the-boobear-times

A little update for Fall

2011-11-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

There's been so much going on at the start of the school year, that I haven't been able to sit down to blog. It's been some good stuff though. I think many of you keep up through Facebook, or see us regularly, so please forgive me if some of this is re-runs. Alexa fell off a play structure and broke her fibula on August 7th. She was completely non-weight bearing for about 6 weeks, which meant a wheelchair. Her gracious and well-appointed teacher had a wheelchair just the right size, so we used that. I finally asked for some helped through the county Developmental Disabilities office, and we got some respite care for four hours a day five days a week for the last 3.5 weeks before school started. Respite was provided by a wonderful Spanish-speaking woman from Mexico who I worked on improving my Spanish with while she worked on improving her English. She became a good friend, so I must remember that good things can come from rough times. About a week after school started Alexa was allowed to walk on her cast boot, and two weeks after that, she was allowed to slowly stop using it. It took a few weeks and a visit to the PT to get her to walk without limping, and sometimes she still does, but she's running and jumping again. The ortho she saw for the injury referred her up to a pediatric ortho in Portland to make sure she had the right braces, and amazingly, he thinks the braces she has now are more than she needs, so when she outgrows these, she'll get some orthotics to hold up her arch,. I'm pretty excited about that. No more trying to fit those bloody braces into her shoes.

The behavior issues are still present, but I'm doing better at dealing with them. I read a fantastic book called No Fighting, No Biting, No Screaming: How to make Behaving Positively Possible for People with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilites. I recommended it to everyone I know who works with people with disabilities. I particularly appreciate the way Elven suggests taking ownership of the problem. His big premise is that if service users (his word for the person with a disability) can behave well, they will, so if they are having a meltdown, you, or the situation is demanding too much of them. So many of his ideas are contrary to the way I was raised, but as the author points out, if typical child rearing methods were working, I wouldn't need his book, and need it I did, desperately. Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments.

We got an iPad for Alexa just before school started, mainly to provide more space for her rapidly growing reading vocabulary. Furthermore, I decided it was time to sort her words into categories by type, so now she has folders for nouns, verbs, prepositions, pronouns, and som other specialty noun categories such as numbers, animals and foods. She adapted to it quickly which is amazing, above she is doing a read-a-long story with Curious George. She's getting so sweet about sharing and interacting with her monkeys. She sits them next to her bowl while she eats, and here she made sure George could see the story clearly.

Sorry to be jumping topic to topic, but here's a picture summary. Alexa was Curious George for the third year in a row, though this year the costume was a little short. Next year we'll have to think of something new. That Jack-O-Lantern was carved by her teacher! They send one home with each kid in her class each year, and I've always known how much work it must be to carve 14-15 pumpkins, but this year I was volunteering on Halloween, so I participated in the chaos! Wow. Take a bunch of kids who don't much like touching the insides of pumpkins, and it's a big job! The trees outside my window this week make me feel rich. Incredible color. Alexa's doing a great job riding her bike, I'm thinking maybe we can start trying to go off the training wheels sometime this year.
Here's Alexa vacuuming, an activity that she adores beyond all explanation. We don't discourage it!

I've been sick for about three weeks now, and I've taken two days off this week to try and recover, I'm feeling better today finally, but still a bit of crud in the lungs. Alexa had it for a couple weeks too. About a week after school started, she got the runny nose, and I think she's had at least two separate colds since then.
There's so much more to tell, but I have't the time just now, my pumpkin pies are almost done!

To clarify

2011-07-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

Having thought about it all day, I wanted to emphasize that I do not undervalue the contributions of those of you who do help with Alexa, especially her teachers, who I greatly treasure. Nor am I trying to say that those of you with small children of your own should be helping me. I am pretty much just trying to explain how things are going, and hopefully encouraging those of you who might be watching someone struggle to do something someday, to offer to help. Perhaps you are afraid of offending somehow, but if there's an obvious need, I think a simple "Is there some way I can help you?" cannot offend. I would certainly have appreciated someone offering to help carry my groceries to the car.

Where is my village?

2011-07-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child? I would have to say I agree, but I'm not sure what happened to mine.

We've been having a difficult week here on Planet Alexa. Alexa got the stomach flu Tuesday night and vomited periodically until mid-day Wednesday. This caused us to miss our weekly picnic with the teachers and families of the Life Skills classes. We also missed a chiropractor appointment and a motor buddies class. This may have had something to do with how Thursday and Friday went for both of us.

All summer Alexa has been having lot of trouble leaving places, the train table at the grocery store, the park etc. I have been required to pick her up and carry her to the car, and sometimes force her into the car seat and hold her there with my full weight. She weighs 42 pounds now and is 46" tall, and she throws herself perpendicular to me which kills my back, and she kicks and struggles. Usually I am carrying at least my purse, and often something else as well.

Thursday night, we went to a softball game and there was a fun park next to the field, and she would not leave. I had to carry her accros the field to the park, stopping twice to rest and force her into the car. This always seems to be interesting and entertaining to onlookers as well, though I have only once ever had someone offer to help me.

On Friday Alexa has her dance class at The Little Gym, and I mistakenly parked in from of the kids resale shop, and Alexa decided she wanted to go in there. I was carrying my purse, her dance shoes, and a cup of iced tea, and I had to put it all down on the ground and hold her down while I explained that she could either go to dance class or we would get in the car and go home. She finally decided to go to class. In her class is another little girl whose mother knits, and I was drop spindling while watching Alexa's class. I mentioned to her that Alexa was starting to get mad at me for spinning when she wanted to play with me, and she bats her hands at my yarn and fiber, or pulls it off the bobbin. She suggested that maybe Alexa just needed my full attention right then, and said that she almost never knits during the day because she finds it hard to tear herself away and during the day her daughter needs her full attention. And at the time I thought, maybe she's right, maybe I should not do anything during the day that it is hard to drop immediately when Alexa needs me.

And if I can go backwards for a moment, while I was talking with a friend earlier in the day, during the time that Alexa was mad and messing up my fiber and hitting my scale, and deliberately knocking a jar of vinegar off the counter, I yelled for her to stop, and my friend asked if I had tried changing my tone of voice. She finds that this works for her two year old. I said that I always started by asking nicely, but Alexa almost never responds to that now, she won't do something unless I yell, and sometimes not even then.

So anyway, after dance class, Alexa decides she wants to go back to the resale shop, though I moved the van during her class so she wouldn't see it when she got out, hoping she would forget. I bribe her into the van with the promise of a visit to the grocery store. She's too big to fit in the basket at that store, so I have to follow/chase/wheedle her through the store, trying to keep her from running into people, standing too close to men, staring at their hands, trying to give them high fives, explaining what she wants a thousand times, and then she spots the salad bar, which has mandarin oranges and pineapple, two of her favorites, so I agree to get her a snack. Then I am carrying a plate of food in one hand, pushing a cart with the other, and trying to manage Alexa with my voice alone. Finally I get through checkout, explain to Alexa that the two young men holding food in their hands cannot give her high fives, and that she should just wave hello or use her talker. We sit down for about five minutes of relative quiet, and I think, this isn't bad, we are enjoying each other's company, and then we finish our snack. I throw away the plate and sling the heavy bag of groceries over my shoulder and tell Alexa it's time to go, but she decides she wants to go back through the store, so I try holding her by the wrist/arm and not letting her get down on the ground, but she swings her full 42 lbs onto my arms,and I am holding her wrists straight out in front of me, and she is swinging from them, like I am the monkey bars on the playground, and I almost fall over. Remember, I have Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, and when I am really stressed, sometimes my muscles won't do what I ask of them. So I am fighting to pick her up, in the doorway of the grocery store, with a million people looking on, and no one offering to help, and though now I realize I should have just sat her on the ground there and given her a time out where she was, I put my groceries on the ground, and pick her up and carry her across the parking lot while she kicks me and I try not to sob in front of everyone. I strap her in the carseat and walk back to the grocery store and pick up the groceries, which thankfully no one has taken. Then I'm in the car, and I'm sobbing, and I don't want to go home with her. I drive to David's office and he agrees to come home early. Later last night she finds a container of small beads that I bought to put on my yarn, and opens and spills them all over the floor, and then I am sobbing again, and I decide that maybe I just can't spin or sew or do anything selfish, and I put away my spinning wheel and all my fiber and my serger that she has pulled and knotted the threads from over and over again. Maybe the other moms are right, and I shouldn't be engaging in selfish hobbies when Alexa needs me. And then I go to bed, early, because I want this day to be over.

This morning when I wake up, I am calmer. David takes care of Alexa for four hours on Saturday morning so I can go to famer's market and the gym. He takes Alexa to her swimming lesson. Then I have her for four hours in the afternoon, so he can go to work. I take out my spinning wheel again. I desperately need something pretty in my life, and I love fiber, dyeing it, spinning it, knitting with it, and I try to make enough money by selling my yarn on etsy so that my hobby doesn't cost us a lot, and I am just not willing to give this up right now, it helps keep me sane.

I met with a counselor this week about a parenting class he's going to teach at the office where Alexa goes for therapy. He kept saying to me, "You seem really stressed," and I kept saying that I was, and that I felt like I was failing at the one thing I was trained to do from shildhood, be a housewife and a mom. I have so many extremely competent mothers as friends, and I don't know why I can't manage what seems so easy for them. Alexa's behaviors are the same ones their children exhibit, and they manage to survive. The difference is, as this counselor pointed out, they are not starting out with a disability of their own, and Alexa's behaviors last more than twice as long. She is also much bigger than most three year old kids are when they pull the lying on the floor like a limp rag trick.

I feel so alone most of the time. There are people for me to talk to, but there is no other pair of hands to help me.

What is the "talker"?

2011-07-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

For the benefit of Kylee and others who don't see us in person I thought I'd try and explain Alexa's talker. It is an iPod touch and it uses an app that is called Proloquo2Go http://www.proloquo2go.com/. The website is great at explaining but it's basically a text to speech device. It comes with nearly 8000 preloaded vocabulary words, and you can add your own after that. We call it a talker because alternative communication device is just not a practical label for everyday use.

Her very clever teacher adapted a sports armband to stay on her very tiny wrist, and now it is quickly accessible. Alexa is fantastic with this device, she quickly learned how to navigate through the screens, and loves to explore the preloaded vocabulary pages. One great feature of the app is the option to take a picture with the iPod and use that on a button, so all her friends and family are in there. She uses it at school to do her reading and to do schedule each morning. She is beginning to use it with a lot of prompting to introduce herself to new people. She still tends to default to her high fives and performance of gymnastics moves method of conversation initiation, but I am trying very hard to steer her away from this method. It is proving difficult however, because many of the adults in Alexa's life find it hard to resist giving her a high five or a hug instead of waiting long enough for her to get her talker on and to the right screen. The additional difficulty is that the speaker in the iPod is not loud enough to hear when in a crowd of people. We got a bluetooth speaker to use in noisy situations, but that also takes a moment to turn on and those two moments are too much for many people, they move on to talk to someone else.

Visit to Aquarium: 4th of July

2011-07-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

I'm trying out Picasa and blogging directly from Picasa, so this will be brief. We went to the aquarium yesterday for the holiday. David actually took a little time off work, a rarity around these parts, so it was fun to have a family outing. We got back to Philomath for Alexa's Motor Buddies class, which began working on baseball/T-ball. Alexa actually managed a couple of good swings and a couple of good throws, so that was fun. Now we're plunging headlong into our busy week. Today we have horseback riding for the first time in a few weeks, so we're looking forward to that. I recently found out that a picture of Alexa is on the Riverbottom Stable's website, it's kind of small, but if you know Alexa you can tell it's her.

Should I keep blogging?

