Friday, January 05, 2007
More Aquarium Fun
Visiting the Aquarium is one of Spencer's favorite activities. He frequently asks to go there and now that we no longer need a reservation we are more likely to take him. This was our first visit after dark and the galleries are beautiful with the night lighting.
Christmas Cookie Bake
Spencer and Cassie had a little too much fun with the sprinkles. Spencer was quite proud of his cookie creation.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Duncan Christmas Card
Here is the message we mailed out on December 23rd.
Merry Christmas from Jeremy, Marsha, Spencer and Aidyn!Well, as you all know 2006 has been a whirlwind of activity for us with Marsha babysitting Ryan Ashton and Callie, February - August and then our long awaited trip to China to bring Aidyn home in September. Our house has been full of guests and love and support throughout this crazy year. If you haven't had a chance to see our journey to Aidyn, her website is still up at www.adoptionvoyages.com/Aidyn.htm.
She is doing fabulously well adjusting to our family. She has been a different baby since December 7th, when she had her last big meltdown. She is a bubbling, giggling, happy baby. Her therapy is helping tremendously. She receives weekly speech, physical and occupational therapy. And mom and dad have weekly homework assignments of exercises to do with Aidyn. If you would like to follow her progress and stay current on all the family updates, please bookmark our family website: www.duncansrolltide.blogspot.com Thanks to all of you who have helped us with gifts of clothes and toys and help and prayers. We are blessed to have wonderful friends and family.
We finally made it to see Santa yesterday morning. As you can see from the attached photo, Aidyn was scared. We chose the best picture of seven. Yep, this was the best . . . because Aidyn kept grabbing fist fulls of Santa's beard while screaming at him. Santa took it all well though and gave them free passes for the carrousel. Spencer thoroughly enjoyed seeing Santa and wanted to ask why he didn't have a Santa hat. (fyi, he had traded it in for Rudolph's bells which we got to hear).
While Jeremy took the kids home for a nap. Marsha went to visit her doctor where she excitedly saw the first photos of our third child. Surprise! WE are having a Baby!! Our delivery date is around July 10th. So 2007 is going to be a busy year with Jeremy completing his MBA courses and a new baby coming. Please pray for a safe pregnancy and healthy baby.
Then after naptime we took the kids to Georgia Aquarium and for a walk around Centennial Olympic Park to see the Christmas lights. After some Chicago pizza we tucked the kids into bed with promises of Santa bringing them presents. We opened gifts Saturday morning because we are driving to Arkansas Sunday. What a crazy, wonderful day yesterday was for our family. Wanted to share it with you along with all of our news. Maybe next year I will have all the photos together in time to mail them before Christmas. Hope to see you all in the new year.
Marsha
Merry Christmas from Jeremy, Marsha, Spencer and Aidyn!Well, as you all know 2006 has been a whirlwind of activity for us with Marsha babysitting Ryan Ashton and Callie, February - August and then our long awaited trip to China to bring Aidyn home in September. Our house has been full of guests and love and support throughout this crazy year. If you haven't had a chance to see our journey to Aidyn, her website is still up at www.adoptionvoyages.com/Aidyn.htm.
She is doing fabulously well adjusting to our family. She has been a different baby since December 7th, when she had her last big meltdown. She is a bubbling, giggling, happy baby. Her therapy is helping tremendously. She receives weekly speech, physical and occupational therapy. And mom and dad have weekly homework assignments of exercises to do with Aidyn. If you would like to follow her progress and stay current on all the family updates, please bookmark our family website: www.duncansrolltide.blogspot.com Thanks to all of you who have helped us with gifts of clothes and toys and help and prayers. We are blessed to have wonderful friends and family.
We finally made it to see Santa yesterday morning. As you can see from the attached photo, Aidyn was scared. We chose the best picture of seven. Yep, this was the best . . . because Aidyn kept grabbing fist fulls of Santa's beard while screaming at him. Santa took it all well though and gave them free passes for the carrousel. Spencer thoroughly enjoyed seeing Santa and wanted to ask why he didn't have a Santa hat. (fyi, he had traded it in for Rudolph's bells which we got to hear).
While Jeremy took the kids home for a nap. Marsha went to visit her doctor where she excitedly saw the first photos of our third child. Surprise! WE are having a Baby!! Our delivery date is around July 10th. So 2007 is going to be a busy year with Jeremy completing his MBA courses and a new baby coming. Please pray for a safe pregnancy and healthy baby.
Then after naptime we took the kids to Georgia Aquarium and for a walk around Centennial Olympic Park to see the Christmas lights. After some Chicago pizza we tucked the kids into bed with promises of Santa bringing them presents. We opened gifts Saturday morning because we are driving to Arkansas Sunday. What a crazy, wonderful day yesterday was for our family. Wanted to share it with you along with all of our news. Maybe next year I will have all the photos together in time to mail them before Christmas. Hope to see you all in the new year.
Marsha
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Therapy Update
Several of you have asked what type of therapy Aidyn receives so I figured I would try to explain it here by telling you what we are working on this week. She currently has weekly visits with a physical therapist and speech pathologist. And both have suggested that she get occupational therapy too, so they will decide soon if they want to handle the OT or whether an OT needs to come to the house weekly too.
For physical therapy this week we are working on bending Aidyn's knees. (Remember while we were in China we were amazed that she couldn't bend at the waist, same thing with the knees). She has always been able to stand--very strong leg muscles for standing position. Doctors say this is likely bc she was placed in a walker too much in China. But the muscles she should use to get from standing to sitting were nonexistent. To go from standing to sitting she either falls over or does the splits. So her therapist has shown us how to bend her knees and we practice
this every day.
