Perfect Hearing

Charlotte has perfect hearing, which is wonderful news!  Okay that’s it for tonight.

Books and Medical Updates

Besides keeping up with the other blog, I’ve also had time to finish 3 books in the last 3 weeks.  I read By the Time You Read This which is about a father who writes a manual to his daughter right before he passes away when she was 5 years old.  I liked the premise of the story and there were good bits about growing up, but in the end it was really predictable and too easy of a read for me.  After that I got my Kindle and Chris downloaded the new Dan Brown novel, The Lost Symbol.  It was obvious he did quite a bit of research and I enjoyed the fast pace, on the edge of your seat sense of urgency the book had.  Again, another easily digestible book and I thought The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons were better.

The last book I read was one I picked up several months ago but it had such a slow start that I couldn’t get into it, called Water for Elephants.  I really enjoyed this book and there were parts that were just heartbreaking.  If you want to know what really happens at a circus, particularly in the early late 20’s and 30’s, I think this book does a good job at portraying that.  It was a fairly easy read and eventually picked up so that I could connect to the characters.  My next book will likely be another parenting/child development book, but I might find something else that will intrigue me.

Charlotte will likely be have a behavioral and occupational evaluation in the coming weeks.  The only flag on her behavior is her not interacting or relating with other children and having a lot of tantrums, but the therapists think it probably has more to do with her speech and being 2 than anything so we don’t anticipate anything to come out of that evaluation.  The occupational evaluation is for her lack of upper body strength.

Tomorrow we have her audiology exam to make sure her speech delay isn’t caused by a hearing issue.  We don’t think it is since she turns to us when we say her name or talk to her and she follows directions fine.  We are noticing some improvement in her speech where she is really practicing all the sounds and beginning to spontaneously make the sounds (saying mama to get my attention, momo for more, muhmuh for milk, oh for open, etc).

The therapists told Chris that Cooper is also behind in his speech (since he and Chris still attend therapy with Charlotte), but since he is a boy and they typically take longer to talk, the therapists don’t recommend an evaluation just yet.  In the mean time, all the tricks we have learned to help Charlotte learn to talk, we now do with Cooper.

This is what a being a community means

So you know the ‘hand’ picture I took and posted on my other blog?  This is the final result of many strangers coming together to help another family of strangers get through a tough time in their life.  You may notice a few pictures that look familiar!

Give Anissa a Hand from davezwife on Vimeo.

Making Progress

The Shutterfly Site has been redone.  I’ve deleted the other sites, but don’t worry all the pictures are on the new site.  Pictures are updated through December.  You may find duplicates of pictures due to editing, but I don’t have time to go through all the photos and figure which ones are duplicates.  I’ve tried to rotate the photos properly from Sept – Dec, and delete the bad/blurry pictures.

Next item on my list:  The Calendar!

EDITED TO ADD:

FREE 75 PRINTS AT SHUTTERFLY WITH CODE PRINTS 2010.  DEAL GOOD UNTIL JAN 6

Happy New Year!

I have several things going on right now!!  I’m still keeping up with my workouts, which is tough some days and other days a great stress relief.  I am also trying to reorganize some photos to simplify my upload to shutterfly, and then I will be revamping the shutterfly sites.  This will probably take me a couple weeks.

While I’m sorting through pictures, I will also be working on the calendar for the grandparents.  I have a good start on it, but I just haven’t had time to finish it.  In the mean time, here is our year in review using only 12 photos.  (Can you do your year in review in only 12 photos?  Let me tell you, it’s super challenging!)

First time with snow! (Visit to see Heather and new baby Ryan) 

Outstanding Young Engineer Award

Sibling love 

First Birthday!

Happy Adoption Day!

Brand new house 

Summertime clean-up!

Three’s a charm! (Visit to Denver at the Faris’ house)

Visit to North Carolina and feeding ducks with cousin Ginny

Picking out pumpkins

Let the potty training begin!

Happy 2nd birthday!!

The last item I am working on is another blog!!  I know, can you believe I even have time for something like this?  I really want to learn more about photography (just as a hobby…I don’t plan on giving up my day job) and I really need to learn more about how to use my DSLR.  I’m learning, but slowly. 

My New Year’s resolution is to learn something new, so I’ve challenged myself with the Project 365.  My new blog, Twice As Many Moments, explains what the challenge and why I chose the name I did.  The other reason I chose my children as subjects, rather than my own life is that entering into motherhood has not been an easy transition for me.  There are many days that I still mourn the loss of ‘my old life’, especially when the kids are having a rough day.  I feel like this will be a great way for me to capture all the wonderful things about being a mother and to truly document how many bad days there really are.  It will either help me see motherhood from a new perspective, or at the very least help me accept my reality.

So on the days that you don’t get enough about us here, check out the photo blog to see pics of the kids there.  I’m making that blog public, so I’ve removed nearly all of my identifying information.  Please be careful what you post in comments, as I know that many of you have our family blog linked to your name.