2011-07-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Or more accurately, should I resume blogging? I haven't been too good about updating the blog for the past few months, and I have been puzzling over whether to try again, or sort of give up for good. I know that some people rely on the blog for keeping up with what's going on with us, and for the sake of some of those people, and for the ways in which I can use it to advocate for my daughter, I am inclined to continue. However, even when I was posting more frequently, I got very few comments, and my visitor map seemed to indicate a number of people in countries I'm sure I don't know anyone. This led me to believe that many of my blog viewers are not people I know, and not people I wish to share the more private details of our life with. I readily admit that this is at least partially my fault. I have a bit of a chronic oversharing problem, and I think this is partially due to the fact that I am the stay-at-home mom to a non-verbal child, so I don't get as many opportunities for conversation as I would like, but I need to define some boundaries with regard to what is personal and what is public. I know that I could make the blog private, and by invitation only, and this would alleviate some of my concerns, but it would prevent me from reaching as many people as possible when I do wish to address issues that are more public.

I have decided, for now, to keep the blog public, and to be more discreet about what I publish here.

The biggest news that I do wish to share is that in February we finally obtained a diagnosis for Alexa. She has a form of Cerebral Palsy called Worster Drought Syndrome, or WDS from here on out. There is a nice pdf document at the WDS support group page that will detail it for you if you want to know more, but it is basically a form of CP that most strongly affects the tongue, lips and jaw muscles.

The doctors in the clinic at Doernboecher recommended focusing on her AAC device for speech, since it is unlikely she will ever have much intelligible verbal language, and signing is somewhat difficult due to her limited fine motor skills. We do continue to us a lot of sign language, but it takes someone familiar with Alexa's particular way of signing to understand her easily.

We are trying to encourage her to use her talker as much as possible, and particularly out in public places. This is someone hard to do because she has relied on high 5s for so long that she defaults to that, and unless asked to, or waited on, she doesn't always use the talker.

It would be great if those if you who see us in person would limit yourself to one high five and then ask her a question or let her ask you one. How are you? What are you doing this summer? How old are you now? etc...and if you think of something you would like to ask and she doesn't seem to understand or have it in her talker, please let me know, and I will add it in. Her talker is on her wrist now, and is loud enough for a quiet area, I will try to have the bluetooth speaker with us more frequently to allow communication in a more noisy environment.

I would love to hear your viewpoint on the issue of privacy with regard to blogging, and if you do regularly read the blog, please consider letting me know with a comment now and then.

A few end of 2010 pictures

2011-01-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

I wanted a picture of Alexa in her sock monkey skirt and legwarmers. These were made by a cool etsy shop owner for Alexa at my request and she loves the outfit. She's really into pockets lately, they're kind of distraction actually, when she's supposed to be doing something else she's trying to put stuff in them. We did some gingerbread house decorating with some friends, and Alexa showed Sally her new storytelling app Pictello.

Surprisingly she like eating some of the candy.

Tayler did a great job on hers.

Christopher spent about 30 minutes longer than everyone elso on his. Very carefully planned and executed.

I made a bunch of hats this fall, and Alexa has decided she like wearing them, so she is a willing model.

This is the one she wears to school every day.

We are all recovering from a flu that gave Alexa a fever on and off for 2.5 days. David and I got lighter symptoms, but we were all stuck at home for the whole weekend.

Alexa continues to learn new reading words and is able to read whole sentences now in Cat in the Hat. Her talker has been an amazing tool for her. Unfortunately it had to be sent in for repair when the speaker quit last week. I have let her use my iPod some, but I am a bit protective of it, so I didn't let her take it to school today. She does use a different talker at school for her reading. She's amazingly adaptive, and her sign language vocab is increasing rapidly as well. She's getting to be so independent and thinks she can do anything. Specifically she has been getting milk out of the refrigerator, but her aim for the cup leaves something to be desired, and we have been cleaning up a lot of spilled milk. I am trying to remember that this is a good thing, that she is growing up, but sometimes I really want to yell, and sometimes I do.

In other interesting news, she is beginning to be able to be reasoned with a bit. She will sometimes finish her plate of cold supper in order to get ice cream, and the other day when she said she didn't want to go to school, she changed her mind because she wanted to go to her dance class after school. These are the first signs of her being able to understand consequences and to look ahead that far into the future. Unfortunately she is also starting to be unwilling to get dressed in the morning, and too big to be forced into it. Now I often have to sing to her as a bribe to get ready for school. I am happy that she thinks singing is a good reward. Now I just need to go learn all the words for Teddy Bears' Picnic.

Pumpkin Time!

2010-11-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

I love autumn, the leave outside are so gorgeous I often want to stop in the middle of the road and capture the moment with my camera, but that would be dangerous, so I don't. I also love pumpkin pie, possibly my favorite dessert ever, and I have tried a couple of different varieties of squash this year in my pies. I used some called Sweet Meat squash, and they were quite good, and this week I tried this one, a Cinderella Pumpkin. Perfect name for them, if you've seen a big one they have a definate fairy tale apeal. I apparently overcooked it a bit, because the pies were a bit dry, but tasty. So far I still prefer sugar pumpkins, partially for ease of use, both the Sweet Meat and the Cinderella Pumpkin were hard to scoop out without getting bits of skin, but the Sugar Pumpkins are easy to separate from the skin after baking in the oven for about 45 minutes. I usually get about a four pounder and get two to three pies out of it. Alexa recycled her Curious George Costume for this Halloween. We programed "Trick or Treat" into her talker, and David took her round the neighborhood a little bit.

I made a hat and wanted Alexa to model it for my Ravelry pictures, she defaults to this goofy grin when we ask her to smile. Still pretty cute.

And this blurry picture (she won't hold still) which I still love because of her direct gaze.

We have been sick for the past few weeks, first me, then Alexa and yesterday David started. Parent teacher conferences were last Thursday and Friday, and today was a random day off of school, so Alexa and I are both ready for her to go to school tomorrow.

Toothless girl

2010-10-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Alexa lost the other front tooth this morning, so she has a large gap!

We made this video a while ago, Alexa loves the sound of clothes being shaken out!

We got an iPod and app that are going to act as a talker for her. We are in the process of programming it to her personal needs, but so far she loves it, and is actually more verbal when using it rather than less.
David is very busy teaching his class at OSU, and I am only surviving the reduction in child care assistance because Alexa goes to school all day. Today I put a quart of home canned peaches on top of the refridgerator to photograph for the talker, and she opened the freezer door causing it to fall and break on the floor. I barely managed not to cry. That was one of only 14 quarts of peaches that are meant to last the winter, and they were a lot of work to can, not to mention costly.
Today was my first day to volunteer in Alexa's class, and it was quite fun. I love her class, there are so many sweet kids, and stories and music. Today I got to do art with the kindergarteners. There are 5 new boys in Alexa's class in kindergarten, so it is a bit difficult to manage all of them sometimes. Often they need to be physically held in place in their chairs, and the one I was wrestling with today weighs more than Alexa, so I am kind of tired this evening! Still, we got to draw skeletons, and then it was library day too, so much fun was had by all.

August already

2010-08-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

Summer has been so busy that I don't know where to begin. When Alexa had her 6 year old well child visit to the doctor, he said that she had dropped below her growth curve on height, so he referred us up to the CDRC feeding clinics again to make sure she didn't have some vitamin deficiency that was keeping her from growing, though she did grow about 4 inches this year, which seemed like a lot to me! We also were referred to some specialists in neurology and psychology to help give us a diagnosis for her. Developmental delay is not a diagnosis beyond early childhood and insurance companies for one, begin wanting something more at her age. It also could help us get other services for her if she had some sort of syndrome that had foundations raising money for it. To be honest, I was kind of hoping for a diagnosis on the autism spectrum because it seems like there is a lot of help out there for those with autism. Fortunately or unfortunately, the doctors don't seem to think this fits her. She is far too social and interactive, and doesn't display the repetitive self-soothing behaviors that autistic kids tend to.
The feeding clinic weighed and measurde her and they think she is tall enough, but still isn't gaining enough weight to keep her BMI up in a good range. So we are back to trying to fatten her up by slipping fat into her vegetables, and trying to expand her diet. The dietician warned me that we can't just offer her the things we know she likes, or she will always be this picky. The difficulty is that she is very stubborn, and can't be forced into it. When we were kids my parents made us try some of everything on the table, but I think we were a little older than Alexa is now. Right now we just have to sneak a little of something new into the things she already likes, so we put a little peanut butter on some of her crackers, or add some raisins into her oatmeal. One of the most frustrating things for me is the food waste. I also get frustrated when she stops eating something that she used to eat. About 6 months ago she loved Craisins, but now she won't touch Trader Joe's dried cranberries. Probably because the package is different. She will eat grated cheese, but not cubed or sliced. She won't eat crackers that are any other shape than Annie's Bunny crackers. She won't eat Bunny Grahams. Her favorite food this summer is bell peppers. A very low calorie food!
In addition to all the food fun, we had a rotten day back in July when we were first scheduled at the CBA (clinical brain anomaly) clinic in Portland. We got a call cancelling our appointment 45 minutes before the scheduled time. I was already in Portland. I was so mad. Then when we got home that afternoon, Alexa fell and cut her face right at the edge of her eyebrow, and it had to be glued at urgent-care. (Where it always takes three hours, even when there are only two other people there.) Alexa lost her first tooth (I think this was on August 5th.) We didn't know it was loose of course, since she couldn't tell us. She just walked over to David with blood coming out of her mouth, and he asked me if I knew how she hurt herself, and then she spit something out, and I realized she must have lost a tooth. About two weeks later she lost the one right next to it. (I kind of pulled that one, she wanted me to help her, but it was very challenging, those baby teeth are so tiny!)

We went to the fair with Penny, Chris and Christopher. Alexa loved this vehicle the best, but I can't remember what is is called, a loader? I should know this, since we have about 5 truck books, but half of them are from the UK where they call dump trucks tippers, so I forget what they are called in the U.S.

The had a smaller backhoe one that she got to play in. She was in heaven!

I figured out how she gets so much food in her hair when she eats. She drops food in her bib, and then looks down to scoop it out, and her hair gets in her bowl. I started putting a bandana on her head as a sort of second bib, but it looks kind of cute this way. She has started to love wearing hats so she leaved it on without complaint.

The picture is unclear because my camera lens had a fingerprint on it. (A small finger...) Summer's almost over, school starts in two weeks, and Alexa will be in first grade. I am very excited!

Summer finally!

2010-07-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

I realize that I have not blogged here for about three months, so I apologize for that. My laptop broke and when David took it to the recycling center he forgot the usb insert for the wireless mouse, so I am without a mouse for my new laptop, and I have a hard time with pictures with only the touchpad, though I did manage these, I just couldn't edit them at all.
I have been doing my best to keep Alexa busy this summer, because if she doesn't get enough exercise and attention she runs around the house like a little crazy person. She has recently begun to love to wear hats, and when I let her try this one on, she wouldn't let me take it off even though it was too big for her since it is mine. She does look very cute in it though! We go to the park a lot, and swimming in the pool here at the apartment complex.
We went to Ryan and Carleen's for a barbeque and Alexa enjoyedf trying to play croquet, though when I told her to hit the ball with the mallet she used it like a hammer instead of the way I had in mind :)

We went down to Lisa's house and had a playdate, but we didn't bring Alexa's swimsuit, so she wore some of Marrisa's pjs to play in the pool. She loves water so much!

David got on the part-time staff at LBCC and is teaching a month long astronomy course starting next week. He has been very busy preparing for it since the first time teaching a course requires a huge amount of preparatory work planning lectures, labs, and writing exams. We are glad for him to have the opportunity to get some teaching experience though, so we aren't complaining. Anyway, David does love astronomy.

We are mostly enjoying our new apartment, it stays pretty comfortable, even on the hot days. We just close it up when it starts getting too warm and keep the shades closed so the sun can't shine in too much.

April Already?

2010-04-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

It sometimes seems like I miss whole weeks, so I'd better try to update here. We have sold the house, we signed the closing documents Wednesday. There was a bit of a problem with water under the house, so we had to hire a guy to dig a drain around the house before the sale went through, but it did finally. We will be moving in June to an apartment about a quarter mile away from us. Some of the big news: Alexa is toilet trained! We spent two weeks working on it very hard, but now she really seems to have it. She still wears pull-ups at night, and she has an accident every 2-3 days, but she wears underwear all day every day, and her accidents are always at home, which tells me they are actually within her control..

