Sold!

All the paperwork is completed, the inspection has been done, and the house is now officially off the market! Our realtor is putting the sold sign up sometime this afternoon or tomorrow! Yay!!!

The contract is signed!

We've moved into the "option pending" portion of the sale of the house!! An inspector will come out on Sunday, and then we'll be able to move forward with even more confidence. Our closing date has been set for Jan 23, 2009. Hurray!

A Christmas Miracle!!

Well, maybe it doesn't quite stack up there with the birth of Jesus, but I'll take it anyway......We have an offer on our house!!!! The first (and only) people who looked at it last week gave us an offer this morning! We're now in the haggling stage, but hopefully we'll get something worked out soon, with a closing date of late January. Can you believe this happened so fast???

Christmas!!

We kicked off the Christmas season last week by checking out a Santa's Wonderland. Even though Santa wasn't there (who knew he only showed up after school lets out??), the kids still had a great time watching the model trains and playing in the fake snow.

She knows French????

So this afternoon, Claire was playing with her blocks with the tv on in the background. It was on a kids' show about 2 animated pigs who travel the globe in search of adventure, or something along those lines. I've never really paid attention to the show, and neither has Claire, or so I thought. On this particular episode, the pigs were in Paris. One of them said to the other "We have to find the Chateau de Fromage!" Without missing a beat, and while still building her tower, Claire replied with "cheese!" Huh???

Looks like Aunt Jamey's French lessons might be paying off!

Mommy and Daddy's Adventures in Wine Country--yes, yes, a little late

(I wrote this post the week after we got back, but never had time to download pictures. It was fun to re-live the weekend again, though!)

Jason and I had a fantastic time on our little trip out to Napa in October. Katie's wedding was perfect. The weather was perfect, the flowers were perfect, the food was perfect. The country club where the wedding was held is absolutely amazing. (To give you an idea of the posh-ness, Arnold Schwarzenneggar was enjoying a drink in the bar one wall over from where we were eating, and Oprah recently rented the entire complex for a weekend retreat.) It's set on lots of land just tucked away in the mountains and forest surrounding Napa. The ceremony took place on a little cliff overlooking rolling green hills and beautiful trees, then we had cocktails on the lawn, then moved inside to a gorgeously decorated dining room where we ate and drank in high style. Katie and Jav had such a great time, and I am honored to have been included in their day.

Since the wedding festivities were over Friday night, Jason and I had all day Saturday to ourselves. We went to some of our favorite wineries, as well as tried out a few we had always wanted to get to. We were even able to meet up with the newlyweds and enjoy a few glasses a wine with them. To finish the weekend, we had a great dinner at the Culinary Institute of America. Part of their school is a restaurant where the students get to work the kitchen and perfect their skills. We had read mixed reviews of it, but figured we'd give it a try, and I'm so glad we did. We had all sorts of amazing food that I know I'd never choose to eat on my own.

After our dinner, we changed clothes and headed in to Sacramento to catch our midnight flight back home. Luckily, we got an upgrade, so we were actually able to sleep a bit on the way in.

Claire also had a great weekend. Honey and H did a great job keeping her busy and entertained with all sorts of new toys. Claire was very, very sad to see them go, and kept running to the door after they left calling for Honey ("Ho-eeeee").

You can check out the pictures from the weekend here.

Some October Pictures

Here's a quick recap of Claire's October. She and Daddy had a fun time at Donuts for Dads at school, and we also spent a weekend out at the ranch.

What's your sign?

Well, it's official. Our house is for sale. We signed the paperwork with the realtor, and he just finished putting the sign in the yard. Our house has never looked so clean! (or empty...)

"I fall down."

Claire just said her first 3-word sentence in over a year!!! Hurray!!!


(And in other news, we found the camera battery, so stay tuned for a couple months' worth of pictures. Hopefully I can get them up in the next day or so.)

ECI Update

We had our second visit with ECI today. A speech-language pathologist came out this time to do a separate assessment on Claire. Her receptive language scored 21-24 months and her expressive language scored 15-18 months. So because of the 7-month delay in expressive, we will start receiving services. Mike (our case manager and child development specialist) agreed with me about all the progress Claire's made in the last month, and he believes she'll be talking in no time. He'll start coming out to the house to work with her in December, then we'll transfer services to San Antonio in January.

