1. Like my dance costume?
2. Watching the fish at McWane Center
3. Peas for lunch make me very happy (but not my mom - she says I can have her share!)

Well, It's been over a week since I posted anything so I thought I'd do a little update. Hannah continues to do GREAT. She amazes me with her resiliency and adaptability to change. She is picking up quite a number of signs (sign language) to communicate and is saying a few words. Her speech is very difficult to understand due to the cleft palate, but I'm so proud of her attempts. I can tell that although there are still gaps (and likely will be for a while), she is understanding more and more English everyday. I can now give her simple directions without guestures and she will follow them (or shake her head "no" toddler style!, but she usually follows them.) She's eating great, sleeping pretty good. She goes to bed and falls asleep easily now, but still wakes up in the middle of the night crying a lot. But, she goes back to sleep quickly. She's a very well rounded child - she likes to dress up in her princess and dance costumes and crash her toy cars together. She loves to splash in the pool, dance, and likes to cuddle up in my chair to read books. As someone who loves to read myself, I love that I see the beginnings of that desire in my daughter. We take weekly trips to the library to pick out books, and then we read and re-read them every night. As soon as Hannah has put on her pajamas and brushed her teeth, she looks at me with a big smile and signs "book". She's not a big fan of TV or videos. That's probably a good thing. There is one video that she does like though - a "Miss Patty Cake" sing-a-long video. Hannah also likes to color, and we have a posterboard of her artwork that is still "in progress" hanging up in the kitchen. That 1 piece of posterboard is among the best .79 I ever spent. It has kept her busy while I fix dinner for over a week now! Hannah is doing well with meeting new people as long as it's not too many at once. Big events with lots of people are harder and still a bit overhwhelming. At church, she does great during the service (she sits with me and enjoys the music the first half and goes to the nursery the 2nd half to play) but has a bit of a hard time afterwards. So, I'm taking it slow and trying to be careful not to let her get into a situation that's too overwhelming, and yet allowing her to experience what she can. Like I said at the beginning, she amazes me with her resiliency and adaptability to change!

So, that's where we are...happy and very blessed! Thanks for checking in on us and look for more updates soon!