Also this week we are working with Aidyn's hands, fingers, and wrists. We apply pressure to them by holding her elbow in one of our hands and working her hand with our other hand. As you probably have noticed she keeps her hands fisted most of the time. She doesn't like new textures. When she encounters an object she is curious, so she touches it and lets go quickly and shrinks her hands back toward her chest into tight fists. Doctors say this is likely bc she wasn't given toys to play with as a baby. So we are working to provide her with new sensory experiences for her hands. We place her hands in a tub of rice and let her make a mess with the grains. We go to the park and play with gumballs, pine cones, leaves and sticks.
For speech this week we are working on getting her to close her lips. We have three exercises that we do three times a day. (similar to what we did when spence was born). When we feed her we have always had to rake the spoon across the top of her mouth to get the food off. Her therapist gave us a special spoon that we use at each feeding and we have to encourage her to get the food. Of course as tricksy as she is, she learned after two seconds that she could turn her head once the spoon is placed in her mouth and then the sides of her mouth rake the food off for her. It's pretty funny.
She is doing really well now. We haven't had a meltdown since December 7th. She seems very happy and is crying less and smiling more. Seems the change in behavior coincided with when she learned to sit up by herself so I think she is really enjoying her new independence. Yesterday I went to get her after naptime and she was standing in her crib so I had to raise the rails so she won't fall out. Our baby girl will soon be a toddler.
Marsha
For physical therapy this week we are working on bending Aidyn's knees. (Remember while we were in China we were amazed that she couldn't bend at the waist, same thing with the knees). She has always been able to stand--very strong leg muscles for standing position. Doctors say this is likely bc she was placed in a walker too much in China. But the muscles she should use to get from standing to sitting were nonexistent. To go from standing to sitting she either falls over or does the splits. So her therapist has shown us how to bend her knees and we practice
this every day.
Also this week we are working with Aidyn's hands, fingers, and wrists. We apply pressure to them by holding her elbow in one of our hands and working her hand with our other hand. As you probably have noticed she keeps her hands fisted most of the time. She doesn't like new textures. When she encounters an object she is curious, so she touches it and lets go quickly and shrinks her hands back toward her chest into tight fists. Doctors say this is likely bc she wasn't given toys to play with as a baby. So we are working to provide her with new sensory experiences for her hands. We place her hands in a tub of rice and let her make a mess with the grains. We go to the park and play with gumballs, pine cones, leaves and sticks.
For speech this week we are working on getting her to close her lips. We have three exercises that we do three times a day. (similar to what we did when spence was born). When we feed her we have always had to rake the spoon across the top of her mouth to get the food off. Her therapist gave us a special spoon that we use at each feeding and we have to encourage her to get the food. Of course as tricksy as she is, she learned after two seconds that she could turn her head once the spoon is placed in her mouth and then the sides of her mouth rake the food off for her. It's pretty funny.
She is doing really well now. We haven't had a meltdown since December 7th. She seems very happy and is crying less and smiling more. Seems the change in behavior coincided with when she learned to sit up by herself so I think she is really enjoying her new independence. Yesterday I went to get her after naptime and she was standing in her crib so I had to raise the rails so she won't fall out. Our baby girl will soon be a toddler.
Marsha
Monday, December 11, 2006
Eleven Months Old
Hooray, Aidyn can sit up by herself. We have been working on this for weeks and she can now get onto her knees and then roll over to a sitting position or roll from her back into a sitting position. Jeremy has worked long and hard to teach her how to sit up. Aidyn's physical therapist has been impressed with his efforts. She says most parents don't show this much natural intuition on how to teach babies to move. We hope she will be crawling by Christmas. Aidyn now weighs 13.8 pounds and she is cutting her fifth and sixth teeth.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
forward progress
forward progress
Video sent by jandmduncan
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Arkansas trip November 4-14, 2006
We stopped by Cook Springs and introduced Aidyn to Sam and Zelan. Then on to Arkansas--Searcy and Fort Smith. Aidyn met her Uncle Mike, Aunt Mary, and cousins, Kate and Nash. She also met her cousin Eli, Uncle Shayne and Aunt Michelle. Both kids felt bad while we were in Fort Smith. Both had fevers so we took them to doctors for meds. Even though there were more tears and whining than we would prefer, both kids had fun with their cousins.
Aidyn's first Alabama trip
October 13-15, 2006. Aidyn's first trip to Alabama. We stayed at Gannie's house in Prattville. And relatives came to meet her. So Aidyn got to meet her cousin Jack, Aunt Mary Alice, and Uncle Phillip from Nashville. Poppa and Ganny came over from Montgomery. And Great Aunt Wonderful and JT came from Birmingham. We had a nice weekend. And because Spencer had such a fun time at Gannie's house (other than Gannie teaching Spencer to say War Eagle) we plan to stay through the weekend after Thanksgiving too.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
First two pics are from our playgroup party. You see, here again Bob is wearing his goggles as he works. We took along a few books to read, including our Halloween favorite, The HalloWiener. Last photos are from our neighborhood party. We carved our pumpkin just be fore we walked down to the clubhouse. We have lived here for five years but this was the first time we attended the Halloween party. The kids played traditional fall carnival games while the adults enjoyed the chili contest. Spencer's favorite part was the hayride. We rode with several of our neighbors, including our new friends that moved here in September. All the families left the clubhouse to trek through the neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating. Aidyn rode in the stroller, while Spencer went on foot. He loved all of the festivities (except for one very scary house that scared us too). It was the best night and will be hard to top in future years. The weather was perfect and the neighbors went all out to make this a fabulous evening.
Halloween
Stole the first three from Shelly's website, http://thecareyclan.blogspot.com/ bc haven't had time to charge my camera and the natives are restless to see Halloween pics. First three are from Sunday small group party. Last one is from our church's fall festival. Thanks to Owen's mom for sending us the sweet picture of the Bobs.
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