Happy Halloween!

Argh, say the pirates on Halloween.  Mia really wanted to be a pirate this year and Calvin followed in suit.  They sure are cute pirates though.  This past weekend we carved our pumpkin, Mia and Calvin had a blast.  I love fall, I love pumpkins, I love Halloween...I hate carving pumpkins, they are messy and yicky.  So I was happy that the kids and Daddy took over and I could just sit back and watch the process.  Best Halloween ever.  The kids told Daddy what to carve their pumpkin like, so that's why we got triangle eyes, a square nose and a circle mouth...and you can't see them, but moon ears.  Calvin thought that we should sing Happy Birthday to the pumpkin because I put a candle in it...too cute. 

The Pumpkin Patch

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch this year and as always, the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Mia liked looking at all the different types of pumpkins and settled on a bumpy one for herself.  Calvin just wanted to pick up every single pumpkin he saw, even if the pumpkin was twice his size.  He ultimately settled on a little one that he could carry himself.  We got a big one to carve here one of these days, this will be a first for the kids because we haven't actually carved one with them yet.  I think they will both really enjoy it.

Mia continues to recover really well.  She was back to her regular therapy routine this week, which has been nice for us.  Thank you for all the prayers, we won't be able to evaluate her bladder for awhile, so we will continue to pray and trust God for his will regarding this. 

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch.

Happy Birthday to Moo...

We finally were well enough to celebrate Mia's birthday!  So I baked Mia the cake she'd been asking for...a cow cake.  I think Calvin was more excited than Mia for the cake, he kept running around so excited proclaiming "a cow cake".  Nana and Papa came over and we had a small party and opened a few more gifts that she had received.  The big hit...a dollhouse the size of a little girl...although I was kind of eyeing it for myself...hmm...thank goodness she's great at sharing and will let me play too!

A Whole Hand!

Happy Birthday SweatPea!

It's your whole hand birthday!  5 years have flown by and we are so blessed to have you in our family. 

It's been quite a year for you.  You are so close to being 30 pounds, we will just round up and say you made it!  That's a 2 pound gain from last year, it's a slow gain, but we'll take it...slow and steady.  You are now 40 1/2 inches, which is 3 more than last year, good job growing! 

This year your creative and imaginative side have overflowed.  Each day you tell me who you are and who everyone else is also.  You prefer to be called by your imaginative name rather than your real name and often times you respond better to it, so Mama obliges.  Some of your favorite characters are Professor Quigley, Ming-Ming and a Kangaroo. 

Your speech has continued to make great gains and it's getting easier and easier to understand you!  Praise God for this! 

One of our prayers last year was for you to learn to control your bowels.  We are learning patience in this area, but we've made great progress and you now sit on the potty once a day and are clean from bowel movements for 24 hours.  That's been a huge step forward.  We are realizing that it might take you more time to get to where you can do it on your own, we continue to trust God and His plan for your life regarding this. 

This year you had one major surgery to fix your tethered spinal cord, by the grace of God you are healing well.  We pray that it will help improve your bladder function. 

This year we are taking a break from school and your are home with Mama and Calvin.  That has been fun and challenging all at the same time.  Sometimes you and Calvin get along really well, it is so nice, but quite often there are tears and sadness.  We hope that you both can learn to play together and get along, but recognize that this is normal sibling behavior.  Let's just pray for Mama and Daddy about this one.

We love you SweatPea!  We are so thankful for another year with you!

Love,
Mama, Daddy, Calvin & Brother #2 on the way...

Recovery

Mia is doing really well.  She is definitely stiff and sore, but I see visible progress each day with her recovery.  Today we took of the bandage (not a happy moment) and her incision looks good, hopefully being exposed to air it will heal quicker.  We will just keep watching it for any signs of infection. 

I decided to hold off on therapy this week, specifically vision and speech (she wasn't approved for any of the others), just because I didn't want her riding in the car as I imagine that would be rather uncomfortable.  So, we are housebound for the week, but that's ok...it's been giving me some fall cleaning/organizing time. 

For the most part Mia doesn't need any pain medicine, which is great.  So thankful that everything is going so well.  Thank you Lord!