Happy Halloween!

Here is our princess with wings and our little "mummy". His outfit says "I love my mummy!" One of Brad's coworkers let us use it, it's quite adorable!

24!

Yes, we are finally at a true 24 pounds...no rounding up just because we are close. I thought I'd never see 24, so I'm so excited we are there. Mia was very excited too. Calvin on the other hand is still 11 something...we'll weigh him next week and see where he's at. Right now he's talking up a storm with Daddy. I'm not sure what he's saying, probably something about the football they are watching. Mia also learned a new word, she can now say "pony"! Praise God for progress with her speech.

The Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we took Mia and Calvin to a local pumpkin patch. Mia loved it, she wanted to crawl amongst all the pumpkins. We'd ask her which one she wanted to take home and she'd point to all of them. She realized they could roll and then wanted to roll them all. Anyway, it was lots of fun. Calvin on the other hand wasn't too amused. When we were taking pictures I realized I forgot to put on his pumpkin hat, so at that point he became very angry with me. :) So, we only got a few pictures with the hat on. Enjoy!

Two Months

Wow, two months already! Calvin is growing like a weed and we think getting cuter and cuter every day. He's a little bit more than 11 pounds and is 24 inches. Every now and then we'll get a little smile out of him and lots of wonderful little noises. For the most part he is a good baby, he eats a lot! Ask me, I'm the mommy who so desperately wanted to breastfeed, maybe I'll rethink that the next time around. He sleeps pretty well at night, but in the day he only sleeps when he's being held or in something that rocks him, like his swing...or the car seat in the car. We're just grateful he'll sleep in his bassinet at night. Here are some new photos of the little man.

First Day of New School!

Yesterday was Mia's first day at her new school. It went great. We walked in and she immediately was down on the rug with the ABC's crawling around on it. The letter H was under a chair, so she crawled under the chair to get to it and got stuck. She was then off to check out the book corner of the room. Needless to say, when I told her goodbye, she didn't even look at me, just said "ya" to acknowledge she heard me because she was busy working on a puzzle.

I still didn't get to meet her teacher because she was out again, but she should be back tomorrow. I did meet her aides and I expressed some of my concerns with them as they aren't familiar with all of Mia's nuances yet. I'm sure we will communicate much more in the next few weeks as things continue to come up.

The really hard part for me is not knowing what happened at school as she doesn't tell me and I don't get a complete run down from the aides. Such is life. :)

We also saw Mia's GI doctor yesterday and he was very impressed with her weight gain over the past few months. We drew her blood today to see if her iron and other levels had improved since this summer. We should hear back in a couple of weeks. He is really encouraging us to start potty training Mia now and so I think our goal is to start by the new year. We hope that Mia's bowel movements will become more normal by then, please be praying about that.

Calvin weighed in at 11 pounds 2 ounces today. He keeps on growing like a weed, I love it. Thank you Lord!

The Birthday Party

We finally had Mia's birthday party on Saturday. Grandma Cheri, Grampapa, Nana, Uncle Paul and Amy, Jonah, Jacob, and Grace attended our party. We played with our new toys and ate pizza, but the highlight was the ABC cake. Mia has never been interested in a birthday cake yet, but she actually ate the letters off of it and ate some of her cake, she really liked the cake. Thanks Nana and Grampapa for helping cut out the little letters and make the shapes! Here are some pictures of the event...take note of the "birthday tree" which always comes out at birthdays. :)

Check Ups

Today we saw the pediatrician for Mia's 3 year old check up and Calvin's 2 month check up. Mia weighed in at 25 pounds with all her clothes on and she was 35 inches. Calvin is now 10 pounds 14 ounces and he stretched out 2 more inches to 24 inches...the boy is long. Both of them are doing great. Calvin got his first immunization today, the DTaP vaccine. Please pray for no adverse reactions for him.

Tuesday we went to LA for our final follow up with the NICU clinic...they only follow kids until they are 3. They did one final assessment on Mia and she's doing so well. She pretty much came in average on most things, she was slightly below average on her expressive communication and of course extremely low on gross motor skills, but what was most amazing is that she tested so high on receptive communication, that she was borderline gifted! Praise God! That is such a miracle since they told us she'd have absolutely no higher cognitive function. We realize it's just a test, but it's so neat to continue to see God's hand in her little life. We are always so grateful for his grace toward her.

Happy 3rd Birthday Mia!

Dearest SweetPea,

Wow, 3 years ago seems so long ago, but that is when you made your amazing entry into this world. At 1:03 pm, you came out yelling and we were so excited to hear your little voice. A girl, we had a a girl! What an incredible journey God has taken you on these past 3 years.

One of our big prayers last year is that you would only be in the hospital once this year for your final intestinal surgery. That happened last Thanksgiving and we are grateful it went well. You did end up going under anesthesia one more time after that for an intestinal biopsy, but otherwise we haven't had to see those hospital walls. We've still had quite a few doctor visits, but no hospital stays, Praise the Lord!

Another big prayer was that you would start walking and we are so excited that you are there! Walking has given you so much independence and confidence. You used to cry when Mommy left the room, but now you just wander around and find me. That has been such a blessing.