We had her parent-teacher conference and Alexa showed me all the things she has learned so far. She can write her name, with a little prompting. (She loves to write A's) She can read about 10 words. She knows all her colors, all her letters, numbers 0-3 very solidly, 4-6 sometimes. She can pronounce quite a few letters now, so I believe she will begin to have some speech in the next year or so. Her a and e sounds are beginning to sound different from each other, and she can say c, h, m, g, y, all the vowels, (although they still sound somewhat alike, and she isn't very good at o.) She has also managed to jump now and then. This has taken a long time to learn, so like toilet training I am very excited by this.

I made her another pair of Unmentionables (that's the name of the pattern for these pants.)

She outgrew her shoes last month, and we got her a pair size 11, and then a few weeks later she didn't want to wear those either, so these are her summer shoes and are size 12. If anyone wants last year's Keens (purple size 10) let me know!

A few more fun February photos

2010-03-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

Alexa is really great at riding her tricycle now. She routinely rides in a mile long circle around our neighborhood. She goes very fast sometime too. It seems like it took a year or two to get to this point, so we are really proud of her. How often have you seen a really great milk moustache?

I am again trying to let her hair grow out. It is really cute in pigtails! Every time I get out the camera to take a picture she goes to stand against a door or the refrigerator. This is how they do it at school. I began volunteering at her class one day a week. My first day was last week, and I am so excited about it. It was very fun, and I learned a huge amount on my first day. I think it will help me be a better mom, and will help me know how to work on reading and writing at home in a way that does not conflict with the methods they use at her school.

We went to Seattle this weekend to visit the auntie and cousins. Alexa had a fever all day Saturday, but bounced back to normal on Sunday.

We played at the park a bit before the long car ride home.

I think I can safely say we have sold the house. There is always a slight possibility that something won't work out, but we have accepted an offer, and are hoping to close midway through March. We will move out in May..we worked out a plan with our buyer to stay in the house until then. We still don't know about the post-doc position David has applied for, but if it doesn't work out, we will move into an apartment here in town until something does.

And February

2010-02-16T16:58:00.000-08:00

Once again I have let more than a month go by and no blog entry, so I am sure I will forget things, but here's my best effort at catching you up. Alexa finished another session at The Little Gym, and so there was another "Show." This is always highly entertaining. Alexa has learned some great skills here, but the funniest part was where she ran to another family after every performance for congratulations and high-fives. Since she is so friendly, this other family was happy to oblige! Valentine's day brought a huge amount of candy to the house. Alexa is a part of two classes, and received Valentines from both groups. Some of her teachers also made some lovely cards, and one made a beanbag Valentine!

We stayed home for Valentine's day, and I made a nice meal. Alexa even ate the same food as we did, garlic mashed potatoes and the last of my frozen corn from last summer! She didn't eat the tri-tip of course.

I met with Alexa's teachers today to write her IEP for the next year. They are great people, and I wish we could stay in Corvallis so she could be in that classroom for three more years. (Among other reasons..we don't want to move away from all the folks we love who live here.) Unfortunately there is still nothing to share about David's job hunt.

We are getting close to selling the house, but I'll wait to share until everything is worked out with regard to that. I'm sad about that too, I have loved this house.

We have had two weeks in a row of horseback riding lessons together with Tayler and Reese. So much fun for all!

I have been going to Pilates classes for a few weeks now at my gym. I have done it before from videos at home, but now I am doing the hour long classes. If you haven't ever tried it, you should, it helps my posture and keeps my back and hips and shoulders in good shape. It's one of those things that produces noticeable results quickly!

To Finish off 2009

2010-01-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

I knitted Alexa a mommy and baby sock monkey. They will complete her family, since she has loved the now one-eyed, nearly bald daddy monkey nearly to death. She is starting to understand about presents, but never tried to open the packages before Christmas.

We were at the beach in Florence again with David's side of the family for Christmas. It was sunny and gorgeous this year, and Alexa loved it.

We had them all to our house for New Year's eve, but they left before midnight, all except for Carolyn, who spent the night with us.

Vacation was fun, but Alexa is glad to be back in school. We have put our house up for sale. Since David is looking for a job, and it is unlikely to be in Corvallis, we have decided to put the house up for sale in hopes that it will sell before we have to move somewhere else. We will then live in an apartment until that time comes. Keeping the house clean and neat enough to show almost all the time is hard, even though we will show by appointment, we have to keep it almost ready all the time.

David has a part time post-doc for three months with a professor at OSU. He has been a voluteer post-doc for a few months already, but it will be nice to have a little money coming in. We are hoping that the experience and references from this will help him find a paying position soon. He does very well working from home, although would do better if we could manage to leave him alone more.

I am still cooking from my new Julia Child cookbook. I made a cake last night with 4 eggs and no baking powder. It was called a butter spongecake, and turned out very well. It is gone already. It gets fluffiness from the whipped egg whites instead of baking powder or soda. I also have made a wonderful quiche, every bit as good as the ones at the French Bakery. (Not due to any great prowess as a cook, I just followed the directions.) I am working out often, and so far not getting fatter, but I am keeping a careful watch on the weight!!

I hope you all had lovely holidays and will have a terrific 2010!!

Some fun with Grandma

2009-12-28T18:16:00.000-08:00

Nana came up to help us for a week just before Christmas, and it was awesome to have her. She helped us get the rest of the painting done so we can sell the house. Here are the mitten cookies sent home with Alexa, I don't know if another parent made them or what, but they are awesome, with licorice ties and everything! She also brought us a cute ornament with her photo in it, and a tealight holder she painted, and a Winnie the Pooh calender.

Alexa decided to play with Nana's Christmas present, and she looked so funny and cute with a fancy scarf and no pants, that we had to take some pictures.

I realize that Mom isn't actually in any of these pictures, but she was present, and Alexa loved playing and reading books with her!

I have more pictures from Christmas, but I just wanted to note here that I got the first Julia Child cookbook for Christmas (anybody else in a bit of a French Cooking mode lately :)?) and made my first recipe from it tonight. It was cream of mushroom soup and though it took about 1.5 hours, it was amazing, and Alexa tried it, even though she hardly ever tries new things, and decided she liked it! She didn't like the mushrooms themselves, and it was hard for her to eat such a runny soup, so she ended up drinking it from the bowl with our permission and encouragement. I was so excited to get something with that much cream and butter in it into her, not to mention the homemade chicken broth!

Turkey

2009-12-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the Thanksgiving art projects Alexa brought home.

And here is the outcome of a collision with the playground. She scraped her nose up and cut her forehead open. She got two stitches, which are coming out today. This was not very fun. David and I had to hold her down while he did them, and she was screaming bloody murder the whole time. We had a lovely Thanksgiving here with Adam and Lisa, Conrad and Marissa and Brendan.

This is Conrad's third Thanksgiving at our house, and we love to have him, so we're glad we haven't scared him off yet!

November so far..

2009-11-23T15:33:00.000-08:00

I hope I soon click back into blogging mode, meanwhile you all are getting very sporadic updates, but we are still here and still healthy. We have missed getting the swine flu, we got vaccinations before it hit Alexa's school, several of the other schools in town got it big time. I have been knitting busily to get some gifts done, here are Sophia's gloves, dyed in her choice of colors.

Here is one of the pictures Dana took of us.

We are having Thanksgiving dinner at our house again this year. I like it that way despite the chaos because I love to cook all the things that are traditional for our family.

I can't think of what to tell you all because life has been busy, but not terribly newsworthy! I hope you have a terrific Thanksgiving!

Halloween Weekend

2009-11-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

We had a really fun weekend with Holly and the kids. We managed to play a board game with Alexa and Sophia. It is an alphabet game, and Alexa is great at it. She knows all her letters! This picture is bad for some reason, my camera must have been on a wierd setting, but I wanted proof..Alexa sat still and focused very well for a long time! The next day we had a big Halloween party for the little kids. Dana did storytime for us.

Quite a few of the older kids loved this. You can tell from Sophia's slack-jawed gaze.

Reese gave me a big smile for the camera.

Dana also brought some finger puppet supplies and the kids made some ghosts, cats, and pumpkins.

Kaia had designs on the large pumpkin, but it proved a bit too much for her.

Jessica helped Zoe and Alexa with their puppets.

Our bird decided to be friendly after spending all day banished to the quiet bedroom, and he loved Jamie.

He wasn't quite as thrilled with Sophia, but he did let her hold him on the stick.
And Alexa really liked it!

Preparing to go trick-or-treating.

Alexa wanted to take the tricycle.

She managed to go this year, and decided she likes to eat Skittles, her first candy!

October in a Whirlwind

2009-10-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to catch up in a coherent matter, so this post will probably be a disjointed list of events, but I hope it is better than none. I knit a bunch of things this month, starting with this hat. Then three hats for Dana to photograph babies in and another for me using my handspun. I also made progress on a Christmas gift or two, and finished a scarf for my etsy shop. Here is Alexa holding my favorite model for baby hats.

October was a beautiful month here weather-wise. The leaves were gorgeous, the weather was warmish but not hot. The sun started dropping down in the sky and giving us this incredible afternoon light. Alexa is a tricycling maniac now. She can go at least a mile, so we took a family walk.

This tree was just showing off.

Alexa is still infatuated with monkeys, so she is Curious George for Halloween.

Her teachers sent home some wonderful pictures of Alexa, and a book about five little pumpkins with a picture of Alexa on the front holding five little pumpkins. They are so clever! She went to the pumpkin patch with her kindergarten class in the rain and came back with muddy shoes and a muddy pumpkin. Then yesterday she brought home another pumpkin already carved into a jack-o-lantern, and I know she didn't do that! Pumpkin carving is difficult and I have no idea who went to all that work. There are about 4-5 aides in her class, so maybe one of them?

Yesterday we got to go back to school to her kindergarten class Halloween Party. It was so fun. One of her classmates, Liam, is in a wheelchair, and his family made him an awesome Wall-E costume. The eyes had lights in them hooked up to the wheelchair battery somehow.

They went outside to play and burn off some energy, and Alexa surprised me by climbing this thing all by herself. Made me a bit nervous, but I didn't have to help her.

She pretty much adores the playground, and I agree, it is awesome!

And here is Lianna, who sits next to Alexa and informed me that "Alexa is a great help to me, she gave me a pencil once, and once she picked up some things for me."

Alexa is officially in the Life Skills Classroom, but she is also in this kindergarten class sometimes, for music and art and field trips. She has a desk and cubbies here with her name on them, and the teacher (Mr. K, who is pretty incredible himself) and the aides all told me how much they enjoy Alexa. I really like this arrangement, which allows here lots of interaction with her age group, but a lot of extra help too. We are going to get a communication book too, which will allow her too communicate by pointing to pictures.

It is pretty apparent to everyone, David and I, her teachers, and her speech therapists, that she has a lot to say, she just can't verbalize it, so we are trying to give her another way to do it. Her sign language is limited by her finger dexterity at this point, but we are still doing that too. We still hope she will talk at some point, but we can't put off language development until then. She is learning her letters and the sounds they make. I honestly think she will learn to read before she learns to talk.

Also this month:

Alexa got sick and missed three days of school

She broke her glasses twice.

We got family photos taken.

We painted a bunch of walls and some trim in the house, we are trying to get it ready to sell, in preparation for moving when David gets a job. Meanwhile he is applying for post-docs and working with an OSU professor to get further experience.

I gave blood for the first time ever and didn't pass out, though I did feel very tired the rest of the day.

I have been making pumpkin pies and pear custard bars right and left. I love them both, and this is the season for it!

I took Alexa to OHSU to the GI clinic to make sure she was processing her food correctly. They took blood to test for celiac, and a stool sample to test for fat processing and pancreatic enzymes, and though I haven't heard yet about celiac, the other two were fine. I am trying to help her gain weight, but she is very picky right now. I am very frustrated by this a lot of the time, but I can't force her to try new things.

