Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It has been a little extra busy around here since we have had Lee and Dellas since Monday, but we came through. David's sister Carolyn, our friend Conrad, and Adam, Lisa Marissa and Brendan came yesterday for dinner. Lisa and I decided to split the cooking about a month ago. I brined the turkey and cooked it in an oven bag, and it came out just right. (What a relief!) I also had to make Lime Jello Salad, a long-standing family tradition. Lisa made wilted spinach salad, dinner rolls, and a cranberry relish that was delicious. We skipped the stuffing this year, but also had mashed potatoes and gravy and green bean casserole (from beans I grew in my little garden!).
So here we are eating. Brendan helped himself to Alexa's mashed potatoes.

Then we tried to take a group photograph. This was so funny, I wish I had time to show you the whole slide show, but you know what happens when you try to get 6 adults and 3 kids in one photo.

And just to keep life interesting, Alexa tripped and fell off the curb on the way into Bible Study Wednesday, and hurt her foot. She has been limping or crawling since then. And yesterday afternoon she fell and broke her glasses by hitting her face. The temple piece broke off again, and she was bleeding a little bit above her eye.

Another cool BBC thing

This is called A Day in Pictures.

I have been trying to figure some things out lately about Alexa and her various developmental issues. We have been going to physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy for over a year now, and while we are making progress in Speech and OT, it seems like we are kind of stuck on the physical therapy front. We have been working on the same skills for most of the year, and not seeing a lot of progress. I have asked her early intervention teacher and therapists for a meeting to see what we can figure out, and I asked for sources of information about kids like Alexa. The speech therapist sent me some links to sites that were helpful, but I started running into the problem of not having a name for Alexa's condition. At one point we were told that Alexa has global development delay. However, the closest thing I can find on is something called Pervasive Developmental Delay-Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS, which is within the Autism Spectrum Disorders. The problem with this diagnosis is that it Alexa lacks key symptoms of Autistic disorders, and she has other symptoms not covered within this grouping, physical developmental delays for one. I did find another thing called Sensory Processing Disorder, which seems to fit Alexa better. I also took her to the chiropractor in Eugene this morning, and he told me some other things which support this. Unfortunately, it seems that we aren't going to get the perfect label, and there isn't going to be a book to tell me exactly what Alexa needs and how to provide it. Fortunately there are a lot of treatment possibilities for the symptoms Alexa does have. The chiropractor said there have been a lot of new articles in the journals about the cerebellum and its importance in coordination of not only the musculoskeletal system, but emotions and other things as well. He suggested that Alexa's sensory nervous system is not accurately relaying information, so she doesn't always have a good sense of where her limbs are for one thing..we are supposed to provide extra stimulation, to help her turn somersaults and do cross body skills like crawling. The SPD is when you can't process sensory information correctly, noise, pain, heat, cold can feel five times weaker or 5 times stronger than normal.
I apologize for the disjointed post. I have been getting a lot of information in the past few days, and I may not be relaying it in a coherent fashion, but I guess you can google for more info..

Italian Soup

Since I am running out of interesting things to say, I thought I would post a recipe. I sort of made this up the other day and it turned out really well, Alexa loved it, she even ate the meat, and as most of you know, she is mostly vegetarian.

1 lb mild Italian sausage (or I suppose you could use spicy)
1 can white beans (14.5 oz?)
1 can tomato sauce (14.5 oz)
1 can diced tomatos (14.5 oz)
1 small zuccini diced
2 cups sliced mushrooms (I used those ones that look like button mushrooms but with dark brown tops)
a bunch of fresh spinach
basil, thyme, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper, crushed red pepper if you like (I do)

I took the sausage out of the skins and fried it like ground beef, then add the mushrooms and cook until much of the water is released. Then I added the zuccini and sauteed a bit. Then the tomatos and beans and a little extra water or chicken broth. Then I tore up bits of the spinach and put it in. Then add the spices to taste. I recommend being generous with the spices. Most of you know that dried spices do not go bad really, but they do get weaker. In fact you are supposed to buy only the amount of any given spice that will be used within a year. I have to admit I have spices in my cupboard that have been there for years.
I also added a little Parmesan to top this, and served with Parmesan toast, but that was very non-low-carb of me!

What's going on at our house.

Alexa got bangs. I am not a big advocate of bangs, but Alexa's hair grows straight forward from the crown of her head, and is very thin. She chewed on it, and got food in it, and couldn't see because it was always in her face. I got tired of trying to comb her hair several times a day, especially since she isn't so good at holding still. (as those of you who go to meeting with us will attest to) This works fairly well, all I have to do is wash it and comb it out. We are still working on paperwork for our adoption. Our current plan is to adopt from Ethiopia. Some of you will know that we were originally planning on Nepal, but Holt felt that because of our health issues (my Charcot-Marie-Tooth) that we shouldn't be one of the first families to adopt from Nepal. So they suggested Korea or Ethiopia, and due to the waiting period for Korea and the limited number of states Holt can place Korean children in, we went with Ethiopia. We are currently waiting for David's birth certificates to arrive, and a letter from my doctor saying that my CMT won't hinder me from parenting acceptably. Anyway-I feel a little unsure about sharing all of this because there is still a chance we could not get approved, but I am optimistic.

I have started swimming again for exercise at Timberhill. They have childcare which makes it possible for me to swim during the day, and Alexa loves to go play with the other kids, the slide and the bazillion toys they have there. I am a little frustrated by the fact that I haven't really lost any weight yet despite the fact that I am swimming every day, and am now swimming about 65% of a mile. Fortunately the boost to my mental health that I get from the exercise is sufficient reason to continue. I have been going for exactly a month now, anyone know when I will start getting some positive feedback from my bathroom scale?

Alexa and Sophia together

Holly and I took some pictures of the girls together. They were fun, but not great. We finally called in Dana for some better family pictures, but these were pretty cute-so I thought I would post them.

Halloween with the cousins.

We had a visit from Jamie, Sophia, Holly and Nana. (Known to some of you as Sue :) The pumpkin carving was carried out mostly by David and Holly. It is hard work to carve a pumpkin.

We also had a little kids Halloween party, which was a lot of fun. Reese, Carsten, Zooey and Kaia came over with their moms!

Our "fairy" eating mashed potatoes, how prosaic. (I think that's the word I want)

The group shots were very entertaining. Kaia didn't like it much, so all the kids were watching her cry most of the time.

Trick or treating..

A group shot, out of order..not sure why.