Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Shower

These wonderful ladies threw me a baby shower for baby girl.  It turned out so cute and it was a lot of fun to get together with friends.  I'm feeling a lot more prepared for baby girl to come.  Thanks ladies!  

Macy's Christmas Lights

This last week for playgroup we went to see the Christmas Lights at Macy's (#15).  They have a lights show with Christmas music played on the world's largest pipe organ in the world.  And it's narrated by Julie Andrews.  I've been wanting to do this for years and I'm so glad we got to see it before we leave Philly.  Nathan was in awe!  He loved leaning back and watching the lights.  The only bummer was that my phone died as soon as we arrived at Macy's so I wasn't able to connect with the other girls from playgroup, except for one friend as I was wondering around.  It was fun at least to get out of the house for therapy that day since we brought our therapist with us.

Minnesota Thanksgiving

We got to spend Thanksgiving in Minnesota.  I love going home to the Packer's.  We had a white Thanksgiving!  Philly just doesn't feel like the holidays when I can still see green grass outside.  When we left Philly is was 63 degrees.  Minnesota welcomed us with a chilly 15 degrees.  While it was beautiful and snowy outside we enjoyed just looking at it from inside.

We had a great Thanksgiving day.  Turkey with all the trimmings and lots of lots of pie (we were at the Packer's after all.)

Nathan loved playing with "Grawma" and Papa.  When I would get Nathan up for the day, the first thing he would ask is, "Where Grawma?"  He has asked for them both lots since getting home.

Nathan did go adventuring in the snow.  We got him snow pants and boots and he looked so cute all bundled up.  He was a little wary of it at first, but soon he was stomping and kicking the snow.

While we were there we helped get ready for Christmas.  We decorated not one, but two live Christmas trees while we were there.  Janet has helped me so many years with my Christmas tree so it was a lot of fun to help her get up her trees.  The boys also helped bake several trays of Spritz cookies to be used as refreshments for the upcoming Nativity display at church that Janet is in charge of.

We did so much while we were there.  We went shopping, ate so much good food, made treats, put together puzzles, had dinner with childhood friends/neighbors, and so much more.  We had such a great time.  We are so thankful for our wonderful family and that we were able to see them for Thanksgiving.

Life Right Now

Brad's looking into residency programs which is so exciting.  And stressful.  And nerve racking.  But also totally awesome!  Brad has applied to lots of programs in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, and Utah.  And he's already had 4 interviews which is great.  He's got several more lined up as well in the coming weeks.   In all he's had 7 offers for interviews! All of these residencies are in the match program.  Basically we rank our favorites, the programs list there favorite candidates, magic happens, and then we get told which program we will be going to.  We get no final say other than ranking our programs.  Crazy!

Nathan is doing awesome!  We just got his 6 month report from ABA and Nathan is now up to 140 spontaneous words which is awesome.  6 months ago Nathan only had maybe 10-15 words, most of them were imitative (we said them first and he repeated.)  He's also doing better with his sensory problems.  He does a lot better with different textures and he is eating a lot more because of his progress.  We also had Nathan's 6 month follow-up appointment at developmental pediatrics (where Nathan was diagnosed with autism.)  The nurse practitioner we saw was on the evaluation panel when Nathan was diagnosed and she was so pleased to see the progress that Nathan has made it the last few months.  She was so happy that we were able to get so many therapy hours through Early Intervention and she could see what a difference it has made for Nathan.

Nathan working hard at therapy

I have official made it into my third trimester.  Only 9 more weeks!  Which freaks me out a little bit with all I need to do to get ready.  And then I try to remind myself that 9 weeks is still 2 months and I have time.  I'm feeling good and still have energy which is great with trying to keep up with Nathan.

I've been in full on crafting mode for baby girl.  Quilt #1 is all pieced together and has been sent to Utah to be quilted.  I have this crazy idea that I want 2 quilts for baby girl (I couldn't decide on just one design and Nathan had 2 quilts,) but the second quilt is much more time intensive than the first.  But I'm really really excited about it so hopefully that will motivate me with all the hand appliqué I will be doing.  I just finished baby girl's mobile and I am seriously in love with it.  Love, love, love.  I also found some fabric online that is the perfect fabric for baby girl's nursery.  Two shades of pink, green, and yellow, the exact colors I wanted.  The fabric is from one of my favorite fabric designers.  I found it for 60% off and so I ordered enough to make crib sheets out of it.  I was beyond excited when I ordered the fabric, which Brad just didn't understand.  He looked at me like a was a little crazy.  I mean, it's designer fabric that is perfect for baby girl's nursery.  What's not to be excited about?   I'm also mostly done with a knitted blanket and partially through a baby bonnet to go with baby girl's blessing dress.  I think it's time I start completing a few projects.

Quilt 1

Quilt 2 - That's 120 individual "leaves" to be hand quilted.

Designer fabric for crib sheets

So that's life right now.  It's a little daunting to think how much life is going to change over the next couple of months.  Brad will have matched with a program and we'll be planning a move.  I'm looking into some new programs for Nathan that would start in the New Year.  And we'll have a new baby in February.  There are lots of exciting and wonderful things to come.

Happy

Right before we were going to lay Nathan down for bed tonight we were giving him hugs.  I was telling Nathan, "I love Nathan.  Daddy loves Nathan.  Baby girl loves Nathan."

Nathan's response was to point to himself and say, "Happy."

Yes, little boy, that makes me happy too.

Fall at Longwood Gardens

This time at Longwood we tried something a little different.  There's a couple hundred acres of meadow in Longwood that we haven't ever explored.  But the beautiful fall colors were calling me to go take a look.  We hiked around until we found this leaf strewn path that just demanded to be played in.  Nathan did so quite obligingly.

It was also Longwood's mum festival while we were there so we did see that as well while we were there.

And don't forget the trains.  We had to stop to see those too.

I seriously love seeing the wonder in his face.

What are we going to do when we move away and can't go to Longwood anymore?

Tumble Tykes

We started Nathan in a little tumbling class on Saturday mornings.  The first class was rough, but after that Nathan's been loving it!  It's a toddler and parent class so I get to help Nathan with all of the tricks.  Nathan's pretty good at trying everything.  He's great at walking along the beam and he gets the biggest grin on his face after doing a forward or backward roll.  He also loves playing with all the other kids in the foam pit.

Doing a pullover on the bar

Nathan is into labeling colors lately.  When he bends down and touches the beam he is pointing out that the beam is red.

In case you're wondering who the two ladies helping Nathan in the photos are, they are two of Nathan's therapists.  We had a couple of makeup sessions that we needed to do during the week so we invited them to come along.

I love that Nathan loves gymnastics.  I was in gymnastics classes for 9 years growing up and I loved it.  I made the gymnastics team and competed for a few years.  It's really fun for me to see Nathan enjoying something I loved so much.