I  finally remembered to open up the box my mom had sent over here a few months ago.  She has been cleaning up the house and packing up our things for us.  The box was full of my old drawings and paintings that I did while I was in high school and college.  I used lots of charcoal and did a variety of still lives, including nude models.  I stored most of them away but got rid of some too.  Here is a sampling.

   I forgot to blog about this.  Scottie rebounded just a couple of days after his initial IV fluid.  I ended up giving him four more sessions of 200ml IV fluid at home too.  He seems much better and has less of those little vomiting of fluid events he used to have.  He is eating so much that we think he is slightly heavier now.  I have been getting him some good stuff, white chicken breast and low sodium turkey breast, and he loves them.  He even likes the fancy canned food that Stuart got him too.  Every time we walk toward the kitchen, Scottie seems to sense it even during his sleep.  He will walk to the kitchen and will bug us until we give him more food.  Now sometimes when we want to make a quick trip to kitchen, we have to sneak in quickly before Scottie sees us.

    Connor has been waking up with dry pull-ups for a long time, so we finally decided to let him stay in underwear.  Connor is so excited to be a big boy like Logan.  He is very independence driven and is getting quite self sufficient.  He puts on his underwear and clothes.  He goes potty on his own and washes his hands afterward.  He still needs help with No.2 but I am definitely happy to help with this one to ensure good cleaning.  It has been days now, and Connor is doing very well.  He is really growing up!

    Since we live in the valley, we drive through some small hills.  After the Disneyland Pirate ride, the boys kept remembering the “drops” and they now refer to one of the hills as the pirate ride.  They get very excited for the drives to and from school everyday.  They cheer with each other while we go uphill and throughout the downhill.  But when we now ask if they like the Pirate ride, they both still say “No it has drops”.

    We did not have plans today, so we took our time at home.  These days Connor has learned the joy of playing Xbox, and he enjoys playing the games with Logan.  Logan starts to get used to sharing a split screen with Connor now and he will assist Connor when he is stuck.  But he definitely wants some solo time to do the missions.  After some game time in the morning, the boys rode the bikes to the nearby school to play.  Logan had some basketball time with Stuart while Connor and I rode around the school for more exercise.  We attempted to play with Speedminton too but it was windy. 

    In the afternoon, we all worked on cleaning up our yard.  The boys and I put gloves on and they helped me pull weeds.  They both had fun and were quite efficient; we collected a big load of yard trimmings.  They both kept asking for more things to help until I ran out of ideas.  Stuart just finished mowing the lawn, so Connor decided to sweep up the cut grass on the ground just to keep himself busy.  Afterward, we got ready to go out for dinner at Pacific Catch.  The boys made some nice drawings until our food arrived.  After a good meal, we purchased some groceries before coming home.  It was a nice day off.

     We had a busy day today.  After Logan’s basketball game this morning, we came home to rest for a little bit before heading out to attend the belated birthday party for Rohan.  It was at Pump It Up Jr.  The party started with a scavenger hunt, then the kids were guided into the bouncy houses room.  Logan took his shoes off and ran off to play while Connor took 10 seconds of hesitation before joining the crowd.  The entire hour and a half everyone ran around the room and participated in the scavenger hunt in between.  The kids were all getting sweaty.  Logan and Connor mostly stayed together, but played with Rohan and other kids sometimes.  When it was time to go to the party room, it was nice to see that Logan not only grabbed his own shoes but also Connor’s.  Once they sat down at the table and the staff started passing out cheese pizza, Logan asked Connor if he wanted one and he pulled Connor’s arm up high to make sure that he got one too.  Logan ended up having four slices of pizza and Connor had two along with some fruits.  They both passed on the white cake.  After eating, they enjoyed getting pirate loot from the treasure box and played with them all the way home.

    We only could take a short nap, and had to get ready for Connor’s soccer.  Stuart and Logan went off to practice basketball in another part of the park.  Connor and I sat down to watch the earlier class practice.  When his class started, Connor went up quickly to say hi to the coaches.  He then went up to hold the female coach’s hand again to dribble around for a little bit.  Connor had fun and listened well.  After his class, we joined Logan and Stuart who were practicing baseball, then some basketball again.  We wrapped up the outing at the play structures as usual to let the boys climb around for awhile before heading back.