Happy Halloween!

Hi all,

This Halloween is David's first! We've done parties galore, our first visit to the Pumpkin Patch, decorated the house, and read great Halloween books from the library, thanks to Miss Diane. (Try "Big Pumpkin" by Erica Silverman). The kids are loving Halloween jokes--Emily memorized an entire book of them!

Q: How did the little witch tell time?
A: On her witch watch!

Q: What did the little witch use to fix her hair?
A: Scare spray!

Q: What do you call a little skeleton who won't get up?
A: Lazy bones!

Everything in David's life is about firefighters, so meeting real firefighters at a town party was the highlight for him.

A Trip to Disney

Walt Disney World's Not-So-Scary-Halloween party with friends Wanda and Gary was an absolute blast.

Halloween Night

What fun! We started out with a party with Miss Diane at the library, then raced home to get the kids in their costumes. Friends Maya and Graeme visited with their mommy and daddy, and lo and behold, we had two daddy pirates ready to plunder houses for candy! Arrrhhh!!!

About 100 kids visited our Pirate House. Daddy-the-Pirate lured the trick-or-treaters in and made them walk the plank for candy and glow sticks! Emily handed out the candy until a scary trick-or-treater appeared, then she made them remove their masks she and Bruffy wouldn't be scared. :)

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Love,

Caroline

October Update

Hi all,
Sorry for the pretty late update, but we've been sooo unbelievably busy. Imagine that...only two little ones and we're overwhelmed by events!

Update on Emily

Look who learned to sew! Emily showed a lot of interest when I began mending her Sleeping Beauty dress so I handed her the needle and taught her how to mend a tear in tulle. She did a great job! Thanks to Grami Frani for really encouraging Emily's interest in sewing when she created princess covers for Emily's dressing table.

Emily enjoys school, although she's worn out by the time I pick her up. She's doing a great job, though, and is learning to recongnize sight words. She loves to draw and has become quite the artist, designing ballgowns, using tracing paper, and mailing her art to her friends.

Update on David

A.K.A. "Bruffy", David is doing well overall. He LOVES school, and signs and says "school", then "backpack", "teacher", "Miss Laurie" (his teacher), and "I'm smart!". Of course he's only intelligible to Kevin, Emily and me, but we were just amazed when he performed this train of thought for us!

Speaking of trains, he's absolutely IN LOVE WITH TRAINS!! Everything evolves around Thomas the Train, and Daddy's almost finished building a custom train table for the kids.

Other than that, David is seeing both a speech therapist and an occupational therapist twice a week. David has an underdeveloped sensory system from his 2 years in the orphanage, which means he tends to throw himself overboard into anything involving the 5 senses. Mealtime is a horror since after 10 months with us he still throws food, pours drinks on himself, gorges, and wears all of his food with no discomfort whatsoever. The sometimes bizarre OT exercises should really help him (and us) redirect his behavior.

These photos show our first Sensory exercises. We sprayed shaving cream on the kids' picnic table, added finger paint and a few toys, and let them at it. They played steadily for over an hour each time, which is normal for kids raised in an orphanage. (The therapist says the average child should last no more than 10 minutes and want to be clean.) David's therapist believes Emily will benefit from these exercises as well. Thank gosh shaving cream is only soap, 'cause it cleans up very easily!

Abigail Turns 4!

Happy 4th Birthday to our friend Abigail Hua! We had a great time at Abigail's birthday party at a pretty park by the river.

Take care, everyone,
Caroline