Hello new year!

2011 was a pretty great year, Sophie has become a bit more medically stable as far as her seizures and illnesses and Lucas has been doing well too.  We have so much to look forward to for 2012, Sophie is going to be starting school in September, she is getting a new wheelchair and hopefully her first low tech communication system is on the horizon.  Lucas is healthy and loving school and is geared up for soccer and football in the spring/summer.

The last week between Christmas and New Years Eve has been a whirlwind of activity. We have done more visiting with friends and family in the last week then we normally do in a year. But it is good, that is what the holidays are for and we have soaked it up and we have been thankful that Sophie has been healthy. She has had one seizure but we were able to manage it at home and she was happy the next day.

The snowless Christmas is not our norm, but we loved it for all our highway travels and it is easier getting Sophie in and out of the house without the piles of snow we had last year. I have to admit that I missed having a white Christmas though, it just doesn't seem quite the same, not as cozy somehow, but we made up for it by snuggling in our fleece jammies and having warm apple cider and cookies.

As per tradition Jason read The Night Before Christmas to Lucas and Sophie while we were at his mom's house before the kids got too tired and then we were off to see Santa and all the cousins at Jason's dad's house. All the kids are getting so big and they have alot of fun together. 

Sophie was completely enamoured with Santa this year and she lit up like little miss sunshine every time you mentioned his name. 

This photo cracks me up, we couldn't get a great photo of Sophie looking ahead so we told them to do a silly photo and Sophie was all over that, as were her cousins lol.  We didn't leave for our hour + long drive home until 11pm but Lucas and Sophie both passed out in their carseats within about a block of leaving.  They were exhausted.

Christmas morning was the usual blur of excitedness with alot of tiredness stirred in. Lucas was dying to open his presents and waited patiently until Sophie was awake.  I thought we was going to dive in head first under the tree, but to my surprise he chose one present for himself and then a handful of presents for Sophie and he helped her open them all while explaining to her what each one was.  Be still my heart.

Later in the day we headed out to spend Christmas with my family.  We had a fantastic turkey dinner with all the trimmings and a traditional British trifle as always.  The kids were all worn out by bedtime and crashed into their beds worn out from a busy day.

Over the last few days we have visited some more and entertained here at our house, Lucas and Sophie have been having fun discovering all their new toys.  Me, I am exhausted.  But it was a fun way to get tired out and I will gladly do it again next year.

Sophie is loving her new gigantic slinky and Lucas has been having a ball practicing his magician skills on all of us.  He is really good at it and has given quite a few shows to whomever happens to be visiting.  The newness of it all is so refreshing and gets you motivated to try new things and think ahead.