And then there was winter

Wow that had to be a record for how long it's been. I'll try and give you the cliff notes version of the last 3 months.

Princess turned 6 years old!

We have a tradition for her birthday (long story - not part of the cliff notes version) but we go to Silver Diner for her birthday meal. Before dinner we went to the mall to get our pictures with Santa. Little man was not having his best night and had an accident on Santa's lap. Yes - that's what I said. Dad took him into the bathroom and I guess decided to not deal with the mess. Jimmo came out in his diaper and sneakers and the remainders of the outfit was in the Macy's trashcan. (Potty training is just going super - can you tell?) Princess (and maybe mom too) was a little upset that we weren't going to Silver Diner so we regrouped - bought new pants and socks and off we were to Silver Diner. Really all he needed was a nap that he refused to take prior to our trip.....but he took it during dinner instead!


But back to the birthday......no longer can we hold one hand up and tell people how old we are - it's a two hand job now and she's thrilled! She's been very excited to turn six and wanted to have a painting pottery animal theme party with an emphasis on puppies! (Can I get an easy theme - just one year?) I don't think a day goes by lately without her asking for a dog. Hmmmm.

And a puppy cake....

And these are the "pupcakes" she brought into school.

And then Christmas came right around the corner. We went to Connecticut for a pre-Christmas with Hubby's family. We missed the big storm at home, but had a great time. We took a hayride on a huge Christmas tree farm and chopped down their Christmas tree. Lots of cousin time and fun fun fun.

At the tree farm....our photo is missing one cousin - she had a cold.

Cousin Moops made a sweet little owl for Princess

And this is one of our cousin talent shows.....always entertaining to say the least!

Chinese singing cheerleaders?

We stopped on the way back to see my Gran and Pap. They have moved into a home in central Pennsylvania. Always lots of laughs and great to see them!

We had a lovely Christmas at home this year. We had our neighbors over for our third annual Christmas Eve open house. Instead of torturing our son at a crowded church, we decided to do our own devotion at home this year. It was just lovely and we plan to continue this tradition. Christmas morning brought lots of smiles. Lots from Mom and Dad as we were thrilled of Jimmo's participation this year. He sat with us for his entire stocking and even made frequent visits back to the Christmas tree as he went from us to his playroom.

He LOVED his train table and we love EBay

And princess was thrilled with Julie!

And a surprise visit from.....the big guy.

Hubby took vacation time the week in between Christmas and New Year's. We did a little bit of a "train / tree tour" around our nation's Capitol.

National Harbor Christmas tree at the Gaylord Hotel

This one should be obvious.

Close up of the family at the White House Christmas Tree

Union Station Norwegian Christmas Train

Lunch with a view of the train - very cool

Over Christmas break I played around with teaching Princess how to play the recorder. She decided she wanted to do it for show-n-tell so here is a little clip of her practicing...

And then the snow came...and came....and came... and came. It was like Ground Hogs Day around here. We'd get up - Oh look no school, no work, it's time to shovel and then again - Oh look no school... We had a lot of good family time. Lots of board games with Princess (she dominates in Junior Monopoly), lots of train playing with Little Man, lots of shoveling and lots of shoveling. So the first blast of snow came - oh so pretty.

Good sledding on the hill behind our house. It even had two moguls which was great on our Dallas Cowboy flying snow jet ski thinger? (thanks mom)
Of course the first thing Little Man wants to do when he steps foot out the back door.
And then there was more snow..... that little head on top of the mound is Princess in the tree. The snow was sooo deep that you couldn't walk in it - let alone build a snow man or make snow angels...so we made an igloo.

Do you like her house decorating....she must get that from her Dad.

This is the kids on top of our bushes in the front yard. Spring should be interesting!

Next round of snow we couldn't actually get to the big hill behind our house, so we resorted to our cul-de-sac.

She actually got some good speed.

This is NOT the yard, it is the middle of our street!
And on Valentine's Day, Daddy had two dates. A lunch date with his lovely daughter and dinner with his bride.

The last week of February, our Little Man had another seizure. This is his second one and it's been almost five months since the first. Unfortunately it was in his crib in the early morning and we only saw the after effects which is called the Post-Ictal stage of a seizure. He started his anti-seizure medication in January and only ramped up to the full dosage (which is considered the therapeutic amount) about 5 days before this seizure. After meeting again with his neurologist, we decided to stay put with our current medication and dosage because the current side effects have already increased his sleepiness and appetite (The boy is always in front of the pantry!). In the meantime, we'll be purchasing a video monitor system, since his first two seemed to occur when coming out of sleep in the morning. Unfortunately there are so many unknowns in the world of seizures but if anything, it's really pushed us to lean on the Lord rather than ourselves, Google and doctors.

Beyond the second seizure, Little Man is doing great. Miss Terrific Teacher is back from maternity leave and Jimmo is thrilled. As for private therapy, we're taking a break from hippotherapy and we started with a new speech therapist and she's just fabulous with him. We're still getting great speech, occupational and physical therpay at school. Hopefully we'll have a lot of bragging to do in the speech department this year so stay tuned and keep praying!

Big hugs to all and come back soon!