One Year Home

Oh the difference a year can make.  
On Drew's Family Day (anniversary of day she officially joined our family) I put her into the clothes she was wearing when she came to us, all three layers.  While there is a change in body size it is not significant, but the change in HER is amazing.         
 Happy One Year home Drew!

Visit to Santa

Yes, I know it's February, almost March, but I'm finally getting around to posting about December.  It was a crazy, wonderful month for us, starting with Drew's birthday, my birthday, Christmas, Drew's Family Day and New Year's.  One tradition we have is to visit the Irvine Regional Park at night to ride the Santa Train and visit with Santa sometime before Christmas.  Cory came home from Cal in time to join and we had a wonderful time as usual.  We were not sure how Drew would enjoy it, as she was still a little fuzzy about what Santa was all about.  As you can see by the photo, she was willing to sit if Kelly was, but she was NOT entirely comfortable with this big hairy dude in the strange suit.

Drew turns 3!

She is now 3...such a great number. 
Drew's birthday is Dec. 7th, which means that last year we didn't have Drew until just after her second birthday.  So she spent a whole year with us before celebrating her birthday...a whole year watching everyone else have a birthday, have a cake, get sung to, and get to blow out candles.  So let me tell you, when it was finally HER turn she was ready!!  I don't think I really appreciated how much she wanted that birthday experience until we got to the candle-blowing part.  I'm pretty sure I've never seen a child so intensely happy about it or so ready. 

                                                      Helping make the birthday cake

All she had asked for was a "ba-yoon".

 .

She picked out Minnie Mouse plates, so of course I had to make a Minnie cake.

 

 She got that third finger to work pretty quickly.

 

Happy Birthday Drew!

Trying to catch up....

Trying to get caught up to date with my blog posts here....I have some other photos of this summer that I still need to post; but as usual, I have downloaded them to the computer and can't find them.  
I'll post the Halloween and Thanksgiving photos that I CAN find and will keep looking for the others! 

  Kelly was a cowgirl, and wore the same outfit that Cory and Jamie wore at this age.  Drew enjoyed being a bumble bee and they both had a blast cruising the neighborhood for candy.

Then came Thanksgiving.  We celebrated at our house with lots of family, food and noise.  Drew got to try the whipped cream straight from the beaters....She was a little suspicious at first, but then decided it was pretty good.

June Cleaver would be proud

Ok, this was just too funny not to post. 
So the other day I was vacuuming to try to keep up with the PILES of dog fur that tumble through our house on a daily basis. I stepped away for a minute and came back to find that Kelly had been into the Dress-Up box, but somehow got sidetracked by the vacuum.....

The strange sound in the background is me laughing.

Carmel Apples

One of our family's favorite traditions, started by Ron, is to make carmel apples a few weeks before Halloween.  This usually involves many kids, neighbors and lots of sweet stuff.  This year was no different and we did it the one weekend Cory came home since she left.  It was great to see her, and really good for Kelly and Drew to spend time with her.
The house was full of people, the kitchen sticky from top to bottom, Taylor Swift was blaring, and the little ones squealing....a great day.

Summer fun

 

Yeah Summer!

It's been a long and often diffucult summer but we also had a lot of fun.  We decided at the very last minute that we really needed to, and could, get away as a family.  So the best fitting option for us turned out to be a cruise to Mexico.  We have never cruised before (honestly were never interested); bareboated, but not cruised, but with Long Beach so close (no airfare for 6, let alone travel time) all food taken care of (yeah!) and having some kind of activity for 2 yr olds through 20 yrs olds, it had something for everyone in our family.  Can't say that we are big fans of the big boats, but it was a great way to spend time together and get away from it all.

Cory and Jamie have had a busy summer, Cory worked and helped out with the littles and all the Dr. appointments we've had.  Jamie has been working out, relaxing after her Jr. year and spending time with her sisters. 

Kelly stumped us, and her doctors, by coming down with Henoch-Schonlein purpura, a childhood vasculitis in early July.  It's an autoimmune disease that forturnately usually goes away by itself in a few months, and usually has no lasting damage.  It took a long time and many tests to confirm, and it did cause a lot of "down" time for her this summer, but she's doing great now, and we hope to be done with it. 

Drew continues to amaze us with her developement and recovery from her surgery in June.  It took awhile to make sure that all her systems were fine and untouched by the surgery, but everything seems to be perfect and she continues to be the "wild woman" of the house.  She is still in her Developemental Delay therapy group, but is about to be kicked out, due to her not needing it!  She has started Speech Therapy with Kelly's first SLP, Chelsea, and loves it.  I think this will be needed for quite awhile, as it's her worst delay and her speech has not improved nearly as rapidly as the rest of the delays (which are now gone).  Her behaviour is true blue two, a wonderful thing to see her act like a typical, annoying, loving, demanding two yr old.

School starts for Jamie and the littles in a few days, Cory returned to Cal a few weeks ago, so the routine is about to settle in.  What a summer!