Normalcy

Once again much time has passed since I have last written, and while that can be a sad thing; when it comes to Willow's story, it is a good thing.  It means we have been happily living life, without much fuss to her hydrocephalus!  

So the last post was written before Halloween even, which means pictures are a must for this blog post.  We had a blast trick or treating as we do every year.  Willow stayed in her stroller though the whole time, which honestly was fine as it was a wonderfully cold Michigan Halloween! She did learn to sign 'trick or treat' though in preparation of walking it, but instead only used that for the trunk or treating event we attended at Frontline Church.  

November came rather quickly and with it, a fury of events for our children!  Between scouts, school, robotics club, science club, work, etc.... Oh the list is never ending. Yet we embarked on Thanksgiving here at the house.  Just a small gathering really, it was our family unit of 6 plus my mother in law.  I cooked almost the whole meal! I did the turkey by myself, and all the fixings and baking that goes along with it except for the mashed potatoes (my mother in law makes an awesome batch of those) and some asparagus sauteed on our stove (Jon is awesome at turning something like that into a delicious treat that even our kids will eat)!  So the holiday came and went without much fuss even! So now we are on to Christmas, and Willow's birthday (she is turning 2)!! 

With these first few days of December it has brought an unseasonable warm front to Michigan and so the kids have got to play in the mud in the backyard where it feels more like spring than a cool late fall, early winter day... But again it has been great to be home.  A few things about Willow as I am sure you are all wondering, but she really is doing well - a typical 2 year old really.  She walks, runs, dances, imitates, loves unconditionally, the list goes on and on! She will be wearing some braces on her feet again soon as her ankles and muscles in her feet are still quite week and that may be why she has so many 'wobbly' days.  She also will be evaluated by Ken-o-sha again after the New Year as she will then be 2 and qualify for speech services through them (most likely) as she still does not verbalize her speech yet, but knows a lot of signs!  We have a few baby sign apps on my phone and she will play with those any chance she gets!  I even know how to sign 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' (in baby sign not ASL). But it is great learning along with her.  The other thing that was mentioned actually back at Halloween as she was about to dig into some chocolates is her lactose intolerance... She seems to have completely outgrown it!  We were slowly introducing dairy into her life and now this girl devours a thing of yogurt like its going out of style! She loves it all, milk, cheese, yogurt, chocolate, etc.  What a relief it is to not have to continue to worry about that as she grows.  

So, those are my stories for the last month or so... We are enjoying our life and looking forward to the next day to see what new adventure she will teach us.  I am sorry if this was a more 'boring' post for some of you, but to those of you who are close you all know how much this means to us that life is currently 'boring'! LOL  

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays for whatever you celebrate as it may be awhile before I am back again! (and for some reason I can't find my photos since Jon has had to fix my computer, so I will have to ask him to help me access them and then I will update with loads of photos!)