). We are really proud and amazed with how good our kids are doing.

And to top it off, they received their official certificates of US citizenship the day before - so a very nice 4th of July!

State of the Union: Month #3

2010-07-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

School

The past week the three oldest kids have all been in school, which has been very illuminating as to how far behind in academics they actually are. Wow. Camila, who is set to be in fourth grade, has no ability to subtract and very little ability to add. 3+2 is a small challenge, requiring her to use her fingers. This is very surprising to me because Camila got straight As in school in Soacha and didn't start school late (like Pamela). We tried putting Samantha in school, but it was pretty devastating for her and she would benefit more by just being at home with Amanda. Besides, with just her at home it's pretty easy for Amanda to teach her how to read at home.

Pamela

She's continuing to do well. Her biggest strengths are: she's a good eater and she makes a real effort in integrating into our family. Even when it's clear she doesn't want to obey, she usually does it anyway. She still has some trouble understanding that we're the parents and that she isn't in charge, but she's doing a lot better in that area than would normally be expected. Also the girl likes to eat like her old man. The other kids don't eat at all and I'm wondering if there's a way to average them all out...

Camila

Camila is doing great. She still is a total diva and likes to make lots of disrespectful faces and sounds at you when she doesn't like being parented, but she's quick to recover and it's clear that she often tries to think about her heart before she opens her mouth. One other area of improvement for her is that she doesn't seem to "join in" anymore when another kid is rebellious, which used to be very hard to deal with. Her and Pamela are starting to learn more English and are generally pretty excited about learning in general. Usually most of the day is filled with Camila saying cute phrases in English that she just picked up that day. One challenging area for her recently is lying. She isn't exhibiting the "meaningless" lying that so often accompanies children with attachment problems - she only lies to manipulate and get what she wants. The strategy we've been employing is to take away whatever it is that she wants when she lies. For instance, she told me that Amanda said she could eat cheetos. When I called Amanda to ask her if we had any at home or if I needed to buy any, Camila confessed she was lying. Her consequence was that she wasn't allowed to have chips/cheetoes for a week, which she was not happy about. But she seems to be doing well in general and is not showing any other signs for concern in regards to attachment to her new family.

Sebastian

Sebastian has been steadily improving ever since returning from Colombia. But even though he was a terror in Colombia, we said then that he seemed the least likely to have long term attachment problems. Deep down he loves being in our family and just wants to be with us. We figured his difficulties in Colombia were simply "testing", so we just employed lovingly firm limits on his behavior. Now, he's arguably our best behaved child during the day. He is rarely defiant anymore and really only gives us trouble during bed time some nights. He's had two bad nights in a row going to bed, but our consequence for being disruptive at bed time is an early bedtime the following night. That seems to work pretty well because the only thing he hates more than going to bed is going to bed early.

Samantha

What can I say about Pikachu? We pulled her out of school because it was really hard for her and she needed more quality time with a parent. We've always been the most worried about Samantha long term in regards to attachment, so the alone time with Amanda is really helping her. She knows her ABCs the best out of all the kids and is enthusiastic about showing us things she's learned. She still loves to play around and be silly, and in general she's a real joy to be around.

Amanda and I are hanging in there. Going from zero to four is really tough, even though our kids are in good shape. Please pray that we'd use our time together at night wisely. The temptation is just to veg out and eat jink food, but what we really need is quality time serving one another. And pray that we would be less crabby and more patient with the kids.

First day of (summer) school

2010-06-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

The kids all had their first day of summer school today - which is also their first day of school in the US. We were pretty nervous about how they would do, and I think they all were too. The first day was a little crazy, but eventually they all got placed in a classroom with at least one other spanish speaking student. When we picked them up from school (Ed took the day off and we enjoyed some time alone together!!) they were all pretty happy and excited. Pamela really enjoyed the day, Camila and Sebas thought that there would be more Spanish spoken, but Samantha said her class was perfect for her :) Another fun benefit is that in the summer the schools offer free breakfast and lunch!! What?? Awesome! That seriously is so helpful and the kids like it too - so yeah! Sebas did say he doesn't really want to go back, but I expected a bigger fight than that, so we're doing good.