Ummm, still here

2009-09-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

It really is appalling how rarely I am posting lately. I have been quite busy trying to get used to Alexa's school schedule and getting the house painted a bit, and my usual knitting and spinning and horseback riding and exercising. We took a trip at the beginning of the month up to Seattle for Jamie's 9th birthday. The cousins enjoyed playing together.

And swimming in the hotel pool. Sophia knows how to swim now!

Alexa loves the water so much. I took her for some rides on my back using my snorkel.

The first day of school!

2009-09-09T10:37:00.001-07:00

Alexa went to the first day of kindergarden today. She was too excited to eat much breakfast, and she had to get up at 6:20 am, but she and Daddy were waiting on the front step at 7:15 for the bus. She gets to ride a big bus to school, and the bus driver who lives two doors down will bring her home.

She has been going to school on the bus for a couple of years now, so this is routine for her, but she was still very excited, although you can't tell from the photo so much.

So now that David doesn't have a job we are at home without Alexa for 5 hours every morning..kind of strange. (She only goes to school for 3 hours, but the bus ride to and from is kind of long.)

A whirlwind of a month

2009-09-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

I don't really know how it happened, but a month went by without me updating the blog. I also have this character weakness that goes like this: things start piling up, and then I don't want to tackle them, because they have become so overwhelming that I don't know where to start, so I put it off, and they pile up further, and so on and so forth. I need to get back to the Flylady website and start reading about 15 minutes at a time again! Anyway, I will try to get a little bit caught up here. We ordered a trundle bed for Alexa from ebay, and various problems were encountered, and it didn't actually get here in an undamaged condition until two months after her birthday.

Then, we went to Hawaii. Alexa loves riding buses of all sort, so the shuttle bus to the airport from the parking lot was quite fun for her.

After more than five hours of flight time, we arrived in Kona, HI. Penny bought leis for us all. They smell so wonderful. I remember that smell from the last time I came to Hawaii about 15 years ago.

Hawaii in August was very hot and humid. The house we stayed in was beautiful, but not air-conditioned. Fortunately there was a pool, and Alexa figured out how to swim with her floaty. She never wanted to get out of the pool.

I thought this picture of Penny was so fun, I hope she doesn't mind me sharing.

We went to the volcano, and stopped at this restaurant on the way. It advertises itself as the southermost restaurant in the USA. They had wonderful food!

Alexa's cousin Christopher is 5 years old too, and a chatterbox, so they got on spectacularly.

Our last meal together, breakfast before flying out.

A fun day "camping"

2009-08-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

About a week ago we had a fun day with Deniece's family out on their property where they sort of camp out during the end of the summer. They call it Camp Rita. (Deniece's grandma.)
They have a neat creek where they swim.
And we went out to see Rita's horses. Here is Rita's sister and her year old horse Charlie, who is amazingly obedient for his age, and so soft, and beautiful. Alexa got to sit on him for a bit. He isn't old enough for an adult to ride him yet, but he can handle a child.

Alexa is so comfortable around the horses. They were pretty much nibbling at her hair, and she just stood there, completely unconcerned. The other kids got pretty nervous when the horses got too close. I do have keep her close and make sure they don't knock her over or step on her, but I loved these friendly horses!

Beading, playing in the park with friends

2009-07-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Alexa was so thrilled with her beading skills. She has had a set of large beads and tygon tubing that she has been using for a long time now. I thought this would be a good small motor skill activity, so I got a little beading kit from Michael's for $1.00, and she sat and put beads on this string for at least 45 minutes without pausing!Alexa got a haircut again. She had begun pulling her rubber bands out and chewing on her hair all the time, and I couldn't stand the food and spit in her hair all the time.

We had a playdate at the park with Reese and Tayler and Carleen last week. We had a lot of fun.

Avery Park is one of our really cool parks, it has a full size train locomotive (is that redundant). The kids love it.

A really cool big tree.

daVinci Days

2009-07-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

We had a fun annual event in Corvallis last weekend called daVinci Days. It is a really cool three day fair type things, but the focus seems to be on renewable and alternative energy. They have a cool parade and mud bog races. I participated in a children's activity where you could make your own crown. Theoretically this is Alexa's crown, but she did not really love the whole thing as much as I did.

Here are Daddy and Alexa waiting for the Kinetic Parade to start.

One of the pedaled vehicles. (I think the human powered vehicles are the ones that do the mud race thing..but if someone knows the details, please explain to me.)

Alexa loved this parade so much, she clapped a "talked" about it for 10 minutes after it was over.

In other fun news, we paid a plumber 115$ to get a plastic bath toy out of the toilet yesterday. And later in the day she got the refrigerator open to get some milk..which she is not allowed to do by herself, and knocked my half gallon pitcher full of hand squeezed lemonade out and spilled it all. I had not yet had a single drink of it. A half gallon of lemonade takes a long time to mop up, and then several moppings to get the residual stickiness off the floor.

Today she is just being wierd. She went to bed at her usual time yesterday evening (9:00) and slept in until I woke her up at 10:00 am this morning for therapy. She usually wakes up between 7:00 and 8:00. Now it is 5:00 and she is starting to show signs of waking up from a 2.5 hour nap. She doesn't have a fever, and she ate both breakfast and lunch and drank some water today, so I don't think there is anything wrong warranting a doctor visit.. but if this keeps up I may call them tomorrow, it is a little odd!

More Little Gym Pictures

2009-07-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

This is what we do every Friday at 11:00 am. Mommy and Alexa get lots of exercise together. She loves this stuff and learns so much from it.

She is really good at forward rolls, and does them spontaneously at home all time. She doesn't always carefully consider where she will end up, but fortunately hasn't hurt herself yet.

It is hard to get pictures of this side of the gym because of the bright window behind us, but we try anyway.

She isn't sure about some of this stuff, so I have to be a major cheerleader.

If you have a little gym in your area you should try it, they always offer a free class to try it.

Another fun playday with Deneice's family!

2009-07-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

We went to Avery Park last Tuesday for a playdate with Alexa's friend from school Deneice. After a while I was able to get some pictures of them, but they are always quick action shots, so you'll have to forgive the quality. Deneice was very thirsty that day, and she loves the huge water bottle that we keep in the van all the time, so she was in posession of it most of the time. I usually share things with Alexa, so it doesn't bother me at all to have a second little girl using the same bottle.

Deneice's siblings America and Christopher were there too, and America is so good at climbing. She could run around the top of the "bones" so fast. I took a video of it, and it is pretty cool, you should watch!

Cherries, laundry, fancy clothes

2009-07-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Just a random picture. Alexa is learning how to do laundry by watching me, so she takes things out, and gives them a good shake, and then piles them on top of the dryer. (I fold them in the middle of this procedure, but she hasn't quite got that figured out yet.)

I found this silky poncho thing that I bought a long time ago and have never had the panache to wear, but it sure is fun to play in!

I continue to buy sour cherries and make jam from them. Its like I just can't stop myself, they are so pretty and shiny red and they beg to come home with me, and I just can't say no. Also some mint..good for mint lemonade. I have discovered that if I put any herb into the lemonade, David doesn't like it and I can have it all to myself. Kind of evil of me!

I have been spinning and knitting a lot lately, my work is going to be displayed at the local yarn shop for the next two weeks, so I wanted to get some stuff done for that. I post my knitting pics on the other blog so as not to bore those of you who really just want to see pictures of Alexa..totally understandable!

More summer business

2009-07-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

Yet another picture of Alexa, Babe, and Lynn. I am not sure why I keep taking them, they all look the same, and it is hard to take good pictures into the dark arena from a distance...but Alexa is doing so well, she gets to trot a little bit and she holds her hands out to the side while she does it, she doesn't even use the "handle" thing anymore, just a blanket. No fear at all.
I finally opened an etsy shop to destash some of my handspun yarn, and this took quite a bit of computer time and camera time, and weighing and calculating yarn amounts, and I only got three items listed, but one of them sold. I was pretty excited that someone paid money for my handspun yarn! I linked my shop in the sidebar if you want to look at yarn, but here is one of them.

We had one playdate with Deneice and her brother Christopher. They are both adorable and bright. Alexa and Deneice are so cute together, every once in a while, they stop and hug the other person, for no discernable reason other than that they like each other.

Deneice was a little camera shy, so I didn't get very close pictures.

I am hoping to do this again soon, it is so nice for Alexa to have a friend so much like her.

I continue to make jam like a maniac, but it is so good, especially the sour cherry. Unfortunately that one is the most work too. I have about 20 pints of jam now, and I am trying to stop soon, I am pretty sure that will get us through the winter! Now if the peaches would hurry up and ripen.

We had Alexa's 5 year check-up, and she is officially underweight, so we are being sent to OHSU to a dietician to figure out how to fatten her up. We also have to take her off all the red foods with little seeds that she loves so much. She pretty much has constant diarrhea, and this is contributing to the problem. We also can't potty train her until she is regular.. the doctor said to me "you are doing all the right things, so let's get you some help." So nice to hear!

To finish off with June

2009-06-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

I have been a horribly sporadic blogger of late, so just to catch up with a few things on this last day of June:
We have been keeping busy doing many things. You all know how summer is, wonderful, and exhausting at the same time. Alexa loves the park still. In fact today we are going to meet her school friend Deniece for a playdate there.
I finally finished a project I started a couple of years ago, the Icarus Shawl, and I wore it to the annual fiber festival in Eugene called The Black Sheep Gathering.

We went to the zoo with friends. Here are Tayler and Alexa.

Alexa riding a "horse."

I love that Alexa has so much fun running up and down the ramp, even more than seeing the animals possibly. The orangutangs remind me of her, one was playing hide and seek under a sheet the way she does with her blanket and the mirror.

Tayler riding an elephant.

Cute baby Kaia and Carleen.

Alexa enjoyed Tayler's hat very much.

I have also been making jam like crazy this summer, strawberry, rhubarb, sour cherry, yum!

We are still taking horseback riding lessons, and Alexa is doing gymnastics. We go to the gym almost every day so I can swim, and spend a few quiet minutes soaking up the sun before it goes away again. We had our front lawn killed and replanted, so we have been watering it a bazillion times a day. Farmer's market is twice a week here, and we go to every one we are home for. Alexa is loving the tomatos, strawberries, raspberries, and cucumbers, and so are David and I. It is so easy to eat locally here!

A quick camping trip

2009-06-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Alexa still falls asleep suddenly sometimes in the late afternoon. She had a nap on her monkey here. We went camping Friday night at Memaloose State park in the Gorge. It was a beautiful campsite, and the first camping trip in about three years.

Alexa loved it, she got to ride her trike, and go hiking down the hill with Daddy. Our campsite was overlooking the river on the edge of the campground, so we had a beautiful view.

The one disadvantage was that the railroad track also border the river here, and many trains went by throughout the night. There is a track on the other side of the river too, so we could hear those trains also. I managed to sleep through most of it, but David did not.

Alexa got to run around in her pajamas and Keens. She sat in the dirt a lot, and didn't understand why she shouldn't stand on the air matress in her dirty shoes.

David does not like having his picture taken, but he endured it for one shot.

On Saturday we drove to the Tri-Cities for a graduation party given by the Fosters' old friends the Sloughters for their children McClean, Kalin, Kalin's fiance Josh, and Carolyn. We are proud of all these graduates!

And Sunday we drove all the way back home. That is a tedious 5.5-6 hour drive, and I am glad we don't make it often.

The fifth birthday.

2009-06-10T07:16:00.001-07:00

As many of you will know, Alexa does not like cake. We made a cake for the candle and for the rest of us to eat. Alexa is still a little uncertain about the whole candle thing too. When you think about it, this is understandable, we have this odd little ritual of baking her a cake once a year, and putting a candle in it, then we sing to her and blow it out. We only put one candle in because she is a little worried by it.

