First Snow!!

We got our first sprinkling today and it is so beautiful! Daniel and Alexander and Rosie played outside for about an hour- it was so fun to watch Rosie in snow for the first time. She kept her mittens on after she tried playing without them for a minute. I wish I could go outside and play with them, but I'm hoping that time will come soon. When she came back in, my mom put her right into the bath - she was saying her hands were "hot" and seemed very confused by that. She stayed in the bath an hour!

I want to thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers on my second surgery. I am doing really great this time and recovery better than the first time - probably because I didn't break the hip first! I am feeling pretty good and am mostly in my wheelchair but getting around well with my walker and can go very short distances on my own- I wobble like donald duck's grandma but I didn't walk too much better before I broke my hip; due to all the tumors in my hips/legs I still waddled and walked very poorly.

I am having one problem with my left leg (first surgery, with the broken hip), the nail, which attaches the rod to the hip bone is slightly coming out. It isn't such a big deal medically, but it is very painful, especially when I first stand or try to sit down/get up. After seeing the oncologist,surgeon last week, he said we'd wait till after the holidays (thank you!!) and then we may have to look at replacing the nail. Oh, how I dread going back to surgery and the hospital. Oh well, whatever it takes.

Other than that, things are going really well, we are still getting unpacked, but reaching the end. All the kids seem to be doing great and we are so excited by the beauty of this first snow. Well, everyone but Robert is excited; it took him 2 hours to get to work this morning.

Rosie is starting to talk lots. She babbles to fill in between words and there are lots of words that she can't say. LIke, she says "mo" instead of "no". A lot of people send their chinese children to speech therapists and I guess we may have to look at that, but with all we have going on, I'll wait till I'm teaching her to read and see how it manifests at that time.

Copper. You may remember that we adopted a sweet and really wonderful dog named Copper. The boys bonded with him instantly, expecially Alexander who seemed to really fall in love with him and attach to him more than I've ever seen from Alexander. We'd had him about 5 days when I went into surgery. I came out of surgery and Robert (oh, my wonderful and dedicated husband) was at my side when I awoke. I asked him to call home and make sure all was okay and tell them that I was out of the anesthetic and feeling fine. He went over to the phone and was looking very distressed, turning his back to me, speaking low etc. I knew immediately it had to be something with Copper. I was just praying he hadn't escaped, gotten run over by a car or some other miserable thing. Robert came back and told me that my mom and the kids were on their way out and my mom had to run back upstairs to get something. In that split second, Rosie let the dogs out and followed them outside. Alexander went to look for her and found Copper, with his mouth firmly planted around her legs, dragging her across the back yard. Alexander was out in a flash and got the baby- it wasn't a big deal to Copper - he was just playing, but Rosie was full of mud and had obviously been dragged quite far. To shorten it up, we had to give Copper back. It broke our hearts, we were shocked how much we loved him so quickly. He is such a good, good, dog. Well, except for the eating babies part. I just couldn't take the risk. Anyway, it was so traumatic and emotional I haven't even thought about another dog yet and Alexander has said he doesn't want one. I will have to think on it and pray on it and see what would be best for the whole family and for Shasta.

Well, I"ve rambled enough, just needed to update since my last surgery and give love and thanks to you all. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers so much!!