Pamela tells us she is going to know English by the end of the day tomorrow... I'm not going to hold her to it, but I like her ambition!

Three weeks of summer school and then more Vaca - fun!

2 months

2010-06-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today we have been a family together for 2 months!

Without a doubt, the second month has been much easier than the first. There are still mornings or nights where I still think, "What did we do?" But, more often we think, "What were we doing with our lives before this?".

We knew we were called to adoption and that calling in our lives, our care for orphans, is made stronger with each day. As we encounter more and more people that are excited about our kids and our family, my constant hope is that they would develop that excitement into a joy and excitement for adoption. Adoption in the worldly sense - of kids that want parents, but have none. And, adoption in the spiritual sense - an excitement for a God that has made it possible for us, who were alone and lost, to become His children. Really, I learned more about God in our journey TO our kids, than I ever have in my whole life. Now, is the tough stuff - seeking out God for the normal, everyday stuff...

Looking forward to a lifetime of growing and learning with my kids!

Ed weekend.

2010-06-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was Ed's birthday and then today was Ed's first Father's Day!

I'm so grateful and in love with Ed. Seeing him as a father has made me love him even more than I ever did before! I really wanted to have a special weekend for Ed, but to be honest, it's actually really hard to just focus on Ed when you have 4 monkeys around. So, we did have some small presents and a couple of friends around, but for the most part the weekend really was just business as usual around here. Thanks to our new friend Melissa, from Hope, we did get to do a really fun ropes course at a camp in Eden Prairie, with the Nelsons, on Ed's birthday. Graham took some really awesome pictures of the morning and I think we'll get those posted soon. Samantha is AMAZING! She was, I don't know how far off the ground, running through the air, she's totally crazy. We had a lot of fun!

Tonight, I "let" Ed play softball so I had my first experience putting the kids to bed by myself. I think everyone is asleep at this moment (2 hours later) so I will call it a success!

Been doing a lot of thinking this weekend about how I can be more "sunshine" to my kids rather than a "cloudy, rainy day". Need to pray more about bringing my kids joy in obedience rather than just strict obedience. I heard a couple of times this weekend, "Mom's mad everyday". I know that's not true, and I know they know that's not true, but I do need to work on the joy. Tonight when I went in to tell the little kids for the second time to go to sleep, I still said it with a smile, and guess what? No one got mad! They need to listen, but I'm going to try to smile at them more :)

Also, thanks to all you women who stopped and chatted with me for a minute or two at church today - it's so nice to get those chances, even when they are small!

Good night!

18 shots!

2010-06-18T18:59:00.001-07:00

That's right our kids all together received 18 shots today and all 4 had their blood drawn! They all got lots of books and stickers and presents for making it through... but I'm the one that spent 5 HOURS at the doctor's today - where's my Barbie??

Also, we got 20 more books at the library today - which means we have 45 books from the library at our house. What do you think the chances are of finding and returning all those books???

What's new with the Leberts?

2010-06-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

We are doing well!

We have all stayed very busy the past couple of weeks. Now that the weather is nice the kids are learning to do new outdoor stuff everyday. Camila taught herself how to ride a bike, Pamela roller blades, bikes and has given skateboarding a go, Samantha picked up roller blading pretty fast and Sebas is almost riding a bike by himself, but prefers the scooter :) When they aren't rolling up and down the sidewalk they are in the pool - which is no surprise. They've also learned how to play MarioKart :) and have started digging through our basement for treasures galore! It's amazing what kids can dig up to play with. Tonight it was old yearbooks and dog kennels.

