First was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. This was our 7th year going to the same farm and we always have a great time. After playing in the corn crib and on the mini-tractors, we took a hayride up to the corn and pumpkin cannons and the entrance to the corn maze. After taking a few minutes to shoot the cannons we traipsed through the maze (it's not a big or complicated one, perfect for young kids) and then came out to the pumpkin patch and other activities. There is a tractor-pulled barrel train, slides, and a swing. The kids had a blast running between all of the various activities (and with it being as cold and windy as it was that day, we didn't have too many other kids around to contend with!). After choosing our pumpkins, we rode the hayride back to the main area. It is always a lot of fun and we look forward to it every year.
Next was Halloween. We always take our kids to a consignment store first to see if there are any costumes in their size that they like. This year they all found one! Unfortunately the strawberry that Ally wanted was a size smaller than what she was wearing. She insisted, and I bought it, hoping that she would still be able to fit in it on Halloween, which was still weeks away.
Halloween came and luckily the costume fit! Ben & Ally had their Halloween party at school the Friday before. They had a great time trunk-or-treating and hanging out with Mommy, Daddy, & Auntie afterwards eating snacks and treats and taking a hayride. (One of Ally's teachers told me that my kids had the best costumes of all the kids in the school- off the record, of course!)
On Halloween we had a quick dinner of spaghetti and then headed over to Papa & Grandma's house, who live in a much better neighborhood for trick-or-treating than we do. We went through the whole neighborhood, and the kids had a blast and collected a LOT of candy (so much so that after awhile I had to carry Ally's bag because she could barely walk with it, so she would collect her candy at the door then bring it to me to put in her bag). We had to tell Luke a number of times to slow down and wait for his younger siblings before ringing the bell, and we of course also had to remind them to take turns ringing the bell when arguments broke out. But in general they had a great time, were told a number of times how cute they were, and afterwards ate as much candy as they could hold.
Ally refused to wear her hood with the green part of the strawberry on top. She was protected by a dinosaur and ninja!
Early in November Ally finally got to see her former physical therapist about her muscle tone and her orthotics. The therapist said that although her tone had improved, she would still need inserts and would probably need them her whole life. (We were also very fortunate because Ally does point her toes inward as she walks a bit, and it will sometimes cause her to fall if walking fast or running. The therapist noticed this and showed a modification we can make to help. It is basically two straps wrapped around her waist, down and around her legs, and attached to her shoes to pull her toes outward. She HATED it. And can you imagine changing diapers or potty training in something like that?) So we headed back to the orthotics place for her to be measured. When they came in we then had to buy some bigger shoes to accommodate the inserts- so now she is in a size 9! These inserts, we were told, are much harder/firmer than her other ones, so we had to break them in and have her wear them for only a few hours at a time at first, but she's doing well with them now. So unfortunately we were not able to drop orthotics altogether, but moving down to inserts is a huge deal and we are very thankful!
Thanksgiving was a great time with my family, and then of course we started shopping on black Friday for deals for Christmas! Our Christmas festivities were delayed at home for a week or two because we were put out of our house while our bathroom was being remodeled. We stayed with Russell's parents during that time because it is our only bathroom and was taken down to the studs and put back together again. But after it was completed we were able to decorate and put up the tree.
This picture was taken during the Christmas parade. We got to march with the Busy Beats, her music group that she did for about a year (that's why she's holding the musical instruments). It was fun (and good exercise!).
Singing Jingle Bells!
Our Christmas card this year! So perfect.
Riding the train. Apparently she screeched through a lot of the ride!
Christmas Eve
The day after new year's Ally gave us a scare. We were all off from school/work that day except for Luke. Russell and I had taken the younger two to McDonald's for lunch, and the whole time she was acting funny- complaining about her head hurting and not wanting to eat, laying on us, etc. She did get up to play in the play place a bit, but not with her usual gusto. Between the two of us Russell is the paranoid one, but even I starting getting scared that something was wrong with her shunt.
Fortunately the next morning she seemed to be acting fine, and she had a follow-up with neurosurgery. I told the resident we were seeing (same one we saw last time) about how she was acting and she said it sounded like nothing to be concerned about since she was back to normal, but always to keep a close eye on her and contact them or bring her in if she had an episode that did not go away. She will probably also have another MRI this summer. This one, however, is different, because it is much faster (so she won't need to be put to sleep- yay!) and doesn't expose her to radiation (this type of MRI has a special name but I forget what it was called). The resident said that they wanted to do one just to have ventricle size- as Ally grows her head will grow too and they want to have accurate ventricle sizes if she does have an issue to compare them to. So we have that to look forward to in 6 months or so.
Other than an ear infection over new year's weekend, Ally's health has been great. She's had no issues and has done really well at school and home. We are so proud of her, and continually amazed by God's grace to her and our family when so many other Dandy-Walker warriors are affected so much more so than she is.
We look forward in the upcoming weeks to celebrating Ally's 3rd birthday! We are also really hoping that with that will come the shedding of diapers from our family- Ally's first time using the potty was on Halloween and she has used it a number of times since then. She has picked out her own underwear (and received some for Christmas as well) and tried to wear them once, but we went through three pairs in one day! (Though she was so proud an came out telling her brothers, "I'm wearing big girl underwear!") She is very sporadic about when she will use the potty, but she obviously understands what to do so hopefully it is only a matter of time until she decides to use it all the time! She keeps talking about moving up into the green room (the 3s room) at school but she can't move up until she is out of diapers, so we'll see what happens in the coming months.
Thanks, as always, for your support & interest in our Ally girl. We hope that she, and you, have a wonderful 2017!
