BLIZZARD 2011

Well, we survived the big blizzard. We all had fun waking up this morning and seeing all the snow. Looking out our back door, snow was piled up halfway up our door, so we couldn't get out our back door. For our front door, the snow blew across to our neighbors, so our stairs were clear. However, my husband never put glass in our storm door, so snow had blown in between. The outside of our front door was covered in snow, and I wasn't able to get it closed again once I opened it to clear the snow. There was snow wedged in the little cracks, and we had to clear it in order to shut the door. Our cars cannot be moved. We are in a townhouse, and we have 30 parking spots along a busy street. Not only do we have about 20 inches behind our cars, but the plows also pushed all the snow off the main road right along our parking area. We tried to call plows to move the snow, but all of them said that they couldn't even get in to begin to plow. Others said they can't do it because there is so much snow that they would need a dump truck to move the snow-which they didn't have access to. All 30 of us are going to try to call the village public works tomorrow and complain because the village snow plows helped push that snow behind our cars and therefor they should be responsible for helping us remove it.

We did venture out in the late morning and early afternoon. We shoveled the sidewalks. Well, our neighbors shoveled the sidewalk, I just did a little bit by our stairs. The snow piles were so high from shoveling we were able to create an area for the kids to sled. It was actually pretty fun. Later in the afternoon while Grace was taking a nap, I braved the snow to go out and clear some of the snow off my car. I had a really hard time removing the snow around my car just to get to the doors. I then used my shovel to remove the snow from the top of my car. At least when the sub-zero temps fall tonight, there's no snow on the car to freeze to it! I just can't believe how much snow is behind our cars! I don't know who we are going to end up getting to remove the snow, but I pray it's tomorrow. Here's another video to show the snow piled up behind the cars.

More photos from Disney

Grace with Belle. All these characters were very good and so very friendly! Grace is just absolutely in love with Princesses.

Ariel was really cute. She was calling the kids little fish, and asked Grace if she'd seen Flounder.

Snow White gave her a big kiss on the cheek and left lipstick lips. We showed Grace in the mirror, and she didn't want to wipe it off. Belle left lipstick on the other cheek. It was really cute.

Grace wanted to wear her Sleeping Beauty dress on this day, but it's very long on her and wouldn't have fit. Most of her princess dresses we got from church-sponsored resales, and the dresses were "Halloween" costumes purchased for very cheap-but they are authentic Disney dresses.

I'm usually the one behind the camera, and we therefore have very few pictures of Grace and I together. However, for this trip Brian insisted on taking the pictures. I was a little thankful because I really was able to enjoy myself without having the camera stuck up to my face the whole time. He did a pretty good job with the photos. He said that perhaps he'd like to get into photography as a hobby himself.

Grace did such a good job this trip. We didn't bring a stroller because she doesn't usually like to use one anyway. She actually did great. I think it was the fourth day before she started complaining that her feet hurt. She hardly ever asked us to carry her, and she was in such a good mood the whole week.

Since we've been home, she's talked non-stop about the characters we saw. I've shown her the DVD I made of all the videos we took, and she was so thrilled. She loves to watch herself on the movie, and she really enjoys watching all the shows we saw. We were allowed to videorecord whole performances. The only requirement was not to use flash or an extra light. As most performances were well-lit, the video turned out great. She can watch all the shows to her heart's content!

I also was able to get our photos printed. I made extra copies for Grace, and I'm helping her make her very own scrapbook. I purchased a scrapbook kit from Disney, and I'm currently working on it.

I started having the characters signing pieces of fabrich, which I am going to use to make an autograph quilt for Grace. Brian wanted to have signatures in a book also, so I purchased a small autograph book for the characters to sign also. She will have lots of things to remember her trip. I'm actually looking forward to another trip-and to see if we can save even more money than we did this time!

I'll post photos of the autograph quilt once it's finished. I have the first row complete. I have ten large 12*12 squares with the signatures on them. I then take 6*6 squares of patterned fabric to match the signatures (so Mickey Mouse fabric will go with the large piece that has Mickey's signature). I also have white squares with iron-on pictures. I will also be using iron-on photos of Grace from the trip, too. It sounds ambitious, but I did a lot of the cutting and iron-ons before our trip, I just need to sew them together and arrange the fabric.