We haven't had a meltdown from Sebas in almost two weeks - which is huge! Sebas has turned from a pretty moody, grumpy boy, to a pretty happy kid. It's really fun to see. We work on English everyday with the kids, but we have a very long ways to go. We are going to try out summer school in a week and see how that goes. In general, we aren't spending a lot of time with other people because our kids just do so well with just us and we aren't ready to share them too much yet :) We are slowly meeting friends and relatives - which has had its ups and downs.

Tomorrow we have another trip to the doctor for shots (don't tell the kids), so I think that won't be too fun, but we'll try to make up for it by feeding them lots of junk food later in the day :)

A hundred funny things happen everyday with our kids and Ed and I always say, we have to remember that for the blog - but of course by the time the kids go to bed we forget...

Thanks for following along still and we'll try to write more often!

Happy Birthday Pamela!

2010-06-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we celebrated Pamela! We now have a 12 year old girl!

I wanted to actually write this post yesterday, but our day was pretty filled with events from morning till night. Pamela started out the day by taking her customary 2 hours to get ready :) Which was made even longer because I promised her I would curl her hair for her birthday. Anyway, she looked really beautiful and was really excited about her day. They played video games, had a special breakfast and lunch, went to see a movie at Riverview and then had the Nelson boys over for some cake and to play. Pamela got a pair of roller blades AND a skateboard for her birthday so we all got to try them out for awhile for the small period of time that the rain stopped. She actually got so many wonderful presents (probably too many) from friends and relatives - I think it was a really crazy nice day for her. By then end of the afternoon I could tell that the other kids were very tired of all her presents and when Ed came home they all ran to tell him what THEY wanted for THEIR birthdays... really the other kids did such a good job at accepting that Pamela was getting things and they weren't. I was really proud of them all. The best part of the evening was the dinner. We went to a Colombian restaurant because Pamela's first love, really, is Colombia. We tried to go to Maria's, but it was closed. So, we ended up at La Gran Colombia. We were the only people in the place the whole night, which was pretty fun. The waitress was super sweet and helped us figure out what to order because the kids literally wanted one of everything. The kids faces really just lit up when they tasted the Colombian food - the miss it so much! We have to try harder at figuring out how to make some of it. After they were done eating Sebas and Pamela got up and started dancing to the music - it was really cute. Soon enough all the kids were dancing and then they brought out another piece of cake for Pamela for her birthday. I'm pretty sure there were tears of joy in her eyes at the end of that. (By the way I think the count is at 7 for the number of pieces of birthday cake she ate yesterday!!!)

We finished off the night by all sleeping together in the attic and watching a movie. I was sure that would be a disaster, but after a couple of minutes of walking around everyone fell asleep, and I am really proud of them and very sore from sleeping on the floor!

We do have pictures and I will try very hard to get Ed to put them up tonight.

swimming in the rain

2010-06-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

Our kids are crazy for swimming! Yesterday, eventhough it was cold and raining they insisted we go to the lake. So, at 8:30 in the morning, there we are at Lake Nokomis - the only people around - swimming in the cold rain. I, sat on the beach in my sweater and enjoyed my time "alone". So, today, Ed and I decided we would buy the kids a pool for the yard, because really there is nothing that they like to do more. Of course, today is cold and rainy - but that doesn't stop us! We've been outside all day in our rain jackets, rain boots and umbrellas setting up a pool that I was sure noone would use today, but I have have feeling that even if it's not ready until 7pm and it's freezing cold out - they will be swimming! I'm also getting some hot chocolate ready for when they realize just how cold and crazy they are :)

Thanks for the e-mails...

2010-06-03T18:54:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to write a post to give a general thanks to all you that have written me e-mails and offered your help, your friendship and so much more! The problem I have at the moment is that I just don't have time to respond... we are just so busy and by the end of the night I have so many very kind e-mails to respond to, I just don't know where to start! Thanks for your patience everyone. I do want to see you - I do want to talk to you - I do want to answer your phone calls - I want to accept your offers of help! We will get there someday - hopefully not in the very distant future, but for now, please don't be offended and I will try to return calls and e-mails when I can.

