CATCH UP

It has been an extraordinarily busy few weeks...full of wonderful celebrations and profound stress and sadness. I'm exhausted. Here's the run-down...


On Dec. 29th. Evan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. It was wonderful. He really went out of his way to make it extra special. He surprised me with a GORGEOUS walnut jewelry box and filled the box with some special stuff! Most amazing, was an extra long strand of real pearls. Love them. Love him. It was a joyous day and I am so, so blessed to have this wonderful man by my side forever.

I've blogged before about my friend Randi. We've been best friends since we were 15 (going on 20 years). At noon on Christmas day, Randi's sweet, sweet mother quietly passed away. I loved Eunice. She was a rare and wonderful woman of extraordinary humor and kindness. I took Anne up to Seattle with me to attend the funeral on New Years Eve and spend a few days with Randi. It was such a blessing to be able to be by her side during this very difficult time. While there, I decided to get the worst stomach flu of my life. It was so bad the Rad had to drive me home and take the train back to Seattle.

With our bizarre winter weather behind us at last, we finally were able to Bless Baby Anne. My amazing parents made the Marathon drive from Montana just to be with us for a couple of days. Evan had lots of family come from different places in Oregon and Washington and we had a lovely time with everyone. It was a beautiful blessing and a wonderful day full of family.

Grandma McAllister made this beautiful blessing blanket. Isn't Anne a doll? She has such a sweet temperament.

Thanks, Vicki, for the help Internet shopping for the dress. This was just what I wanted!

What a nightmare. I walked into the kitchen one afternoon to find my son almost killing my daughter. It was terrifying. Heather had pushed the children's little table up to a window in the kitchen, stood up on the table and wrapped the cord to the blinds around her neck. Ewan (unaware of the cord) decided to "take Headah for a ride," and pulled the table out from under her. She had a nasty rope burn on her neck. I am so, so, so profoundly grateful that she is OK...

Yesterday was my 34th birthday. What a wonderful day. Thank you to all who made it special. I felt very, very loved. Here's how it went down:
slept in 'till 10, had breakfast in bed, went to Macy's and got myself some new jeans, relaxed with my kidos, opened presents, went to dinner at a sweet little french cafe downtown Portland, came home for cake with the kids, went to a movie with my hubby. Thanks Marilyn, for dinner and a babysitter!
My sweet Cameron is really struggling. Please keep our family in your prayers. After making an adjustment to his medication to address progressively deteriorating behavior, he had what the psychiatrist called a "manic break" this week. As a result we have taken him off all medication indefinitely. We are at a cross roads where we have some serious decisions to make regarding his care. Last year at this time, Cameron had a nervous breakdown in Kindergarten and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder on top of his Asperger Syndrome. We reluctantly began treating him with some medication. It was miraculous. He stabilized and thrived for the rest of Kindergarten. Then we had to take away the meds. that really helped him because they caused him to gain 12 pounds in 6 months. We have been adjusting the medication ever since to try and find the right fit. Turns out part of the behaviour we were trying to address, was not Cameron at all, but a side effect of the medication. Here is an example: Over Christmas Cameron became obsessed with counting money. He could not stop. He would hide money under his covers and count it into the wee hours of the morning over and over again. He would sneak our wallets and take out all the money to count it over and over again no matter how well we thought we had hid them. Evan caught him trying to sneak out to the car, bare-feet in the snow at 4 am to see if he could find loose change to count. This is just one example of what Cameron has been suffering. There is a lot else going on that I won't go into. I'll just say that we are in the process of re-evaluating our plans of action to help him. We love this extraordinary little boy. Our hearts break when we see him suffering and this past week has been especially rough. Please pray for Cameron. Pray that we will find the answers we need.

Well. That pretty much catches us up. Happy January!

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Poor Ewan was still so tired...





Princessed out!

Merry Christmas to all...

CHRISTMAS EVE

And Joseph also went up from Galilee...To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

...While they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

Glory to God in the highest , and on earth, peace, good will toward men.

FATTY ANNE

This is what I'm getting for Christmas...almost 13lbs. of deliciously chubby rolls and creases to nibble on at my leisure.

OUR SWEET BABY

Anne is two months old today. Today was supposed to be her blessing day, but Oh well. She is a very sweet and good natured baby. She is changing so much right now, and her emerging smiles and coos are the highlight of my days.

We found out some disappointing news last week. Anne has the same bladder and kidney problem that Heather was born with. It's reflux of the bladder, which means the valves that are supposed to keep urine from going back into the kidneys don't do their job. The good news is that she doesn't have it as bad as Heather had it, so her chances of needing major surgery are much lower. The bad news is that, like Heather, every fever she has is a potential kidney infection and that could mean a lot of late night or weekend trips to the emergency room (like we had with Heather for her first year and half). At least this time around we know what we are dealing with and even with Heather's extensive kidney damage, she still has full kidney function, so we're not as paranoid about long term effects as we were before.

Anyway. Enough of that. I am really enjoying Anne in ways that I didn't when the other's were babies. This is the first baby that I've brought to bed with us and I love waking up in the morning with her little fingers brushing up against my arm. I find that I'm significantly more relaxed about just about everything and perhaps we'll pay the price for that later, but I'm spread pretty thin right now, and I'm just doing what I can to try and meet every ones needs.

WHEN WILL IT EVER END?

Well...our snow day turned into a snow week and then some! The kids and I have been cooped up in the house with no school or church for 8 days. Due to the crazy weather, Anne's blessing (which was supposed to be today) has been postponed and my parents are no longer coming for Christmas. AHHHHH!

The only bright point in all of it is that I've worn my pajamas all day for over a week and had more quality time and relaxed more with my kiddos than I ever have when we are rushing to go places everyday. Here are some fun pictures of our Sunday afternoon stroll through the neighborhood...

SNOW DAY

We had some serious snow fall on Sunday! This was how our backyard looked after the first hour and half, but it kept dumping on us all day long.
The kids had to get on all their snow gear and go outside to play. Daddy was a good sport and went out with them while Mom and Anne stayed inside and warmed up the hot cocoa.

When we put up our tree this year, I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if it actually snowed this year? We have this big picture window that would just look so magical next to the tree if there was snow out there..."
We made graham cracker "gingerbread houses." Can you guess who's is whose?

Ewan's, Mommy's, Heady's, Camerons
Evan plays the kids the sound track to "Music Man" in the car when he takes them on outings. They love the music. So to pass the day (even church was canceled from the snow) we downloaded the movie on Netflix.

My kids all had to get up and dance! Heather was singing "Shapoopee, Shapoopee!" all day.