A Taste of Christmas

Hey, were back, well, kind of. With three children ages 5 and under and the demands of therapies, nursing, doctors appointments, feeding schedules and not so savvy sleep habits, there has just been no time to blog. I know there are moms that can do it, I'm just not one of them!

The point of this blog post really is to show off my darling kids and brag a little bit! We had a wonderful Christmas with family and it was a joy to watch our new addition experience her first Christmas.

Christmas eve nap with his best buddy, Frosty and is Auntie.

After spitting up all over her beautiful Christmas dress and while getting changed, Jason caught these shots. Who needs a Christmas dress when you are this cute?

The excitement of Christmas all over her face!

Nathan LOVES his cousin Megan, aka: MeMe

My sister's family got Nathan a new Frosty. These pics only capture a few moments of the joy he experienced when he realized that he had two Frosty's.

MeMe loves all of her cousins!

Grandma and Nathan, Nathan's other best friend. He adores her.

Bella opening her new Gymboree outfit from Grandma and Grandpa.

Sweet Bella, anxiously awaiting what was hidden behind all of that paper on Christmas morning!

Tap shoes, just what she wanted!

Santa brought London a new dolly and Bella drew beautiful pictures for her stocking.

London loved presents, eating them, that is!

Mmmmm...more wrapping paper!

Big sister "helping" little sister. Forget the spoons, just eat the paper!

Nathan adored his Santa stocking, he spent a lot of time talking about it on his iPad.

Meet London

So many wonderful stories to tell, so little time to do it in. Here is a little snippet of how life started for London, words are not needed. Enjoy!

Thank you for your sacrifice, Marine 1st Lt. Michael Johnson

In Loving Memory of Marine 1st Lt. Michael Johnson

Thank you for the ultimate sacrifice. You are loved, you are missed, you will not be forgotten, you are a true hero.

Here is a link to our blog post from when we got word of Michael's heroic efforts to save and protect others in which his own life was lost: http://oliversfamilytwist.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

Awesome...3000!

Last weekend was Bella's third time and Nathan's first time participating in the Awesome 3000 in our town. It is run by the local education foundation as a fundraiser and this year there were over 3,200 kids ages 3-13 that participated.

Nathan's race was first. He participated in the Special Needs category along side kids with all kinds of different abilities.

There were kids that participated with and without assistance, and Nathan, by far, was the youngest (and smallest) one!

When the gun first went off, Nathan just kind of stood around, watching everyone and taking in all of the sights and sounds. He really wasn't interested in walking with or without his walker. We picked him up and carried him a short distance and then set him back down to walk with his walker. He then switched from hand held walking to walker walking to carrying on and off the entire way. When we reached approximately 25 yards before the finish line, we set him down with his walker and gave him some room to see what he would do on his own. The crowd immediately erupted in cheers and his full attention went up to the stands to see what the big fuss was about. He continued to be more interested in checking out the crowd than he was walking to the finish line (who can blame him!).

At this point, Bella came on to the track to help motivate him to move forward, and of course, he did. He will do anything for his sister! We had to help him guide his walker and make it move because of all of the distractions, but we were determined to help him reach the finish line on his own two feet. After a lot of coaxing and a ton of cheering from the crowd, Nathan finished with pride and Mommy finished with very wet eyes and smeared mascara.

There was so much symbolisim to this race, I am still too emotional to write about it.

Next was Bella's turn. Most of the kids had their parents run with them; however, Bella was determined to run by herself this year now that she is a big five year old. She kept pushing her hand out telling my mom (who was right next to her) to go stand "over there" because she was going to do it by herself.

Unfortunately I was unable to snap many pictures of her because as soon as she decided to run by herself, I took off across the field so I could get pictures of her crossing the finish line. BUT, due to the masses of kids crossing the line at the same time, I could not find her. I was sooooo bummed! After a few frantic moments of looking for her, we finally found her as she was getting her medal of completion. We were able to capture a few post race photos of her being cute as ever!

With Intent...

Up to this point in his life, Nathan has been fairly "quiet" when it comes to verbal communication and sounds. Don't get me wrong, this does not mean he hasn't been communicating, but the majority of his communication has been through sign, gestures, body language, and his communication device (Proloquo2go powered by iPad).

We have heard an occasional "nigh, nigh, nigh, nigh" when he is tired and tons of "hoot, hoot, hoot" and "mmmmmmmmmm" at random times. There are days when we hear a lot of these sounds, and then there are several days in a row when we virtually hear no sounds.

Well, as always, he revealed something to us on his OWN time, when he was ready. This is the story:

Multiple times over the weekend when Nathan was around Jason we would hear, "Da, Da, Da, Da" and he would either follow that up with a sign or a gesture to let his Da Da Da Da know what he wanted. At first we didn't really believe that it was done with intent, we thought it was just coincidental. HOWEVER; to prove us wrong, he continued to do it over and over every time Jason was in the room. There was no other time during the weekend that he uttered, "Da, Da, Da, Da" unless Jason was in his view. To really prove his point, he crawled over and stood up behind a chair that Jason was working in and said, "Da, Da, Da, Da" in which Jason replied, "What do you need Nathan?" Nathan's responded with the sign for "swing". So immediately Jason rewarded Nathan by putting him in his swing and told him thank you for letting Daddy know what he wanted. He did it with intent! He said "Da, Da, Da, Da" knowing that those sounds would get a response from his daddy!!!!

And then...Jason and I were both in Nathan's room getting him ready for bed when he tapped Jason's belly and said, "Da, Da, Da, Da", and then tapped my belly and said, "Ma, Ma, Ma". Whoa, caught me off guard! I have randomly heard ma, ma, ma, ma a hand full of times over the past year, but it has never been (or at least I thought it wasn't) with intent or put into context.

I have no idea if Nathan will ever use verbal communication as his primary form of communication, but to hear his first verbal words being Dada and Mama was a pretty amazing feeling!

Thanks to his speech therapist, his ENTIRE team of specialist as well as the endless hours my mom, dad, and sister intentionally invest in therapeutic activities, Nathan is being given the best opportunity possible to develop all aspects of his communication. He is truly a blessed little boy!

Happy 3rd Birthday Nathan!

From overcoming fears and aversions to gaining so much physical and mental strength, it has been a miraculous year to say the least!

Happy birthday sweet Nathan! We love you and are in awe of what you have accomplished this year!

(You may need a kleenex for this one, I did.)

Wordless Wednesday: Enjoying the last day of being two years old