Here is the music I am most likely listening to while I try to focus on my paper

** Disclaimer: I don't like the naughty word in the second song.**
Otherwise, enjoy

Winter is upon us

The first snow of the season, in our first house, with our wonderful international volunteer exchange program (IVEPer) person experiencing snow for the very first time!

Kristianna (IVEPer) really wanted to eat snow!  And she did.  Corrina really wanted to copy her!  We told her the rule about yellow snow, and brown snow, and any snow that has been at all touched by anything, human or animal or machine.  She is just going to stick to eating fresh snow off of trees!  She wants to make snow cones with juice and sugar.  It is so neat to re-experience snow!

The other gal in the photos is another IVEPer also from Indonesia.  Kris and her get along very well.  We all played together.  And the man in the picture below is not Dave, it is Hardy, the IVEP coordinator for MCC.  He has children our age, but is a fun, goofy person!

Thanksgiving to Halloween

I have photos!

And here are all my words to accompany them. We have a fabulous thanksgiving visit with Claire. Her photos are excellent, please do go look if you haven't already. I really wish we lived closer to our family. It is just wonderful to sit down for a cup of tea and conversation with people who have always just been there. It is comfortable.
Thank you Claire for treating us to your time and friendship, and for the gifts you brought, and the gifts you gave! We couldn't have asked for a better thanksgiving (well, maybe it would have been nice if Corrina was well so we could all sit at the table together... but otherwise!)

Corrina had a cold for about three weeks. I always suspect an ear infection after the first week or so, but I just hate all the antibiotics she has become immune to over the years (all 2.5 yrs!) so I try to wait as long as I can in hopes that it will clear up on its own. Never does... but now she is feeling better. Dave was also sick, and then I became sick. Of course, all these illnesses had to wait until a week before I had a paper due, and the worst for me had to hit the night before my paper was due! I am thankful that I have understanding professors who grant extensions. Unfortunately this means I have to write quality papers so they continue to see the worth in giving me extensions.

On to Halloween. It is rather interesting to explain Halloween to a person who has never celebrated it, but has heard all the bad things about it. Kris was more than willing to participate in the childish aspects of Halloween, like carving pumpkins, creating costumes, and of course enjoying the candy (way too much candy...)!





Corrina spent the day in this adorable pumpkin dress. One of the youth from church, whom this dress belonged to when she was 4, lent it to us for Corrina to enjoy. She went around the entire day saying "Pumpkin dress" excitedly. She has wanted to wear it every single day since Halloween. I had to tell her it was dirty so she would part with it for church today. It was partial truth!
With illness, and papers, and general stress and overload we just decided to dress Corrina as little red riding hood! She loved wearing her cap and carrying a little basket around!

When Corrina first received her implants it took her about three months to learn a new word. This was with multiple repetition and games. Of course so much time has passed since then, her hearing is more refined, and her cognitive ability for syllable, sound, and word recognition has developed overtime. At the beginning of the month we were amazed that she learned the word pumpkin within one week. So, we were blown away when within about 3 hours she learned the phrase (two words!) Trick or Treat! We talked about the phrase all day long, and we showed her that when she went to a house and said Trick or Treat, she would get Candy. She was very excited and did her best to emulate the sounds, but her attempts in the beginning sounded nothing like the phrase... however, with enough positive reinforcement (CANDY) she was announcing "Trick or Treat" loud and clear at each open of a door! While that is the amazing part, the bit that makes me feel oh so proud is the fact that she said thank-you to so many people without me even needing to prompt her!
So, while I don't really love the gory side of Halloween the actions sure to boost a little deaf girls opportunities for learning new words! We really do have to take every opportunity to teach her what we can!
Oh yes, a comment on the photo above: Dave carved an excellent Tiki Pumpkin with such great teeth. Take a closer look! It's so neat!
Just this morning we had the lovely experience of finding our pumpkins smashed on our sidewalk. A rather interesting experience for a little gal who was so proud of her baby pumpkin! Oh well, another opportunity to drive home the word "sad". She recovered just fine and even helped to pick up all the pieces!
I don't know why but this photo (yes, a little blurry) kinda reminds me of....
...this photo. A 2.5 year follow-up. I think it's just the layout and visible height difference. Neat to see though!