It's the most wonderful time of the year...

I love this time of year. I love cuddling up under several blankets, drinking hot chocolate, lighting fires, driving around looking at Christmas yard decorations, and being able to hum Christmas carols out loud without people looking at you like you're nuts! It really is the most wonderful time of the year. We've managed to put up about half of our outdoor yard decorations. It seems like every time we get started, the weather turns extremely bad rather quickly, and we have to stop. Yesterday, I started to put up the wreaths outside, when the wind started to pick up so much that I no longer felt safe on the ladder. Of course, a cold front was blowing through so the temperature outside dropped rather quickly too. So, I came inside and called it a day, with all 3 wreaths in place! Perhaps this weekend we will be able to put up the rest of the lights along the house. But here's how the house looks for now...
Last Sunday, Samuel's church choir sang The Call To Worship (the first song that lets the people in the congregation know it's time to start the worship service) in both morning services. He was so cute standing up there, not wanting to look directly into the crowd. He's on the first row, second from the right.

Tonight, both Samuel's and Avery's church choir will perform separate Christmas musicals. Avery's choir will be re-enacting the birth of Jesus and the nativity scene. Avery will be dressed as an angel. I can't wait! And Samuel's choir will be singing an assortment of Christmas songs, all of which I can hardly wait to see... Unfortunately, our video camera battery will no longer hold a charge (a fact I found out the hard way during Avery's school Thanksgiving performance). So, the memories of this event will simply be captured on our digital camera. Pictures will follow either tomorrow or the next day.

In Isaac news... Isaac was recently given a toddler bed by a friend of mine. I had decided to put it in his room to allow him to see it and get used to it, without the stress of making him feel like he needed to sleep in it right away. Isaac however, wanted to start sleeping in it immediately, and cried and kicked as I tried to put him to bed in his crib the very first night we had the toddler bed in his room. I put him to bed in the new toddler bed, thinking my biggest problem would be him not wanting to stay in the bed while he needed to be going to sleep. Still, I put pillows and blankets everywhere, and said a little prayer that all would go well. And him falling asleep actually did go perfectly, up until around 2:00 a.m. when he fell out of the bed. The next morning I bought a bed rail, and we tried the toddler bed again that night. He fell asleep perfectly without a fight, and then around midnight he fell out of the bed again, at the very end of the bed this time. I found yet another bed rail, that was about half the normal size, that I put at the end of the bed, thinking that our problems had been solved. Unfortunately, Isaac still somehow managed to fall out of the bed through the 1 tiny opening at the very end of the bed, that was only about 12 inches across. So, the very cool and very cute toddler bed has been taken out of his room for now. He's back in the crib, but I converted it into a day bed for him. So far, so good with this plan! And it would seem that Isaac (and I hope I'm not jinxing us here) is off the bottle. This was a decision that he made. I offered it to him one night, and he turned it down. The next day at nap time, I offered it to him again, and when I went in to check on him a few minutes later he was sound asleep and the bottle was full. Last night, no bottle. And today for nap, no bottle again.... So, we'll see if this lasts!

And finally, a few weeks ago Avery failed a hearing screening at school. We got a letter in the mail, stating that we needed to take her to a doctor within a week, or she would not be allowed to come back to school until she had a doctor's note. And even though this was not a huge surprise to us, because we had suspected something was going on before this happened, it did throw us for a loop since I had just taken her to the school's nurse literally a month before this for a hearing screening because Avery kept telling us that she could not hear us, but she passed that test.... Still, the very next day I pulled her out of school and took her to our pediatrician. And after he unsuccessfully tried to remove the wax build-up from her ears that he felt was more than likely the problem, he sent us to an ENT. We left the pediatrician's office and drove right over to the ENT's office. It was his lunch hour, and his office should have been closed, but he stayed open for us. He preformed a procedure where he placed a metal knife-looking scraper tool with tiny tweezers attached into my daughter's ears, without numbing her ears in any way. She handled it like a champ though. She didn't flinch even once, she held a strong grasp on my hand the entire time (it was literally turning purple), and she didn't break her gaze directly into my eyes even as the tears started to form. We sat there completely still, just staring into each other's eyes, telling each other that it was almost over and everything was fine. And when it was all over, we laughed (after a big bear hug was given, and a snotty nose was wiped on my shoulder, and a few more tears were shed by both of us). We laughed about how disgusting the wax was that the doctor had removed from her ears. It's called black wax, and it's a rather stubborn wax at that. Black wax can not be removed by normal over-the-counter ear wax removal systems. I will need to take Avery to an ENT from here on out, every so often so that she can have the black wax removed. The procedure should not be as painful in the future if I stay on top of it and take her in regularly. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that the ENT believes that while the black wax might have caused some hearing difficulties, it almost certainly did not cause the level of hearing loss that she exhibited on her hearing screening. And because her ear canals were so inflamed from all the black wax, I will need to bring Avery back to his office next week on the 15th for another exam and a follow-up hearing screening. I have known all of this for over 3 weeks now, but I will admit that I have avoided typing these words out here because I am nervous. The level of hearing loss she exhibited was not normal. I have explained to Avery what is going on, and she understands that just like Hector, Samuel and I need glasses to help our eyes see better, she may need a hearing aid to help her ears hear better. Hector and I have seen the miracles of God at work in the lives of our children before. We are hopeful that the hearing test results on Monday will come back normal.