There is the exceedingly unflattering photo of me blowing out the candle for her. (When she blows she holds her nose and spits a bit, which we thought would not add to the flavor of the cake.)

And then Alexa got to have strawberries while we ate her cake. She opened her presents and played with them and cried when she had to go to bed. Carolyn and Penny came for the party, so we had a nice time.

Yesterday was also the last day of school, a sad day for mommy and Alexa!

A little party.

2009-06-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

We had a little party for Alexa's birthday on Friday. She gets a little overwhelmed with too many new people. Tayler wanted them to have matching dresses for convention, and so they brought Alexa a beatiful dress as a gift. She also received a book, which she loved! Carleen knows her well!

Tayler and Alexa got to ride horses at the same time as a special birthday gift, and we got to see the newborn Welsh pony.

I wanted to take him home with me, he is so cute.

General Business

2009-06-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't written here in so long, so I'll try to update a little. Here is Alexa in her cute Sunday clothes.. I am not sure why we hadn't put her glasses on yet. If I stand her on the piano bench she holds still long enough to take a picture. She seems to have hit the terrible two's or three's now that she is almost five. Every time I ask her to do something she runs the other way. She now has angry crying fits when David leaves for work, or when I deny her something she wants. You know the kind, where they go limp and fall on the ground and pull away. I am trying to do the thing where you give her two choices, so that she feels more in charge, but sometimes it's hard to think of two good options.

She still goes to therapy, once every two weeks, speech therapy and occupational therapy. This picture is just her playing on the ramp and stairs, I am not sure why she is carrying the pull rope.

We had a big garage sale and sold all the baby stuff. It was a relief to get it all out of the house.

I have been making scones right and left. Rhubarb scones mainly. Thanks for the recipe Holly! Here it is.

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

6 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together and cut in

1/2 C butter

then stir in

1 cup milk

1 egg

If it is really hard to stir at this point I add a little extra milk

Then stir in whatever you want, fruit, chocolate chips, coconut

Drop onto a lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 400 for fifteen minutes.

If you like (and I do) ice with a little powdered sugar/milk glaze.

Also I have been very into making lemonade lately. They have good lemons at the coop and I have made two pitchers of lavender lemonade and one of raspberry. Both delicious!

Lavender lemonade

1/4 to 1/2 cup dried lavender

1 Cup sugar

5-6 lemons

Make tea with the lavender, allow to steep for 10 minute, strain into the lemon juice and sugar, dilute to 1/2 gallon approximately

Raspberry Lemonade.

Make the same way, minus the tea and dump a pint of raspberries in, mash them against the side of the pitcher with a spoon, and then let the whole thing sit in the refridgerator for a day or so. The raspberries sort of dissolve into the lemonade and make it so wonderful!

I got to lope/canter at my horseback riding lesson Tuesday. I am not sure if those two are the same thing..(Carleen?). I wasn't terrible graceful at it, and thus am very sore in the part of me that hits the saddle. I love it though, so fast!

We have the big meeting at the school today to decide where Alexa goes to school next year. This has been a very paperwork laden process, and seems sort of ridiculous, but we should get it finished and figured out today.

Another busy weekend.

2009-05-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Doug and Cherie were kind enough to invite us for supper Saturday evening. They live sort of out in the country and have a big yard that was fun for Alexa to run around in. Caitlyn enjoys playing in the dirt..

And on Sunday morning we went to Willamette University for Carolyn's graduation from law school. It was sort of a long ceremony, but Alexa entertained herself very well playing with Kalin (a family friend of David's family.)

And then we went to Carolyn's place for lunch, raced back to get to our gospel meeting, and went home and cooked a celebration dinner for the family. Alexa loved having two Grandma types to play with..

I am not very good at the candid shots, so you'll have to bear with me.. This is Bea and Lloyd, David's aunt and her husband from Texas.

The Little Gym

2009-05-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in a previous post that we were doing gymnastics at a place called The Little Gym. I can't say enough good things about this place. The staff is friendly and helpful, and the big thing I love is the noncompetitive focus. They aren't training kids to be professional gymnasts, they are teaching them playground skills and beginning sports skills. Alexa just needs to try to use her body in new ways, but it doesn't matter that she can't do half of the activities-no one cares. They encourage her to try, but don't worry too much when she gets distracted and wanders off..the other kids do their own thing some of the time too. If there is a branch near you I recommend them without reservation. I have linked their website in the beginning of this post.

More Arizona pictures

2009-05-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here are the last of the pictures from Arizona. I tried to just pick out the best of them. So here we go. This is my brother's wife Chloe.
My mom, with Aiden (my brother's son), and the back of Andrew's head. (My stepbrother's son)

My brother Cody. (Whose artwork is shown on the website link I have listed to the right.)

The whole circus. You know how fun it is to get a group shot!

Aiden again, being adorable. He looks so much like Cody did as a boy.

Simone, my brother's daughter.

Aiden again..still gorgeous.

My cousin Melissa, with Cody's youngest, Avalon.

And Alexa, in her swimming outfit.

Wish I looked that adorable in my swimsuit!

Some Arizona vacation pictures

2009-05-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

We are still in Arizona. The night before we left I got a fever and was sick all day Saturday. I took a lot of ibuprofen to stay functional. When we got to Casa Grande, I went to the hotel and slept, while Holly took Alexa to convention. By Sunday morning the fever was gone, so we went to convention. Alexa did pretty well, although she has continued to have a horribly snotty nose. It was pretty hot Sunday, and by the time lunch was over Alexa was acting like she didn't feel well, she just wanted me to carry her around. She was really red in the face, so we decided to take her home. We went to Holly's apartment and took her swimming.

Monday evening Mom, Alexa and I went up to Prescott. On Wednesday morning we had breakfast at the Hassyampa Inn, an historic motel in downtown Prescott with Suzie and Thelma.

And I got to visit with my best friend from high school, Melody.

Then we came back to Phoenix, stopping at the outlet malls to play in the fountains.

And Alexa went to spend the night with Nana and Poppa, while I took Holly out to dinner for her birthday.

It was very odd to be separated from both David and Alexa, I felt like I was having a slumber party or something, but it was really nice to get to visit with Holly uninterrupted!

What have we been up to..

2009-04-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well, mostly we have been sick. We will hopefully be fully recovered by Saturday when Alexa and I leave for a week in Arizona and David goes to D.C. for four days to visit a friend. I have finished a sweater (just in time for summer of course.) I have almost finished the front of the aran sweater..this one is going very slowly due to all the cabling, and the fact that I don't work on it as often since I don't like to have to stop in the middle of a row. (Which makes it hard to knit with Alexa around!)

Our bird, Tweety..

And a picture of Alexa (without which, no blog entry would be complete.)

She brought a Mother's Day present home from school yesterday..her teachers are very clever and kind.

My horse Red..

2009-04-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, she is getting older and her hair is turning a bit white, but she is really nice and patient with me. Alexa still loves going to school and getting on the bus..

Alexa Grows TALL

2009-04-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really, but doesn't she look very tall in this picture?In other news at our house-I made Alexa a skirt from this tutorial. Unfortunately I should have trusted my instincts, which said "That skirt is way too wide for your skinny daughter!" It looks sort of dumb on Alexa because it is too gathered. Hopefully it will look better on one of her friends! Unfortunate really, since I took my time and sewed it so carefully.

We bought a parakeet this weekend. He is yellow and named Tweety. I know that isn't terribly original, but we wanted something Alexa might be able to say in the near future. Alexa can hardly keep her hands off his cage. We keep telling her.."Just LOOK at the bird, don't touch!"

Some fun/funny friends visit.

2009-04-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

We forgot to get Owen a dessert spoon, so he made do with the serving ladle! Caitlyn doesn't like to be photographed.

But she loved the big stuffed dog..always a main attraction at our house!

And everyone smiling at once mostly.

The great outdoors

2009-04-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

We got a few sunny beautiful days this week and we enjoyed them thoroughly. Alexa started sneaking out into the backyard when I wasn't looking. She was pulling the heads off dandelions and carrying them around clenched tightly in her fists. Her hands were stained yellow. I also found her in the side yard pulling weeds, although not in a terribly helpful manner. Tayler came up this week to ride again with Alexa, they have so much fun together. I also took a second riding lesson. This week I rode without the saddle to see if it would help prevent my sore bottom. It felt a little precarious at first, but after a little bit your seat sort of melts and forms around the horse, and then it was great. I got to trot around and back and forth through the cones. In a way this seems to resemble driving lessons. Learn to make the horse stop and go, slow and fast, turn right and left through those cones...very fun.

I also got started on a painting project, but that isn't going very well yet. All the trim near the floors in the hall and playroom is beat up and dirty from the scooterboard and the trike and various other things being run into it, the walls have all sorts of little dents and paint and crayon marks. Unfortunately we don't have a sample of the paint that is on these walls and trim. I thought the trim was just pure white, but once I painted part of it that color I realized that it isn't. Now I have to take a piece of the trim to Home Depot and try and match it, because there is no way I want to paint every piece of trim in the house and all the door frames and doors too!

I also have to try and match the wall paint. I took a tiny little bit from behind the light switch cover and tried to match it by eye, they can scan it if the piece is large enough, but I don't really want to pull a big piece of my wall off for this purpose, and the guy at Home Depot said it would probably looked slightly different anyway because it would be the second coat. Sorry to bore you all to death with my paint problems!

We found a great place here called the Little Gym, which is a sort of gymnastics for little kids. It is a noncompetitive program focused on child development, which is exactly perfect for Alexa. She'll be in the 3-4 year old class so as not to get run over by kids who run faster, but they really individualize it, so they should be able to help her if she needs a little extra guidance.

Sunday morning pictures.

2009-04-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

I often try for a good picture on Sunday morning when we are clean and combed and dressed nicely.

Here is a little poncho thing I made for Marissa. It is very plain, but she liked the color, and it was fun to do some simple garter stitch knitting.

I had a nice horseback riding lesson. The allergy meds and mask thing worked pretty well. I got to ride a horse named Red, who is a beautiful little strawberry roan mare. Kind of interesting because when we were growing up we had a horse named Blue Jay who was a blue roan (quarterhorse). Anyway, Red is much shorter than Blue Jay was, which is nice-easier to get up and down from. My behind was a bit sore a few days later because I was learning how to trot..and when you don't know how to do it properly you just bounce up and down on a very hard leather saddle!

Alexa has braids

2009-04-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

I discovered that Alexa's hairs actually can be braided and stays in very well this way. It is hard to do when she wiggles, but it looked so cute it was sort of worth it. This pictures are too bright and a little fuzzy, I am not sure why, my camera is usually pretty good in spite of me. Alexa got to trot a little bit at her horseback riding lesson yesterday and loved it immensely. I have been having horseback riding envy for a while here, so I am going to try it myself today while Alexa is at school. I am allergic to horses, so we'll see if allergy medicine and an allergy mask are enough to allow me to get away with it. Alexa has apparently made a good friend at school, her teacher says she and this other little girl love to play together and hug and hold hands. So we are going to try and get in touch with her parents and see about arranging playdates outside of school.

We have a playdate

2009-03-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

We had a visit yesterday from some of our friends. They were being very sweet together. Reese is a bundle of energy and she loved the trampoline.

We also had Reese and Carsten, but they were feeling camera shy. Every time I pulled the camera out, they stopped what they were doing and hid. This was sort of a small last minute playdate, so I am sorry I didn't invite all of you. I am hoping the weather will be nice enough soon to have outdoor playgroups so we can have everyone. I really need the mommy social hour! Is anyone else getting a tiny bit of cabin fever, or seasonal depression, or whatever it is?

My sweet girl

2009-03-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

Who has learned how to smile upon request..but not necessarily look at the camera.

Some teachers, some horse riding

2009-03-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a more close-up picture so you all could see the grin that is on Alexa's face the whole time she is on the horse. She loves this so much.

We had a meeting with a bunch of different people about Alexa's transition to kindergarten, so I took the opportunity to get some picturess with some of Alexa's favorite people. Here is Kristin, the speech therapist at her school.

