Happy New Year

Here we are rolling through January.  We celebrated a happy New Year.  Here are some pictures. 

 As we did last year we popped balloons and inside each was an activity to do. This year we focused on traditions from around the world, as well as a dancing in the dark, and a movie.  We ate 12 grapes (Italy), had a male visitor bring gifts (England).  We made Red Envelopes (China) and put money in them on New Years Day if the kids remembered to wish us “Bon année et Bon santé” (France), and we ate a kings cake (France) and Amelia became the queen for finding the little porcelain doll in the cake. We stayed up until a whopping 11:00 this year.  We also made a time capsule as part of our family home evening a couple of weeks ago.

So, this next tidbit is especially for Natalie's Grandpa. Natalie was practicing her violin nicely yesterday.  When I went in to help her, to my surprise she had added lyrics to the song she was practicing.  She entitled it "Pocahontas"  and it reads "Listen with your heart you will understand.  I understand.  Listen with your heart and you will understand".  How could I be upset?  (I'm sure any other of your students will understand when they borrow this book, right Grandpa?)

The twins have been complaining that they don't have any friends.  Last week I organized a mini "tea"-party for them and a little girl down the street.  I think it went well.  As expected, they spilled water all over the refreshments, but they had a great time.  I had to tell Natalie to go find her own friend to play with. Often when I set up play dates for the twins, the friend rather play with Natalie and the twins end up in tears saying that nobody wants to play with them.

As many of you know, Amelia is having major surgery coming up in a week.  It is called a Rhizotomy surgery and what it entails is the doctors will go into Amelia’s spinal cord, unravel her nerves, and cut off the ones that are overly reacting to stimulation.  We hope that this will permanently remove some of the tone Amelia has in her legs, helping her to walk better, with her heals down and her knees no longer twisting inwards. We hope that this surgery will prevent future surgeries and deformities.  We expect an average stay of 3 weeks at Primary Children's Hospital.  The first week Amelia will have surgery and recover, and the 2^nd and 3^rd weeks are expected to be intense physical therapy. For a while this surgery will really set her back (she'll have to relearn to crawl and walk with her walker), but we're hoping that within 6 months to a year we will see some gains.  Anyhow, we plan on having our moms help out the next few weeks so we don't really need other help, however, all prayers for a good surgery and speedy recovery are very welcome.