Again, internet intervals -- grab them while they're there!

It’s Saturday now and we’ve done our normal breakfast routine at the restaurant here. The staff all know us so well and are there to greet us each morning knowing exactly what we want. They know to bring over Rick’s hot sauce (not his normal Tabasco, but the closest he could find here which is Picante), and now they are delivering him 2 orange juices instead of one (since he’s had a cold for the past few days). There’s a lady who is always there at breakfast at the same time as us and we’ve said hello a few times, but just yesterday she offered us coffee and today she came to our table and talked to us. She lives at the hotel here and is a very nice lady. She did not realize we were adopting and thought maybe Rick might be Colombian. She spoke very good English and it was so great to have a conversation in English. Those very rarely happen here. The lady could not believe we were adopting the three children and commented on how well-behaved and mannerly they were. She said she’s seen many adoptive children here during their stay at the hotel and our children were by far the best she’s seen. She told us some horror stories of how unruly some of the other adoptive children have been and how their parents have reacted. She commented how each child even favored us in looks, which we told her we strongly believed that God had gone before us to prepare our family and had knit us completely together. She said how much it shows that God was in control which we see more and more of each day! Thank you so much Lord for the gifts you’ve given. Our God is so faithful and is the giver of good gifts!!!
The kids have been great so far. There have been a few times when they have gotten in trouble but for the most part, they are just being normal kids. Karen is not a morning person at all and is the very hard one to wake up and get going in the morning. She just refuses and wants to stay in bed. She does have a stubborn streak and every once in a while we’ve noticed she just reaches that very defiant point where she just wants to oppose whatever you desire her to do. She puts on the angry face and is noncompliant at that point, and we’ve had to correct her at times for this behavior. Like I indicated earlier, yesterday she refused to get up and get dressed and was just a grouchy girl for a good portion of the morning so she lost out on her privilege to go to the pool that day. She tried all day to pour on the charm with both her daddy and her mommy which we know were filled with hopeful intentions that we would cave in to our earlier decision to revoke her pool privileges for the day. When it did come time for the others to go swimming, she still thought she had a chance to go too, and when she was told she was not going because of her earlier behavior as we had reminded her all day of, she started bawling and jumped in her bed sulking. She even had to go over to sit poolside to see the others and that made her unhappy for a few minutes. She came around about 10 minutes later and was okay and said she wanted to be a good girl tomorrow.
This morning she woke up without us even having to go get her. She said she wanted to go in the pool today! She even had a smile this morning and got ready without any hassles. Wow, hope this holds out! What the heck will we do when we have no pool to barter with??? She really is a great little girl and has the most charming personality but it is apparent she just drags in the morning! We painted fingernails the other day and she loved that, and she absolutely loves fixing our hair. She loves pretending she’s the hairdresser and she does a great job of it. She loves putting on “la crema” lotion and always wants us to smell how good she smells with it on. She’s our little princess! And funny, she’s so funny with the cutest little charm. She likes to have fun and laugh and she fits so nicely in our family. She loves to cuddle too and favors daddy over her mommy, but with each day she draws closer to her mommy!
Fabian is all boy! He’s loud at times and loves to pick at his sisters! He’s very energetic and likes to have fun too. Sometimes he gets in trouble for bossing his sister. He likes to make faces at his little brother and they are usually really mean faces which make Luis cry. We have had to emphasize that Fabian (and Karen) must stay back from Luis at least one foot and not get in Luis’ face as they had been doing. He is picking up English at such a rapid rate. He does get scolded at times and when he does it’s almost funny. He does not like it at all! He either sits and listens to us explain why he got in trouble and all the time he’s shaking his head okay and his eyes get a bit watery (but he guards us from seeing that he’s almost about to tear up). He either has that reaction or sometimes he says, “Si Senora” and then goes off on singing very loudly about 2 bars of the first mariachi song that comes to mind. It’s cute. Only about 30 seconds of singing and he’s back to normal. His coping methods are just too cute!
Little Luis -- our little man! Poor little guy now has a rash all on his face mainly and we are suspecting it to be caused from the laundry detergent they use here at the hotel. It seems worse when he rises from his naps and from his sleep, or when he rubs his face on shirts we’ve had laundered here at the hotel. We’re hoping it gets better and it does seem to be doing better today, but poor baby looks pitiful.
We have witnessed so many firsts for him lately and prayers have definitely been answered! See, when we met the kids Luis had a fever and wasn’t feeling well for the next day or so. With medicine his fever broke and he’s been just fine since then. There are days that his teeth are bothering him and he does seem to be cutting more of them. He already has 4 on top and 2 on bottom. So back to when we got him… he had very poor muscle control and wasn’t very strong at all (or so we thought). I had been silently praying that God give him strength and bring him along in his maturity, and I remember how that second night Rick said to me, “Honey, why do you think Luis is so developmentally delayed? “ He was asking if I knew of any medical reasons why he wasn’t strong. I remember saying that his paperwork didn’t indicate any delays and that we should pray for him. (Little did Rick know that I too suspected something might be causing a delay and I too had been secretly praying for our young son’s health and strength). Almost within a day we witnessed miraculous turnarounds from Luis and he has now shown us so many of his new tricks. God just entered that boy’s body and strengthened him immensely! Of course, at the same time we stopped feeding him the all the baby food and he now gets to eat real food so I’m sure that helped! He loves his morning eggs and especially loves spaghetti noodles and meat sauce when we have that for dinner! He slurps his noodles up so cute and chews up really nicely. He’s just our little man!
