Broken Trees, The Yucky Bird, and "I'm not Howdy!!!"

Ok, so our family has all sorts of funny comments and such from all the kids. Here are a couple we have heard lately. A couple of weeks ago, Luke was sitting at the table and looked out the window as he does often. All of a sudden, he looked at Mom and said "Mommy, the trees are broken!" It took us a few minutes to realize he was talking about the leaves. The tree was bare. According to the kids, the trees didn't loose their leaves in Colombia and Luke hadn't noticed that ours did yet.

At church this week Jason was standing around and one of the moms in the church walked up to him and said "Howdy". We don't use howdy very often in our house and he thought she was calling him Howdy. He looked at her and said "I'm not Howdy!!!" The mom told us about this story at a gathering that night.

Here is the last story. A couple of days after we brought the kids home from Colombia, Brianne wore a t-shirt she had bought. It was a pac-man shirt only one of the pellet things was the Jayhawk bird. Ever since that day, the Jayhawk bird was know as the "Yucky Bird"(Brianne came up with the name. They didn't even know who Willie the Wildcat was yet, but they knew who the Yucky Bird was!) The other day we were in the car and Luke started talking to himself. He does it alot in the car. This time he was talking about Willie and the Yucky Bird. Apparently, Wildcats shoot Yucky Birds, cook them on the grill, and eat them with a fork. We have no idea what inspired his imagination for this one. He has a BIG imagination. Just thought I would share the stories with you. Hope you enjoyed them!!! Oh, and here are some pictures of the kids playing in the "broken trees".

One year ago, we first heard about my siblings. We had been told there would be some news soon and then all of a sudden we got the calll!!!! We were so excited! Next month will be one year. I can't believe how fast our year has gone!

Where has time gone?????

O.k. So... it hasn't been that long since I updated, has it? Anyways, the kids have been doing great. We never hear Spanish anymore, except a couple words. They can still communicate in Spanish somewhat, but not fluently.
All of the kids are now reading. Some are farther than others, but that is to be expected. They are also learning math and other such things.

The kids have had so many firsts in the last 10 months we have had them. One of those was when they met Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Duane, and their cousins, Courtney and Nicholas, in Ohio for the first time. They loved it! They had a blast playing games and running around in the backyard with their cousins and snuggling with their grandparents.

We have a neighborhood pool. They got to spend the summer swimming all the time. Everyday they would get up and ask if we were going swimming.

Tatiana talked on the phone for the first time the other day to her father who has been out of town on business for 2 and a half weeks. She thought it was so funny. Things you take for granted and do not think of as firsts, you suddenly discover they have never done.

Another first is Awana. Awana is a program for kids where they come once a week and play games, have a devotional, and say the verses they learned through out the week. The kids love it! They work so hard on their verses during the week. When you have just learned English, it is hard to memorize those verses in New King James! This year I (Kaitlyn) am helping in Luke's group. It is so much fun!

Life is one big adventure to them. Every night they go to bed and ask what we are doing tomorrow! It really doesn't matter what you have planned, they are excited about it.

So anyways, here is the much needed update. I will add some pictures. Hope you enjoy them!



Here is a picture of us, Grandma, Grandpa, Courtney, and Nicholas.


This is us at Easter.

Brianne bought Gymboree watermellon outfits for the girls this summer. They were so cute in them!

Colombia Reunion

This weekend we went to the CHI Colombia Reunion. We had a lot of fun! It was so cool to meet the families that had followed our blog while we were in Colombia and also the people we have followed. There were somewhere around 20 families and lots of kids! Our blog name is Eight is not Enough and therefore everyone looked at us and said "You are Eight is not Enough!" or "You are the family with all the kids!" It is funny how it works. Anyways, here are a couple pics.

In June, we were able to travel to Missouri for a reunion hosted by a family we met in Colombia. There were five families including us. This is the family that we met while we were there. They were adopting five. It was great to get to see them again!