Christmas is upon us and it is an exciting time with a 2 and 3 year old at home! The kids have really gotten into the season and love the decorations and stories about Santa:) We still have a significant fear of Santa, but enjoy seeing him from afar. We are looking forward to our first Christmas at home and all the excitement it brings Christmas morning:) Here's a little update on each of the kiddos!
Josie is getting ready for her Christmas party at school tomorrow including a visit from the signing Santa, which should be a lot of fun. She continues to do great in school and is making amazing gains in signing! She greatly enjoyed my ASL class this fall and often did my homework with me. She is a little studier and loves to practice her school work (she's like her mama:). Her favorite things now are working on her letters and playing matching games. She is either signing to Chad and I to play a game with her or practice letters:) Josie is becoming a little comedian and often times when I pick her up at school her teachers tell me that she was funny that day. She has also made a good friend at school, named Jacob. At home she will tell me she "loves Jacob":) I don't know if Chad is too sure about this first crush:) They are always excited to see each other at school in the mornings. Josie's other new obsession is opening and closing doors which she does regularly at home. It seems that the noise of a door slamming shut is becoming the soundtrack to our house. I'll be glad when she grows out of it, but right now it is a new found freedom.
Josie has had pretty good health this fall, although even with her good health she has missed a lot of school. I think we define good health a little differently with her, but the good news is she is getting stronger and fighting off things better on her own. She has amazing support at school with her teachers and nurses to help us not only with Josie's education needs, but also her various medical needs. She is learning to tell us when something hurts, which has been very helpful in caring for her various issues. She is also very adapt at knowing when she needs to go to the infirmary which is what they call the nurses office at school. The other day Henry feel and bumped his head and Josie told me he needed to go to the infirmary to see nurse Annie and get some medicine:)
Henry is enjoying his Christmas party today at church with all of his friends and should be having a great time. He has really made some good friends at the weekly Parent's Day Out at our church and doesn't cry anymore when I drop him off. It is good to see him have his own thing outside of the house. He is starting to talk a lot more the last couple of weeks and now he loves to say "mama". It is such a sweet sound and he knows I will do almost anything when he says it:) He has adopted his own language for a few things, for example; Josie is "shlashla" and cars are "didilies". I don't know where the car word came from but it is funny to hear him say it:) Nana brought him some tiny cars to play with that Uncle Phil used to have as a kid and Henry yelled lil didilies:) He looves toy story and trains right now. He and I spent the morning at Union Station this week looking at all the Christmas model trains and riding a train. He had a great time and we wrapped up the train day with lunch out with daddy at the train restaurant! Henry got a big boy bed for Christmas so we are officially a house without a crib now:( He is a kid that loooves to lay around so this was the best present yet:)
Quick update on Chad and I, although I know the parents aren't nearly as interesting as the kids:) Chad's been busy at work and traveling a couple times a month to a job site in Kentucky. It is starting to slow a little so hopefully in the new year he won't be on the road so much. He is getting some much needed time off next week for the holidays and we can't wait to have him home! Chad really spent a lot of time practicing ASL with me while I did my homework each week and did a great job of keeping up with my class. It was fun doing it together and we have made great progress in our signing. I am taking the next class in the spring and have heard it is much harder which is a little scary. The first class was one of the most difficult classes I've taken, but I had an awesome teacher who works at Josie's school.
We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and gets to spend some quality time with family. We have been so blessed this year and can't wait to see what the next brings for the kids!