And here is Jessica who has been Alexa's teacher for the past two years. She is wonderful and helpful and I like her almost as much as Alexa does, which is saying a lot because Alexa adores her. She is consistently positive and encouraging and and hopeful.

And here is Alexa enjoying the nice day we had last Friday. A few of these sunny days in the middle of the cloudy ones make us hopeful that spring and summer will be here soon. Spring Break is next week!

And finally, thank you all for your kind response to our decision about the adoption. It means a lot to us to have loving friends and family.

2009-03-16T10:40:00.000-07:00

David and I have decided to discontinue our adoption of a second child. We are going to focus on Alexa since she both requires and benefits from more time and attention than most kids do.

Alexa's new music..

2009-03-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

We got Alexa a cool little iPod and headphones thing so she can listen to her music (and we don't have to!) She likes it. I haven't been blogging lately because I haven't been taking pictures very much and it seems like a boring blog entry without them. We have been busy. We got Alexa's glasses fixed, and now she happily wears them again. We went to the children's museum in Salem with Dana and kids..it was fun, but maybe more appropriate for older kids than ours. We are back into horse riding once a week. Tayler came up to ride with Alexa on Tuesday. That girl loves horses! Alexa is doing really well in some new stuff lately, lots of imaginative play with her little barn and bus toys. She wants to help in the kitchen all the time, but I am often too impatient or too unwilling to let her make a big mess. The potty training is sort of stalled lately, we are working on it some, but are too tired to do it all the time. I am back to swimming now that surgery business is done with and the incisions are healed. It feels great to exercise again! I hope you all are doing well..sorry I have been so out of touch.

Tricycle riding

2009-03-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

Alexa has sort of learned to ride her tricycle. She can't start by herself, but if you get her started she can pedal and steer. At least when she's paying attention. She also likes to scoot it with her feet and got going so fast she went over the handlebars and face-planted into the concrete. She scraped her nose badly and got one of those huge forehead lumps and scratched the lens of her glasses pretty badly. We are going to have to get the lenses replaced because now she doesn't like to wear them.

More fun with family

2009-02-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more fun pictures of our weekend. Alexa and Sophia sitting in carseats reading books. Everyone in our family loves books.

After meeting we went to Ruby Tuesdays for lunch, the waiter took our picture.

Sophia and Holly.

Sorry Nana for putting in a picture where your eyes are partly closed, but Jamie's grin was so big I had to share it.

Right before meeting.

Alexa helping Daddy work at the computer.

More silliness.

Surgery, potty training cont., family visiting

2009-02-14T15:51:00.000-08:00

Alexa is so tired and stressed from the potty training stuff she woke up for a while this morning and then went back to sleep before breakfast and slept until after noon. During the brief period of time before she went back to sleep she helped Daddy make pancakes for our company.

We finally got Alexa to wear headphones and listen to Sophia's mp3 player for a while. She loves music, but hasn't been willing to wear headphones before.

Sophia got some cold weather accessories from Nana which she modeled for us.

Nana and Sophia reading a Fancy Nancy book.

Surgery went well. I have stitches which itch me periodically, but it isn't hurting much unless I walk around or stand too much. The screw they were taking out turned out to be broken, so they only took out the half they could get to. That was the part pressing on the nerve and causing problems, and they didn't want to go digging around for the other half. I got the stitches out of my face yesterday. (I had two moles removed and had stitches on my face for a week.)

We finally have company over

2009-02-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

I finally decided to stop waiting for my house to be clean before inviting friends over for supper. It works better for me to invite them and then clean the house up before they get there! We had the Nelsons over for supper Saturday evening. They have been so good to us, they often babysit Alexa when we have a date. Alexa adores staying there, a home with five kids is so much fun for her. She and Philip play with trainsets. Alexa's eyes go a bit crossed when she won't wear her glasses. (She usually wears them, so not a big problem)

Miles and Neil.

The Momma and Poppa and Osten.

Lenore had to work, so she didn't come.

My surgery is Monday morning. Alexa is staying with the Nelsons so David can work, and Mom is coming with me to drive me home afterward and help out. Alexa is still resisting the potty training, but we are going to keep working on it.

I got a new laptop, which I am quite enchanted with. I am typing my blog entry on it. It is so nice to be able to work on my computer in whatever room Alexa is in. It also has a webcam and microphone, so if I can figure out how to use it I can try and call Nana on it so she can "talk" with Alexa. Does anyone else use this? Does it work with Yahoo Messenger?

Alexa decided to grow out of her shoes quite suddenly. I am pondering the interesting growth patterns of children's feet. In the course of one year her feet grew almost four shoe sizes, from size 5 to size 8.5. Then they stopped and it was a year and a half until they grew again. She is a size 10 right now. I am getting her some new shoes made from the Soft Star Shoes place here in Corvallis. I hope they last a few months at least!

Painting and pottytraining

2009-02-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

I still haven't figured out why Blogger is reversing the order of the pictures I upload. Anyway, Saturday, we pulled out the paint and let Alexa get really colorful. We took off her shirt for this, so she painted in her underwear. She is kind of funny about getty her hands messy, she isn't sure she like it. The potty training is going slowly. We have only taken Alexa out of the house for Sunday morning and a quick meal out afterward. Other than that she has been stuck in the house in her underwear trying to learn how to go on the toilet.

She loves sitting on the toilet since we sing and read and play with her, but she doesn't like to actually go potty there. I am not sure if there is something scary about it, or that she has just been going into a diaper for so long she can't adjust to the change of it. She seems to know when she needs to go, and she comes to me right after she wets her panties, but getting it in the toilet is still not happening very much.

Grandma Penny came up Friday and stayed until after meeting yesterday, so we were thankful for her help. We have mice still/again. I stuffed the holes with steel wool and put a bunch more stuff in hard plastic containers, and cleaned up the mouse droppings, some of which were still damp. YUCK! Do you think we need to put the cereal in plastic too? I am wondering of there are more holes that I don't know about (other than the ones under the sink around the pipes).
I will learn to be more patient through this experience whether I want to or not!

Trying to catch up

2009-01-30T08:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a long time for a variety of reasons, no pictures to share, internet acting up, a billion things going on. I will try to catch you up a little.
1. Melody (the doll) finally has one article of clothing. I haven't made her a skirt yet. 2. I am having a small screw replacement surgery on the 9th of February. A screw from a surgery I had done almost 9 years ago has worked through until it is pressing on a nerve and causing periodic pains. So the doctor is going to take that one out and put in a new one in a slightly different place. Mom is coming to help out for about a week, and Holly and the kids for the weekend.
3. We have filed our I-600A form with Customs and Immigration, and we had to go to Portland yesterday to get our fingerprints scanned. Mine may get rejected by the computer when it analyzes them due to small wrinkle lines in my fingerprints. This is usually caused by age, or occurs in people who work with their hands a lot. I think in my case it is caused by the CMT. I may have to go up and get my fingerprints taken again. I am not sure what will happen then, because those lines are not going away, hopefully we will get a technician to look at it and put it through. Irritating.
4. We are trying some intensive potty training again. Penny is coming up to help keep me sane while we keep Alexa in panties and a t-shirt and rush her to the potty periodically. I started yesterday when we got home from Portland, and between 1 pm and 8 pm she did not pee or poo...apparently she knows how to hold it, or she is dehydrated..I did start pushing water on her at about 4 pm. Anyway, wish me luck and offer any advice you may have!

Pigtails

2009-01-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

I put Alexa's hair in pigtails yesterday, and they were so cute. We had some sun for once, and the light in the house was beautiful, and Alexa was willing, so I tried to get some pictures. They are fairly cute because of the subject matter of course, but it is hard to avoid reflections in her glasses. We have been busy. We all got sick last week, and David and Alexa were too sick to go to Eugene special meeting, so I went by myself. So strange to sit quietly through the whole thing!

Last week I took Alexa to the Social Security office to get a new Social Security card for her, because the one we had was still in her birth name. (yes, I have avoided this project for 3 years) Anyway, I took books for her to keep her entertained while we waited, and her "leash" and the whole file of Alexa's adoption documents. I was so prepared. Alexa did great for a while. She was happy and occupied, and I thought we were going to be fine. Then she started running around the waiting area meeting people, and I let her as long as she maintained a little appropriate distance. She started running faster and faster, and then she tripped over the gaurd's feet and face planted into the carpet. She hit so hard she had carpet burn on her forehead, and her glasses mashed her nose and eye so hard her nose started bleeding profusely. She was crying, and I was trying to mop up the blood with Kleenex, and just then, they called our number to come up to the desk. I told them to skip us and come back to us, and sang to Alexa to calm her down, and slowed the blood flow a bit. Then when they were ready for us, we had to go get another number, because apparently they can't help you until you hand them a number, so I am trying to hold onto Alexa, who won't hold still and trying to find documents in the expanding file folder, and continuing to mop blood off her face. They want all sorts of things, and in the end, I didn't have the amended birth certificate, so I had to go back later. It was so bad the social security employee apologized! I nearly had a meltdown myself I was so frustrated.

Here is Alexa and Daddy sleeping yesterday morning. They sleep really soundly when I get out of the bed and leave them to it.

Just a little bit goofy

2009-01-14T07:20:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't taken pictures. I also couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't a complaint. But we did have a fun time yesterday when Tayler came up for a riding lesson with Alexa. After they had their individual rides, Lynn put them both up on Babe for a little bit. I unfortunately didn't get a picture of their faces at this point, maybe I can get one from Carleen. And here is Alexa who put her swimsuit around her neck for fun, or maybe she thinks it is decorative. When I get out the camera and tell her to smile, this is the pose she strikes. Kind of funny.

We discovered last week that we had mice. They had gotten into my baking drawer and eaten my nuts and coconut. There was mouse poop all over under my sink, and I had to throw most of the stuff in that drawer away. We sprayed this foam stuff around the pipes where they come through the wall and set traps, and we caught one. But there are more. They chewed through the foam stuff, and got into the chocolate we left in that drawer to lure them, but failed to get trapped. I now have to go get steel wool to pack in around the pipes, and secure my baking stuff in tins or hard plastic.

We went to Portland Special meeting on Sunday, and Alexa was a squirming wiggling terror. We should never have put her in the car for 2 hours drive, and then expected her to sit still for two separate two hour meetings. She was good at Lebanon special meeting, but she had already gotten to go to school and play that day (Wednesday special meeting), and the drive there is only 30 minutes or so. I am sort of dreading this coming Sunday..we are trying to figure out how we are going to get her some physical playtime in before and between meetings.

Happy New Year Everyone!

2009-01-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

I had some fun taking pictures yesterday before meeting. Alexa really enjoys her train lately. We had a calm New Year's Eve. We went to bed early. New Year's Day we spent at home chillin' out..David worked on fixing the light in Alexa's room, the wires corroded so we had no ceiling light in there for a couple of weeks.

Friday night we had Curt and Renee for supper and a rousing game of Banagrams..a very fun word game!

Saturday David finished fixing Alexa's light, and we got some other little stuff done. We didn't go to Will and Shelley's get together, I'm sorry I missed seeing you all who were there, but we needed time to recover from holiday traveling and get ready for upcoming busyness..

Sunday we had lunch with Tony and Martha and Josh and Zach at the Chinese restaurant. We had a fun visit with them.

I took Alexa swimming again in the afternoon, she loves it so much, but it is kind of exhausting for me to get her into and out of her swimsuit and swim diaper and showered and dressed, and to do all of those things for myself too, while she is wandering around the dressing room pointing at people. Most of the time it is okay for Alexa to be excessively friendly to strangers, but not when we are all undressed..then it is a little awkward.

Riding and a new doll..

2008-12-30T12:13:00.000-08:00

More horseback riding today. We had two helpers, one named Ally who led the horse, and Lynn who helped Alexa. She is learning how to say mmmo (more) when she wants Babe to go forward, and give her thank you pats. They play a game where Alexa chooses a toy from a box, and then drops it into a bucket thing a little ways away. They also have a "bridge" (a piece of plywood) that they walk over, which makes a neat clop clop clop sound from Babe's hooves, and Alexa laughs and laughs. She loves funny sounds.

