And February

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

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

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

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..

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

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

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.