christmas eve...

We went to Annapolis to spend Christmas Eve with Bill's family...  Always fun times!

 I have always loved walking into Mom's house during Christmas time and seeing ALL the presents under the tree.  It always seems very magical and so different from how I grew up.

 A visit with Mema would not be a visit without a book reading.  =)

 Mema found these red noses for the boys.  Only Josiah was game enough to try them on initially.  =)

 Usually, the older boy cousins hang out in the basement to play video games.  The boys wandered down there and found Chris' drums.  Chris was kind enough to let them have a go.

 Josiah went to town on them!

 These were the Jesus birthday cakes I made this year.

 Mema has a collection of Christmas teddy bears that she displays every year.  The boys had fun carrying them around with their new wheelbarrows.

chocolate chips!

William can eat chocolate chips!!  I used the same recipe for William's baked dairy challenge at the allergist's, except I added some chocolate chips.  He loved the chocolate chips!!  Woohoo!  (You like William's bedhead?)

baked milk challenge...

We took William to the allergist for a baked milk challenge.  (Wish I had remembered to take some pics.)  Doc said that the numbers from William's bloodwork for dairy indicate that they are low enough for him to try dairy in a baked good.  So we brought some muffins in that had 1/4 cup of regular milk.  Initially, they gave him 1/8 of it and waited 15 minutes.  William was fine.  So they gave him another 1/8 and waited 15 minutes.  William was fine.  Then they gave him 1/4 and waited 15 minutes.  William was fine.  Eventually, William had the entire muffin and was FINE!!!  We spent at least 2 hours at the allergist, but WOW...  Our boy can start having some dairy!!!  The allergist didn't really give us a game plan, but said to try chocolate chips in the muffins and move on to some cheese breads.  After that, we could slowly introduce different baked goods that have dairy and see how he does.

We took William to get some McDonald's for the first time to celebrate!!  (McD's has whey in some of their food.)  YAY!!!  So grateful to the Lord for allowing William to start tolerating some foods with dairy!

william's 5-yr check-up...

William is 39 pounds (25-50%) and 3.5 feet (25%).  Unfortunately, he seems to be leaning towards his Asian roots for his height, although he has been hitting a growth spurt lately.  It feels like he's outgrowing his clothes all at once.

What I wanted to post (for my memory) was about our discussion with the doc about whether or not to have William undergo an upper endoscopy to investigate possible additional food allergies.  The doc said that the procedure itself is relatively easy, but with William's case, she would not recommend it.  She actually does think that he probably does have other food allergies, but it would be difficult to find out to what exactly.  The endoscopy can only reveal the presence of other food allergies, but will not tell us to what.  We'd have to have William further tested to try and figure out exactly what it is.  Even during that process, it would be difficult to isolate certain foods since his body may only minimally react to it.  The only way to find out for sure would be to to an endoscopy each time we removed a food to see if there was the presence of "allergy" cells, which we obviously would not be able to do.  Doc said it would just be too difficult to pinpoint exactly what he is allergic to, but thinks that constipation might also be a large contributing factor.  She suggested keeping an eye on his pooping and giving him some fiber chews.  I'm not sure I'm explaining it well, but what the doc said made a lot of sense and I'm relieved that she would not recommend the upper endoscopy.  We will keep an eye on William's pooping and give him some needed fiber if he starts complaining of stomachaches.  Hopefully that will help him with his random stomachaches.

william is 5!!

HaPpY BiRtHdAy, WILLIAM!!!!  I can't believe he is 5 already!  FIVE!!!  

We started his special day with a trip to the Kennedy Center, with our field trip group, to listen to someone play and talk about the fiddle.  Before the show, they had a little instrument lab for the kids to look at some violins up close and play them.

 Initially, William did NOT want to try playing any of the violins.  He hung back for a while and just watched.  After a little talk, he was willing to try.

 Playing a cello...

 Pretty soon, he was willing to give all of them a try!  (I was very proud of him for getting over his fear.)

I was grateful for this special opportunity to start his birthday off in a special way.

Watching William grow is so bittersweet... filled with so many mixed emotions.  How I wish I could keep him little for a while longer... so innocent and full of questions about the world around him.  Our car rides are filled with him asking me a gazillion questions.  And it always starts with him saying my name, "Momma...."  I love hearing him say Momma.  And yet how awesome has it been to watch him grow and to see his personality develop more and more.  

Some of William's favorite things... STICKER BOOKS!  William adores sticker books.  He loves putting stickers on scrap paper.  They are like his pictures and gifts to other people.  Most kids like to color and draw things.  He likes to put stickers on paper.  =)  William loves to watch Word World, Thomas, and Veggie Tales.  He has practically memorized all the lines to the Veggie Tales movie:  The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.  And he still loves to read books about cars, trucks, and trains.  We come back from every trip to the library with 10 books about transportation vehicles.

