Christmas Blessings

This Christmas was truly a joy. It was so much fun this year watching the kids enjoy opening their gifts, putting milk and cookies out for Santa, waking up to their Santa gifts, and being joyful to give to others. But I must say my favorite part of Christmas this year was when Natalia told Maddie and Alexander about Jesus' birthday and the party they had for him at school. Even after the excitement of all the goodies of Christmas, she still remembered it was his birthday.
We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was a bit different than past Christmases. We usually have a bunch of people here for brunch and dinner and its a busy crazy day. This year was a bit different. We opened gifts the night before since we had people coming in the morning. We spent the morning with Johns family and my parents. It was a nice quite morning and time well spent. We had a very lazy rest of the day with everyone playing with all their new goodies. Natalia was consumed with her Camera and "computer", Alexander riding his "harley" and cat tractor, John Dangerous Hunting and flying his helicopter, Tiffany wine tasting, Nanna staying warm with her new gloves and blasting music from her new brookstone speakers (those things are LOUD!) and papa busily looking online for the best deal on a generator for the motor home. We ended our wonderful Christmas day with an amazing ham dinner! Happy Birthday Jesus! Thanks for giving us such a wonderful day!

Warm and cozy

Our children are so blessed to have a cousin who loves making things for them. These are the newest addition to their collection of hand made goodies from their cousin Rhonda and let me tell you, they LOVE them. Alexander is in love with his hat and wears it all the time. Rhonda is extremely talented and can make ANYTHING! She has even made Alexander a bi-plane.

update on Alexander

This update is for all the people who have been telling me how much they love this blog and how they love the details:

As many of you know we have battled with poor Alexander and his lack of staying "healthy" and germ free. We have been blessed with some really great doctors who are determined to give Alexander the BEST quality of life possible.

Last year when we found out Alexander was not able to hear it was heartbreaking for me as his mother because I didn't know what to do for him. We didn't know if putting tubes in his ears would help him hear again or not but luckily it did!!
At this point Alexander is hearing above average and we are focusing on catching up his speech since he was suffering from secondary hearing loss until he was 18 months. These past few weeks have been awesome. Alexander is finally starting to say two and three word sentences, which for most kids should have been happening 6-10 months ago. But hey its a long way from where he was and he is doing amazing. His favorite line right now is "baby its cold outside" or "no you stink mama" since he is almost potty trained and when he has an accident I say "wooooow you stink Alexander!" LOL The things you love when you are a mom.
Alexander will return to OHSU next months to have his hearing and ears checked once more and with all hope we will continue moving forward.

we also have had to tackle the battle of Alexander and his pesky wheezing! Which is not a fun thing to tackle while you are between insurance companies.(he now has insurance again, thank you LORD!) Luckily he has an amazing Dr who still would see him and let us make payments! She than sent us over to an allergist where we found out he has asthma and is allergic to a number of things, including some foods. Over the past three months he has been on a medication to alleviate his asthma symptoms and we have been giving him small amounts of the foods he is allergic to in order to build a tolerance. With great success the preventive medication for his asthma has been amazing. He has made is through three colds without being glued to the couch with his neb! This is a HUGE accomplishment for him. Unfortunately the food thing did not go over well, but his allergist is awesome and is not giving up. He is going to explore some other options to try and make Alexander's day to day life a bit easier. It really is awesome to have a DR care about your child as much as you do.
Need less to say: we are ironing out the wrinkles!

Chirstmas Star

This last Thursday, the 16th of December, Natalia's school had their Christmas program. Naturally this being our first "event" of this sort we had to bring the video camera and the digital camera. (also I am on the yearbook staff so...well you know me.) Anyhow, the kids did this adorable little story about the littlest christmas trees, the birds who decorated the trees, and the stars which shined from above. Natalia's class were stars and she shined so bright and was sooooooooo cute! I will post video of her song once I have it loaded on the computer :) For now please enjoy these pictures from her first little program.

Calendar

I am making calendars this year again for gifts...but this year I took the easier way out. Last years calendars were a lot of fun but boy were they messy! This is the one I made for John's office: Enjoy! (if you like to look that is)

Merry Chirstmas

First Field Trip

Natalia had her first ever field trip in school this year. They didn't go far, just up the road to the farm to pic out their pumpkins, have a little snakc, and play some games. Its such a joy to go along these field trips and see how much fun these kids have with their teacher and how every moment becomes a learning opportunity. Natalia has the best teacher for her right now and she completely adores her. I am so thankful we were able to get her into Bethel, it has made the world of difference for her. Happy Fall!

blessed are those with friends

over the past several months our family has learned, life is not as hard as we tend to think it is. Sometimes we hold onto people for the wrong reasons when it is just better to let them go and make room for the people who really matter in life.
This being said, the kids and I have made room for some really great friends in our lives both new and old and enjoy the time we have with them more and more each time we get together. It is also very nice for me to be able to break out of my box and have new friends. We have been blessed over the years with awesome friends, but it is always nice to have friends from school.
Natalia's long time friend, Maddox and his mother, Kaelish so kindly treated us to a night out at the Disney on Ice show. We had a fantastic time and again was reminded how important friends are in life. Here are a few pictures from the kids trip to the Rose Garden.

Photos By Andrea

My dear friend of 15 years so graciously took pictures of my family last night and I thought, what better time than now to finally update my blog! I know it has been a long time. Photos by Andrea is the name...and Andrea is AMAZING! She is so patient with the kids and really lets them just be them. She helps direct them but doesn't make them feel like they are being bossed around. This is the first time ever we have truly been happy with the pictures we had done and we have no regrets! Andrea will be taken many more in the future, as long as she'll take us! Here a just a handful of the pictures she took last night.
Thank you again Andrea for making out family look so darn good!