Goodbye De-duh...

Last year when Jaelyn turned five, I posted about her giving up her blanket. Well this time I am confident she has given it up for good! As you can see from the photo below, she joined our family already having an attachment to a handkerchief that she referred to as "De-duh." Now maybe someone who speaks Chinese can tell us what she was saying, as we had no idea what it meant, but it was what she would say when she would point to it (it was usually hanging up to air dry). I even posted about it the second day she was with our family in China.


When we got home from China, she gave up her "De-duh" and traded it for a blanket our neighbor made. After last years attempt at giving it up, since she would just suck on anything else she could find, topped by the fact that her sister was still sucking her fingers at night, we decided to give her the blanket back. Well now that she has turned six, we decided to take another approach. "Big teeth are coming, and the dentist says you need to stop sucking or your teeth will come in crooked!" So maybe we were a little dramatic about it, but it worked! She started a couple nights with sleeping with her blanket, but promising not to suck on it. Sure enough, when I would come in to check on her after she was asleep, no blanket in her mouth. She was so proud of herself in the morning when I told her. We then moved to bringing the blanket to the couch where she could snuggle with it in the morning. After a couple nights of being successful with this, she decided it needed one last washing before we tucked it away in a closet, alongside her De-duh. One more sign that our little girl is growing up! We have about two months now to figure out how to get Kaia to quit sucking her fingers! We didn't have to go down this road with the boys. Any suggestions out there?

Hope for Haiti

I really enjoyed this song, written by Bono of U2, performed at Friday night's Hope for Haiti benefit. Haiti will be in the need for the long-run. Let's not forget them. There are many ways to still help the cause....find one.

Rihanna - MTV Shows

Doing Great!

Just wanted to let you know that Kaia's Myringoplasty surgery went well. We won't know the impact on her hearing until we go back in March, but everything seemed to be successful. The left ear drum was repaired, and the right had no hole at all! When I told the anesthesiologist of her nausea on the car ride home in September he said he would give her medication to help with that this time. Whatever he gave her seemed to work, and despite leaving the Seattle hospital at 5:00 pm on a Friday night, we made it home with no trouble. Once again she needed no pain medication!

I haven't been totally clear of nursing duty this weekend though, as Mike came home from his wrestling tournament last night with the flu. He has a fever, chills and aches....you know he's sick if he has already arranged for his morning and afternoon practices to be covered tomorrow, as well as called a sub. Thank goodness the girls and I got our influenza shots this past Fall. Now to just keep the boys away from it!

Happy Ending...

Just wanted to share that the Ivey's now have Amos! Check out the happy ending!

Haiti....

My heart aches for the people in Haiti right now, but particularly for the over one million orphans that are there. And that is the number of orphans BEFORE the earthquake! There are many heart breaking stories out there right now, but I thought I would share just one. Aaron Ivey and his family have been waiting to bring home their son Amos. Here is their story:



Aaron is also a professional singer and he has a very timely new release out:



Whatever your heart is telling you right now, do something for the people of Haiti. There are so many opportunities out there, some as easy as sending a text, that there really are no excuses for the most blessed people in the world, to not help spread God's love!

Warning: Watching this is actually good for your health!

I totally stole this from my friend Andrea, but I just couldn't resist! Check out this trailer....bet you can't do it without smiling:) Looking forward to its release in April.

One More Celebration....

That's right, the busy holiday season has officially come to a close. No, not because the New Year has arrived, but because Jaelyn is now six! Every year she gets the longest celebration, because it usually begins with grandparents while we are still in Oregon for the holidays, then celebrated on her actual birthday, which is New Year's Day. It doesn't stop there though, as her party is usually the following weekend, since no one is up to a birthday party on New Year's Day. Finally, the first day back at school is the last hurrah as we take in brownies or cupcakes (brownies won out this year). That's the longest birthday I know of!

This year we had out of town company on her birthday, so we celebrated by going out to her favorite Chinese buffet and putting the Cupcake Maker to use again (it didn't work so swell this time, but they still had fun).

Jaelyn then opened some gifts, and especially loved the Cat book Uncle Pat and Aunt Tonyia gave her, and the adorable doll we had made for her. We found a lady who makes custom dolls for children with physical disabilities and had one of the dolls made for Jaelyn. At first she thought it was just a doll, but it was priceless when she realized it was her, same arm and all! I only wish I had my flash on at the time!

Jaelyn chose the pool as her birthday party destination, and a great time was had by all. If you know Jaelyn, you can guess that she choose "Dogs" as her birthday theme...

Five Years!

Two days after Christmas we celebrated five years since Kaia joined our family forever! We put the new cupcake maker to use and had a tea party with Grandma. This followed our annual tradition of Chinese dinner. Mike and the boys had already gone back to Washington for work and wrestling.



Look at this picture from the priceless first moments holding Kaia. I will never forget that moment!

Our four day-long Christmas celebration!