Christmas Wrap Up

December 28,2008
It's hard to believe Christmas has come and gone already. Yet another magical day, the 2 new family members, Jaden and Rodney (cousin), acted as if they've been here for all Christmases past and it felt that way for everyone else, too. Without further ado, here's the few pictures I got.

Our festivities usually kick off on Christmas Eve. Friends stop by to exchange gifts and warm up with groovy juice before being on their way to the next destination. Don, my lifelong friend and man-of-honor at our wedding, took this picture which is now a favorite of mine. I could say a lot about it but I'll let the image talk for itself. I'll simply caption it with "Feels like home."
Christmas morning, J and Mikey opened their gifts from Santa. In the background, J is playing with her princess vanity. She loves looking at herself.
Here's Jaden combing daddy's hair with her new hairbrush. She never caught on.Here's Mikey "playing" the real violin his grandma got him. This morning he said he's been dreaming about taking violin classes. What's one more appointment?Jaden playing with her cousin, Rodney.

Me with my precious nephew, Rusty (Rodney's bro). 9 months older than Mikey, he and Mikey are the best friends taking each other's pictures to school for show-and-tell.

The princess posing in her 'Baby's 1st Christmas' outfit.

Yesterday we attended a celebration for Gracyn who came home from Taiwan about 2 months after J. I kick myself for not getting ANY pictures. She looked so beautiful in her zebra patterned dress with a matching colar on her hot pink sweater. And her smile was so big - as if she knew all these people were coming to see her. Her brother, Peyt, took care of business as the meeter/greeter. He marched through the crowd with square shoulders and a 'plan'. Seeing how smoothly things went, I'd say he's an expert party planner. The only picture I got was of J and Mikey in their party clothes before they got all messed up.

Off the beaten path, here's a pic of J at her physical therapy appointment.

Her entire right side is weaker than the left side so we do lots of right side work. I wonder (and will ask next time) if maybe she has a mild case of CP (cerebral palsy) which is common in preemies. Either way, she's pure perfection. Her Infant Development specialist has us practicing signing with her. When I said I'd rather work on words, she said signing and speaking go hand-in-hand and may expedite her speaking skills. Didn't know that! So we're trying to be more diligent with signing now. For example, when she gets frustrated and starts swinging her arms, we're to hold her hands and signal 'all done'. Her occupational therapy begins the 2nd week of January. Only one more therapy after that to schedule - music therapy. Will keep you all posted.

To close this off, we're preparing for the last phase of our holiday traditions, a sabbatical to Tahoe sponsored by my employer.

This picture reminds me of the 3 bears, one's too big, another's too small but the last one's just right. My brother's got me a new snowboard for Christmas this year. They keep telling me to overlook the 'Double Wide' model name on it because 'K2 is a really good brand!' I fail to see the humor.