Puppies wanted to play too!

The puppies were outside with us today when we started playing basketball. Zoburt got ahold of this loose ball and took off with it! Porter even got in the action so we had a great time throwing it and then chasing Zoburt down to get it back:)

Sandbox fun!

The boys LOVE playing in the sand!
Z digging Spring is here!!

Is it Spring yet?!?!

Our new favorite toy...the trampoline!! (please ignore the fact that it is pink...the boys don't care and it was all I could find!)
We are hoping that this will keep us from breaking more beds!

We need a larger area for the boys to ride bikes...

Another favorite activity...riding bikes!!

Airplanes and Z

We were playing on post last night at one of the parks and an airplane was flying overhead. Z stopped playing and looked for it (like he usually does) and said "Is Mark on that airplane?" I told him no and that he would be home soon and he went back to playing. We have seen hundreds of planes and this is the first time he's mentioned Mark when seeing one! Not sure if it was because we were on post ("Mark's work" as we refer to it) or if he was just thinking about him. Mark is obviously on all of our minds!

M and baby Y

Baby Y came up in conversation this morning (as he does most days) and I had to break the news to M (and Z) that he was not coming to live with us. As I had expected M broke out in tears and wanted an explanation as to why he wasn't coming. I explained to him that he was going to live with the family he has always lived in. He then wanted to move in with them so that he could see Y all the time! Through his tears he said "now I won't have a brother". I said "yes you do...you have Z!" I did a little more explaining of the situation and told him that we would have more kids (brothers and sisters for him) in our family soon and he calmed down. I'm sure this won't be the last time we talk about this but I'm glad it's out in the open! Where is Mark when we have these conversations?!?! (along with all the other "boy" conversations we have in a week!) I'm ready for him to be home so I can defer the boys to him at times :)

Staffing

Today we were staffed for the boys' one year old brother. We have known about him since we were staffed for the boys and we always thought we would get him when the time came for him to move into an adoptive family. But today they made the decision for him to stay with his current foster home. I am sad for the loss of a little one in our family and I am very sad that the boys won't grow up in the same house as their brother. I can't imagine having a sibling (or more) that lives somewhere else and that I have little to no contact with. I feel like they are missing out on an important piece of themselves. So now we have some decisions to make about how to grow our family (no we are not done!) I am going to start considering foster care placements that come our way (we get them every so often from the local foster care agency) and we are still considering doing IVF when Mark comes home. We have missed out on the boys' little kid years and we very much want to experience that as parents! Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers that were sent to us during the staffing! We are blessed:)

Painting with Z