Thursday, December 25, 2008

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth


Peter lost one if his front teeth a couple of weeks ago, the same night his magical elf came. He lost his other front tooth last night, so he had a visit from both Santa and the tooth fairy. He likes for his magical creatures to come in pairs. I will post more about Christmas later. The kids are having one of the best Christmases. They are having so much fun! Merry Christmas everyone!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas!



Merry Christmas everyone! I know we are going to have a great Christmas. The kids are SO excited. Peter can hardly stand it. He woke up this morning and said that he wishes we were in China so we would be going to bed soon. Ben is also trying to figure out how to make the time go by quickly. We have to go get a ham for work and a few other errands and Derek will be home early today. I have everything that I need for Christmas! I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

One Year, One Month, and One Day



I'm a month and a day late to celebrate "gotcha day" but we have a lot to celebrate. We recently had a medical scare with Ava and we just found out that she is ok. She had an MRI of her brain in November because of her physical/developmental delays and they found a cyst on her cerebellum. The radiology report said that the cyst was having a mass effect and we were sent to see a neurosurgeon, but it took ~6 weeks before we were able to see him. That was a long, worry filled 6 weeks!! We finally saw the neurosurgeon last week and he said that it was a small cyst and that it was not affecting her and that we would get another MRI in a year to make sure it isn't getting bigger (he doesn't think that it will). He said that a lot of people are walking around with cysts like these and don't know it unless they happen to have an MRI for another reason. I am so thankful that she is not going to have BRAIN SURGERY!!! She has had enough surgery in her 4 years!! We are so thankful that we are lucky enough to be this sweet, loving little girl's parents. Thanks to everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers. This has been a difficult time for us and it was so nice to know that there were people out there thinking and praying for us. Keep her in your prayers. She has come a long way, but she also has a lot of catching up to do.



It is nice to have such great news during this time of year. Not only do we celebrate Christmas this time of year, but we also have three December birthdays in our family. Peter turned 6 on the 12th and he had a penguin, winter wonderland birthday. He picked out his cup cakes and he helped me decorate the dining room into Winter Wonderland...he was so excited! We started the celebration at The Varsity and had hot dogs and onion rings and then headed to our house for present opening and cake. He was so funny during his present opening...he didn't act excited about any present he opened, but he really loves all of them. His favorite present was Martian Matter (he has been making martians every day!), but he has played with everything he got. Peter is one of the happiest people I know!

Bring on the grease!

Welcome to Winter Wonderland
The Birthday Boys


Grandaddy celebrated his 75th birthday!!!

I'm also going to post some pictures of the Secret Santa Shop at the boy's school. Every year the kids get an opportunity to shop for their friends and family. Kids can come in with any amount of money and buy gifts. I helped one little boy buy 9 gifts for five dollars. It is such a fun experience for the kids and they feel so good about picking out presents for their family. It was also a fun experience for all of the helper elves that got to help the kids and wrap their presents. The mom who was in charge of this no longer has kids at the school so this was her last year and she has passed the Head Elf job to me. This is what will be keeping me busy shopping at the after Christmas sales coming up and wrapping presents throughout the year.

All of the gifts

The first group of shoppers

Elves Yasna and Karen

Elves turning the shop back in to the science lab