Sorry we have not blogged sooner....my hands are pretty full:) This is Gannah.....Let me back up a little to explain why. When we got here it was soon noticable to me that even tho 10 year old Mari had a natural attachment to her 3 year old brother Robert and did most of his care..she is definitely a 10 year old and would get very frustrated with him and slap him and shake him or such similar things....i am not meaning to put Mari in a bad light she is a very sweet 10 year old nevertheless 3 year olds need a mother,not just sisters:) so I started to ask God for Him to work it out without being offensive to Mari but I wanted Robert to be with my boys and I wanted to be a mama to him....Nicole was fine with it but I waited and prayed and tried to warm up to Robert because at first he wanted nothing to do with me. Well at the beginning of this week I realize Robert was sleeping with his big brothers instead of Mari and I rejoiced that it was a step in the right direction. The second night the boys had him Robert woke up and cried and cried and I could hear the boys frustration as they tried to quiet him and again I rejoiced that we were one step closer to my desire...so in the morning we asked them and they were telling Asher all about it so I looked at Robert and asked him if he wanted to sleep with Rafael and Michael and his eyes lit up and he says yes. At bedtime he wasnt too sure but settled easily. Mari had told me the problem at night is because he is so itchy....so I put antiitch cream on his itchy spots which ends up being most of his body and antibiotic cream on all the scratches that have turned to wounds so he was smiling by the time he settled...woke up only once begging for mari but i told him No ahora, manana.(not now,tomorrow) and put cream on and he settled again. The next day Mari assured me he would sleep with her and I did not pressure any but by bedtime she brought him to me and wanted him to sleep with the boys:) The next day she was willing for me to bathe him and get him ready for bed:) And she asked if he could please sleep with my boys muy dias(many days) and now she wondered if she could bring his clothes over too...and they are all talking about he is mi hijo(my son):) And I had the opportunity to talk to the girls and the boys about not hitting him or shaking him etc that they are the sisters,I will do the mother work and discipline him when he needs it ......so all in all we are rejoicing at Gods gift of giving that to us....And since Nicole is down for surgery we also have Pablo and Carlos with our family so the week Elena leaves we get 3 more boys so now we have 10 children in our 20x20 house!!!:)And guess what it is 5 boys and 5 girls:)...girls aren't in the majority anymore. we realize that pablo and Carlos are more temporary but we are loving it while it last:)

And the doctor looked at robert and said the rash is something because the dogs have a parasite......so we got some medication to get rid of it...we still need to figure out the dog drama..my opinion is they are more work than they are worth but I am not a dog lover ever yet alone when they disease our children but I am sure we will find an answer. Several of the children have the rash so hopefully we can have some happier children after this episode...its miserable to be itching and itching.

So I tell you all that so you understand if I write less..a mother of littles is more one on one demand than older children so we are entering the little boy world:) i sure wish I had some of the many things I gave away from baby class and of my own since we now have little boys:) They love the few books I do have!!:)

Nicole is recovering...she is with friends till next Friday. The problem with her speedy recovery is she is still managing the whole world from her phone so that is not very restful. We took all the children from the village to visit her yesterday...she gave them a little science lesson about what happened and showed them her incision and of course they could see her cathader bag...they were pretty big eyed:) It was good for them to see her.