I finally made a doll for Alexa. I bought a kit for making a Waldorf doll just before we left Eugene, and it has been sitting there for almost three years. A very interesting experience. Here she is with arms sewn to head, but body and legs still separate.

And here we have her current status, with hair, but no clothes yet. Alexa loves her almost as much as sock monkey, and that is saying a lot. David proposes we name her Melody (yes, after you Melody,) and I think that is a good idea since m and y sounds are among the few Alexa can say so far. Would you be honored or offended?

A few silly Christmas pictures

2008-12-29T08:17:00.000-08:00

There weren't any really photographically excellent pictures on my camera when I downloaded them this morning, so we'll have to just go with what I got. Here is Alexa with her cousin Christopher who did not want to cooperate. Alexa, Aunt Dang and Christopher.

Alexa and Uncle Chris.

Aunt Carolyn, David and Alexa opening presents.

Alexa's favorite present.

We went to Florence Wednesday afternoon and stayed until Sunday. We ate lots of cookies and pies and other unhealthy food. I got some knitting done, and Alexa and Christopher got to play together. They get along so well. Alexa is in a hugging stage, where she hugs everyone when she sees them for the first time in the morning, and before they go anywhere outside. Christopher put up with this very well for the first few days, but by Sunday he was a little tired of being hugged all the time. The weather was cold and wet and windy, so we stayed inside and watched the ocean through the windows by the fire.

Snow and friends

2008-12-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

We had some more snow, and this time, some friends to play in it with.. Lisa, Marissa and Brendan came up and stayed with us Friday and Saturday.

Marissa and Alexa enjoyed reading books together.

Or having David, or Lisa or me read books to them.

I made matching hats for Alexa and myself with my handspun yarn..it has a lot of "character" because I spun it on a drop spindle and I was just learning at that point. (I am still learning in fact)

Ginger Cookies

2008-12-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? Two posts in one day? Well, it is a snow day, so Alexa and I haven't left the house all day (except to go outside for 10 minutes to play in the snow.) I took this opportunity to make some ginger cookies. I have enjoyed ginger cookies from the Seattle's Best cafe in our Border's Books, and have wanted to try and make some myself. They are the chewy kind with bits of crystallized ginger in them. I used this recipe from the Allrecipes site. I used 1 stick of butter plus 1/4 cup Crisco, because I didn't have margerine. Then at the end I added 1/2 C of crystallized ginger all chopped up. They are really yummy..

Do we like this stuff?

2008-12-15T11:08:00.001-08:00

Well, we weren't sure at first, but then we thought we'd try riding the tricyle in it..which doesn't work very easily to be sure.

Also, it seems like when it snows, we all of a sudden can't find our nice warm fleecy mittens that we had last week, and all of our hats are too small, so first we try the pair of mittens that are too big, and then a pair of mommy's wool socks, also too big, before settling on a pair of our own small cotton socks. Not as warm, but at least they stayed on. Also we are wearing mommy's Calorimetry headband because it is wool and adjustable

We didn't stay out for long because it is only 25 degrees. No school today. We are sad. We love school.

Snow?!?

2008-12-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

While I am always reluctant to post without pictures, I am so excited about the snow that is supposed to be coming our way that I can hardly sit still. The only problem is that it might not come before it gets dark, and then I would have to wait until tomorrow to really see it. Since sunset is at 4:34 today, that is a very real possibility. Earlier in the week the predictions were for it to snow last night and today, but they keep pushing it out a little at a time. I went out last night and got apple cider in preparation..what is more fun than sitting around the (gas) fireplace, sipping cider while it is snowing? Well, knitting, while sitting around the fire, sipping cider while it snows outside..or maybe reading without getting interrupted by a persistent four-year-old who wants me to read her Curious George book to her, while sipping cider..well you get the idea.
In actual news, we had the second home study interview on Tuesday afternoon, and it went pretty well. This is the one where she talked to David and I separately. (Another fairly new requirement from the Hague convention) I can see the point of this. What if one parent really didn't want to adopt very badly, or wanted to reveal some crucial information of some sort privately, then this would be the opportunity to do so. However, this social worker is writing a report about us that will be sent to Ethiopia, and what if we come across as two people who are completely clueless about each other? The other thing about home studies is that they are full of wierd, almost unanswerable questions. What three words would you use to describe yourself? Each other? How would you describe your childhood (Yeah, in a short paragraph)? What qualities do you hope to instill in your children?
The one thing I did find reassuring was that kindness was the word of the day. That is what I love in David, what I value in myself, what I want my children to be.

Horseback riding

2008-12-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

For some reason Blogger has changed things so that the pictures are in reverse order, but you'll get the idea. I took Alexa to a local stable today to ride a horse. The horse's name is Babe and she is a very gentle creature. Alexa loved it so much. We have set up a time to go weekly.

She didn't seem at all worried or scared, even at first.

I took some antihistamine because I am allergic to horses, but I don't know if it worked or not because there are a bunch of very aggressively friendly barn cats. I am most allergic to cats, so I did have some allergy symptoms, but they were fairly minor, and could have been caused by the cat who jumped in my lap and rubbed all over my clothes!

Alexa's new sweater,

2008-12-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

I made Alexa a sweater. It is really cute on her. We are trying to set up a way for Alexa to get some horseback riding as a physical therapy type activity. I think she will love it.

We took her swimming yesterday at TAC where I go. They have a warm pool and family swim time on Saturday. She loved it. My mom got her a flotation thing that keeps her head pretty well out of the water, and after a while she was willing to let go of us and splash around by herself. The other times we've taken her swimming she clung to us like a little monkey and wouldn't let go, so this is progress.

2008-12-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted any bathtub pictures lately, but taking a bath continues to be one of Alexa's favorite things to do.

We have our first of two home study interviews today, and I am trying not to freak out too much. Honestly though, how can I not? Someone (albeit a very nice lady who did our home study for Alexa's adoption) is coming to our house to judge whether our home and family are good enough to place another child in. Although the reasonable part of me says, "All homes where people live with young children get cluttered," the emotional, panicky voice chimes in with "what if she decides that if you can't even manage to keep the house clean with one kid, what are you going to do with two?" Or, "you already have a child who demands lots of extra time, you should just focus on her." And on, and on, and on..

Here is something I learned. Kids like Alexa who have sensory issues sometimes require a lot of extra stimulation. As most of you know, Alexa grinds her teeth and chews on her clothes to get this, and I have been trying to make her stop. We have tried giving her rubber things on a bit of elastic around her neck, but she won't chew on those, she prefers cloth, so yesterday I got her a cloth bib. She chewed on that thing for the rest of the day, and she was happy. Apparently, some part of her really needs that, and once she has it, she can focus on other things.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T07:19:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-20T10:58:00.001-08:00

This is called A Day in Pictures.

2008-11-18T12:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-17T08:31:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

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.

Weekend in Newport

2008-10-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

We took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Newport this weekend inspired by Will and Shelley (I was looking at her blog entry about their visit to Newport and I thought, "we could do that"-so we did!)
We drove over Friday evening when David got off work and since we were awake early Saturday morning, we went to the beach at about 9:00 am, when it was cold and damp. This is Nye beach, and Alexa loved it. She was so happy she would run a few feet, and then stop and laugh and clap for the joy of it. I could not get her to hold still for pictures.
The best part about the beach is that it is beautiful and amazing no matter what the weather is like. Well worth the cold hands and ears!
Then we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium where we saw many beautiful and amazing things. They had this tank of swirling seaweed that was beautiful.

Most of the tanks had these beautiful glass sculpture things in them too, I could have spent hours if I didn't have a four year old and tired legs.
The sea otters were adorable.
Jellyfish are always amazing to me..so delicate.
The colors and shapes..
I think these were anchovies, also shiny and gorgeous en masse.

After the aquarium we went to take a nap, and then to the Aquarium Village area which was hysterically funny.
Like some sort of Disneyland imitation.
And then we had an amazing seafood dinner at a place called Local Ocean Seafood on the bayfront, with this view.

We stayed overnight and went to meeting with our friend Linda on Sunday. Then we ate lunch at a place that I call the crab shack, but I can't remember if it is actually called that or that it just looks like a crab shack. They have big pots of water and they boil those crabs out front. I ate half a crab for lunch..messy and YUMMY. Alexa had rice..we can't convince her to try new things at this point in her life. We are always torn between eating somewhere that has food we like, and eating somewhere that serves mac and cheese.. Saturday night she wouldn't eat anything at the seafood place, so we went to the grocery store afterward and bought yoghurt.

So here is a question for anyone who visits there..where are your favorite places in Newport to eat and stay and visit?

I recommend both the crab shack place and the Local Ocean Seafood place. We stayed at La Quinta Inn. It was OK, but they allow pets to stay there, and there were about 10-15 dogs who stayed there with us. I personally don't like to hear dogs barking when I am sleeping and honestly I kind of like outside dogs better than inside dogs. (I don't mean to offend anyone, that is just the way I grew up.) So anyway-the aquarium was incredible, the Aquarium Village was dorky, but had a cool yarn store. Nye Beach and the shopping area around it looked really neat. I would have loved to poke around, especially the bookstores, but again, Alexa is not really a fun person to shop with!

Riding a Tricycle

2008-10-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sort of No action shots because she can only go a little way by herself so far, most of the time I have to be pushing her a little bit, but she does have short periods when she can do it herself. The sun was in her eyes, so no looking at the camera either.

Our low-carb company..

2008-10-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here is Alexa with one of her favorites, The Wheels on the Bus. (This copy has a button that plays the song when you push it)And here we have Mike and Lee who stayed with us this week. Lee is on a low-carb diet because of Diabetes, and Mike is trying to eat that way too..so we had fun planning meals.
David and Alexa before meeting this morning.

She is getting to be such a big girl now. This is fun and a tiny bit sad at the same time. At least she still lets me cuddle her! She is developing a lot of new sounds. She can say momom, but doesn't always distinguish between the mom word and more (mmmmo is how more sounds). She can make an H sound, and recognizes the letter when she sees it. She can do an ah sound, which we are trying to get her to use in conjunction with her hand sign for want and for all done. She can make a g sound. There are so many new things that she is learning, and we have lots of help. We still go to speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy twice a month each. She goes to school three days a week for two hours a day and they also provide some speech and physical therapy. She is almost able to ride her tricycle, she can't jump yet, she can go up and down one step at a time unassisted, and sometimes up a couple more without help. We are working on teaching her to walk on a six inch "balance beam", and to jump on the trampoline or one of those big rubber ball things with a handle. (we don't have one yet but we do it at therapy)

Hmm- not sure why the big therapy update on this post, but why not?

Our new floors

2008-10-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

We had some laminate flooring put in last week. We have been having trouble keeping the carpets clean, and the linoleum that was in the kitchen was scraped in places and pitted, and never looked clean even when it was. This is much better. It was kind of a pain to move that big bookshelf and the piano and, and we also got flooring the the office/spare bedroom, so everything had to come out of there too. I really like how it turned out. So bright and cheerful. It is noisy however, Alexa loves to stomp around on it, and when she dumps her blocks out, or throws a bit of her wooden train set it really startles me.
We had to be out of the house while it was getting installed, so we went to Eugene to Grandma Penny's house. She has toys for Alexa, and Penny and I are working on hand carding some alpaca fleece that we got at Black Sheep Gathering, so we had fun.

We have a "playdate"

2008-09-29T12:16:00.001-07:00

Which at our house seems to be where you invite some people over so that they can catch a cold from you...
Here is Zach Owen
Josh
Feeling a little shy about getting photographed.
And Martha and Caitlyn.
We had a small playdate, when we invite everyone in the field we have about 15 kids..which is a LOT for my house. We will try to plan a large playgroup soon. And about 2 hours before the playgroup Alexa started sneezing and her nose started running. I should have cancelled I suppose, but we had occupational therapy right before playgroup and I was too busy to think things through very well. Alexa ran a fever Thursday night, I was sick by Saturday. Josh and Zach were sick by Sunday, and Cherie, Owen and Caitlyn were missing from gospel meeting, so maybe we got them too..
I can't believe Alexa started school only a few weeks ago and we have already gotten the first cold. I expected the incidence of colds to be much lower this year since it is her second year of preschool.