The Run

Jason, Lauren and I ran the San Antonio Half Marathon yesterday morning. We all did a great job, with Jason's finishing time a personal best, and Lauren and me proud of just simply finishing! For more details, click here for a recap on Lauren's blog. Happy running!

Bragging

Claire has made HUGE improvements with her communication lately!! Here are a few examples:

1. She can write! After I write her name on a piece of paper, Claire takes the crayon and "writes" her name. She'll even say letters as she makes the marks. Her letters now are just vertical lines, but she already knows that they go in a certain order and from left to right! This is more advanced than a bunch of my 4-year olds!

2. She can tell me the names and make the sounds of just about every letter in the alphabet!

3. She counted all the way to 7 today! Marie took her to the park, and she used her finger to point to pieces of mulch and count them one by one. I've only heard her go to 3 before, so this is big jump.

Yay Claire!

A change

There has been a lot going on over at our house lately. I have lots of pictures I need to post, too, but the camera battery is dead and I can't find the charger, so I can't get the pictures off of it. The biggest news requires no pictures, though, other than maybe this one:


And this one:

Yep, we're moving. Jason has been offered an amazing job working for a company that contracts with the Department of Defense. He'll be training the military personnel who respond first to acts of terrorism, specifically nuclear, anywhere in the world. He's finally going to be using his degree AND getting out from behind a desk! His last day at his current company is tomorrow, then he'll move to his parents' house in San Antonio on Sunday, and start at the new job on Monday. Claire and I will stay behind so that I can finish out the month at school and work on getting the house on the market. We'll head to San Antonio in December part-time, then move "for real" over Christmas. We're (obviously) hoping our house sells fast, but we're (more realistically) preparing to have a bit of a wait. I have a feeling it's going to be a crazy couple of months.....

ECI

We had our first meeting with ECI this afternoon. Our case manager, Mike, came out to the house to just do an initial "get to know you"-type of evaluation. He and I spent most of the time talking about Claire's history and the process we'll follow if she qualifies for services. He'll come back out on Nov 18 with a speech-language pathologist who will do a more thorough assessment and together they'll determine what sorts of interventions and/or therapies Claire may need. Mike is an autism specialist, and he was sent to us because of Claire's speech regression. He said that he's never seen a regression as profound as Claire's is that wasn't autism. BUT, after doing an autism evaluation today with her, he's positive that's not the problem here. (OK everyone, sigh of relief) When I asked him what he thought could be going on, he said his first thought was that there could be a problem with the speech part of her brain. (And how we'd determine that or even fix it is beyond me, and, of course, I wasn't thinking about any of those follow-up questions at the time.) At the end of our meeting he told me that based on what he had seen today, he's fairly confident that she will qualify for services, but we'll have to wait for the next assessment to determine what exactly that will look like.

3 Nights

That's how long Jason and I will be gone from Claire starting tomorrow. It's the longest amount of time both of us together have been away from her, so I should expect myself to be full of worries. But, I'm not. Instead, I absolutely positively CANNOT wait for tomorrow. We're heading out to Napa for a fantastic weekend with each other and some great friends. Katie (my best friend from the first day of kindergarten, as well as my Mexican-adventure companion--you can click here and here for that story) is getting married to a great guy on Friday. We're leaving home tomorrow morning, which should put us at the first winery around 2 PM local time. Friday will be full of wedding fun, but Saturday is ours to play with! We've got lots of reservations at some of the best wineries out there, and we'll finish the weekend off with an extra-special dinner for two. The only down side to all of this is that our plane leaves at midnight Saturday night (or would that be Sunday morning?) and lands in Houston at 5:30 AM. Yuck, yuck, yuck. But, it's a small price to pay for all the fun we're about to have. And I'm sure Claire is going to have quite a few stories to tell us when we get back--Honey and H have all sorts of adventures planned to keep her busy.

