Obligatory Christmas Post

We have had an amazing Christmastime.

Christmas Eve was spent in tradition--a Christmas bath and "first present" opened, followed by our traditional Christmas Eve donuts and watching A Christmas Story.  Dave joined us for the first time this year.  He was into it.





And spend much of the movie dancing around the room in a blur.


Christmas morning came.  We are still at a point in our lives as parents that we wake up before Dave--waiting in anticipation for him to wake.  When we heard him stirring, Bart went in and told him Santa had FINALLY come and brought him presents.  Dave squealed in delight and came running down the hall to the glowing tree and presents.

"I open it," with a sweet smile and gently touching one of his presents.




Bart's dad made a gorgeous Noah's ark for Dave, complete with lots of wooden animals.  It instantly became a family treasure.



It was so fun this year now that Dave is understanding and getting into the Santa Claus thing. We opened gifts and made a slight change of Christmas dinner plans and headed to my mom's after hearing that my sister and her son were very sick.  Dinner pulled together nicely.  We missed some of the family that was unable to be there, but were glad to spend it with some of our family.

Sunday morning I caught Bart in his Sunday best wrestling around with Dave in his new play tent.  (Btw, can I brag that I got this for 80% off for $5? It has a really cool tunnel.  Just sayin'.)  Love these guys.

And now we're soaking up the last bit of the weekend and hanging out with our new toys, feeling so blessed to have family and loved ones and each other, and most importantly the Lord in our lives.

A different kind of Sunrise

So if you've been following my blog for any amount of time, you probably know I like to take pictures of sunrises and the occasional sunset.

Usually I take pictures of purple and red and blue and orange sunrises...like these.

Yesterday I woke up to a denser fog than I've seen in quite some time.  No purples, reds, blues or oranges here....but still somehow so beautiful in all its grayness.

SANTA CLAUS!!!!!!!

Dave met Santa Claus AGAIN today.

Last weekend, Santa drove down the street on a firetruck in our neighborhood.  When Santa saw Dave and I waving out the window to him, he came up and knocked on the door.

Dave was star-struck.  He started to run the opposite direction of the door.

We went to the mall today for another visit.  Dave was again just as star-struck.  He didn't make a single peep in his whole time with Santa.


Santa: "What's YOUR name?"
Dave: Beaming smile.
Santa: How old are you?
Dave: Eyes bugging out.
Santa: What would you like for Christmas?
Dave: Eyes still bugging out.
Santa: You're sure not very talkative are you?

Santa promised to come to our house in Christmas Eve if Dave was a good boy, and sent him off with a parting gift of a coloring book and Ghiradelli peppermint bark.

Santa is the coolest ever.  Especially when he takes a curling iron to his white beard and wears a shiny gold watch.  He was the REAL DEAL.

Dave didn't make a peep until we were out in the car.  He couldn't hold in his excitement anymore.

"SAAANTA CLAAAAAAAUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Dave is in heaven with all this Santa Claus is coming to town business.

hmmm....

I'm obviously just a REALLY mean mom.

Doing water-coloring painting with him, and all.  SO mean.

What he is

We've been busy the last couple months around here. It's been apparent for some time that Dave has been delayed in almost all areas of his development. It's come to us as no big surprise considering how high of risk he has been for delay given his medical history. I took him to his doc for his 3 year checkup a few months back and we decided it'd be good to have him formally assessed so that he could receive therapy and early intervention services for this delay.

He finally finished all the assessments a couple of weeks ago and through it all it's become more and more apparent how serious this delay is. We're still in the figuring out process of what is best for Dave and for our family...and what it all means. Yesterday I met with the therapists that worked on Dave's assessments and they didn't give me a ton of "surprise" results, but it was still hard to be put face to face with it all.

I came home and somehow managed to not shed a tear over it, but instead was left the rest of the afternoon with this sad longing feeling. Wanting to give Dave the world and more--like we all want for our kids...but feeling like in a very real way I may not be able to give it to him. At least not how I'd hoped.

I posted on my facebook, "hmm :/ Had Dave's special ed. conference today...I need a pick me up. Send cyber hugs my way...."

Within minutes I had friends sending me their love from near and far. I felt loved and better about it and grateful for them indulging my Debbie-downer moment.

Dave is knotted up in my heart-strings. In some way he knows what I need and supplies me with it. He prepared me for a rough day yesterday by coming up to me and saying "Mama prilly. (pretty) I luh you mama."

Then, I woke up this morning with a million thoughts in 60 different directions about all of it. Dave was up early too. I immediately turned to google and started researching programs available in the area....state insurance, etc, etc.

I was interrupted by Dave just in time for me to begin to feel information overload.

"Dave cuddle?"

Ab..solutely. heart-strings.

Then he asked to watch Elmo. I let him watch Elmo song videos on youtube now and then. He LOVES this song and likes to shake his thing to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs

I love the lyrics.

Shake it, Dave!

You're so weird.

Have you seen the movie Elf with Will Ferrell?


My mom purchased the DVD a handful of years ago, watched it with my dad and then mailed it to me in college with a note attached "This is the dumbest movie we've ever seen.  Thought we'd send it to you. Enjoy!"

Like I would appreciate it or something.

Sigh.  I did.  Haha!

Anyway, we've watched it in our house recently...and tonight, sitting at the dinner table, this scene was reenacted.



Bart of course incidentally played the part of Elf.

Bart: *obnoxious belch*  "Did you hear that?"
Dave, with perfect comedic timing: "You're SO weird."

Commence laughter with tears. How's that for a family night.

Aren't they cute?

Just sayin....