The Richardsons

There's been a lot going on with us and I know I've been bad about updating. It's been over a year since we started this blog and I wonder often, should I keep it going? Does anyone really read it? But I do know this will be the kids baby book or life book as they call it for adopted kids so I better keep at it. Emmanuel: We have decided to delay kindergarten for Emmanuel for a year. This means he and Annie will be in the same grade which I'm not all that excited about but I do want him to succeed. We have resorted to using a small amount of medication with Emmanuel. We got to the point where we weren't any further along than when we first brought him home and we started to have major safety concerns. The first day on the medication E-man got stickers from daycare for the first time because he was so good. I drove him home and to my surprise, he didn't unbuckle his seatbelt and try to drive the car. Now, we just have to work on him running into traffic...

Grandma Marian and Grandpa Chuck came for a visit this past week. Grandpa Chuck and Daddy had a big project putting together a new playset, or as I like to call it, the get out of my house, run off your energy, and leave me alone play mobile. The kids love it and finally we got to 70 degrees so the kids put on their suits and pretended summer had finally arrived.

It has been suggested to us to put Emmanuel into therapeutic daycare which basically means a couple hours a day where E-man is not the naughty boy and can get lots of one on one attention. While there is a long road to get everything set to start that program, we had a very productive meeting with a counselor from our county's program today. It was so nice to hear, "wow he's been through a lot!" "Wow that's a lot to handle." One of the things she suggested to help with the chaos and confusion in Emmanuel's head is to write Emmanuel's life story with him to make sense of it all. With everything that's happened to him in his life, this story will really help him grasp everything. So we did and he did a great job coloring and pasting on stickers. Now that we've done it I think I should do it with Abegail. Here's how it goes: Emmanuel was born in Africa. His Mama and Papa loved him very much. But times were hard. There was not eno...

From the day we met her she has been pulling pranks on us. She has snuck up and scared Scott and I so many times I'm surprised one of our hearts isn't lying around somewhere. Even Mr. Suzuki has told her to stop scaring him. So we've been dreading April Fools Day. At first Abegail was trying to play a joke on me with Scott. Lets borrow someone's dog and tell Mommy we bought it! Ah, not funny. (Everyone in this house wants a dog, except me, thank goodness this is not a democracy) Let's turn the car sideways into the garage and tell Mommy E-man got a hold of the keys and crashed the car into the garage. Aah believable, but not funny. So Scott smartly decided to team up with me and finally give Abegail a taste of her own medicine. What does Abegail hate more than anything in the world...SHOTS. So I had my coworker call the house and leave a message as the nurse from our doctor's office saying Abegail had mistakenly not gotten her chicken pox sho...