A Holiday Greeting

Merry Christmas

from my

Little Ladies.

Elisabeth (2), Alexandra (7), and Lorelai Leigh (5)

These girls have been very good.

I have a feeling Santa will be stopping by our house tomorrow night.

Freshly Picked

Artwork by my Grandfather, Claude Coats.

Want to see more? click here.

**********

Only 3 more days.

I still need to...

wrap a few gifts,

clean the house, and

make fudge.

I'm enjoying the season.

Hope you are too.

Merrily,

Lisa

Lorelai's 1st Piano Recital

Just 1 month and 2 days after her first piano lesson, Lorelai Leigh performed in her first piano recital. Let me just say that this was one of the highlights of my parenting career. She had such confidence....such poise. She looked like a natural. This girl is going places!

And now, without further ado, I give you Lorelai Leigh, age 5....

The Performance:

Bravo!

All you need is....

LOVE

What a day! What a day!

Today was a day of miraculous firsts for sweet Elisabeth.

First of all....

Elisabeth usually stays put. She has a small area in the family room that she is accustomed to and has never ever crawled or rolled out of her 'little area'. I think part of it is her lack of vision; she never saw that something else was out there. And I also think that part of it was her lack of ability to think beyond the family room. So she always just stayed put....until today. She actually army crawled her way into my bedroom! It was amazing! Donald and I cheered the whole time. Wonderful I tell you, simply wonderful.

And then....

She ate a Gerber stage 3 Turkey, Vegetable and Rice dinner without it being mixed with yogurt. Did you catch that? She ate it straight out of the jar and enjoyed it. Holy moly, Donald and I were besides ourselves. This was HUGE.

And finally....

Elisabeth sat herself up from a crawling position for the first time ever! I could not believe my eyes. Of course, she only stayed up for 2 seconds and then lost her balance and landed back onto her hands again, but nevertheless, she did it!

What a day! What a day!

And now I give you Elisabeth leaving the family room for the first time:

Flashback

You better not pout...

Alexandra ~ 2006

Spa Day

First Lorelai:

And then Lex:

Followed by manicures:

And a walk down the runway for Lor:



I love having

daughters.

Christmas Tradition #2

Building a

Gingerbread

House.

Complete.

Shopping With Daddy

Alexandra wanted to go shoe shopping. I did not want to take her shoe shopping (Actually, I did not want to have to get 33 pound Elisabeth in and out of the car in sub-freezing temperatures).

So when Donald got home from work last night she decided to ask him (in her sweetest voice). And lucky for her he said, 'sure'. And lucky for me he took Lorelai too.

When they got home I had chicken noodle soup and baked potatoes waiting for them.

A good night indeed.

Deck the Halls

Christmas cheer

here, there,

and everywhere.

Elisabeth and Lorelai's suite.

Alexandra's bedroom.




Music parlor [Lorelai's new, prized nutcracker].




Kitchen.




And the front entry.

Isn't he the cutest thing ever? I saw him in a store when I was visiting my sister Kristin back in 2006. I had to bring him home with me.

We named him Claude.

Normal

It's not often that I use the word normal to describe Elisabeth.

So you can imagine how excited I was to walk in the family room and see her behaving like a
normal two year old.

Normal is Good.

Return of the Spasms

Ever since Elisabeth started taking Sabril (close to 11 weeks ago), she has been mostly free of infantile spasms....until this week.

For the past 3 days we have been seeing spasms...worse than ever, especially during the night. They come on so strong and so hard that we awake to the sound of her gasping for air. With each spasm it looks as though she is being struck by lightening, over and over and over again, for about 10 minutes. Her body jolts uncontrollably and her arms and legs go flying outward. The look in her eyes is one of terror, pain, and confusion. In between each spasm she lets out a whimper, as if begging for someone to help her.

So Donald and I snuggle close and whisper sweet things in her ear; how brave she is, and how much we love her, and how it won't last much longer. We try to sound calm and reassuring, but all the while my heart aches for our little girl.

And then finally, they stop, and she closes her eyes and drifts back off to dreamland for a few more hours until the next cluster comes.

After consulting with her neurologist we have decided to slowly increase her dose of Sabril over the course of the next few weeks in hopes that we can once again control this dreadful form of epilepsy. This has to work. It just has to. I simply can't imagine Elisabeth having to live this way. No child should have to endure this.

So we will keep hoping and keep praying....as always.

Christmas Tradition #1

Trimming the Tree.

Yes, that is a real tree, thanks to a landslide vote on my sidebar last week. I do believe the final numbers were 24-artificial tree vs. 42-real tree.

Thanks to all who voted!

Have a merry day!

Elisabeth's First Pigtail

At 2 years and 2 months old, Elisabeth finally has enough hair on top of her head to pull together a little pigtail:

Now if only the back would grow....

My Christmas Wish List: Part III

Dear Donald,

This weekend you reminded me that I have not given you a completed wish list for my upcoming birthday and Christmas. So to give you a few more ideas, here you go...


Hair Pins

Dainty and colorful, need I say more?

Red Toaster

Our toaster has worked hard for nearly 10 years and is about ready to go kaput. Perhaps something like this would look nice on our kitchen counter:

Weekly Planner

The New Year is fast approaching and I will be in need of a new planner to keep our little family on track. As I was perusing Barnes and Noble a few weeks back I saw many a design that made my heart flutter (you know my love of calendars). I was especially fond of this one (you also know my love of plaid):

I have a few more ideas floating around my head.
More to come later this week.

Merrily,

Lisa