A Day in the Yard

Sasha continues to be a joyful addition to our family.  He seems to love being a part of a family, loves our food, loves our animals, and loves affection.  We are currently spending most of our time at home and letting him ease into our family life.  We have had a few visitors and he is quick to give them hugs but does not talk to them much.  Once he is comfortable around someone, he does not stop talking though!  He has spent some time building with Lincoln Logs and Legos, playing on Jocelyn's bicycle,  helping cook meals, and driving the electric cars in the back yard.  We did our first day of school today and he is a quick learner.  I do not think he will have any trouble catching up quickly.  Then we went for a drive and I showed him our church.  I am thinking about taking him up tomorrow and walking through it with him to let him get his bearings.  This afternoon I went outside to rake some leaves and before I knew it, all the kids were out there helping.  It turned into a lot of fun and we got so much accomplished!  At one point, as we were working, Sasha said, "Papa no work, Papa no eat."  He definitely keeps track of who is working and who is not!  He is so funny.  I am not sure how to explain to him that Papa is working so we have a yard to rake!  As a treat, we headed to Sonic for ice cream.  Turns out though, Sasha only wanted a sprite as a reward for his hard work.


I had been letting Sasha sleep in warm up pants and a thermal shirt.  He had noticed that the girls sleep in pajamas (I did not know if 11 year old boys would want pj's still or not) and when we were shopping for a pair of jeans that would fit him, he looked at me and said, "Sasha pajamas?"  How could we refuse?!  He chose angry bird pj's and tiger feet house shoes.  :)  I love that he will ask for what he wants but what he wants are always simple things.  He is such a precious boy.  He spent the first two nights sleeping on a pallet on our bedroom floor.  Then the next night he said he wanted to sleep in his room upstairs and he did.  (He has never slept in a room alone.)  The next day, he told us when he went to bed that he had played his DS and who knows how long he stayed up playing.  So last night Scott told him he was setting a timer for 30 minutes and he could play his DS until the timer went off.  Scott planned to go up and take the DS at that point so Sasha could go on to sleep.  Well, Scott got busy and did not go back up right at the 30 minute mark and before we knew it, Sasha had come down and handed the DS to Scott.  Then he went back upstair and went to sleep.  Such a sweet boy.  Truly no discipline issues so far.  He takes it all in when we are reprimanding Jocelyn and Ellie about something and quickly falls into line with what we are telling them.  It just touches my heart how happy he seems to finally be a part of a family.

Ellie Grace hard at work....raking the leaves OUT of the pile!  (Can you tell she is going through a pink phase?!)

Jocelyn and Sasha working hard with our fire burning in the background.

The mighty leaf rakers after a successful afternoon.

This deck, table, and chairs were all blanketed in leaves.  The little girls took care of it completely on their own!  They did an awesome job.

We were still outside when Scott got home from work and Sasha ran to him yelling, "Papa, Daddy!"  He threw his arms around him and was so happy to see him.  It is a beautiful thing to see how happy he seems but it is so hard to think about all the kids we left behind who can not say that yet.  Anyone have an extra bedroom and some extra love?