Upon meeting Luis he would not even sit without assistance and his progression to that meeting the goal of sitting on his own looked to be at least another month or two away. That sure changed overnight! Thank you dear Jesus for your miraculous touch to our baby! He supports himself now and sits on his own with great balance. The next day he learned to stand and keep standing with assistance. The next day he learned to roll over and roll over. Now we have to let him wear himself out at night by just making ourselves the barricades on the bed and let him roll all around in the center. He loves it! He’s also learning to pull himself up and it won’t be long until he’s pulling to a stand. He’s beginning to crawl too. He can scoot backwards but hasn’t completely mastered the front ways action. He lunges toward sometime from a sitting stance if he wants something or wants to go to someone.
Each day brings a new achievement for Luis and he now smiles all the time. He really is a good-natured little baby and sleeps all through the night real well. He tends to not want to nap during the day. With his body strengthened we’ve noticed he doesn’t go down for long naps any more. I think he’s afraid he’ll miss out on anything or he’ll miss a meal maybe. Ahhh, the life of a baby. What joy!
He talks all the time nowadays too and has been doing that for the past few days. Each day he talks more. A real charmer he is -- even with his rash on his face, there were many other babies at the mall (mostly girl babies) that had their parents wheel them over to see Luis! And our little guy poured on the charm and made eyes at each of those little senoritas when they’d come over to meet him! I just wish my pictures were able to load on so you could see exactly what I mean! He’s just so cute and has the most beautiful eyes and a captivating smile.
Rick’s got a cold now and says it’s because he’s been without having his Tabasco on everything he eats. Right!!! Wink-wink… I’ve had it too but I think it’s more from having to leave the A/C on at night. It’s most worse at night and not bad during the day when we’re active.
The kids have really picked up on the blessing we say before the meals. They are just sponges for the English language and have really learned a lot so far. They are so cute when they say the prayer all by themselves nowadays. They’ve learned the one that goes: Come Lord Jesus Be Our Guest, Let This Food To Us Be Blessed! Amen!
We are so proud of their accomplishments and each day we thank God for His blessings! They are true little Colombian gems of children! I am uncertain how much they know or believe in God. At times we have had a christian television show on and they seemed to poke fun at the lady singing, and at that time I silently prayed that God anoint their souls and open their minds to receive His words instead of casting Him out of their lives or mocking those who believe. Our God works in ways unknown to us, but as I said that prayer for the children to be open to our christian beliefs, I was about to turn the channel because I wanted to avoid their unappreciative responses. The pastor was now speaking and had invited guests up to the stage for some powerful anointing for whatever ailed them, and I noticed our 2 older children were both turned with much interest in the TV. Thank you Lord for how You show me You are in control and even when doubt enters me You always make it clear You are in control! It’s just unbelievable at times how blessed we truly are and how well prepared our children were to join our family! We know God is at work and will continue to work with our family as He so desires!
The kids got to go to the pool a little earlier today because we planning a late afternoon at the mall with our interpreter Alexandra. We normally don’t let the kids swim until at least 3pm because the sun’s intensity isn’t so bad then as it is at mid-day. Today we broke with the rules and let the kids swim a little earlier. Wow did they get dark in that timeframe. Even with the 60 SPF on they certainly did dark.
Rick was out there with the kids in the pool and I was in here typing this blog entry for whenever we get the internet back up, and Luis was in here taking a nap when Marissa came banging on the door saying her dad wanted the camera right away. I didn’t know what to think, but then she explained there was a huge iguana in the trees over next to the pool. Actually there were 3 iguanas gathered right there at that time and one of them was very aggressive towards Rick and a few more of the braver guys. Of course our Fabian was right in there with his daddy. Got some great photos though! Maybe that many huge iguanas in the mango tree will stop him from climbing to pick fruit. He doesn’t really like those iguanas and one of the boys who was poolside with them told of how he’d been chased by an iguana who bit him in the butt before.
Well, better run along. Throughout the day I’ve come back to write a paragraph or two of this entry and we just got a phone call from the interpreter who cannot come today to accompany us to the mall. I’m not too disappointed but the kids sure are. The malls get very crowded on the weekends and I really didn’t want to be in that mix. The kids wanted to go to the arcade with tons of rides and fun stuff just for kids. They have a few rides there too and we have tickets already and they were able to do just a few things the other day when we were there. They even said they liked it better there and they would be willing to give up a day in the pool for a day there!
Speaking of the pool, I just have to comment on how well they swim now. Their first time ever in a pool was just under 2 weeks ago and for a week now both kids have been swimming. Fabian is far better a swimmer than his sister Karen but still, not bad for only one week in a pool and to swim in the deep end as he does. He even dives in. Again, not the best but we’ll work on his form. Karen likes to do flips under water and she loves to float on her back. They just amaze me at how quick they learn new things!

More later but for now I want to get this entry in because we haven't had internet all day until just now and it's almost 8pm Sat. night. Our love goes out to everyone and thank you so much for the comments on the blog. It's certainly a treat to read them and to know you're praying for us!