On another note, I'm currently planning Grace's birthday party. For the first time, I'm planning on inviting her friends for a children's party. Grace wants a Princess party, so I am going to have the girls be Princesses and the boys be Knights. I'm a little nervous and a little excited at the same time because I've never planned a children's party before.

Vacation!!!

Well, Brian came home from the hospital on January 3 feeling great. All the phlegm was out of his lungs, and he was ready to go back to work! As a matter of fact, he went to work that afternnon after enjoying lunch with us.

On Saturday the 8 we left for our vacation. The traveling went really well, and Grace loved the airplane. We had six full days to visit Disney, and a 5 day park pass. On Saturday we arrived late so we just had dinner at our hotel. On Sunday we went to Epcot. There were a lot more live shows than I expected, and Grace loved them all. I wish we had seen more live performances at the Country pavilions, but we did see a couple.

On Monday it was rainy all day, and instead of wasting the rainy day at a park, we went to Downtown Disney for some window shopping. There was a huge Disney store, and Legoland. We had a nice day despite the weather.

On Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios. Again, I was surprised at the amount of live shows there were. Grace saw a lot of characters. She loved getting their signatures and sitting for pictures.

Wednesday was Animal Kingdom, and it was the coldest day there. I don't think it got to 50 degrees. In the morning, Grace had to wear gloves to keep her hands warm! We had fun, though, between seeing the characters and going on Safari.

Thursday and Friday we went to Magic Kingdom. I figured that Grace would prefer this park more than the others, and I was right. Not only did it have some nice shows, but it also had rides that she could go on, and Meet-and-Greets with the princesses, the fairies, Rapunzel, and Tiana. On Thursday we stayed to see the Lights parade, which was nice. We also saw the fireworks show. It was really cool. Grace was so tired she fell asleep in my arms while we were waiting for our bus to take us back to the hotel. Speaking of being tired-Grace did really well, and she didn't have a nap the whole week. We didn't feel like hauling her all the way to the hotel for a nap and knew that she would probably be too excited to sleep! She did really well, and didn't get cranky-just a little more touchy.

On Friday we had breakfast at the castle with Cinderella and the other Princesses. She had such a great time. I am so glad we were able to allow her to go to this. She did not want to come home on Saturday. However, the vacation had to end sometime. She was very disappointed and sad to go home. She wants to return to Disney again-she has asked about it almost every day since we came home.

Christmas came and went...

Wow, Christmas went by so fast! On Christmas Eve, Brian had the day off, so we celebrated with just us. Grace doesn't know any better, so we just said St. Nick came a day early. We slept in and then all came downstairs together, where we video taped and photographed Grace opening her presents. I think the one on the bottom says it all. She recieved a doll house with accessories and a whole bunch of Disney Princess stuff which we will be using on our trip to Florida on Saturday.

After we opened presents, we had pancakes and then just spent the rest of the day relaxing. Later in the evening we left for Indiana to spend Christmas with our families. On Christmas morning after everyone had eaten and was dressed, all the kids sat very patiently for a photo of all the Reynolds girls. Yes, the Reynolds have all girls. We then allowed the kids to open all their gifts, and it was a nice time. Grace received some clothes and ZuZu pets. They're interesting little things. Later in the afternoon, cousins came over and we all had lunch together. It was a very nice, relaxing day.

On Sunday we were going to go to church, but Grace had a really stuffy nose and was coughing a bit so we decided not to go. Around noon or so we went to my brother's house where we exchanged gifts and had lunch. It was much less stressful than it usually is, and we had a great time.

Now-on to other news. The day Brian was supposed to return to work (that would be the 27th), he wasn't feeling well. We took him to Immediate care, and they sent us to ER. He had pneumonia. 70 percent of his lungs were full. Unfortunately, he was there an entire week, so Grace and I spent New Years by ourselves. He was released on January 3rd and immediately went to work. He had to get in a bit of work because we are leaving for vacation soon and we needed some income to pay the bills that will come in. Anyway, he is doing well and has instructions to do his therapy even when he doesn't feel like it. So far this week, I think he's only missed twice. I'm a little nervous about the vacation. Perhaps I can convince him to start the antibiotics once we return. Especially if they cause digestion issues, we don't want to be walking around Disney and get him dehydrated again. Well, I'll just see what happens. We are super excited about our trip. We leave for Disney on the 8th and will return on the 15th. We don't plan on taking a laptop with us, so we won't have internet access. We plan on having a great time, however.

