Christmas Eve

Jazzy with Camelia eating ice cream and cookies. Camelia is a Vietnamese girl who lives next door to my Mom's friend Joan.

Playing computer games in Grandpa's office.

Relaxing in Grandpa's chair

Ryan, Jazzy, Emma, and Nick playing the Wii game.

Columbus, Ohio

After all of the usual travel challenges, we finally arrived in Ohio.. 20 degrees and snow. Today, we sat around and ate:(, didn't exercise at all, and played lots of Jazzy games. Later we ate out (again) at a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant and saw Christmas lights at Alum Creek, just north of Columbus. There was a series of wrecks on the freeway and we sat for about an hour or more just creeping along. Finally, we got home to our cozy house and had even more cookies!!! Grandpa had fruitcake... which was yukky.


Jasmine in our front yard as we were leaving.
In the backyard.
Feeding the birds with Grandma and Grandpa.
On the porch with Grandma's goose.
Getting ready to throw a snowball at Grandpa.

Christmas Pizza Party at the Blakeman's

Today we took a drive down to our old neighborhood for a pizza party at Grandma and Grandpa Blakeman's. First we dropped Jessie off at our other previous neighbor- Bernice Hobson's house. She has always taken good care of Jessie and Spirit. After playing and pizza, we opened lots of presents and came home to pack for our Ohio trip.

Bernice, Jasmine, and Jessie
Jasmine, Damion, Justin and Jade
Grandma Blakeman, Justin, Jazzy and Jade opening presents

Arizonans for Children

A group called Arizonans for Children hosts many events and parties during the year for adoptive and foster kids. Today was their annual Christmas party held at a Greek Orthodox church in Phoenix. There were around 500 kids there ranging in age from infants to 18 yrs old. A live DJ played music, and they served a turkey/mashed potato/etc lunch followed by ice cream and cookies! Suddenly the theme music for the Phoenix Suns started playing and in came the Phoenix Suns gorilla... the surprise guest. He ran around jumping on tables, hitting his chest, and pounding on things. Then he rotated around the room for photo ops with all the kids. Most of the kids followed him around and weren't afraid at all... but Jazzy cried every time he came near:)... so he kept his distance and we didn't get a photo. Later, after alot of dancing, each of the 500 kids got a sack of age appropriate gifts!

Jazzy eating lunch
Suns gorilla holding a baby
Jazzy opening presents

AzFAP

Arizona Foster Adoptive Parents had a "toy drive" for the members. Every child got a bike!! and lots of toys. We went to the law firm of Curtis, Goodwin, Sullivan, Udall, and Schwab (good grief) located in downtown Phoenix. Kris Jacober, an attorney with them, is the president of AzFAP and organized the toy drive. When we arrived, there were hundreds of bikes on the front lawn of the law firm. We were led to Jasmine's bike- a little Huffy- that was just her size. We then went into their conference room where there were piles and piles of stuffed animals, Barbie's, games and lots of other toys. The kids just went to every pile and got what they wanted. Amazing!

Earlier in the day, we went to yet another gingerbread party. We built a more steady gingerbread house and read a story about "The Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett.

Jasmine with her new bike
Making a gingerbread house

Going, going, going all day...

After Jazzy's eye appointment, I had to work for awhile, then we went to cheerleading and the Polar Express- which both just happened to be in the same building. Santa read the Polar Express book. He didn't read too well and mis-pronounced a few words:) and the elf didn't seem too interested, but the kids didn't notice. Afterwards, they all sat on Santa with the *real* beard's lap, made crafts, and ate cookies and hot chocolate.

Eye appointment

This morning we had a follow up visit with Dr. Kelly deSimone, our developmental optometrist- who specializes in disorders like Jazzy's strabismus/amblyopia. Jasmine's overall vision has improved gradually from 20/80 to 20/30 with the glasses and daily eye patching we are doing. She still does not have stereoscopic vision i.e. she has very little depth perception, and her two eyes do not focus together. We are supposed to use even smaller beading exercises, smaller puzzles, more tracing exercises with fatter then thinner lines, and some iron on design making things from JoAnn fabrics. We are also supposed to start "in office" Vision Therapy in the next couple of months to speed the process.