We had a whirlwind holiday season with Thanksgiving and Christmas going very well. We hosted Lisa's side of the family this Turkey Day and I think it went wonderfully. The food was awesome and everyone really seemed to have a great time together. Here's hoping we can host more often in the upcoming years.
Christmas was incredibly sane - we tried to stick with a reasonable number of presents and it seemed to work for all involved. I admit it was hard at times not to grab the one little gift when I saw something I thought someone would like but I only went over once and it was for my best friend. The gift opening seemed more manageable for the kids and people seem less overwhelmed. The highlight for me was getting a scarf that once belonged to me late Uncle Bobby from my father. Those of you that know the history can imagine the rest.
Grammy Jo was out for a visit and once again it was wonderful. She brought a bunch of things for us from her farm - jams, jerky, and fudge to name a few then proceeded to bake and cook up even more things when she got here. Our gaming group got spoiled with mom treats and snacks while she was out here. She spent time with the kids and they loved having her here. It means the world to us that she makes the time and energy to see them and us.
Larry got promoted at work to Project Manager and is a happy little turtle. He travels more which is not so great sometimes but he is really enjoying doing what he want to school for. He's excited, engaged and loving what he does. A complete change from before he went to school and the lack luster worker drone he was before.
Bill is still happily employed by Apple and thanks to his job there it looks like we have a real shot at doing our remodel this year. He's been an eager man looking over the plans and meeting with contractors. He has renewed his love with Legos and has built a few small pieces and one large Star Wars spaceship. He is been reading a bunch of super geek books lately and quite happy with the new nerdia - something about plotting points and visualizations of points or some such. Email or call Bill for more details. :)
Tre is reading!! Again I say Tre is reading and the world has changed for him. We have had less than tremendous results with his teacher so we went to Sylvan Learning Center and they did right by him tenfold. They saw the same boy we did - who just needed a little more patience and a understanding and PRESTO he reads. I have battled the school to remove some elements from his IEP - to the point where the district psychologist came out to evaluate him and that put an end to some of the foolishness from his teacher. He is reading to us, to his sisters, and almost anything he can at this point. He is as social as ever and one area I think I will ever really be concerned about with him - he makes friends effortlessly and seems to do well in most social groupings. He's daddy's little social butterfly. :)
Siddha is walking, signing and talking. Not full sentences yet but so close. She is communicating and has really begun to show how interconnected things are for her now at this age. She understands it's time to go to school, that we go to get Tre in the afternoons and that Daddy Larry comes home in the evening. She anticipates events and structures her experience of things. She has a checklist - get home, see who's here, watch a movie then have a snack. She is still a firecracker and has the temper you wouldn't believe. Our most recent example was at one of favorite Japanese eateries she was trying to get a bean out of its shell and was having the hardest time with it. She was sitting between Larry and myself - we both asked her if we could help and she just ignored us. Her face scrunched up and she literally tried to crush the bean in her hand into submission with a battle cry like the Samurai of old as she did so. Our half of the table all stopped talking to watch her titanic effort - only after she had tried did she relent and let us help her. The SDSU Children's Center is still an awesome place and we couldn't be happier with her there.
That's all for now but like I stated above I am going to try to post once a month minimum but I have some free time in the next few weeks to try and fill in the gaps from before. Thanks to everyone who hung in there and completely understandable if you stopped checking. I'll send out something to let everyone know the blog is back.
Also check out our Flickr link- I have put a bunch of photos up recently.
Ciao all!