Cold, cold, cold!

Well, as you can see by the title, it is COLD! I am not used to weather this cold in December! Right now, it is about 10 degrees outside! Yikes! While I am tempted to hole up inside the house and stay warm, I know I am going to go crazy in the house. So-I am venturing out to the Women's Bible Study at our church this morning. I know I will enjoy getting out of the house for a while, and Grace loves to go to her "Little Lamb's" class. There's a girl in her class, I. I. is Grace's "Best friend". Last Sunday, I gave her a drawing. It was so cute. I am hoping to have I and her sister N over for a play date during the Christmas break.
Grace has been continuing to do well in School. A couple weeks ago we had Parent Teacher conferences. The teachers said that she is doing great, and that a lot of points on her Progress report that needed work no longer need work. Apparently, they assess the students shortly after school starts, but by the time the parents get the report several more weeks have passed. So, her "Needs work" areas are much less. The teachers did say that at first the other children tended to treat her like a baby (because of her size) and tried to take things away from her. However, now they realize that she can't be taken advantage of and she stands up for herself. This is a relief for me because I wanted to make sure that she didn't become a push-over.
Academically, she's doing well, too. The teachers are impressed with her math skills, and they are also surprised that she knows all her letters. One activity is an outline of a letter, say the letter N. Inside the N are other letters, like M, O, and S with some N's. They children have to use a Bingo marker to find the N's. Grace is always the first done, and she always gets all the letters correct. I explained to the teachers that she knew her alphabet by the time she was 2 1/2. All in all, the conference went well. I decided after the conference not to petition the school district for her to be tested for speech. I think that being around children her own age has really helped. She speaks more clearly, and I think that I will wait until Spring when I would need to register her for Pre-K. If at that time I am still concerned about her speech, then I will consider the school district again.
She continues to love going to dance class. I had to buy her some long-sleeved leotards because the little sleevless ones left her too cold.
Grace absolutely loves the Christmas season. Right around Thanksgiving when all the trees came out, she would just love to walk around the stores and look at the trees. We pulled our tree out and she had so much fun putting the ornaments on it. I also took out her little tree and let her decorate it with all of her little ornaments. I also bought an ornament from the Russian web site and let her put it on our tree. From that same web site I got a little Matryoska doll. It shows the life of Jesus on each of the little pieces. The largest on shows the Nativity, the next shows Jesus and the Triumphal entry, the next is Jesus on the cross, and the last tiny one shows Jesus rising into heaven. The biggest one is only like an inch and a half tall, so this set is really little. However, I always try to get her things from Russia that have a spiritual meaning. It's very beautifully done, and very well-painted.
I am really excited for this Christmas holiday. It is going to be much simpler than other years. Usually, we have a meal with my MIL's family on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas day have a meal with my FIL's family. My MIL makes both meals and it is very stressful for her to have two large meals back-to-back, and it is always frustrating for me, because I have squeeze in time with my family. So, my SIL and I decided that instead of trying to squeeze in an hour with my family, we would celebrate Christmas the day after or the Saturday after. This year, since Christmas is on Saturday, we'd have my family meal on Sunday. This relieved a lot of stress. My MIL also decided (after me mentioning it for several years) that it's not fair that she has to have two seperate meals for the two sides of the family. Although members of my FIL's family don't like my MIL's family, I told my MIL that she should host one meal, and if people choose not to come, that's their issue, not hers. She finally decided to have one meal...but no one can come on Christmas day-so....we get Christmas just with our immediate family on Christmas day and a couple weeks after Christmas we'll have a meal with cousins. AHHHHH!!!! Imagine-Christmas with just the parents and siblings! In the 17 years I've known my husband, that has NEVER happened. I am so excited about this Christmas.
Grace visited with St. Nick and told him she wanted a doll. We had already purchased her a dollhouse. The dollhouse will be from St. Nick. We've decided that instead of buying many gifts from Santa and just a few from parents, that only one would be from St. Nick. We don't want her to have the "gimmies". The trick is keeping the gifts hidden. She's still a little bit naive because she's been in our room several times and seen the gifts but she hasn't asked any questions and she hasn't been tempted to try to play with them. We know have the gifts under the tree, and not once has she asked to open them. Don't know if that will work next year.

