Quiet is good...

I guess I need to get back in the swing of blogging. I used to be so good and managed to write an entry once a week. Oh well, that's how life goes sometimes...

We've been enjoying a sports free season around the household for the last couple months. No practices, Saturday games or anything. It's been a long time since that has happened, so it has been kind of nice. Soon enough, we'll be right back into since Emma and Alex are both signed up for soccer which starts in March. Alex is really looking forward to playing. He hasn't played in a few years, but says he's been improving his skills at recess. His best friend is a great soccer player and has also been showing Alex some new moves. We'll see how he does since it will be quite different than the last time he played, i.e. lots more players on the field who actually know how to pass, etc.

Emma has been busy selling Girl Scout cookies this month. Actually, it's a family effort since Sean has been taking them in to his class and Mindy has some at her office. Fortunately, Sean has 69 students in his class this spring. That is fertile ground for cookie selling. She's already over her goal which was 180 boxes. My guess is that she will sell around 240 boxes this year. I'm just glad we're not having to deal with this and basketball and Benjamin's surgeries like last winter. That was a little crazy.

For Christmas, Emma received her long awaited rock polisher. That girl LOVES rocks. We've definitely decided it's in the genes since Grandma Hested and I love rocks, too. We recently finished her first round of polishing, so she is quite pleased. Rock polishing is an exercise in patience as it takes about a month to go through the process. When we started the first bunch, Uncle Jason suggested that we take a picture of the before and after. That was a great idea...Here are the results...very smooth, but not as shiny as I expected...
Benjamin has been working on eating more by mouth. He has made some nice progress recently, chewing more quickly and moving food around in his mouth. He also is working on eating fruit and other foods including bananas, apples, mandarin oranges and peanut butter. One day, he even ate a chicken nugget for lunch. Earlier this winter, we started doing 3 day weans where we take him off the pump for 3 days. While we do it, I keep track of everything eats (amounts and calories). Generally, he eats about 50% of his calories during these periods. During these weans, we want him to experience hunger so he understands how that should trigger his desire to eat. I think he has been starting to figure it out. The interesting thing is that the last two times he has done a wean, he actually ate less on the third day than the first day. We're not quite sure why he is doing that, but hopefully it will change as he gets used to being off the pump. We have been doing these weans about every 3 weeks as his body needs time to recover.

That's about it for now...Quiet is good...