As we have been homeschooling pre-k this year, William has proven to be very conscientious about his work.  He works diligently (usually, but can get easily discouraged sometimes) and often will ask for prayer when he is feeling frustrated.  That has been such an area of grace in him.  I love how he desires to ask God for the help he needs to work unto the Lord.  His favorite subject is math, probably because it's all manipulative-based.  Writing used to be the hardest for him, and it sometimes still is, but he likes it now most times.  Part of our school routine is for him to do chores.  Well, his only chore for now has been to sweep under the table in the kitchen.  Have been wanting to have him earn his keep around the house more, but it's hard when I myself don't keep house very well.  He definitely can be messy like his parents.  =P  (But it's contained chaos.)

William is definitely our sensitive one.  He often compares himself to others, including himself.  For example, when we are writing our letters during school, he will talk about which letters he wrote that were better than others.  =)  We have been trying to talk him through not making unhelpful and sinful comparisons with himself as well as with others.  William also continues to be our shy guy.  He often will hang back and feel things out before getting involved in something.  So he usually will not want to be the first to try something.  He definitely is NOT very adventurous about things, although with food, he will at least try something once.

William is such a fantastic help to me.  I love that I can ask him to do something and know that he'll get it... well, usually.  (Sometimes I do forget that he's only 5 and assume that he understands more than he does.)  I also love that we can have actual conversations about things and know that he'll get it.  It might take a few times, but he almost always gets it.  This is one of the things I have enjoyed most with him... being able to talk to him about some deep things.  William also is in that stage where he cares very much about what we think about him.  He still is eager to please.

I have also enjoyed watching William and Josiah learn to play kindly with each other.  They still fight a lot, especially since Josiah is still so young, but they definitely have their tender moments where William will read a story to Josiah, ask Josiah to play with him, help Josiah with something, wait for Josiah to climb the stairs together, etc.  I do hope they become close.

My first baby is growing up so fast!  Wish so much I could hold onto where we are now for a little while longer.  My William is still young, thank God, but growing faster than I am ready for.  I love you so much, William!  More than you will ever know!

someone's about to turn 5!!!!!

In a couple of days, my William will be FIVE!  5!!  I will save my thoughts for him on his b-day, but here are some  highlights from his Word World birthday party.

 This year, instead of playing games, Mom helped me to plan some activities for the kids.  This way there wouldn't be any winners or losers.  This went SO much better compared to last year.  Since we had a Word World theme, the kids were making name bracelets.

 It was great to see everyone engaged and seeing the kids get excited as they finished their bracelets.

 For another activity, we hid letter puzzle pieces around the room and then asked the kids to find them and put the alphabet puzzle together.

 It was funny to watch them look for the letters.

 Happy birthday, my sweet William!

 I don't think William has ever eaten a cupcake all by himself before.  He seems to be watching Joshua's technique on how to peel the baking cup off.

Other than his sticker books, this was William's favorite present from Mema and Papa.  It was a cash register!  Gotta love the educational gifts!  =)

William really loved being surrounded by his family and friends!  (I'm sure the presents helped a little.)  We are so amazingly blessed to have our big boy in our lives!!  Love him to pieces!

National Gallery of Art...

We went on a field trip to the National Gallery of Art!  I wasn't too sure about this because I really do hate art.... probably because I'm so not creative.  (Art kinda tempts me sometimes because of its uselessness.  Explain to me how splatter paint can be worth thousands of dollars... Hmmm... let me stop hating and putting my full ignorance on display here.)  In wanting William to be exposed to all kinds of things, I wanted to take him in case he might have an interest in it.  I was SO grateful that the tour was very simple and right on the kids' level.

 We got to the museum a half hour before it opened.  So we had plenty of time to kill outside.

 The docent introduced art to the kids by reading Little Cloud, by Eric Carle.  I thought this was a wonderful start to help the kids learn to use their imagination.

 The docent then took the kids into a room full of pictures.  All the pictures had clouds in them.  (I have no idea why these pictures were grouped together, other than that they all had clouds.)

 This is the first painting they saw up close.  The docent had the kids talk about the details they saw in the picture and think about what kinds of sounds they might hear if they were in the picture.

 Here, the docent talked to the kids about whether this picture looked loud or quiet.

 This was William's favorite...

 Afterwards, the kids had their own opportunity to draw pictures using cottonballs as clouds.

 William drew an abstract picture with clouds inside a house.

 Since we were in DC, we decided to briefly visit the Museum of Natural History.  I had forgotten how much is packed into this museum!  I look forward to taking William again when he's a bit older so that he can take everything in.  We are so blessed to live in our nation's capital with so many neat museums and historical places to visit.

 On the metro ride home, all the kids were looking through books they had gotten.

It was a wonderful field trip.  William loved the excitement of it all!