Two Years Ago Today!

Today marks our two year anniversary! Time truly is flying by. Grace has changed so much in the two years we've had her home. Some things that have changed since last October- 1) completely potty trained. 2) knows all her colors and all her letters. 3) speech is coming along very nicely. We can pretty much understand everything she says. Of course, not all her words are pronounced all that clearly, but she's able to communicate quite nicely. 4) she is now over 20 pounds!!!! Huge success there. 5) She has grown another 6 inches. She is now up to 35 inches and 22 pounds. She wears 4t tops and 2t bottoms. 7) her gross motor skills have greatly improved.

She is very smart and very active. Right now we are working on memory verses for the Awana Cubbie year. Not only will she say the verse (I only give her the first word, and she says the whole verse)-she will remember all the previous verses! So far, she knows 8 verses. I don't make her memorize the chapter or book, though. I'm actually just happy she can say the verses.

This year for "Family Day" or "Gotcha Day", we went to the Morton Arboretum. It was a great day to be together. Although it was October, we actually had 80 degree weather. The trees are starting to turn, and it was great just to walk together, see the different trees turning colors and see the many plants still blooming. We walked in the Children's Garden, where Grace was able to do some crafts and paint a small pumpkin. We walked around one of the paths that goes around the lake and saw all the scarecrows the local Girl Scouts made. They were cute. Grace would run up to each one and say how pretty it was. Then she'd say "What's her name?" Each one was given a name by the troop girls that made her. She had a great time.

One thing I would like to say is that I finally found more information about a diagnoses that was in her medical records when we brought her home. The Russians call it "perinatal affection of the central nervous system". For two long years I have been trying to find out what it is. My doctor even showed it to a Russian-born doctor, but she didn't even know what it was supposed to mean. Finally, I found a post on-line this morning. Here is what I understand. Perinatal affection of the central nervous system is a very common diagnoses for orphaned children-particularly in Russia. Basically, it means that something happened to the child while in the mother's womb that could cause neurological issues. For instance; alcohol abuse or drug use while pregnant, poor prenatal care, poor social situation (poor nutrition) while pregnant, or prematurity are all indicators that they use to suggest this condition. They are concerned that any one of these situations could cause neurological problems (seizures, learning disabilities, or other neurological problems). From what I understand, most children in orphanages diagnosed whith this fully "recover" (or-never show any signs of this issue). With Grace-she was premature, her mother MAY have used alcohol, and she had no prenatal care-which is why Grace was "diagnosed" with this. There were no "symptoms" and her records indicate that she "recovered" (showed no signs of neurological problems). I am relieved to finally have found more information about this "condition". My purpose in mentioning this is that if you have found this blog by doing a search that you will be comforted to know that most children diagnosed with this really don't have any problems.

My final thought today: here are my goals for Grace for next year: 1) to get up to 26 pounds (or more), to be completely caught up in her speech, and for her to continue learning the Cubbie verses. It challenges me to know the verses, too. Enjoy the pictures! Some are of Grace's fall pictures I took at a local park, and some are from the Family Day at the Arboretum.

School Days

Grace absolutely loves school. She attends on MWF from 9:15-11:30. The teachers set up a routine for the coming in time. We enter, hang up her coat and backpack, wash hands and choose a job. I think choosing a job is the best part of her day. Perhaps it's time to set up a job chart at home...
She loves talking about school. There are a number of girls in her class that were in her playschool class, so she likes talking about her friends. She loves the days she goes to school.
The building she goes to is a community center, and they also have adult activities. One is a little room with gym equipment. For $20 a month, you have unlimited access to this room. Today I used the room for about 45 minutes. Seeing that this was my first "work out" in many years, I think that was pretty good! Eventually I would like to build up and work out the whole two hours she's in class. That would be ideal, but probably not very realistic at this point.
Anyway, our fall is in full swing. Next week we celebrate 2 years home with Grace! I can't believe it's been two years already. The time is flying by so quickly! This weekend, we will celebrate our Family Day by going to Morton Arboretum (if everything works out...). It's has great nature trails and lots of oportunities to see all kinds of trees and plants. I hope we will enjoy walking the trails together.