In my very real world - I will say that I am totally exhausted, but the truth is we are all having a lot of fun, most days. We're swimming, going to parks, taking lots of pictures, dancing and always cheering on our family! If you see me drive by in my mini-van full of kids, feel free to honk and wave - you'll be sure to get tons of screams and smiles back!

More Photos Now On Our PicasaWeb Public Gallary

2010-06-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

I decided that I'll just start making my photo albums on picasaweb public so that our friends who follow our story can see our photos without having to always upload them and add links here on blogspot. So I made our Colombia album public and we just added another album from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden yesterday. Here is the link to our public albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/edlebert.

2010-06-02 Yard and Sculpture Garden

First at home tantrum

2010-05-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

Tonight Sebas had his first real tantrum at home. That's not bad, considering we've been home for a week and in Colombia he had one every 3 days or so. We saw it coming on all day, in little bits and pieces, but he fell apart at bedtime. We let them watch a movie before bedtime and we're thinking that's definitely part of the problem. Not the whole problem, but part of it. No more movies at bedtime - it's going to have to be a daytime thing only.

Other than that we had another great day. I'm still trying to get over being sick, but I'm hopeful I'll be good in the next couple of days. We've had a ton of fun going to a couple of lakes and swimming the last couple of days - the kids really still can not believe that it's ever cold in Minnesota or that the moon ever comes out here! I'm also hopeful that it will cool off at least a little bit soon!

Isn't it funny that we have kids?

2010-05-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

I was looking for snacks in the fridge tonight, thinking about what I could get away with eating now that the kids are asleep, and I thought, "This is so funny". It feels like my old life, snacks, looking for something to watch on TV, but I have 4 kids upstairs sleeping - that's just crazy!

During the day, I had that same feeling in a different way. Sami was upstairs and I was about to sit down at the computer to do nothing important, when I thought, "I have a 5 year old daughter upstairs! What am I doing down here??" I ran upstairs and I got to play with my beautiful, funny, crazy 5 year old!

We're so happy!

State of the Union, Week 5

2010-05-26T20:45:00.001-07:00

The kids are doing well here at home. They all miss Colombia very much, but we are still generally doing better here than we were in Colombia. We all have lots of chores to do here and we cook our own meals. Side Note: If any of you are thinking about adopting kids from Colombia, I suggest renting an apartment and cooking your own meals instead of living in a residencia like we did. We are definitely feeling more like a normal family. However, since coming home I've only been at work for four hours! Thanks Lockheed! But next week I'm going to try to return full time -- pray for Amanda :)

We've received lots of help from lots of people. Thanks! The Nelsons only live two blocks from us and have been "on call" for whatever we need. One good observation is that our kids don't seem to attach to other adults here like they did in Colombia. They seem appropriately shy around other adults, but that might be because nobody speaks Spanish here except for us.

So far the only difficulty has been jumping to four kids when we had none to begin with. They don't yet know all our expectations so they're testing the limits. When we're all in the house, they still all need constant supervision because they don't yet know how we expect them to act. But we're remaining consistent with our expectations and trying to encourage/praise them when they listen to us and respect the rest of the family. Anyway, we are very fortunate to not have to deal with epic problems at this stage. Because of our children's past, I'm sure bigger problems are on the horizon, but they haven't arrived yet. It's still hard, but we know it could be a lot worse and we're very thankful that it isn't, because we're wimps. Amanda and I are very broken hearted for the difficulties of other adopted families and are trying to figure out ways for our family to support them.

