Addison's new house

When my mom was here for Addison's surgery, we went to Toys R Us to look for Christmas presents for Addison. My mom let Addison open her present early, a Rose Petal Cottage! It has windows and a working door and the best part of it is that the cottage and all of the "appliances" that come with it can be collapsed into a 2x4 footprint. Addison loves to go in and out of the door during the day and uses a cloth to clean up everything in it at least once a day.

This baby "pack n play" is not part of the collection, but Addison likes to pretend that it is.

Thanksgiving and Christmas in Pasadena

We celebrated Christmas early this year when we were in Houston for Thanksgiving. What a change from last year; Addison was delighted by the presents (rather than the wrapping paper and boxes that interested her last year). She and Hannah had a lot of fun together and now that Hannah is crawling, I can't imagine the trouble they will get into next year. Grandma and Grandpa sure know how to spoil their kids and grandkids!

Thanksgiving was also a turning point for our little family. Henry and I were headed towards a breakdown due to our extreme lack of sleep (Addison would not fall asleep on her own until we put her into the car at 11pm and did not stay asleep for very long at night). Luckily, our family watched Addison in the morning while Henry and I caught up on the sleep we missed the night before. Within two days, I started to feel like a normal human being again. When we got back from Houston, we were thinking clearly enough to devise a plan to get Addison to sleep on her own again and within three days she was falling asleep on her own (at a decent time) and within six days, she slept on her own again.



Addison is signing "more" in the picture above. As in "more presents!"
Addison got a little golf set, which she loves!





Look at the delight on her face!
Addison hamming it up while playing dress up with Henry's cousin's children
Addison has a fake hotdog in her mouth and the look on her face is priceless!
Cool Hannah! You got a new drum!

Surgery :(

A week after we got back from the cruise, Addison had a surgery to repair the fistula (hole) in her palate. As most of my readers also already know, the surgery was a total failure. The hole is about 2-3 times larger than the one that we were trying to fix. Even more frustrating is that the doctor does not really know what went wrong. We will see Dr. Genecov at the end of December to find out what we will do next. In the mean time, Henry and I are adjusting to a life of food flying out of the nose!

We've really stepped up the sign language since Addison can't make most of the sounds necessary to produce words. We love the Signing Time! videos and Addison has now picked up about 35 signs (and can even put two words together). I ordered a couple of their new Baby Signing Time videos from a lady on Ebay (I save $3 after my competitive drive kicked in and I kept upping my bid) and it has now been over two weeks without seeing them. I might need to file a claim or something--shoulda just bought them from the site! I've pretty much become obsessed with the Signing Time videos and if I was rolling in dough, I'd buy her the whole set. Instead, I put myself on a wait list and a nearby city's library to rent additional DVDs.

Addison on goofy juice. She was very cuddly and funny.





Addison enjoyed her icecream diet for the two weeks proceeding surgery. She has shown no interest in icecream since her surgery though.

Cruise

We took a five day cruise out of Galveston (well, Houston due to the aftermath of the hurricane). The ship stopped in a little town called Progresso (I loved it) and Cozumel. We enjoyed getting to sit down to an entire meal without whining and I really appreciated that I did not have to cook or clean for almost an entire week. Addison stayed with Henry's parents. They sent us emails (including pictures) of Addison's days that we were able to access when we were at port, which really set our mind at ease.

It was bitterly cold the night we left and the following day. It was also extremely rocky--thank goodness for Dramaine!

Great weather in Cozumel!

Me trying out the water slide--whee!

Our last day at sea was on Halloween. A lot of our fellow cruises really dressed up.

Owen's Sausage Big Orange Pumpkin Farm

Two blogs in a week?

To my approximately four blog viewers, I bet you are surprised to see that I actually updated it only one week after my last post!

We went to a birthday party today for Leah and Mark's (our neighbors) five boys. They celebrated their children's 6, 5, 3, 3, and 2nd birthdays in pirate style.

Here are some cute pictures of the party and pirate Addison.

Craniofacial Picnic

It was Craniofacial Acceptance Month and CCAkids hosted a picnic at White Rock Lake. 100 people RSVPed but only 3 families (16 people) attended so we won lots of prizes and Addison got a lot of attention. Addison can now climb onto picnic tables by herself. She was constantly climbing the table with the cookies, would take a bite, throw it away or give it to us and then take another new cookie, take a bite . . . .

I had been hoping to meet some other parents of children with cleft lips/palates but sadly there were none in attendance. Regardless, we had a great time and everyone was so friendly. Addison's favorite part was certainly getting to play with a puppy. In a close second, was the attention that was showered upon her by a nice group of girls. I hope that the videos of the puppy, slide and playing with the girls work!