Winter has arrived !!

Goodness ... has winter ever made an entrance in Arkansas!! Tuesday night, we went to bed, cold here ... woke up Wednesday morning with SNOW !!! Yes, it is early in the winter for snow in Arkansas. Luckily, it was warm enough that the snow melted VERY quickly.

I wondered if Mari-Grace would recognize what snow is. We only got a little last year. So, I took her to the door and let her look out. She got so excited, and started hollering SNOW MAMA ... SNOW !!!


I have had a sinus infection, and so has Mari-Grace, so when she asked if she could go outside and play, I had to say no. The little stinker never misses a beat. I got into the shower, and I heard her take off in a dead run down the hallway. I figured she had gotten into the nail polish in the bathroom. I hollered for her to come back in the bathroom and let me see what she was into. She had gone into her bedroom, pulled out her winter hat with the pom pom on the top, and her gloves. She had her hat, gloves, and boots on. She smiled really big and said, "Snow ... outside ... play !!" I laughed to myself.

We had lunch at the adoption agency that same day. Somehow, in an hour's time, we managed to loose that hat with the pom pom. I pulled if off, laid it on the table, and it grew legs and hid !!!We searched that office over, and couldn't find that darn hat. We had to make a trip to Kohls to find a new hat because Miss MG was upset !!!

Miss MG found one of the Chinese umbrella's we have pulled out of storage for Lunar New Year planning. I don't usually let MG play with the umbrella, but I made an exception. She was being very, very careful not to tear it up, and she just looked so darn cute. She made me think of China. In China, everywhere you look, there were women carrying umbrellas. They were more of a fashion statement than a rain blocker.

MG's speech is coming along. She is talking all of the time now. Still can't understand a lot of what she says, but she jabbers constantly. She loves to sing. She sings, sings, sings and plays. We are still having a lot of trouble with /P/ and /B/ sounds. Her speech therapist is concerned that her palate may not be functioning properly enough. She is concerned that MG might need another palate surgery to lengthen the palate a little bit so that she gets airflow directed properly. We go for follow-up with our surgeon in February. They will do a new speech evaluation with the cleft team then. In the meantime, we are working really hard on blowing bubbles, blowing balloons, and focusing her airflow the right way.

MG had to make another trip to the dentist this week. She has poor teeth, most likely due to poor nutrition early in life. Her teeth have some de-calcification issues, so her enamel is weak. My mom noticed a dark place on her tooth about two weeks ago. Turned out, it was a cavity. We are having to really limit her sugar intake. That means no soft drinks, no fruit juice, no chocolate milk. Honestly, she doesn't drink a whole lot of really sugary stuff. She does like her sprite ... but it takes her 2 or 3 days to drink a 12 ounce can. She prefers milk ... most often white milk. We are working on drinking more water. We will see how that goes.

Christmas is coming quickly. MG is loving the Christmas lights and decorations. We have an Elf, named Ellie, that moves around every day. She is having a blast looking for Ellie everyday. We have an a candy advent calendar and a calendar on the wall in the shape of a Christmas tree. She is having fun eating her candy and putting a new ornament on the tree everyday. The other day, she even got an e-mail from Sant himself. It is a video, where Santa is talking to her. Mari-Grace is having a blast watching and re-watching that video.

For the time being, that is about all there is to report. There will be more fun things to report as we get closer to Christmas, I'm sure.