OH-I forgot the big news. I am an auntie again. My brother Cody and his wife Chloe welcomed their third child into the world Friday. A baby girl named Avalon Joy. I haven't seen any pictures yet, but I am hoping soon!

The joy of taking out the trash.

2008-09-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Never diminishes

Are these people related to me?

2008-09-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

I must face the fact that yes, this is Auntie Carolyn. We love her just the way she is..We had birthday dinner for Carolyn up in Salem yesterday. And today is our 6th anniversary. Alexa got glasses to correct an astigmatism. She seems to see better with them, and she leaves them on better than we expected her to.
David and I spent 4 hours Friday and 4 more Saturday at a class about international adoption. It was very helpful and informational. It is one of the requirements for international adoption. We are still in the process of getting all the paperwork done for the home study.
(Isn't she adorable in those glasses?)

Wagons and Blackberries

2008-09-15T06:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been absent from blogging for a week and a half. Things get so busy around here. This weekend we were home and got some things done. While David was weeding outside, Alexa took her wagon for a walk. She walked about four houses down and never looked back, despite the fact that we were yelling at her to come back. She stays on the sidewalk the whole time, she just doesn't seem to worry about getting far from us. We now have to work on teaching her the boundaries of our yard. Later we went to the park and pulled Alexa around on her scooterboard. She loves this so much.

And yesterday we went to Camp Adair to pick apples. There are a lot of apple trees there, but the ones we found were covered in blackberry bushes. We still managed to get enough apples for another batch of applesauce. Then we picked blackberries, and after initial skepticism, Alexa decided she like them.
Of course, this meant that we got home with about 15 blackberries because she could eat them faster than David and I could pick them.
And her shirt got stained, so we took it off. She was a very purple girl!

The first day of school

2008-09-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Alexa's first day of school was yesterday. She had her new backpack on and a big bag of school supplies. (a bag of pull-ups, 2 boxes of Kleenex, a couple boxes of snacks, and that is just the first load!)
This is pretty much how she feels about school. I am not sure who is more happy about school starting-but I am excited too!
The note that came home in her backpack from her teacher said "Alexa had a great day. Was very happy, and too happy to eat snack, so she may be hungry." Have you ever been too happy to eat?

Cousin Jamie's 8th Birthday Party.

2008-09-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

Well we took another flying trip this weekend. We left on Sunday after meeting and drove to Seattle, picked Holly up from the airport and stayed overnight for Jamie's 8th birthday party. His birthday is actually today, but the party was yesterday. Here is the sister Sophia with a birthday hat. Those are candles sticking off the top. The cake was a train and was really cute. The party was at a park, which usually would have been perfect, but it was a little cold yesterday, and for some reason the bathrooms were locked. Holly and I got Starbucks on the way to the party, so you can imagine our desperation three hours later. Alexa fell asleep and took a nap on a pile of coats on the ground, but she did enjoy the first hour of the party.
There was a pack of boys running around, I think Jamie had fun. He is such a good kid. He is kind to his friends and appreciative of his gifts. He even sat and talked to me for a while when we first got there while all his friends were running around playing..
Then we drove back home last night. Alexa was so good in the car. She didn't nap during the drive because of the nap during the party, but she didn't whine hardly at all. She sat looking out the window quietly. We got home at about 10 last night. Alexa starts school today. We are pretty excited about that. Last week when we went to the school to register she was so happy. She kept laughing and bouncing around. Her teachers and all the aides love her because she is so happy and joyful to be at school.

Saginaw

2008-08-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

And we got back from Saginaw Convention this week. We stayed with Adam, Lisa, Marissa and Brendan. Marissa and Alexa had to take a bath together. This is a series of pictures I have of them in the bath together. They were maybe 1 or 2 yrs in the first one. They both love the water. If they get much bigger however, they might not fit anymore. And the pictures of all the kids with the tractors and trailer. I usually go through and try to pick out a couple of good pictures for the blog, but none of these was really good in the sense that anyone was looking at the camera. On the other hand, taken as a group they quite accurately reveal the post meeting chaos that was the normal state of events.

And Alexa woke up with "morning after convention" hair.

Convention was wonderful..we feel so rich.

Continuing with Nana and Papa's visit

2008-08-26T06:37:00.000-07:00

One last alpaca picture because she was making such a funny face! And I finally got to take a picture of mom in the sweater I made her.
We went swimming at the hotel pool again.

And one last cuddle with Nana before going to the airport.

Nana and Papa's visit

2008-08-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

There are so many things to catch up on this blog, but here we go..I got Alexa's hair up with lots of water and some gel and rubber bands and clippies..and it looked really cute for a while. This is the new swing that Papa put on the front porch for Alexa. She adores it, and it will be great in the rainy winter! Mom and Bert did so many things to help us at our house, we really appreciate it. They put the swing up, fixed the shower door, cleaned the garage!!, made a scooterboard for Alexa with a pull rope, moved the desk from the spare room to the garage and the nice desk in from the garage to the spare room, and just generally spoiled us to death. THANK YOU!

For fun we went to see the alpacas. You can feed them. They are so adorable I always want to bring one home.
I got an alpaca fleece for 21$ from an animal worth 65,000$. Isn't that crazy? (It is a boy and is for breeding. I don't think they are all that expensive.)

Vote for family picture

2008-08-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

We tried to get a family picture last night. We need one for our adoption home study. Care to vote? The comments option at the bottom of the blog entry is a good way to do this..or to leave comments in general. Please do comment every now and then if you read the blog..sometimes it seems that no one is reading it. (Thanks to my most frequent commenters Sandra and Holly)

Sea World Part II

2008-08-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Another random assortment of Sea World pictures. Most of the ones with the actual whales and dolphins in them were taken by Holly-so I haven't got those yet. Sophia helped me pick out a cowboy hat like hers. And then we ate cotton candy together.

There is a 25 minute Cirque de la Mer show at Sea World that is amazing. All Cirque du Soleil shows are incredible.

Sea World Part I

2008-08-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Here's some more pics from Sea World. I have been remiss in blogging lately since we went to WA for David's grandpa's funeral and then met Mom and Bert in Portland and brought them home with us. They have been working very hard doing some things around here. I will show you in a later post.
I thought I should get Sea World posted first though to try and maintain some sort of chronological order.

Trip to San Diego

2008-08-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

Alexa and I went to San Diego last Saturday to meet Nana and Papa and Auntie Holly and Cousins Jamie and Sophia. Immediately after getting seated with her seatbelt securely fastened, Alexa read the safety briefing card (located in the seat pocket in front of you) to find out what to do in case of emergency. Once we arrived in San Diego we went to Seaport Village where I consumed some tasty fish tacos and Alexa admired Sophia's sunglasses.
Then we went swimming. Alexa used water wings for the first time and had so much fun I didn't think we were ever going to get her out of the pool.
Sophia jumping in.
And Jamie who swims like a fish.
And Saturday morning before we left, at about 4 am we got a call that David's grandpa Woodie passed away. David and his sister Carolyn went to the Tri-Cities Saturday to make arrangements and take care of things. There was a viewing Monday evening and the funeral will be next Monday. David and Carolyn returned home Tuesday also, in time to meet Alexa and I at the airport and help me with the suitcase.

Ready to go Mom

2008-07-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Alexa helpfully got my purse today so we could go to therapy..doesn't she look innocent?I love the many ways she is starting to imitate us.

Fun on the porch.

2008-07-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

When I went out to take pictures of yarn Friday Alexa wanted to be photographed..she was being extra adorable too.

My beautiful girl

2008-07-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

I really thought Alexa looked beautiful sleeping yesterday. Aside from the diaper she could be a sculpture or something. Too bad I inherited no artistic skill whatsoever from my father. And for supper I cooked up a great big pot of yarn.
It turns out that you can dye animal fiber with Wilton's icing dyes.
If you really want to read about my fiber obsessions you can see my other blog where I ramble on about various knitting, spinning and dying stuff.

Fun in the kitchen

2008-07-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Alexa, who loves the kitchen lately, took all the pans out of the cupboard and put them on the stove yesterday. Lids too. I have been busy trying to feed us with food grown locally..and as part of that effort, making jam, freezing berries, and canning tomatos. Here is the tomato sauce I made yesterday.
Alexa loves this whole thing. Yesterday she ate a bunch of fresh green beans, blueberries, and a diced tomato for supper. At home it is easy to feed her. When we travel it is more complicated..

Trip to Tri-Cities

2008-07-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

We went to the Tri-Cities, WA this weekend to see David's grandpa, and this is the only picture I have because the camera battery went dead after this. What is this you ask? This is a picture of the flowers in the median strip in Albany. There was a major traffic halt and it took us 1.5 hours to get from our house to the Jefferson exit...this should take about 25 minutes. There were times when we were parked on the freeway for five minutes at a time without moving at all. And after all that, we finally get up to the place where the problem is, and we can't even tell what happpened. Just a big truck..jacked up, but no other car seemed to be involved. Yet they had one lane blocked off, and were stopping traffic in the other lane periodically. So there is the reason I noticed and had time to take pictures of the flowers. David's grandpa Woodie is in the hospital with pneumonia. He has been in the hospital about 4 times in the past 6 months. He wasn't eating, and was sleeping all the time. He perked up quite a bit when he saw Alexa and David. He kept saying how cute she was and that "grandpa loves you." She sat up on his bed and cuddled up next to him on Sunday. She stayed there for 10 minutes or more. She is such a sweetie!
It seems like Woodie will probably be going back to his his rest home place and going on hospice if the diagnosis meets their criteria.

Yesterday we went to Eugene to the neurologist. We were still hoping for some sort of diagnosis for Alexa that would meet the insurance company's requirements to cover her speech therapy. However, there is no physical explanation for her developmental delays that is visible in the MRI. The neurologist says that this is common. Approximately 50% of kids with DD have no known cause.
We stopped by to see our friends Tayler and Reese and Carleen. Alexa and Reese were playing together very happily.

Tea Party

2008-07-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Lisa had a tea part for the girls last Saturday. We had a fun time. I did not do very well photographically speaking however. I am going to have to beg photos from Carleen Here are Alexa, Marissa and Taylor. Taylor drinking strawberry lemonade.
Alexa suckered Margo into reading with her for a very long time. Thank you Margo!
Reese really enjoyed the food!

Reading in the Bathroom again

2008-07-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

Alexa has been a lot of fun lately. This morning I heard her giggling in the bathroom. This makes me instantly worry that something is being dunked in the toilet - but this morning she was just reading a Dr Seuss book on the closed toilet! She is doing so many fun new things lately. When she gets up and we don't serve her breakfast immediately she points to the kitchen and makes her ah ah sound (which is the best start she has made at saying want). When David went in the kitchen she got the oatmeal pot out of the cupboard and put it on the stove. Sometimes when she wants to eat she gets her bib and waves it at us.
She is also frustrating at times (of course). Sunday I made peas for her as part of Sunday lunch. Since she loves peas so much, once she starts on them she won't eat anything else, so we gave her some mashed potatos first. When she wouldn't try them, we added peas to the potatos and mixed them...but she would not eat any pea which had touched the potatos. We had a maj0r battle over this involving a time out and lots of crying. Finally she got down without eating them. An hour later she went to the table and started eating it. Then yesterday for lunch she ate mashed potatos with no peas in them.
Potty training is sort of at a slow point. Sometimes she tells me when she has just gone potty, so she does sort of get it..this morning I caught her on the red chair grunting, so I rushed her to the toilet (some poop in diaper at this point) and we sat there, and nothing happened, so I put her diaper on, and she finished pooping in it. Stage fright or something.