Another one of our prayers was that you would start talking again and we need to say Praise the Lord because you are using your voice! You can't always say everything correctly, but we love how you try. Over this past year you learned your ABC's and how to read words and have an absolute passion for those. We love how you have become this little sponge that wants to learn, it's so awesome to see your personality develop. We are forever grateful that God has given you a second chance when science said you wouldn't have one.

This past year you were diagnosed as celiac and then not celiac and then maybe celiac and then definitely not celiac. We're happy you are not celiac, but it has been quite a journey to try to get you to gain weight. You are pretty much 24 pounds, which is only 2 pounds bigger than last year, but we think you are finally on the path forward for gaining weight. You are also 35 inches which is only 2 more inches than last year, but we are convinced you'll grow much more this year.

This year one of your favorite words to sign was "help" because you love helping, dishes, laundry, cooking...you are everyone's big helper. This year you also became a big sister and you love your little brother. You've already started teaching him about animals and ABC's. One of your favorite games is to have Daddy chase you around after you say "Mama" and he says, "no...Daddy!" because you tease him by not saying "Daddy".

We love you so much SweetPea and have so much fun watching you grow up. We look forward to all the praises we'll have to report after another year. God has been so gracious and good to you. Our big prayers for this year would that you would improve your speech and learn to control your bowels. They seem like large goals, but we know that with God, anything is possible.

All our love,
Mommy, Daddy & Calvin!

New School

So I went to visit Mia's new school today. She doesn't start until next week, but I got to see her classroom and get her registered. I was really disappointed that her teacher was out today, but I will get to meet her on Monday when I bring Mia. The classroom is great, it's colorful and has lots of different stations for different activities. There is a huge rug with the ABC's and numbers on it, so I know she's gonna love that. I got to meet with the speech pathologist and she explained that she works in small groups with the kids and then she'll pull out a couple and work on specific sounds that they are struggling with. They have a pretty consistent schedule and it looks like she'll have a great time. It made me feel a little bit more at ease seeing the structure in the program. Right now there are a few girls in the class, but it is mostly boys, so they are excited to be getting another girl.

Another huge blessing is that we know the principal, he used to be in one of our small groups, so I got a chance to sit down with him and give him a little background on Mia. He's excited to have her at the school and he said that they are really pleased with how the pre-school program is going since it's new to their school this year.

I can't believe our little girl is going to be 3 tomorrow...has it been 3 years already?

IEP

We met for Mia's IEP today. It ends up that they are going to qualify her for school, so she'll start in two weeks. She'll be going to the school that's about 2 miles from our house, which is great! Right now she'll be going 3 days a week and if we decide she is thriving there and really likes it, we might push it up to 5 days a week, but I just wasn't ready to commit to all of that time from the start. I think it will be really good for her. She'll get extra speech services there and they are going to evaluate her for OT also. I could even put her on the bus to go and come home, but I'm not ready for that yet, that is going to be a big step for me! Next week I will go and visit the school and meet the teacher and that will give me a chance to ask some more questions and find out some more information about the program.

Calvin weighed in at 10 pounds today! He's growing like a weed, that makes me so happy. Daddy has been able to get him to giggle occasionally, which is really sweet to hear. Now if he'd just learn to sleep through the night...

We've been battling our colds here, Calvin's stuffy nose is better, but still there a little bit. We all seem to have the same thing...some of us are on the mend thankfully. Today was the first day it has really felt like fall, so we put Calvin in some of his knitted hats (thank you Jennifer!) and took a photo shoot...isn't he cute!

Average

Mia has been getting tested for her exit out of the infant development program. There has been quite a bit of discussion about where she'll be placed because she's doing so well in her testing. The psychologist looked at her yesterday and determined her cognitive ability as "average", which is great, considering what her initial prognosis was after her stroke. I asked her how good of an indicator the test was for how she'd be later on...she said the test is only 30% reliable. Ok, what kind of test is that! That's horrible. There's a good chance that Mia could be higher than average or even lower if she guessed well. :) I'm pretty sure she's average though because we've now tested her by a variety of means and most of those always come up average.

The speech pathologist also evaluated her and scored her as high average, if I recall correctly. Needless to say, all of this is making it really difficult to determine where to place her. They see that she lacks skills in several areas, mostly her self-help skills, like feeding and dressing, and also her gross motor skills...walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs, etc. And then also in her actual speech, she struggles with producing all sounds. So, they are not sure that she fits into the 3 year old program in our district. They think that she's too smart actually, she knows too much cognitively. They think she'd do much better in a regular pre-school program with other kids without extreme delays. So, we'll see what happens Tuesday when we discuss her IEP. At a minimum, I think she would qualify for actual speech help through the district, but we'll see what they say.

What I love most is that she is such a sponge these days, she wants to learn, learn, learn. Praise God!!!! They test are on things and tell us she has gaps in certain areas and we start working on those areas and within days, she's getting it. It's so neat to see. So, I'm looking into my own pre-school program for her at home and it might just end up that is where she's at and we do our own thing. We'll see. :)

We are all getting over colds here...the saddest is Calvin who has a stuffy nose and hates it being suctioned by the nose bulb. I fear the worst always...whooping cough...so pray that it wouldn't become anything serious and that he'd heal quickly. Calvin has also started to be interested in the things around him, he loves his hands and he's become a fist sucker...and occasionally I can get him to sort of smile at me. Tomorrow he'll be 6 weeks!