We decided we're going to throw the kids into summer ESL classes through the St. Paul public school system. It's only four hours a day, four days a week for three or four weeks. But wow, what a nighmare this has been. First, the school district will not let us decide what grade the children can enroll in. Even though Pamela started school when she was eight years old, and even though she just started fourth grade in Colombia when we adopted her, they insist on putting her in seventh grade. I argued with them for over a half an hour about it, and I finally won by printing out their Colombian report cards. Also, they told me it was illegal for me to not have them in school RIGHT NOW, because there is still school for two more weeks. I told them they could go ahead and call the police. They don't care that they have never had a family before and they literally just arrived in the US less than a week ago. Apparently, what's most important for the kids is that they participate in a classroom in a language they don't understand for the final two weeks of the school year. I literally had to solve the problem by unenrolling them and applying only for school next year. This decision carried some risk because I might not be accepted into the school they need for next year, but at least I wont be sent to jail.

Amanda and I are hanging in there. Amanda has shown me over and over again that she can handle the kids wonderfully by herself. I'm not worried about being at work all day because I know she can handle it. We have spent our extremely limited free time after the kids go to bed catching up on LOST. What a waste of time. We didn't watch any TV while in Colombia, and that finale makes me never want to watch TV again. But I realize we really need to take our nights more seriously and spend more quality time together rather than watching TV. Tonight we didn't have anymore LOST to watch but Amanda has been sick all day and crashed as soon as the kids were asleep.

Pamela is doing good. She is frequently annoyed with Camila, which is both normal and a good sign she isn't nervous about the family anymore. She is also slowly learning that she can't always get what she wants. But she is still super fun and super good. She loves to help out with chores, wear Amanda's high heels, and give impromptu soap opera performances. Today she performed a scene where she fell in love with a tub of margarine. She also loves to listen to Colombian accordion music with the volume dialed to 11. Yesterday she said she wanted to write to her foster Mom and to Natalia, the assistant at our hotel, but then decided she didn't want to and hasn't brought it up again. We're continuing to encourage her to write. I think I'll write a letter to the foster mom first to demonstrate that we wont be mad at her if she wants to write to the people she loves in Colombia.

Camila is doing well also. She is obsessed with touching everything all the time, but we think she's just an exploratory type of person. She gets along well with her siblings and is really a pleasure to have around. She's learning some more English phrases every day. Her new favorite word is "Sorry". She says it all the time. I told her she doesn't need to be sorry so much but she says she just likes to say it because it's fun. She has not had any more meltdowns since the really bad day in Colombia and in general has been respectful to everyone. From time to time she still shows her arrogant/manipulative side, but it has definitely improved.

Sebastian is doing better here than he was in Colombia. He is still the most defiant child, but he hasn't really had any meltdowns since being here. He, like Pamela, is learning that he can't always get what he wants and that is sometimes hard for him. But timeouts are definitely working with him - after only a few minutes he's usually ready to talk to us about his behavior. He is completely in love with Digory. Whenever he is looking for something to do he just defaults to playing with Digory. Digory also sleeps in his room every night, which is a win-win-win situation. Sebastian wants to sleep with Digory because he loves him. Digory wants to sleep with Sebastian because his room has air conditioning. And we want Digory to sleep in there because Sebastian goes to bed so well as long as Digory is in there. Perfecto.

Samantha could quite possibly be the most easy, low-maintenance kids to have around ever. Even when she's defiant, she laughs because she's having so much fun. Also, she got some new sunglasses which doubled her cool factor. She loves to be picked up and tossed around, which is easy because she's so small. And she responds fairly well to consequences. She is 100% totally in love with me now and she doesn't seem afraid of me at all, except for when I'm disciplining her (I don't do anything scary, she just doesn't like it when we confront her bad behavior).

So, in general, things are better than we'd thought they would be, but it's still hard for everyone because we're a new family and we are all learning what it should look like. We are slowly starting to introduce the kids to a few people, so if you haven't met them yet I'm sure it won't be long. :) Thanks for everything! We really really really could not be doing this without such great friends and family.

One more note: I added some more photos and videos to our Colombia picasa web album, but I probably won't be adding any more photos to that album. Picasaweb has a limit on how many items you can have in an album and besides, we're not in Colombia anymore. But we'll still put photo's and youtube videos up here from time to time.