Fun with Friends

Claire's had a bunch of fun activities lately with her friends. We celebrated Brady's 3rd birthday on Saturday at a great park on a great day, then Claire got to tag along with the playgroup to the Oil Ranch pumpkin patch on Monday while I was at school. Fun, fun, fun!

Playing with the birthday boy

Happy Birthday, Brady!

Nathan and Reese enjoying their cupcakes

Hogan with his cupcake

Petting the horses at the Oil Ranch

Playing in the hay

Sweet friends

The whole gang (Reese, Hogan, Claire, Nathan, Brady)

Turns out I'm one of "those" moms

I had a full day at school yesterday for parent-teacher conferences. Amazingly, every single one of my parents showed up, but lots of them came either significantly earlier than their appointment time, or finally showed up at the end of the day. I kept thinking to myself, "How hard is it to write down what time your conference is so that you don't forget? How irresponsible!"

Well, today was Claire's school's parent-teacher conference day. I had signed up a few weeks ago for a 1:00 appointment, thinking that I would have plenty of time to finish up at school and take care of a few errands on my way over. When I walked into the school, Claire's teacher was standing in the hallway, and exclaimed "THERE she is!" Well, turns out I had forgotten that I changed my conference time to 12:30. And didn't write it down. Oops. (And go ahead, you can say it--how irresponsible!!)

(Everything with the conference went great, by the way--it's not a surprise to us that she's one of the "thinkers" in the class and behaves.)

Holding down the fort

Jason headed out of town earlier this week for a fun trip to Denver, so Claire and I got to have some extra-special together time. We spent our days playing with friends we don't get to see much anymore, shopping, and we even went on a date to Marble Slab (strawberry with sprinkles for her, vanilla yogurt with M&Ms for me-I have to fit into a bridesmaid's dress in 2 weeks-yikes!). I was really dreading being a single parent for this many days, but it's actually turned out be a great, relaxing weekend. But I know we'll both be a whole lot happier once Daddy gets home tomorrow.

Wedding Pictures are Up!

Here's a link for the photographer's site from the big day:

www.pictage.com/547922

Claire and Nathan's Birthday Party!

We had a joint party with Claire's little boyfriend, Nathan, last Saturday. We went down to the Aquarium and had a great time! We had a nice walk through the fish, then got to ride the train, ferris wheel, and carousel, and then had a fantastic dinner up in the restaurant. Everybody had such a fun time, and all the kids were so well behaved--our party coordinator couldn't believe they were only 2!

Opening up some presents at home before the party:

Putting together the train set from Honey and H

Checking out the computer from Grandma and Grandpa

She's already got the hang of the keyboard--and even the mouse!

A tricycle!!

Working very hard to make it go

At the aquarium

Having fun on the train

She insisted on riding this sea horse

Cupcakes!

And ice cream!!

Everybody enjoying the food--and a chance to sit down after our busy afternoon

Thanks to everyone who made it such a special day!!

24-Month Stats

Claire had her 24-month well-child visit today with the pediatrician. And, news flash, she's still tall and skinny: 20 lbs, 8 oz (<3%); 34.5 in tall (50%); and her head circumference is 18.5 in (25%). She's perfectly healthy, but because of the regression in her speech since a year ago, and the subsequent slow down in speech development, we've been referred to ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). We need to set up an evaluation, which they'll do here at home, to determine if speech therapy services will be necessary. I'll keep ya posted with what we find out.

Aunt Lou Got Hitched!

Lauren and Chris were married last Saturday, Sept 20 in New Orleans! It was a great party! Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy!!!

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

The Church!
Claire coloring at the rehearsal

On the streetcar to the rehearsal dinner

Breakfast at Cafe du Monde

Playing at the Aquarium

A picnic at the Ritz

Lauren and her bridesmaids at the Bridesmaids' Luncheon

Luncheon

Jason and his most-important job.....
...Making sure the guests get on the right streetcar

Grandma and Grandpa

Aunt Jamey and Almost-Uncle Jeff

In the limo, on the way to the church!

Limo

First Dance

Pretty Flowergirl

Mommy and Daddy getting a quick dance in

The cake!

Yummy cheesecakes

Dancing with my daddy

Just too much excitement

Sweet hugs