bullet points

* BoyTwo spent the past four days in the principal's office. eye roll, sigh, upward glance to heaven...

*BoyOne only had two incidences at school. Really, he does quite well most of the time. It does seem that both boys have bad days on the same days. Although I try to track them so that I can figure out what triggers their 'bad day' I have yet to figure it out. Maybe they plan it??

*Four asked me the other day to please pick her nose for her. Apparently she had some 'glass' poking her (very dry boogers??)

*We were still sick at our house last week. I thought we were through with it all, false alarm. Friday, I tried to send them all to school again, but by 2 I had been called to pick up three different kids. Being the smart mom that I am, I checked out the fourth kid when I picked up the third sick one so that I didn't have to make a fourth trip to the school for the day.

*BoyTwo and Four have been caught picking their noses and eating it. Ugh. Makes me want to barf. BoyTwo has also taken to wiping his boogers on the walls (which I guess is at least more age appropriate than the forty year old man that used to rent our home who wiped his boogers on the walls). Gross!! Upon discussing this with both children separately, they both told me how much they love to eat their boogers. Gross! Stop it!!!

*We are dealing with some chauvinistic behavior with the boys lately. Much more with the younger one than the older one. BoyOne has good logic, as the orphanage director told us, and that really comes in handy. He 'gets' things much more quickly than his brother. He's also older and has had a family before. Anyhow, it's super annoying more than anything. Fortunately Huz is a rock star and is the best example for them. BoyOne now willingly does what some might consider to be 'girl' jobs. That's huge.

*BoyTwo is going through the automatic no stage. Maybe it could also be called the two year old stage. Here is an example of a conversation we just had with him yesterday.

me: "BoyTwo, do you want Santa Claus to come bring you a present?"

now lest you think that language may still be a barrier, it is, sometimes. The above question was 100% understood.

BoyTwo: "NO!"

two seconds later

BoyTwo: "Mami? Santa Claus bring BoyTwo a present?"

*Thanksgiving was great!! I got to host and it was so much fun and I'm not even being sarcastic. I love to cook! It was so great to have Huz's family here and the weather was good and the dogs all got along and my sister even came up! The company was fabulous, even though the 28 pound turkey took TEN HOURS to cook, instead of the suggested 7. Way to throw me off schedule, bird.

*While we waited for people to arrive for dinner yesterday, I had time to cut BoyOne, Four and Three's hair. Check.

*Funny thing my youngest nephew said yesterday after having played and watched much ping pong, "I bet the best person at ping pong is Jesus Christ. Or maybe Santa." hahaha

*Today we took the family skiing. We live right by a ski resort. Three of them actually. Last year we had passes and it was really fun, so this year, we did it again. We buy our passes during the summer and it saves us 50%. Sweeeeeeet. The boys have never been skiing before. BoyOne opted to snowboard this year, as did One. Two and BoyTwo wanted to, but we told them no. Two is really good at skiing and we wanted her to have another year to practice jumps and just hone in on those skills. Next year we'll let her try. BoyTwo? Well, his large motor skills are largely lacking and his balance is awful, so the idea of trying to help him on a snowboard just didn't appeal to either of us, so he gets to ski. Good choice. Only one run is open at the resort. Huz took BoyOne and One over earlier so that they could get started. Back at home, we had to wait for BoyTwo to find his gloves that he left outside last night, have a time out for throwing things, put his snow clothes back on. (He took them off because he didn't want to wear them.) When we finally got there, we discovered BoyTwo had left his gloves at home. Sooooo, Huz went back home, with BoyTwo, to get them. I took the three youngest girls to get started. It only took Two a minute to remember how to be crazy fast and then she was off. Three and Four clung to me as though they had no feeling in their legs. At the bottom of the hill, they closed the chair lift due to strong winds. Bummer. Yes, that's right, I did not make it down one single run. But, we forged on, carrying our skiis about a third of the way up the run. At the top of the hill Three and Four decided they had to use the bathroom, which involved going down stairs in ski boots, taking off all layers of clothing in order to use the bathroom, putting everything back on and going back up the stairs. We went back outside and found Huz, BoyTwo, and our cousin and BoyOne, One and Two. Huz took the two little girls, I took BoyTwo and the bigs were all off. Three 'remembered' how to ski about 1/4 the way down the hill, which was a beautiful thing. The lift never reopened and by 3:15 the resort had announced it was closing due to the wind. Four slowly remembered how to ski, One was able to come down the hill with only one smallish crash, Two and Three were awesome, BoyOne was going off small jumps AND landing them, if you can believe that!! BoyTwo did about as good as an ostrich on skiis. We can't wait for more snow to fall and the wind to go away!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

p.s. about two weeks ago, Four gave me a picture she had drawn. It was of me and Huz on our wedding day. There were fire works and I was pregnant (?!). Just now she said to me, "Mom, this is so embarrassing! Can you get that picture down for me? I forgot to draw my arms!" It was really funny. promise.