The house has been taken over

by cookies! Or so we thought when we pulled the last batch of Oatmeal crispies out of the oven at 8:15 Sunday night. Kelly and I spent several hours mixing up (Kelly did some pre-mixing before I got there as well) and baking 11 different kinds of cookies for a grand total of over 30 dozen. And yummy they are, ask Colin, Guy or doug...they ate plenty throughout the process!! This is all AFTER she and I had a marathon shopping day on Saturday; ugh, is Christmas over yet?!?!

So lots has happened since our last post. Colin had a great visit with a Rehab doctor at Children's Mercy Hospital last week. Dr. Rinaldi, the best doctor we have EVER seen at CMH, spent almost an hour with Colin, Aunt Cathy and I on Tuesday 12/13. He told us some things we already knew, Colin is brilliant and very motivated to excel (at EVERYTHING!), and he gave us some new stuff to mull over. Seems Colin does not, at this point, need any type of tone management therapies (botox, electrodes, etc), we seem to be taking care of that problem nicely with our weekly PT and OT time. Dr. Rinaldi did suggest that we get Colin enrolled in Hippotherapy (no this is not something wierd involving interaction with Hippos!), http://www.americanequestrian.com/hippotherapy.htm to strengthen his pelvic area and improve his balance. After doing some research on my own and talking with Colin's PT, it looks like First Steps will help with this a little bit and hopefully we can get him started shortly after the first of the year at a facility close to home.

We have been trying to snap pictures of the little boy as often as possibel, as he seems to grow faster every day! Here are a couple of the latest:

Playing in the snow (in the basement), during the first big snow of the season.

Cheesing it up with Doug. The orneriness exudes from both of them...what have I gotten myself into?!?!

Look at that sweet little face, he really is growing so fast!

So we also had some more Christmas pictures taken, Doug, Colin and I that is. And since there is no hope of me getting Christmas cards out at this point, all of you can look forward to a nice Happy New Year card in the mail in a couple of weeks!! I will put them together while Colin and I are home for 12 days togerther starting this Friday. yes, because of the way the holidays fall this year I am taking four days of vacation and getting 12 days off...it is a beautiful thing. Anyway...enough from me for one day.

All snowed in....

Okay, I seriously need to get this blogger thing figured out. How many times have any of you typed out an entire post (I'm talking 4+ paragraphs) only to hit the wrong button and lose the whole thing? Oh man, it is maddening...and I had typed some good stuff too......well, I will try to recreate.

It has been well over a week since our last post, but the holiday season has grown increasingly busy. We had several things to do last weekend (one of which was to fix my car and it still isn't fixed...), got most of them accomplished and then I managed to make it to Darla's Christmas pageant. I went without "the boy" which was not well received and I forgot Santa was going to be there....so Colin missed him. We'll make it up, there is still time!!!

Colin has had his DAFOs for a little over 2 full weeks now and I think they are really starting ot help. He has begun to use the correct muscle groups to crawl, stand and walk (assisted of course). I would imagine his progress with move quickly ahead in the coming months...dare I dream that he walk by his birthday???? And jsut in case anyone who has a child in DAFO braces happens across this, my big find for the weekend are shoes to go over those braces. We have been struggling with extra-wide shoes in 2 sizes too big, using a shoe horn...HELL it has been HELL!!! So this weekend I bought some of those imitation Crocs that Airwalk makes....what a lifesaver! They are the size Colin normally wears and they fit over his braces with ease.....no shoe horn needed. THANK YOU AIRWALK!!!

On to other news, the link to Christmas pictures came in the other day and as I promised....here it is.
Click on the link, enter "Annie Rector" in the Customer Name field and then click on "view portraits" to see the pics. https://www.thesmilestation.com/home.asp?AC=LTT90801082012TAR

Since doug and I are techinically "working from home" today, I should probably get back to that and stop dinking around with this. I think we might take Colin sledding after he wakes up from his nap....I will be sure to post pics if we do!

Take care and stay warm today...until next time.....